US Embassy in Iraq: $600M bomb-proof fortress the size of the VATICAN!!!

[FourScore]

"Rising from the dust of the city's Green Zone it is destined, at $592m (£300m), to become the biggest and most expensive US embassy on earth when it opens in September. It will cover 104 acres (42 hectares) of land, about the size of the Vatican.

It will include 27 separate buildings and house about 615 people behind bomb-proof walls...

SNIP

"...What kind of embassy is it when everybody lives inside and it's blast-proof, and people are running around with helmets and crouching behind sandbags?.."

SNIP

"...A fortress-style embassy, with a huge staff, will remain in Baghdad until helicopters come to airlift the last man and woman from the roof," he said, adding his own advice to the architects of the building: "Include a large roof."

There is one added irony - the embassy is one of the few major projects the administration has undertaken in Iraq that is on schedule and within budget."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2084288,00.html

[Robbien]

1. That $600 milion figure is bogus

It is just the cost for one single phase of Bush's palace. A number they field out to the press. This embassy is expected to cost in excess of multi-billions, easy.

[asjr]

2. The very fact that we are constructing such

a building belies the various reasons we supposedly invaded Iraq.

[SteveM]

3. Bush intends on forcing WHOEVER wins president to defend it.

[mike_c]

4. that "embassy" give the lie to EVERYTHING the U.S. gov't is saying...

...about its involvement in Iraq. It is far more than an embassy. It's the hub of a projected American empire in the middle east, an empire that's being pursued largely to insure the future wealth of U.S. business and industry leaders, that is, the already insanely wealthy. It will accomplish this by spilling great quantities of blood, both American and otherwise, and yet it is ultimately doomed to fail. But not before making enormous profits for the petroleum industries and the MIT.

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. The public is being informed via NPR that they plan to have

30,000 GIs stationed permanently in Iraq at 5 permanent bases with runways so that they can fly everything in & out. You know that the figure is probably more like 100k+. This was discussed today.