When an embassy becomes a metaphor

October 7, 2007

The U.S. embassy in Baghdad, nowhere near complete, is a 21-building, 104-acre compound, a chunk of prime real estate two-thirds the size of Washington’s National Mall. It is, according to the International Crisis Group, the largest embassy any country will have anywhere on earth — a fact that has not gone unnoticed by frustrated Iraqis, who not only resent the ongoing U.S. presence, but who also lament the failures of the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq.

And just to add insult to injury, the entire project grows more embarrassing all the time.

The massive U.S. embassy under construction in Baghdad could cost $144 million more than projected and will open months behind schedule because of poor planning, shoddy workmanship, internal disputes and last-minute changes sought by State Department officials, according to U.S. officials and a department document provided to Congress.

The embassy, which will be the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world, was budgeted at $592 million. The core project was supposed to have been completed by last month, but the timetable has slipped so much that the State Department has sought and received permission from the Iraqi government to allow about 2,000 non-Iraqi construction employees to stay in the country until March.

Two key office buildings, including the new chancery, will not be finished until early 2009, according to the document.

How serious a boondoggle is this project? Now, even the sprinkler systems meant to contain a fire do not work. Given that the electrical system in the kitchen facilities recently malfunctioned — the wires melted — a working sprinkler system seems rather important.

As Sullivan put it, “The Baghdad embassy is a metaphor for this administration’s re-colonization of Iraq.”

I just want to know about the babe-nest, like the Iraqis have in the U.S.– the press description of that was impressive. I’m sure the Republicans would plan a good love-nest for seducing Iraqis within the Embassy compound, at it will be a dream-home that will be fun to imagine living in.

  • I was thinking this was the first time I’d witnessed a trainwreck be constructed from scratch, but then I remembered another huge embassy boondoggle: Reagan’s expensive bug-filled Moscow embassy project that had to be abandoned. Star Wars, anti-missile defense shields, embassies … Republicans just can’t get any big security project right. But then they don’t believe in competence or oversight so what else should we expect from them?

  • Perhaps this is where the Bush administration and its cronies will flee on the eve of the 2009 inauguration of a Democratic president. They deserve such a boondoggle for their final redoubt….

  • Swan – I think you’re thinking of Giuliani and NYC’s emergency command center at 7WTC.

  • An Imperial Palace for the Imperial Amerikan Caliphate – I wish the Iraqis could tunnel under the thing and blow it into the rubble it deserves to become, along with the rest of the rubble of Georgie’s Empire. Talk about a case of Republican shamelessness.

  • petorado, that’s why my joke works, because it’s Republican M.O. to create love-nests. But I’m thinking of some apartment kept by Iraqi government people in the U.S.- I forget where I read about it. But it sounded really swanky, like a Real World house (except, I imagine, more tasteful- but knowing the Iraqis, probably in a ’70s kind of way).

    Recall also Bernie Kerik and Giuliani love nests.

  • State does not even have the staff to put into the great embarrassment…certainly none that speak the language. Of all the countries in the world Bush builds the largest and most elaborate and expensive embassy in Iraq. Proof that he never planned to leave the area.
    Now tell us gain why the S-CHIP is too expensive, or rebuilding America’s infrastructure here at home is too costly..
    I’d be all for this embassy if it meant Rice would be put there and could never leave.
    Is the embassy to be named “the House of the Occupiers”?. More permanent damage from the mind of Bush Co. Crime Family @.
    Time to fill the coffers.

  • Metaphor, hell! The Baghdad embassy is the real thing. It’s concrete evidence of the Bush Administration’s intention to turn Iraq into a permanent American colony.

    I’ve been waiting for several years now for someone in the press to ask a Bushie why we will be needing the world’s largest embassy anywhere in the world in Iraq once the Iraqi government “stands up” and the US “stands down.”

    I guess Saddam’s numerous presidential palaces weren’t good enough for the future American proconsuls.

  • The new Republican Palace is as obscenely ostentatious as one of Saddam’s old domiciles or the Imperial Emperor’s current one in DC.

    (Pre-emptive apologies if this comment gets posted twice; it coughed back the first time.)

  • As recently as last Thursday, the State Department was pretending the project was on schedule: “Deputy spokesman Tom Casey said Thursday he was not aware of any new major delay in the opening of the embassy that will sit on a 104-acre site and have working space for about 1,000 people.”

    As recently as last Thursday, we were being told (by an anonymous U.S. official, naturally) that at least we didn’t have to worry about the project being over budget. The “delays would have no direct cost to taxpayers because contractor First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Co. had agreed to deliver for a set $592 million price.”

    Guess there were some loopholes big enough to drive a construction crane through.

    Viva Madame Secretary, Ph.D.! Condi really rocks!

  • No one could have predicted that an embassy built by foreign workers kidnapped and held at gunpoint would show shoddy workmanship.
    You just cannot get good slave labour these days.

    • Comments are closed.