The
Billion-Dollar Baghdad Embassy
By Leigh Saavedra
20 April, 2006
Countercurrents.org
That's the estimate, though only
half of it has been appropriated so far, a billion dollars to build
a new embassy in Iraq. It will be the largest on the globe, the largest
the world has ever seen, the size of Vatican City in Italy.
U.S. embassies typically
cover ten acres. This one, a 104-acre complex, will be comprised of
21 buildings, its own water wells, an electricity plant and wastewaster-treatment
facility that makes the huge compound completely independent of Iraq,
whose "interim government" sold the land to the U.S. in October
2004. Terms of the agreement do not appear to be readily accessible.
The massive compound will
include two major diplomatic office buildings, homes for the ambassador
and his deputy, apartment buildings for staff, and a recreational facility
that will provide a swimming pool, gym, commissary, food court and American
Club.
In this case, the devil is
less in the details than in the monumental size and cost of the endeavor.
The likeness to a small fortified city is frightening to those who object
to a permanent presence of the U.S. in Iraq, already destroyed by American
bombs and depleted uranium, and the core of such fear lies in the question
of WHY the U.S., already dangerously in debt back home and dangerously
despised in Iraq and most of the mideast, is pounding its chest with
such a noisy bravado. Is this the finale of "Shock and Awe"?
Those working in the embassy-city
are protected by extraordinary security, overseen by U.S. Marines. Structures
will be reinforced to 2.5 times the standard. There will be five high-security
entrances as well as an emergency entrance/exit, according to a U.S.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee report.
Foreign relations? Presumably
the hope was at some point to look for olive branches, the U.S. and
Iraq shaking hands and agreeing to go back to "go" and start
all over. So from whom is such vast and expensive protection necessary?
Were we ever within even shouting distance of being "liberators"?
What kind of thinking would pour so much into a country that the White
House says we want to turn over to the Iraqis as soon as possible? After
all, we're the folks who brought "freedom" to Iraq. So why
this elaborate expenditure at the same time that the people of the U.S.
have finally awakened and turned against the invasion and occupation
of a country that we now know never posed a threat to the U.S. or anyone
else?
It's a hair past income tax
time. Shouldn't those of us who filed have a word to say about where
our checks are going? We've said, "No more. We want out as soon
as possible." And yet the building goes on, about a third completed
as of this writing.
Shall we take comfort in
Mr. Bush's reassurances and hope he has a secret plan? Shall we look
at the bright side and wonder how this impressive compound of compounds
would work as an orphanage for the children whose parents we've blown
to bits?
This is a notable expenditure.
It costs as much as it does to bomb mud huts in the desert each week.
We, the dwindling middle class, are paying for it, and paying through
the teeth. And we're not paying sums like this for something that's
meant to be temporary.
Of our neocon acquaintances
and non-political friends we might ask: Can you read about this construction,
look at the numbers involved, think of the homeless, disease-ridden
people of Iraq, suffering from the highest unemployment of their lives
and often having difficulty finding clean water, and then truly believe
that the U.S. went to the Garden of Eden to help the Iraqi people?
We are hearing from the war
supporters that we don't hear the GOOD news, that the media presents
only the BAD news. Thus, with this gargantuan but hush-hush project,
we have to conclude that the construction of a permanent presence, an
enormous watchtower over the entire mideast (and its oil) is the good
news.
But it's quiet out there,
a thick buffer between the people who now want this insanity to end
and the sound of hammers and chain saws building walls, and more walls,
and more. Surely to a once-proud Iraqi civilian, every wheelbarrow of
mortar dragged across the new pavement that covers much of ancient Babylon
is a symbol of unending loss.
(Thanks to AP correspondent
Charles Hanley for providing the statistics and descriptions of the
new embassy. See his full report at
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060414
/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_new_embassy_2)
Leigh Saavedra,
formerly writing as Lisa Walsh Thomas, has written all her life, having
gone through years as an award-winning poet and writer of fiction before
stopping all else to write about the crumbling of our nation in these
past six years. She invites feedback at [email protected].