SURPRISE, SURPRISE! U.S. downsizing monstrous embassy in Iraq by some 50%.

[bullwinkle428]

"The New York Times is reporting that the United States is planning to cut its staff by as much as half at its 16,000-person strong embassy in Baghdad.

The $750 million embassy building is the largest of its kind in the world and the Times adds that a major cut in staffing just two months after American troops withdrew from the country signals a "declining American influence."

The Times adds that an embassy of that size was established because the country thought it could guide Iraq through its new democracy. But the embassy staffers are stuck inside the building because of security concerns and how much influence it could have is under question. The embassy costs $6 billion annually to run."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/02/07/146541682/report-u-s-could-cut-its-staff-at-expansive-iraq-embassy-by-up-to-half

I think it's time for the Bush-bots to step up and admit that this was nothing but a huge boondoggle for all of his wealthy buddies, and drop all pretense about it being all about "security".

[WilliamPitt]

1. ...but the CIA ain't going nowhere.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-digs-in-as-americans-withdraw-from-iraq-afghanistan/2012/02/07/gIQAFNJTxQ_story.html

[eShirl]

2. "The embassy costs $6 billion annually to run."

holy crap, is that a typo?

[Pab Sungenis]

3. Nope.

When you privatize security and support services the prices for military adventures go through the roof.

It's larger than Disneyland, so maybe they should just retheme it as a vacation destination.

[Blue_Tires]

11. War is a profit venture...This is the part where I ask once again

WHERE ARE YOU GODDAMNED COWARD FUCKHEADED TEABAG DEFICIT HAWKS??

They're ALWAYS on every cable news station pumped up about how those nickels and dimes chiseled out of the postal service, education, the arts, etc. are gonna turn this country around...

[Botany]

4. Give that white elephant to the people of Iraq whose homes we ...

.... responsible for blowing up.

[leeroysphitz]

16. + INFINITY

[Javaman]

5. The capital of the eastern american empire. nt

[great white snark]

6. No surprise to those of us who took the President for his word.

Cuts are coming despite the "slave to the MIC" accusations.

[malaise]

7. I predicted ags ago that the embassy in Iraq would be the largest

white elephant in history -how fitting for those ReTHUG hawks.
The embassy is as useless as Bush, Cheney et al - warmongers and war profiteers.

Fuck all the neo-cons.

[Old Codger]

8. US to 'right-size' embassy in Iraq but denies it will halve diplomatic staff

They say not happening.


http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/07/10343831-us-to-right-size-embassy-in-iraq-but-denies-it-will-halve-diplomatic-staff

[ProSense]

9. They're

not cutting the diplomatic staff as the NYT headline indicates, but they are cutting the contrators. From the MSNBC article.

A review process, being led by Deputy Secretary Thomas R. Nides, is looking at ways the U.S. can "right-size" its $750 million embassy and how it can shift away from contractors to local Iraqi support staff, Nuland said.

"We're trying to do our best to save the American taxpayer money in the way we support our diplomatic personnel," she said.

The majority of the 16,000 people under the American mission in Iraq are contractors; 1,700 are diplomats.

[Orsino]

14. Perhaps the CIA/NSA are recalling assets no longer needed to prosecute a war. n/t

[tanyev]

10. Bush-bots never admit anything.

No way, no how.

[Owlet]

12. "My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings."

    I MET a Traveler from an antique land, 
   
Who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

    Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,

    Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

    And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

    Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,

    Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, 
 
  The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: 

    And on the pedestal these words appear: 

    "My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings." 
 
  Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair! 
 
  No thing beside remains. Round the decay 
 
  Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, 
 
  The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Ozymandias.

http://www.potw.org/archive/potw46.html

[Octafish]

13. I'd laugh, but it hurts.

Empires Architecture

[woo me with science]

15. +1

[Blue_Tires]

19. Literally...We've been paying for it all along...

[Uncle Joe]

17. That's a good start.

Thanks for the thread, bullwinkle.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. The should rename it the Monument to the Futility of War