Massive U.S. Embassy In Iraq Will Expand Further!!!!

[tpsbmam]

The embassy compound is by far the largest the world has ever seen, at one and a half square miles, big enough for 94 football fields. It cost three quarters of a billion dollars to build (coming in about $150 million over budget). Inside its high walls, guard towers and machine-gun emplacements lie not just the embassy itself, but more than 20 other buildings, including residential quarters, a gym and swimming pool, commercial facilities, a power station and a water-treatment plant.

Yet the embassy is turning out to be too small for the swelling retinue of gunmen, gardeners and other workers the State Department considers necessary to provide security and "life support" for the sizable group of diplomats, military advisers and other executive branch officials who will be taking shelter there once the troops withdraw from the country.

The number of personnel under the authority of the U.S. ambassador to Iraq will swell from 8,000 to about 16,000 as the troop presence is drawn down, a State Department official told The Huffington Post. "About 10 percent would be core programmatic staff, 10 percent management and aviation, 30 percent life support contractors -- and 50 percent security," he said.

As part of that increase, the State Department will double its complement of security contractors -- fielding a private army of over 5,000 to guard the embassy and other diplomatic outposts and protect personnel as they travel beyond the fortifications, the official said. Another 3,000 armed guards will protect Office of Security Cooperation personnel, who are responsible for sales and training related to an estimated $13 billion in pending U.S. arms sales, including tanks, squadrons of attack helicopters and 36 F-16s.

Lots more at HuffPo -- it's a long(ish) article.

So we have people in the US who are starving, and we'll have more as programs are increasingly cut back. And we'll have people freezing to death this winter thanks to cuts in programs like LIHEAP. But nooooooooo, none of that's important because we have to expand the already obscenely massive "embassy" in Iraq and pay contractors all over the world to do our dirty work.

(Wanna tell me why they need gardeners? As the article points out, the embassy exterior is stark.....there is no foliage! What, taxpayers need to fund gardeners so the exterior isn't stark but has some pretty areas around the building? Give me a fucking break -- there's one job that can be nixed!)

The United States has become revolting. Now we need its inhabitants to revolt!

[DrunkenBoat]

1. draw down troops, increase security contractors. the only difference = more $$

to corporations.

[Arctic Dave]

2. I wonder what they will use to bomb it in tens years the tanks we sell them

or the F-16s.

Blowback? Never heard of it.

[dkf]

3. Ridiculous! What happened to leaving the place?

[ixion]

4. What an ugly building. It looks like a prison.

[Angry Dragon]

5. Join with me as I shake my head from side to side and let out

a breath of disbelief...............

I guess they plan on this to be a base of operations to start the control of the Middle East

Hail the Empire as we watch the slide down the path of destruction

[1776Forever]

6. OMG - I thought the 1st go round was bad! This is sinful & should be stopped! It should be called

Rumsfeld Wet Dream Castle!:puke:

Embassy Fortress America: A Neocon's Dream Come True

Check out this YouTube Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSpuazu_N7s

[The Northerner]

7. Don't worry, folks! The expansion is needed to promote "freedom" and

"democracy"!

[xchrom]

8. & here I thought the government had money trouble. Nt