Umm, What About the "World's Largest Embassy?"

[Stephanie]

"If this president does not get us out of Iraq, when I am president, I will." - Hillary Rodham Clinton



Will someone please ask Sen. Rodham Clinton what she intends to do about the World's Largest Embassy? Also, the Enduring Bases? I mean, are we actually getting OUT of Iraq, or are we keeping the Giant Embassy and the Enduring Bases? Thanks!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12319798/

Construction cranes loom above the site of the new U.S. Embassy being built in Baghdad. The embassy will sit on 104 acres, six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York and two-thirds the acreage of Washington’s National Mall.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060703/howl

howl | posted June 20, 2006 (web only)
Bush's Baghdad Palace
Nicholas von Hoffman

What About the World's Largest Embassy?

Among the many secrets the American government cannot keep, one of its biggest (104 acres) and most expensive ($592 million) is the American Embassy being built in Baghdad. Surrounded by fifteen-foot-thick walls, almost as large as the Vatican on a scale comparable to the Mall of America, to which it seems to have a certain spiritual affinity, this is no simple object to hide.

So you think the Bush Administration is planning on leaving Iraq? Read on.

The Chicago Tribune reports, "Trucks shuttle building materials to and fro. Cranes, at least a dozen of them, punch toward the sky. Concrete structures are beginning to take form. At a time when most Iraqis are enduring blackouts of up to 22 hours a day, the site is floodlighted by night so work can continue around the clock."

****

On the other hand, the latest is that the facilities for the 8,000 people scheduled to work in the vice-regal compound will be completed on time next year. Doubtless the cooks, janitors and serving staff attending to the Americans' needs and comforts in this establishment, which is said to exceed in luxury and appointments anything Saddam Hussein built for himself, will not be Iraqis either.

According to Knight Ridder, "US officials here greet questions about the site with a curtness that borders on hostility. Reporters are referred to the State Department in Washington, which declined to answer questions for security reasons." Photographers attempting to get pictures of what the locals call "George W's Palace" are confined to using telephoto lenses on this, the largest construction project undertaken by Iraq's American visitors.

Nonetheless, we know much of what is going on in the place, where there will soon be twenty-one buildings, 619 apartments with very fancy digs for the big shots, restaurants, shops, gym facilities, a swimming pool, a food court, a beauty salon, a movie theater (we can't say if it's a multiplex) and, as the Times of London reports, "a swish club for evening functions." This should be ideal for announcing the various new milestones marking the trudge of the Iraqi people toward democracy and freedom.

USA Today has learned that the "massive new embassy, being built on the banks of the Tigris River, is designed to be entirely self-sufficient and won't be dependent on Iraq's unreliable public utilities." Thus, there will be no reason or excuse for any of the thousands of Americans working in this space, which is about the size of eighty football fields, to share the daily life experience of an Iraqi or even come in accidental contact with one.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

1. Our tax dollars at work...

building useless shit in another country! Bastards! :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[lonestarnot]

2. Yes isn't it amazing.

59 trillion debt and we do shit like this.

[Stephanie]

12. But that was the whole POINT of the exercise! We're going to rule the ME from our home base in Iraq.

We have the Giant Embassy, or, as Karen Hughes might call it, the Middle Eastern White House, and then we have the Enduring Bases, from which we can STRIKE OUT at other troublesome countries in future. Sen. Clinton referred to these bases obliquely in this letter to constituents, dated November 2005:

http://www.clinton.senate.gov/issues/nationalsecurity/index.cfm?topic=iraqletter

I do not believe that we should allow this to be an open-ended commitment without limits or end. Nor do I believe that we can or should pull out of Iraq immediately. I believe we are at a critical point with the December 15th elections that should, if successful, allow us to start bringing home our troops in the coming year, while leaving behind a smaller contingent in safer areas with greater intelligence and quick strike capabilities. This will advance our interests, help fight terrorism and protect the interests of the Iraqi people.

[Stephanie]

another country that WE ARE NEVER LEAVING

all this talk about getting out of Iraq is just BS unless they answer this question.

[Canuckistanian]

3. The buldings and land should be handed over to the Iraqi people

And the US embassy should be housed in Fallujah.

[Stephanie]

7. So say you, but what about the candidate? What does SHE say?

Let's see if we can get her to answer...

[Canuckistanian]

14. You're right

No one seems to want to touch this with a ten foot pole.

But it's important to the Iraqis. Therefore, it's important to those who want to end the war.

[Stephanie]

15. Not even at DU. It's enough to say 'we're getting out.'

But you don't actually have to mean it. Or so it seems.

[GainesT1958]

4. Why couldn't we just have expropriated...

Saddam's main palace compound?

Oh, that's right: they detonated an IED too close to that one.

Plus, Halliburton's got to spend some of that no-bid money on SOMETHING!:eyes:

[Stephanie]

5. But if we're LEAVING, why do we need an EMBASSY that houses 8000 people???

Also, why do we need permanent military bases throughout Iraq? Just asking. Or rather, asking the candidate.

[Bucky]

11. Well, where do you want them to live... in the Green Zone? Don't you know there's terrorists there?

I guess they could all move back to Indiana, but I heard that Congressman say Indiana markets are no more safe than the ones in Baghdad!

[Stephanie]

13. But are we LEAVING? Or not? I'm so confused....

"Hello, I must be going. I cannot stay, I came to say I must be going."

[Bucky]

6. The Tower of Babel, v2.0

I was about to call it a waste of money, but then I remember that all those Halliburton execs still will have been paid once this tower also falls. So it will at least have served its intended purpose of funneling billions of dollars out of the public treasury and into the hands of dependable Republican donors. So at least it's not a total loss.
.

[Stephanie]

8. It's not a tower, it's more like a little VILLAGE.

It's bigger than Vatican City. Not the Vatican. VATICAN CITY.

[Bucky]

9. My comparison is based on it being an arrogant & vain mega-construction project

I've seen the pictures; I know it's not tall. I still say the venture is doomed and people will end up dying there.

[Stephanie]

10. No doubt you are correct, but only if we STAY there.

I thought we were getting out? :shrug:

[bleever]

16. Billions being poured into permanent bases while

we debate about withdrawing?

Something isn't really being fully addressed here.

Thanks for the thread.

[Stephanie]

17. Are we just supposed to ABANDON the swimming pools and the bowling alleys?

Those things cost MONEY.

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0319-26.htm

<snip>

Post-invasion, the U.S. military established 110 bases in Iraq. By spring 2006 the Pentagon had “reduced the size of its footprint” by consolidating them into approximately 75 bases across the country. As authority is turned over to the central government in Baghdad or seized by competing Shi’a, Sunni, and Kurdish mini-states, the Pentagon is working feverishly to further consolidate the U.S. military presence to 14 “enduring bases” in Northern Iraq (Kurdistan), Baghdad, Anbar province (home to Sunni Fallujah, Ramadi, and Tikrit), and Shi’a-dominated southern approaches to Baghdad.

Organized around airfields “to facilitate resupply operations and troop mobility,” the major bases in Baghdad include: Camp Victory at the airport, which hosts as many as 14,000 U.S. troops; Anaconda Air Base, just north of Baghdad, which spreads across 15 square miles and is being built for 20,000 U.S. troops; Camp Falcon / Al Sarq, which will accommodate 5,000 U.S. soldiers; and the so-called U.S. “embassy complex” in the Green Zone. There, $1 billion is being spent on a 100-acre installation, comparable to the size of Vatican City, with a Marine barracks, 300 homes, 21 other buildings, and its own electrical, water, and sewage systems.

“Post Freedom,” Camp Marez, and the Mosul Airfield serve the 101st Airborne Division and defend U.S. allies and interests in oil-rich Kurdistan. “Camp Renegade” is an air base “strategically located near the Kirkuk oil fields and the Kirkuk refinery and petrochemical plant.” Tajji, just north of Fallujah, is built on the site of a former Republican Guard “military city” and is replete with the comforts of Burger King, Pizza Hut, and Subway restaurants to make U.S. warriors feel right at home. Camps Speicher and Fallujah are located near Saddam Hussein’s home town of Tikrit and the center of Sunni resistance in Fallujah. Little is known about the other planned “enduring bases.”

How much of this imperial infrastructure will survive the United States’ inevitable defeat in Iraq and the attendant negotiations is anyone’s guess. The peace movement is not alone in calling on the U.S. government to renounce any intention of maintaining bases in Iraq. Both houses of Congress voted last year to declare that the U.S. will not maintain permanent military bases, but this language disappeared from the final legislation. Former President Jimmy Carter and editorial writers across the country have appealed to the Bush-Cheney government to rule out permanent military bases. And, in their Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now former presidential candidate George McGovern and former national crisis manager William Polk warn that “absent an American withdrawal and deactivation of the military bases, the insurgency will almost certainly continue.”

[SammyWinstonJack]

21. It's all just lip service to appease the masses. It always is.

:argh: I don't believe ANY of them(politicians) any more.

[Stephanie]

18. I will kick it myself.

I really want to know.

[bleever]

19. Kick

:kick:

[Stephanie]

20. thank you

The campaigns are conveniently ignoring this question.

[Lars39]

22. I want to Kick and Recommend, but it's past the time limit darnit!

I'd like to hear the candidates' opinions on these buildings and embassy.