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| Iraq |
| U.S. Building Massive Embassy in Baghdad |
| 2006-04-15 |
[..] The embassy complex - 21 buildings on 104 acres (42 hectares), according to a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report - is taking shape on riverside parkland in the fortified "Green Zone," just east of al-Samoud, a former palace of Saddam Hussein's, and across the road from the building where the ex-dictator is now on trial. [..] Iraq's interim government transferred the land to U.S. ownership in October 2004, under an agreement whose terms were not disclosed. "Embassy Baghdad" will dwarf new U.S. embassies elsewhere, projects that typically cover 10 acres (4 hectares). The embassy's 104 acres (42 hectares) is six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York. Original cost estimates ranged over US$1 billion (euro830 million), but Congress appropriated only US$592 million (euro490 million) in the emergency Iraq budget adopted last year. Most has gone to a Kuwait builder, First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting, with the rest awarded to six contractors working on the project's "classified" portion - the actual embassy offices. Higgins declined to identify those builders, citing security reasons, but said five were American companies. The designs aren't publicly available, but the Senate report makes clear it will be a self-sufficient and "hardened" domain, to function in the midst of Baghdad power outages, water shortages and continuing turmoil. It will have its own water wells, electricity plant and wastewaster-treatment facility, "systems to allow 100 percent independence from city utilities," says the report, the most authoritative open source on the embassy plans. Besides two major diplomatic office buildings, homes for the ambassador and his deputy, and the apartment buildings for staff, the compound will offer a swimming pool, gym, commissary, food court and American Club, all housed in a recreation building. Security, overseen by U.S. Marines, will be extraordinary: setbacks and perimeter no-go areas that will be especially deep, structures reinforced to 2.5-times the standard, and five high-security entrances, plus an emergency entrance-exit, the Senate report says. Higgins said the work, under way on all parts of the project, is more than one-third complete. |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #3 Should'a taken the cake. |
| Posted by: 6 2006-04-15 16:29 |
| #2 Hey Iran, we are here to stay. Hello neighbor. |
| Posted by: djohn66 2006-04-15 15:31 |
| #1 hello Tehran! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-04-15 13:49 |