Posted on 04/18/2008 4:37:23 AM PDT by Libloather
U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Declared Ready, With Nudge by Rockets
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 18, 2008; Page A19
The troubled effort to build the giant U.S. Embassy in Baghdad seemed to be months away from completion when a team of top State Department officials flew to Iraq on March 20 to meet with senior staff from the prime contractor, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting. But as insurgent rockets began to rain down on the flimsy trailers housing diplomats inside the Green Zone, the two sides suddenly found ways to settle many of the major issues dividing them.
"The only way to do this was for us to get in the room, nail the door shut and get this resolved," said Robert S. Nichols, a partner with the Crowell & Moring law firm who attended the meeting and provides legal advice to First Kuwaiti. "It started out as the 'Gunfight at the O.K. Corral' the first day or so, but then we got past it."
Construction of the embassy in Baghdad had been greatly complicated by several factors, including a fast-track building plan that had kept key State Department inspectors out of the loop until the building was largely done, changes made on the spot by the project manager without complete documentation, and cultural differences between State and a Middle Eastern company working on its first embassy project.
Yet on Monday, the State Department issued certificates of acceptance and completion, officially taking possession of the embassy. Already, during the recent barrage of insurgent rocket attacks, some diplomats had moved from their unprotected trailers into bedrooms in the sprawling facility, which is built on acreage almost four times the size of the Pentagon.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This photo will be misleading.
The unfinished building in the picture is the Baath Party offices obviously never completed over at Union III.
Just Damn....is it Gold Plated?
New U.S. Embassy in Iraq cloaked in mystery
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'Fortress America'
April 17: "Fortress America," the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, is the largest, most expensive in the world, and one that few taxpayers have ever seen. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.
Nightly News
Video at the Link
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BAGHDAD, Iraq - The fortress-like compound rising beside the Tigris River here will be the largest of its kind in the world, the size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq’s turbulent future.
The new U.S. Embassy also seems as cloaked in secrecy as the ministate in Rome.
“We can’t talk about it. Security reasons,” Roberta Rossi, a spokeswoman at the current embassy, said when asked for information about the project.
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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 wastewater-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.
I wonder how this relates in monitary proportion to building forts and outposts 1000 years ago? Basically, this is a fortress with all available modern technology. The old frontier forts and castles often had the most modern technologies for their times.
It's HUGE! I went past it about ten days ago and it was the first time I saw it looking finished. It looks like a small city.
Rather impressive by any standard. The Kuwaiti must really love us. We free em from a tyrant then pump their pockets full of money.
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