Thread: Like a phoenix rising from the ashes

BUSH'S BAGHDAD PALACE / OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes a huge American Embassy is arising from the rubble of Iraq ~ while a destitute country disintegrates into civil war.

by Allen L Roland


Like a phoenix rising from the ashes a huge American Embassy is arising from the rubble of Iraq ~ while a destitute country disintegrates into civil war.

This is also a highly visible Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bush one finger salute to Iraq, the world and the American taxpayer ~ DEAL WITH IT !

The American media ignore this story but the London Times clearly sees the incredible hypocrisy of this event and files this scathing dispatch .

Allen L Roland



IN THE CHAOS OF IRAQ, ONE PROJECT IS ON TARGET: A GIANT U.S. EMBASSY

By Daniel McGrory / World News

Times (London)
May 3, 2006

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 49,00.html

BAGHDAD -- The question puzzles and enrages a city: how is it that the Americans cannot keep the electricity running in Baghdad for more than a couple of hours a day, yet still manage to build themselves the biggest embassy on Earth?

Irritation grows as residents deprived of air-conditioning and running water three years after the U.S.-led invasion watch the massive U.S. Embassy they call “George W.’s palace” rising from the banks of the Tigris.

In the pavement cafés, people moan that the structure is bigger than anything Saddam Hussein built. They are not impressed by the architects’ claims that the diplomatic outpost will be visible from space and cover an area that is larger than the Vatican city and big enough to accommodate four Millennium Domes.

They are more interested in knowing whether the U.S. State Department paid for the prime real estate or simply took it.

While families in the capital suffer electricity cuts, queue all day to fuel their cars, and wait for water pipes to be connected, the U.S. mission due to open in June next year will have its own power and water plants to cater for a population the size of a small town.

Officially, the design of the compound is supposed to be a secret, but you cannot hide the giant construction cranes and the concrete contours of the 21 buildings that are taking shape. Looming over the skyline, the embassy has the distinction of being the only big U.S. building project in Iraq that is on time and within budget.

In a week when Washington revealed a startling list of missed deadlines and overspending on building projects, Congress was told that the bill for the embassy was $592 million (£312 million).

The heavily guarded 42-hectare (104-acre) site -- which will have a 15ft thick perimeter wall -- has hundreds of workers swarming on scaffolding. Local residents are bitter that the Kuwaiti contractor has employed only foreign staff and is busing them in from a temporary camp nearby.

After roughing it in Saddam’s abandoned palaces, diplomats should have every comfort in their new home. There will be impressive residences for the Ambassador and his deputy, six apartments for senior officials, and two huge office blocks for 8,000 staff to work in.

There will be what is rumored to be the biggest swimming pool in Iraq, a state-of-the-art gymnasium, a cinema, restaurants offering delicacies from favourite U.S. food chains, tennis courts and a swish American Club for evening functions.

The security measures being installed are described as extraordinary. U.S. officials are preparing for the day when the so-called green zone, the fortified and sealed-off compound where international diplomats and Iraq’s leaders live and work, is reopened to the rest of the city’s residents, and American diplomats can retreat to their own secure area.

Iraqi politicians opposed to the U.S. presence protest that the scale of the project suggests that America retains long-term ambitions here. The International Crisis Group, a think-tank, said the embassy’s size “is seen by Iraqis as an indication of who actually exercises power in their country.”

A State Department official said that the size reflected the “massive amount of work still facing the U.S. and our commitment to see it through.”

MEANWHILE THIS IS WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO OUR RECONSTRUCTION DOLLARS

--A U.S. Inspector General’s report into reconstruction found that although $22 billion had been spent, water, sewage, and electricity, infrastructure still operated at prewar levels.

--Despite “significant progress” in recent months, less than half the water and electricity projects have been completed.

--Only six of the 150 planned health centers have been completed.

--U.S. officials spent $70 million on medical equipment for health clinics that are unlikely ever to be built. More than 75 per cent of the funds for the 150 planned clinics have been allocated.

--Task Force Shield, the $147 million program to train Iraqi security units to protect key oil and electrical sites, failed to meet its goals. A fraud investigation is under way.

--Oil production was 2.18 million barrels per day in the last week of March. Before the war it was 2.6 million.

The heavily guarded 42-hectare (104-acre) site -- which will have a 15ft thick perimeter wall -- has hundreds of workers swarming on scaffolding. Local residents are bitter that the Kuwaiti contractor has employed only foreign staff and is busing them in from a temporary camp nearby.

I wonder if some of this group of foreign staff could be our own little Mexican neighbors working for cheap in Iraq.

No wonder people from other countries hate us! It is the citizens of the world against the power hungry elite!

OMFG I hate Bush and his bushies so bad! grrrrrrrrrr

how is it that the Americans cannot keep the electricity running in Baghdad for more than a couple of hours a day, yet still manage to build themselves the biggest embassy on Earth?

look at the gulf coast and ask that question.

Congress was told that the bill for the embassy was $592 million

and we don't have the money for border security or a wall???

George W.’s palace”

if he takes up residence there, then who he is?

This disgusts and appalls me beyond my belief.

I'm not wild about Bush either, rather fed up but every democrat is favorable for full amnestity. I am a conservative and despise every thing the tax & spend democrats do. No morals,character or any thing good. Let's keep politics out of it ..I thought this was for support of anti illegal immigration..

That's okay. i saw the deplorable state of our northern border too. Gotta love the one border checkpoint where there is no guard but a phone that people use to call border patrol personnel and check in ON THE HONOR SYSTEM. Our southern border is the epitomy of lawlessness with drug dealers battling it out for turf and our own citizens who live on the border getting caught in the crossfire. How this Mr Ed's posterior of a president can be so concerned about what is occuring half a world away at the cost of thousands of lives and billions of dollars, but not secure our borders is beyond logic. Another thing to think about was I was watching Newt Gingrich's special about the bird flu. Mexico's third world living conditions coupled with their third world healthcare system is a recipe for disaster in this arena.

Originally Posted by sfrancis1

I'm not wild about Bush either, rather fed up but every democrat is favorable for full amnestity. I am a conservative and despise every thing the tax & spend democrats do. No morals,character or any thing good. Let's keep politics out of it ..I thought this was for support of anti illegal immigration..

welcome to the fight ...

I'm sick of BOTH parties and have no loyalty to either one -- I AM an American not a political party ...

right now they think their biggest concern is which PARTY will have the majority in Congress come election time -- I would love to say NEITHER ONE that right belongs to the people and the states -- NOT political parties and not illegals!!

It's not just Democrats in bed with illegals.

There are many Republicans who either support invasion or ignore it.