Operation Limited Freedom

[seemslikeadream]

...

The country's diplomatic beachhead here doesn't come cheap. Browning estimated that it cost nearly half a billion dollars to keep the embassy operation going for the last six months of 2004.

Whereas most of the United States' 250-plus missions around the world exude an atmosphere of hushed efficiency, the Baghdad mission feels more like New York's Grand Central station at rush hour, with streams of civilian and uniformed personnel moving through the long, narrow corridors.

The mission has so many types that Browning counts beds to determine how many work, eat and sleep on the embassy grounds. The number is 3,700.

They include U.S. consultants to Iraqi ministries, one of the largest CIA operations since Vietnam, managers and contractors involved in an $18-billion reconstruction program, and the headquarters staff for the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq.

Security personnel alone number 2,500, a unit only slightly smaller than a full Marine Corps regiment. At its heart, the embassy is home to 135 State Department career diplomats, several hundred U.S. civilian contract employees and local Iraqi support staff.

Five of the senior diplomats, including Ambassador John D. Negroponte, previously served as ambassadors.

For all who work here, life's rhythm is dictated by a concern for physical safety. The embassy has its own hostage negotiator, its own psychiatrist and its own fleet of helicopters. It is even building its own fire department because it's considered too risky to rely on the city's firefighting force.
more
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-embassy22jan22,0,1317989.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[gumby]

1. "doesn't come cheap"

Yeah, it's a Massive Wealth Transfer funded by the workers (not investors) of the United States of America.

[NYC]

2. $1/2 billion to run the embassy for 6 months.

Building its own fire department? When are we leaving?

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

4. Reading this, it doesn't sound like it'll be anytime soon.

Have to keep the oil flowing for all those SUV's and monstrous pick-up trucks with the W-04 stickers on them, don't we...

[NYC]

5. I don't think the oil is even flowing.

So what's the plan? Surely they are not considering leaving without getting the oil.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

7. Well there's the 10 million

Were spending on permanent military communications system. Central Iraq Microwave System, as it's called, consists of 12 communications towers linking Camp Victory via fiber-optic cables to our military bases inside Iraq.

It sounds to me like were settling in until we get that black gold.

[leftchick]

11. I would bet it is much more than that!

and that 18 billion for "reconstruction"?? LOL! That is going to CONSTRUCTION of US military presence.

[Wilms]

3. I like that it's in Saddam's "Republican Palace".

More irony in this nightmare.

[sweetheart]

6. "Operation welfare queen"

Sounds like more of a gross squandering of the public's cash on ugly
militarism abroad. The worst of it is that they actually primp up their
feathers as if they're doing us all a favour by squandering the US
citizen's hard earned money in to the sands of another asian desert.

[UL_Approved]

8. This speaks to the anti-American sentiment over there

"This is an assignment like no other," said Limbert. He was one of 52 Americans who survived the 444-day hostage ordeal in Tehran, where "we moved around freely until the day it all happened. We didn't face conditions like that."

Even Soviet diplomats in Afghanistan during the 1980s had greater mobility, said Moscow's current ambassador in Kabul, Zamir Kabulov. A junior officer at the time, Kabulov reminisced about those years, when the Soviet occupation was the target of Afghan militants, including a young Saudi commander named Osama bin Laden.

"There was no danger of terrorism in the streets of Kabul then," Kabulov said in a telephone interview with The Times. "A random artillery explosion, yes, but no blown-up cars, no suicide bombings, no ambushes, no kidnappings."

They love or relationship, huh?

[dbt]

9. There's a missile on its way to the Green Zone.

When it will arrive is known only to those who have the control unit, but it's coming just as surely as the V-1's that fell on London. Watch for it, probably on a clear morning.

:freak:
dbt

[Rose Siding]

10. They truck in supplies to SAVE lives???

Because shopping outside the security cordon is considered too dangerous, every need, from toilet paper and paper plates to staples, paper clips and bottled water, must be trucked in from outside the country. Supply convoys sometimes are attacked, but embassy officials say there's little alternative.

"I'm not going to risk someone's life to go out and buy Post-It notes," Browning said.
..........

Better unnamed grunts should die so he can staple his paperwork and clean his bum.