"Embassy Baghdad" will dwarf new U.S. embassies elsewhere

It's official then - america is making Iraq a US colony.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0415-07.htm

Published on Saturday, April 15, 2006 by the Associated Press

Massive New Embassy in Iraq Flaunts US Power, Critics Say
by Charles J. Hanley

Construction cranes are seen above the site of the new United States
embassy being built in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March 21, 2006. The
fortress-like compound rising on the banks of the Tigris River will be
the largest of its kind in the world, the size of Vatican City in
Rome, with the population of a small town, its own defense force,
self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of
Iraq's turbulent future. (AP Photo)

It's official then - america is making Iraq a US colony.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0415-07.htm

Published on Saturday, April 15, 2006 by the Associated Press

Massive New Embassy in Iraq Flaunts US Power, Critics Say
by Charles J. Hanley

Construction cranes are seen above the site of the new United States
embassy being built in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March 21, 2006. The
fortress-like compound rising on the banks of the Tigris River will be
the largest of its kind in the world, the size of Vatican City in
Rome, with the population of a small town, its own defense force,
self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of
Iraq's turbulent future. (AP Photo)

The presence of a massive U.S. embassy - by far the largest in the
world - co-located in the Green Zone with the Iraqi government is seen
by Iraqis as an indication of who actually exercises power in their
country.

(snip)

The embassy complex - 21 buildings on 104 acres, according to a U.S.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee report - is taking shape on
riverside parkland in the fortified "Green Zone," just east of
al-Samoud, a former palace of Saddam Hussein's, and across the road
from the building where the ex-dictator is now on trial.

(snip)

"Embassy Baghdad" will dwarf new U.S. embassies elsewhere, projects
that typically cover 10 acres. The embassy's 104 acres is six times
larger than the United Nations compound in New York, and two-thirds
the acreage of Washington's National Mall.

Original cost estimates ranged over $1 billion, but Congress
appropriated only $592 million in the emergency Iraq budget adopted
last year. Most has gone to a Kuwait builder, First Kuwaiti Trading &
Contracting, with the rest awarded to six contractors working on the
project's "classified" portion - the actual embassy offices.

(snip)

It's official then - america is making Iraq a US colony.