US Embassy in Baghdad is a symbol of Bushist corruption and incompetence

[BurtWorm]

America In Baghdad
David Phinney
May 15, 2006

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/05/15/america_in_baghdad.php


When the U.S. State Department awarded the $592-million embassy deal last summer, officials reasoned they needed to keep the contract secret because of their concerns for the safety of work crews. Others believe it has more to do with keeping the lid on an overpriced, behind-the-scenes political deal with a building contractor that has been accused repeatedly of coercing low-paid laborers from poor Asian countries to work in Iraq against their better judgment.

Keep the contract secret? It’s a joke.

After all, the project is rising up like an 800-pound gorilla in Baghdad’s Green Zone. The Green Zone is the safe zone—relatively speaking—and anything that takes place there is for all to see. Construction cranes tower over the 104-acre construction site as 700 non-Iraqi laborers toil below to build a fortress-like structure with all the makings of a high-tech Fort Apache on steroids. How could anyone miss it?

Located along the Tigris River, the sprawling embassy site is the size of Rome’s Vatican City and two-thirds of Washington’s national mall. When completed in June 2007, the facility will boast of its own Marine base, a helicopter pad, 15-foot thick walls, six apartment buildings and 1,000 residents. The price tag may well reach $1 billion. When all is said and done, it will be the largest embassy ever built to wave the U.S. flag.

But the company now building what may be the most lasting monument to the U.S. occupation isn’t American. It isn’t even Iraqi. It is a well-connected Kuwaiti firm partially owned by Muhammad I. H. Marafie, a member of one of Kuwait’s most powerful mercantile families.....