Today was the opening day for our embassy in Baghdad, our largest embassy in the world by far. Some comments from Foreign Policy of late 2007:
Located in Baghdad’s 4-square-mile Green Zone, the embassy will occupy 104 acres. It will be six times larger than the U.N. complex in New York and more than 10 times the size of the new U.S. Embassy being built in Beijing, which at 10 acres is America’s second-largest mission. The Baghdad compound will be entirely self-sufficient, with no need to rely on the Iraqis for services of any kind. The embassy has its own electricity plant, fresh water and sewage treatment facilities, storage warehouses, and maintenance shops. The embassy is composed of more than 20 buildings, including six apartment complexes with 619 one-bedroom units. Two office blocks will accomodate about 1,000 employees. High-ranking diplomats will enjoy well-appointed private residences. Once inside the compound, Americans will have almost no reason to leave. It will have a shopping market, food court, movie theater, beauty salon, gymnasium, swimming pool, tennis courts, a school, and an American Club for social gatherings. To protect it all, the embassy is reportedly surrounded by a wall at least 9 feet high—and it has its own defense force.
The embassy, which was at least $100,000,000 over budget, is of such a scale that the role of most embassies - to interact with the local population - is virtually impossible to fulfill.
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The number of staff this place is supposed to house differs alarmingly, dependent on who you read. Official US sources are now saying 1000-1200, but that figure probably doesn't even cover the US embassy personnel. Add in the contractors and Iraqi workers and the figure becomes four times as many. Even the BBC quoted the figure, '4000', in it's January 5th 2009 website article:
"The new complex, which will house a total of 4000 staff, has been built with ... "
Later, the wording was changed to:
"The new complex where about 1,200 staff will live and work has been built with...."
(research courtesy of Google).
Iraq is roughly the size of California. The question that should be asked is, why is such a huge embassy, and enormous number of staff, required in a relatively small nation?
Of course, when one remembers the true reason for the invasion of Iraq, the answer becomes more obvious.
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