http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IK06Ak02.htmlI know. Times are tough. Here, in the United States, the bottom's threatening to blow out of the housing market. Here, construction companies are laying off employees and builders are wondering where their next jobs are likely to come from. But there's still hope that can be summed up in this bit of advice: Go East (or West), young builder, but leave the country.
After all, elsewhere on the planet Americans are still building up a storm. Why just recently, a desperate State Department requested - and received permission - from the Iraqi government to keep a full contingent of 2,000 non-Iraqi construction workers (admittedly, impoverished Third Worlders, evidently stowed away under less than lovely conditions) in Baghdad to finish work on the mother of all embassies. We're talking about a US Embassy compound under construction these past years that's meant to hold 1,000 diplomats, spies and military types (as well as untold numbers of private security guards, service workers, and heaven knows who else).
It will operate in the Iraqi capital's heavily fortified Green Zone as if it were the US's first lunar colony. According to William Langewiesche, writing in Vanity Fair, it will contain "its own power generators, water wells, drinking-water treatment plant, sewage plant, fire station, irrigation system, Internet uplink, secure intranet, telephone center (Virginia area code), cell-phone network (New York area code), mail service, fuel depot, food and supply warehouses, vehicle-repair garage, and workshops".
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But, young builder, don't despair. When it comes to American construction projects in Iraq, the sky's really the limit. Just recently, National Public Radio's defense correspondent Guy Raz spent some time at Balad Air Base about 70 kilometers north of Baghdad. As Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post reported, in 2006, Balad is essentially an "American small town", so big that it has neighborhoods and bus routes - and its air traffic rivals Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
According to Raz, the base now houses 30,000 American troops as well as perhaps another 10,000 private contractors. It has well-fortified Pizza Hut, Burger King and Subway fast-food outlets, two PXs that are as big as K-Marts, and actual sidewalks (which - note, young contractor - someone had to build). Billions of dollars have reportedly gone into Balad, one of at least five "mega-bases" the Bush administration has built in that country (not counting the embassy, which is functionally another base) - and, Raz tells us, "billions of dollars are being spent on upgrades".
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don't want you to think, though, that Balad is the only other major work opportunity in Iraq. Consider, for instance, al-Asad Air Base, another of the US's billion-dollar mega-bases. This one's off in Iraq's western desert. When the president "visited" Iraq in early September, this was where he landed - and a bevy of journalists hit the base with him (a base, mind you, that is supposed to have a 32 kilometer perimeter!) and managed to describe next to nothing about it to the rest of us.
Fortunately, a corporal in the US Marine Reserves (and sometime writer for the Weekly Standard and National Review), Matt Sanchez has been traveling Iraq, embedded with US troops, and recently offered a rare, vivid description. Asad, he tells us, is known among Americans as "Camp Cupcake" ("a military base where you can have all the ice cream you want, swim in an air-conditioned indoor pool, drink cafe lattes at 3am and even take yoga courses in the gym"). At present, according to Sanchez, it holds 17,000 people ("most of whom don't even work for the military") and evidently has its own Starbucks. Arriving there from rougher lodgings, he found it a disorienting experience.
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read on for the rest of the building opportunities
the troops are never leaving Iraq
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