After months of delay and enormous cost overruns, on Friday Ryan Crocker, US ambassador to Iraq announced that the new US embassy in Baghdad was complete. This is troubling on two fronts, first, because of what it indicates about our future presence in Iraq. Second, $736 million is a tremendous amount of money that could have had a serious impact had it been redirected either toward infrastructure spending in Iraq or here at home.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...
U.S. diplomats will begin moving into the mammoth new, heavily fortified embassy in Baghdad next month after long delays in the $736 million project — and not a moment too soon...U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker said Friday that construction is complete at the Vatican-sized compound and that although not all buildings have yet been certified for final occupancy, transition to the facility from the less-protected location in a Saddam Hussein-era palace should start at the end of May.
"We will begin moving into the new embassy — some of the office space and the apartments — probably the end of next month, the beginning of June, so that will certainly improve quality of life and provide some added protection," he told reporters.
The new embassy will be the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world, with fortified working space for 1,000 people and living quarters for several hundred on a 104-acre site.
"Vatican-sized"? That doesn't sound like a facility that anyone plans to abandon any time soon. And, more importantly, with Iraqis still dealing with rolling daily blackouts and raw sewage flowing in the streets, how are we able to justify the enormous cost of this one embassy?
And, of course, as has been the theme of the entire war, this project has been plagued by mismanagement, lack of oversight and cost overruns:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
The massive U.S. embassy under construction in Baghdad could cost $144 million more than projected and will open months behind schedule because of poor planning, shoddy workmanship, internal disputes and last-minute changes sought by State Department officials, according to U.S. officials and a department document provided to Congress.
A decision to locate Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and his staff in the new embassy will require the conversion of normal office space into a facility secure enough to handle classified material. The reconfiguration of the chancery will cost $14.7 million. The cafeteria was originally designed for the light duty expected at a typical embassy, where people live in their own apartments and eat only lunch on the job. But now it is being redesigned, at a cost of $27.9 million, to provide three meals a day -- and to be rocket-, bomb- and mortar-proof.
While some of the new costs could be covered by an existing supplemental funding request for Iraq, the State document said the department is still searching for ways to pay for nearly $70 million of the additional work.
To put this into a bit of perspective, my children's school is facing a $180,000 budget deficit, which means we are forced to cut two teaching positions. Other elementary schools are forced to cut even more teachers and support staff.
The embassy equals 3,873 teachers. It may be oversimplification of the issue, but it's what I'm thinking.
Thoughts?