Bush Builds a Palace in a Warzone
by Ian Mosley
The American occupation of Iraq has produced some pretty bizarre situations over the past three years, but one of the most grotesque pieces of ongoing folly and madness is the construction, on the banks of the Tigris River in the middle of downtown Baghdad, of a massive and ornate United States Embassy that is larger than Vatican City. This boondoggle has already consumed over half a billion dollars–$552 million to be exact–and the building of this monument to the neocons’ ego and insane ambition to rule the world is apparently the highest priority of the American occupation regime in Iraq, trumping such “minor” considerations as restoring electricity, ending the civil war, re-building the country we burned down, military victory over the rebels or even providing adequate arms and equipment for our army of occupation.
American soldiers may be short of body armor and ammunition, but the future Palace of the occupation authority has gold filigree on the ceilings and fresh, inviting swimming pools where tired bureaucrats and multi-national corporate executives can take a refreshing dip at the end of a hard day of looting the prostrate Muslim nation. The Americans cannot keep the electricity running in Baghdad for more than a couple of hours a day, unemployment is around 80%, bombs shatter the peace daily and the streets run red with blood. American military casualties are spiking again to around 80 dead per month and hundreds wounded while the so-called Iraqi government cowers helplessly in the heavily fortified “Green Zone”, unable to set foot on the streets of the capital of the country they claim to govern without an armored convoy (and even those are growing increasingly risky.) The Americans cannot control the eight-mile stretch of highway between Baghdad and the airport, their own lifeline. The Americans are running so short of ammunition that they must buy back the ammo they gave to Israel in their yearly cornucopia of “foreign aid.” And yet the gargantuan embassy is the ONLY American project which is completely on schedule and on budget. (more…)