State Dept. orders another review of troubled Baghdad embassy

[Barrett808]

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

State Dept. orders another review of troubled Baghdad embassy
By Warren P. Strobel

WASHINGTON — The State Department's new embassy construction chief has rejected his predecessor's certification that the $740 million new U.S. embassy in Baghdad is "substantially completed" and has instead begun a top-to-bottom review of the troubled project.

The official, Richard Shinnick, said in an interview the State Department hopes that the sprawling embassy complex — originally scheduled to be completed last September — will be ready by March 31.

But he said repeatedly that he's not setting a target date because past deadlines have forced a rush to complete the embassy's defective work. "That's not the message I want to send," he said.

The central issue appears to be the firefighting systems. ... McClatchy reported in January that the embassy's firefighting systems are defective and that Shinnick's predecessor, in a rush to declare the new embassy complex completed, had ignored the concerns of the State Department's professional fire experts.

State Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Shinnick dispatched a fire-safety team to Baghdad after news media reported that the fire system was substandard. The team found that repairs that experts had urged dating back to August had not been done.

In one case, stairs at an embassy annex didn't reach the top floor of the building, a violation of fire safety codes, according to the officials and documents obtained by McClatchy.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/28870.html

[Lasher]

1. What's the big deal, it hasn't even cost a billion dollars yet.

[Supersedeas]

2. who the hell is in charge at the State Dept?