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Thursday, July 5, 2007

Embassy News

posted by on July 5 at 11:18 AM

The most expensive embassy in the world will be a piece of shit.

A toughly worded cable sent from the embassy to State Department headquarters on May 29 highlights a cascade of building and safety blunders in a new facility to house the security guards protecting the embassy.

The guards’ base, which remains unopened, is just a small part of a vast $592 million project to build the largest U.S. Embassy in the world, but some State Department officials in Washington and Baghdad worry that the problems exposed in the camp suggest trouble lurking ahead for the rest of the embassy complex, scheduled for completion in the fall.

The first signs of trouble, according to the cable, emerged when the kitchen staff tried to cook the inaugural meal in the new guard base on May 15. Some appliances did not work. Workers began to get electric shocks. Then the wiring began to melt.

The electrical meltdown was just the first problem in a series of construction mistakes that soon left the base uninhabitable, including wiring problems, fuel leaks and noxious fumes in the sleeping trailers.

“Poor quality construction … life safety issues … left [the embassy] with no recourse but to shut the camp down, in spite of the blistering heat in Baghdad,” the May 29 cable informed Washington.


As for the U.S embassy in Zimbabwe, a country that is a piece of shit.

A Zimbabwean Foreign Ministry official “gatecrashed the U.S. embassy’s July 4 celebrations Wednesday to criticize the outgoing ambassador. Samuel Mhango criticized Ambassador Christopher Dell for remarks he made Wednesday. Dell commented on the assault by police of opposition leaders in Harare in March, the country’s worsening economic crisis and what Dell called “the growing climate of desperation and oppression” in Zimbabwe.

“Diplomats are supposed to be bridge builders not bridge busters,” Mhango said. “We believe … that national day receptions such as this one are occasions for us to congratulate each other, to say positive things about each other. They are not occasions to attack or abuse each other.”

Christopher Dell’s next post will be Afghanistan—from one piece of shit, into another piece of shit.

RSS icon Comments

1

Close enough for government work, right?

Posted by Darcy | July 5, 2007 11:26 AM
2

Fer reelz. Zimbabwaaaananananan!!1!

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 5, 2007 11:40 AM
3

This is hardly surprising. During the '60s, it became clear that the American Embassy in Moscow was too damn small, particularly as bilateral relations between the US and USSR become more frequent and more important. We needed a new embassy, and the Soviets agreed, on the contingency that Russian materials and personnel be used in the construction.

Naturally, welders were trained in espionage and spies were trained in bricklaying. The metal skeleton was built as a broadcast antenna for all the radios that were built in the walls. The entire building was built with more surveillance capability than the Big Brother house, and when our spies finally caught on, it was so far advanced that the building was unusable for diplomatic purposes with any nation more important than Tonga. It had to be scrapped and rebuilt, this time by American personnel.

So now, nearly twenty years after the Soviet Union collapsed, we're in the midst of building our new, most important embassy in Iraq, and things are being fucked up again. As Marx said, "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."

Posted by Gitai | July 5, 2007 11:50 AM
4

Gitai @ 3,

I prefer much deeper philosophers:

"The history book on the shelf... is always repeating itself."

-Waterloo, ABBA

Posted by Original Andrew | July 5, 2007 12:03 PM
5

As I’ve Slogged before, the US Embassy in Iraq is totally appalling.

It is not the embassy of a Western democracy, but the fortress of a totalitarian, occupation army. It’s the Ministry of Love made real.

Posted by Original Andrew | July 5, 2007 12:12 PM
6

Wow. Mudede is in a bad mood today - calling out bumpkins, pooping on embassies. Did you get out of bed too early?

Posted by christopher | July 5, 2007 12:31 PM
7

@6

No. Spirit wouldn't put out last night.

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 5, 2007 1:14 PM
8

zing!

this is the architecture you get when the program is based on fear. it is the defining quality of all contemporary american architecture from the mcmansion to the embassy.

Posted by maxsolomon | July 5, 2007 1:31 PM
9

maxsolomon @ 8,

That's a great point; I never thought of it that way, but you're right.

Posted by Original Andrew | July 5, 2007 2:08 PM
10

@9:

it only took me 10 years of practice to realize that's what i do all day (fear-based architecture).

the firm that did the bagdhad embassy is berger devine yeager:
http://bergerdevineyaeger.com/

Posted by maxsolomon | July 5, 2007 3:19 PM
11

I love that BD&Y's website is "Under Construction".

Posted by Entropy | July 5, 2007 6:05 PM

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