I Shall call it...Bushantium! Bushtantinople! Bushandria!
Three years after a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, only one major U.S. building project in Iraq is on schedule and within budget: the massive new American embassy compound.
The $592 million facility is being built inside the heavily fortified Green Zone by 900 non-Iraqi foreign workers who are housed nearby and under the supervision of a Kuwaiti contractor, according to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report. Construction materials have been stockpiled to avoid the dangers and delays on Iraq's roads.
"We are confident the embassy will be completed according to schedule (by June 2007) and on budget," said Justin Higgins, a State Department spokesman.
The same cannot be said for major projects serving Iraqis outside the Green Zone, the Senate report said. Many — including health clinics, water-treatment facilities and electrical plants — have had to be scaled back or in some cases eliminated because of the rising costs of securing worksites and workers.
"No large-scale, U.S.-funded construction program in Iraq has yet met its schedule or budget," the committee report said.
Security is the "No. 1 factor that impedes progress," said Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.
Contractors and Army Corps of Engineers officials "are being shot at or threatened every day," he said. At least 467 contractors in Iraq have been killed, said Christine Belisle, a spokeswoman for the special inspector general.
According to the special inspector general's office, which Congress created to oversee U.S. projects in Iraq, 25% of nearly $21 billion for Iraq reconstruction has been diverted to pay for security.
The massive new embassy, being built on the banks of the Tigris River, is designed to be entirely self-sufficient and won't be dependent on Iraq's unreliable public utilities.
The 104-acre complex — the size of about 80 football fields — will include two office buildings, one of them designed for future use as a school, six apartment buildings, a gym, a pool, a food court and its own power generation and water-treatment plants. The average Baghdad home has electricity only four hours a day, according to Bowen's office - http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/i...-embassy_x.htm
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search
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 US-led invasion watch the massive US 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 US State Department paid for the prime real estate or simply took it. - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...162249,00.html - QUite Biased. Look at USA today for a less acidic article.
At first, I had assumed that the timesonline would have been 'leftist lies', because of what was posted on the site I came across it on, but I did a google search and it came up with other results, one of which (USA TODAY) is not some backwater semi-blog Newspaper.
Assuming USA today is more on the money, not mentioning it being seen from space (Which, though it sounds impossible, isnt. We think only the great wall can be seen but airports and other such large thing's can also be seen. The great wall is long, not thick. Even so, I doubt it can be seen from space) but mentioning it's self sufficence and a general superiority to the condition of Iraqi's in the city now..is that all that right?
They mention handing over the original palaces of Saddam back to the Government in the Yahoo article. you can see a wonderful case of just what different sources state in the mood and theme of them, that the USA today or Yahoo one is far less 'bad' in situation, than the Lefty-one.
What's your thoughts? That we should simply spend less time on a grandiose embassy (When any other countrie's would be suffering likely in the same way the Iraqi's are) and more on getting the infastructure back, or what?
Still think the title is apt.
Kinda taken away my stance of it now that i've read other sources besides the leftist one, so I dont think there's much point for the topic
changed the text color blue- the red was burning my eyes out - archer
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Originally Posted by HunterKYA
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