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Imagine a $600 million dollar investment in your neighborhoo

Mike

Well-known member
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_rpt/embassies.html

Embassies abroad must play a larger part in the "War On Terror", now and in the future.

The price tag of the Embassy in Iraq is a steal at the current prices.

Those who have a lessor knowledge of building costs need to examine the following example. I have a friend who recently built a convenience store and gas station in a small town on 2 acres and the cost was over $1 million.

The 104 acre Embassy compound in Baghdad is bullet-proof and built to be bomb-proof (to the extent that it can be).

Just one bullet proof window is over $20,000.00 itself.

$600 million is a steal.
 

kolanuraven

Well-known member
Mike said:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_rpt/embassies.html

Embassies abroad must play a larger part in the "War On Terror", now and in the future.

The price tag of the Embassy in Iraq is a steal at the current prices.

Those who have a lessor knowledge of building costs need to examine the following example. I have a friend who recently built a convenience store and gas station in a small town on 2 acres and the cost was over $1 million.

The 104 acre Embassy compound in Baghdad is bullet-proof and built to be bomb-proof (to the extent that it can be).

Just one bullet proof window is over $20,000.00 itself.

$600 million is a steal.


I'm sure it's a 'steal'....as most things with this war and admin have been a ' steal' :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:
 

Mike

Well-known member
kolanuraven said:
Mike said:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_rpt/embassies.html

Embassies abroad must play a larger part in the "War On Terror", now and in the future.

The price tag of the Embassy in Iraq is a steal at the current prices.

Those who have a lessor knowledge of building costs need to examine the following example. I have a friend who recently built a convenience store and gas station in a small town on 2 acres and the cost was over $1 million.

The 104 acre Embassy compound in Baghdad is bullet-proof and built to be bomb-proof (to the extent that it can be).

Just one bullet proof window is over $20,000.00 itself.

$600 million is a steal.


I'm sure it's a 'steal'....as most things with this war and admin have been a ' steal' :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

Spending on all Embassies has escalated...........

Since the bombings of U.S. Embassies on August 7, 1998, the State Department has moved over 18,000 U.S. and locally-employed staff overseas into safer, more secure, and well-maintained diplomatic facilities. The Bureau of Overseas Building Operations (OBO) has completed 60 capital construction projects at a cost of $4.1 billion, including new embassies, consulates, and office annexes. Twenty of those completed projects were in Africa. In Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, new embassy compounds were completed on January 27, 2003.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
reader (the Second) said:
I am well aware of why embassies must be safe and that this is costly. What the question is is why the Iraq embassy is the largest U.S. embassy abroad.

Real Estate is cheap in Baghdad.
 

TexasBred

Well-known member
kolanuraven said:
Mike said:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_rpt/embassies.html

Embassies abroad must play a larger part in the "War On Terror", now and in the future.

The price tag of the Embassy in Iraq is a steal at the current prices.

Those who have a lessor knowledge of building costs need to examine the following example. I have a friend who recently built a convenience store and gas station in a small town on 2 acres and the cost was over $1 million.

The 104 acre Embassy compound in Baghdad is bullet-proof and built to be bomb-proof (to the extent that it can be).

Just one bullet proof window is over $20,000.00 itself.

$600 million is a steal.


I'm sure it's a 'steal'....as most things with this war and admin have been a ' steal' :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

Kola I'm just glad it's not you or me that's sitting there depending on those bullet proof windows to work. BUT at least a life does have some value in Iraq now, whereas not to long ago folks were rounded up and exterminated like rats.
 

Steve

Well-known member
reader (the Second) said:
I am well aware of why embassies must be safe and that this is costly. What the question is is why the Iraq embassy is the largest U.S. embassy abroad.

we needed room for the oil rigs and refinery :twisted:
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
If I remember right from the hearings- there is a former State Dept supervisor who was in charge of the project under investigation for taking kickbacks for contracts, contracted projects that were never done, and almost none of the work done by these contractors was even coming close to meeting specs- which somehow was being overlooked by inspectors :???:
This was found out when their bombproofing wouldn't even stand up to a lobbed in grenade... :shock:
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
jigs said:
are you suggesting that there is CORRUPTION in GOVT???


how absurd! I won't believe it.

Last I heard the State Department was only missing $25 BILLION they couldn't account for in Iraq...
 

Steve

Well-known member
A new embassy, which has been referred to as Fortress America, The embassy is a permanent structure which has provided a new base for the 5,500 Americans currently living and working in Baghdad. The 104-acre compound, boasts 21 buildings, Two "major diplomatic office buildings"
Recreation, including a gym, cinema, and a swimming pool, a commissary, retail and shopping areas, restaurants, schools, a fire station, power and water treatment plants, as well as telecommunications and wastewater treatment facilities. It has space for 1,000 employees with six apartment blocks. he details are largely secret, but it is likely to include a significant US Marine Security Guard detachment.

no question that the cost is excessive. on the other hand we could have saved money and reused a building like we did in the past,.. the embassy could be a thrown together makeshift building set in a war zone like this one.. but I would rather the marines had at least a bit of a chance when sitting in the middle of an unfriendly land..

USMC_Barracks_Lebanon_1983_Map.jpg

1983 cost: 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel and three Army soldiers. Sixty Americans were injured

This was the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima of World War II (2,500 in one day) and the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States military since the 243 killed on January 31, 1968, the first day of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. The attack remains the deadliest single attack on Americans overseas since World War II.

is the price to high?
 

Steve

Well-known member
R2
It's just very ironic to me that the Iraq embassy is the largest of all U.S. embassies as if Iraq is innately the most important country in U.S. foreign affairs, over say the EU, China, India ...


the size "102 acres" allows for buffer zones and security..buffers that the security of the EU, China and even India would not require at the time when they were built.

and more then likely the fact that it is in an area of that is important to our security and interests in the region.
 
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