Bush's Baghdad Palace - we ain't leaving Iraq

[donsu]

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


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."

-snip-

It will come as less than a surprise to learn that this project was subbed out to an outfit in Kuwait. The Tribune says that "for security reasons, the new embassy is being built entirely by imported labor. The contractor, First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting Co., which was linked to human-trafficking allegations by a Chicago Tribune investigation last year, has hired a workforce of 900 mostly Asian workers who live on the site." In a land where half the population is out of work the United States ought to win countless native hearts and minds with this labor policy.

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.

-snip-

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.

-snip-

So it turns out that the plan, if that is the right word for the haphazard, faith-based, fact-free and data-scarce decision-making that has been the one constant in this adventure, is to stay in Baghdad and run the country. This is beyond lunacy.
-snip-
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whose to stop them

however, they will be breathing the same depleted uranium filled air

what goes around comes around

[acmavm]

1. I think its more of a case of them not ever wanting to leave

(the bush** admin and the oil companies) but eventually they will be force out. There have been wester nations that tried this occupation crap before, and eventually it they were always forced out at the end of a gun or sword. This too will end that way.

[SmokingJacket]

5. It might be a while, though.

We've got the big guns. And billions of unmarked bills.

Another atrocity. I can't keep track.

[sutz12]

2. Link please? I'd love to post this elsewhere.

USA Today is M$M, at least somewhat. Hopefully this gets out somehow. It's been in the blogosphere for weeks, from articles in foreign press.

[donco6]

3. This is approaching sci-fi dimensions.

80 football fields? In the middle of a major city? It just doesn't seem logical. They have to patrol and defend all that margin continuously. For what?

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. They sure don't talk about this much, do they?

When was the last time other than on DU, did you ever hear a progress report about this Embassy project?

[Botany]

6. bush* is planning to stay

* Sorry, Cheney & Rummy are planning to stay.

[donsu]

7. sorry, forgot to put in link

nt

[madrchsod]

8. everyone in iraq knows the americans are staying

if the chinese decided to build a huge embassy in washington or any major city in the usa would`t we,as a duty to our constitution, fight back against an occupation?