The Daily Background

The State Department, which is building the largest embassy ever in Baghdad, now says it needs to be bigger.

The uncompleted embassy sits on a gigantic 104 acre compound, which is equivalent to two-thirds the size of the National Mall in Washington, has working space for 1,000 staffers, but now the State Department says that’s not enough. Presumably, the $1 billion per year that it will cost to run the embassy once it is completed in September would also rise with new additions.

All 21 separate buildings of the embassy are projected to cost $592 million by the time it is complete.

The Associated Press reports today:

“What you have is a situation in which they are building an embassy without really thinking about what its functions are,” said Edward Peck, a former top U.S. diplomat in Iraq.

“What kind of embassy is it when everybody lives inside and it’s blast-proof, and people are running around with helmets and crouching behind sandbags?”
[…]
The State Department and Congress have tussled this year over a $50 million request for additional blast-resistant housing. The department says it did not anticipate needing so many fortified apartments when the embassy was in the planning stages three years ago and Iraq was a less violent place.

The new Democratic-controlled Congress has grumbled about the approximately $1 billion annual cost of embassy operations in Iraq and told the administration the embassy is overstaffed at roughly 1,000 regular employees. Add security contractors, locally hired staff and others and the number climbs to more than 4,000.

The embassy, though not complete, is already attracting frequent attacks from insurgents. Embassy staff are required to wear body armor and helmets when they are outdoors within the compound, because of the mortar attacks that have become routine. “We assume there will be a significant, enduring U.S. presence in Iraq,” the AP quotes Secretary of State Rice’s top Iraq advisor saying.

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