Embassy Staff In Baghdad Inadequate, Rice Is Told

[SWJED]

24 July LA Times - New U.S. Embassy Rises in Iraq by Alexandra Zarvis.

Huge, expensive and dogged by controversy, the new U.S. Embassy compound nearing completion here epitomizes to many Iraqis the worst of the U.S. tenure in Iraq.

"It's all for them, all of Iraq's resources, water, electricity, security," said Raid Kadhim Kareem, who has watched the buildings go up at a floodlighted site bristling with construction cranes from his post guarding an abandoned home on the other side of the Tigris River. "It's as if it's their country, and we are guests staying here."

Despite its brash scale and nearly $600-million cost, the compound designed to accommodate more than 1,000 people is not big enough, and may not be safe enough if a major military pullout leaves the country engulfed in a heightened civil war, U.S. planners now say...

"Having the 'heavily fortified Green Zone' doesn't matter one iota" when it comes to rocket and mortar attacks, said one senior military officer.

Like much U.S. planning in Iraq, the embassy was conceived nearly three years ago on rosy assumptions that stability was around the corner, and that the military effort would gradually draw down, leaving behind a vast array of civilian experts who would remain intimately engaged in Iraqi state-building. The result is what some analysts are describing as a $592-million anachronism.

"It really is sort of betwixt and between," said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations who advises the Defense Department. "It's bigger than it should be if you really expect Iraq to stabilize. It's not as big as it needs to be to be the nerve center of an ongoing war effort."

In a stunning security breach, architectural plans for the compound were briefly posted on the Internet in May.

"If the government of Iraq collapses and becomes transparently just one party in a civil war, you've got Ft. Apache in the middle of Indian country, but the Indians have mortars now," Biddle said...

[Jedburgh]

Foreign Policy, Sep-Oct 07: Fortress America

A citadel is rising on the banks of the Tigris. There, on the river’s western side, the United States is building the world’s largest embassy. The land beneath it was once a riverside park. What sits atop today is a massive, fortified compound. Encircled by blast walls and cut off from the rest of Baghdad, it stands out like the crusader castles that once dotted the landscape of the Middle East. Its size and scope bring into question whether it is even correct to call this facility an “embassy.” Why is the United States building something so large, so expensive, and so disconnected from the realities of Iraq? In a country shattered by war, what is the meaning of this place?

For security reasons, many details about the embassy’s design and construction must remain classified. But the broad outline of its layout says a lot about one of America’s most important architectural projects. Located in Baghdad’s 4squaremile Green Zone, the embassy will occupy 104 acres. It will be six times larger than the U.N. complex in New York and more than 10 times the size of the new U.S. Embassy being built in Beijing, which at 10 acres is America’s secondlargest mission. The Baghdad compound will be entirely selfsufficient, with no need to rely on the Iraqis for services of any kind. The embassy has its own electricity plant, fresh water and sewage treatment facilities, storage warehouses, and maintenance shops. The embassy is composed of more than 20 buildings, including six apartment complexes with 619 onebedroom units. Two office blocks will accomodate about 1,000 employees.....

FP subscription required to access full article.

For more on the author's perspective on embassy design & security:

Foreign Service Journal, Sep 05: Embassy Design: Security vs Openness

[Stan]

An interesting post and quick read !

“Architecture is inescapably a political art, and it reports faithfully for ages to come what the political values of a particular age were.” — Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 1999

This passage is quickly followed by:

According to Breyer, decision-makers in a democracy need perspective and they need courage. “You have to be brave enough to turn them [the security experts] down,” he said, “and if we are not brave enough to say ‘no’ whenit really doesn’t make much sense, then what we’ll end up with is buildings that look like our embassy in Chile, which is my example of something that is just horrible.” That structure, designed in 1987 to meet the Inman standards, features nearly windowless brick walls, and is surrounded
by a nine-foot wall (and a moat). “It looks like a fortress,” Justice Breyer says. “People in Santiago laugh at it.”

The Chicago Tribune's article titled "The Swamp: U.S. embassy in Baghdad" has some good points and a nice picture (attached).

"Walled off and completely detached from Baghdad, it conveys a devastating message about America’s global outlook,'' she reports.

"The United States has designed an embassy that conveys no confidence in Iraqis and little hope for their future,” Loeffler says in her article, “Fortress America.”

"The embassy in Baghdad is designed to be completely self-sufficient. American diplomats will have their own shopping market, movie theater, gym, and dry cleaners,'' Loeffler reports. "The embassy will be encased by 15-foot-thick blast walls, house a special defense force, and operate its own electrical, sewage, and water treatment plants. There will be no need to interact with Iraqis for anything.

This is a strong departure from the way America’s embassies historically have been built, Loeffler says. Traditionally, U.S. embassies were designed to further interaction with the community. Diplomats visited with local officials at their offices, shopped at local businesses, and mixed with the general public.

"Diplomacy is not the sort of work that can be done by remote control,” Loeffler argues. “It takes direct contact to build good-will for the United States and promote democratic values.”