U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Declared Ready, With Nudge by Rockets

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/17/AR2008041703603.html?hpid=topnews

The troubled effort to build the giant U.S. Embassy in Baghdad seemed to be months away from completion when a team of top State Department officials flew to Iraq on March 20 to meet with senior staff from the prime contractor, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting. But as insurgent rockets began to rain down on the flimsy trailers housing diplomats inside the Green Zone, the two sides suddenly found ways to settle many of the major issues dividing them.

"The only way to do this was for us to get in the room, nail the door shut and get this resolved," said Robert S. Nichols, a partner with the Crowell & Moring law firm who attended the meeting and provides legal advice to First Kuwaiti. "It started out as the 'Gunfight at the O.K. Corral' the first day or so, but then we got past it."

Construction of the embassy in Baghdad had been greatly complicated by several factors, including a fast-track building plan that had kept key State Department inspectors out of the loop until the building was largely done, changes made on the spot by the project manager without complete documentation, and cultural differences between State and a Middle Eastern company working on its first embassy project.

Yet on Monday, the State Department issued certificates of acceptance and completion, officially taking possession of the embassy. Already, during the recent barrage of insurgent rocket attacks, some diplomats had moved from their unprotected trailers into bedrooms in the sprawling facility, which is built on acreage almost four times the size of the Pentagon.