is the building even worth that much?

One of the problems we had there was lack of Americans on the Embassy project in Baghdad. I was there for 71/2 months working for the primary contractor FKTC, and I was the only American on site out of more than a thousand employees. Overseas Building Operations (State Dept.) and FKTC didn't want Americans on that jobsite, they didn't want the American public to know what was going on there.
FKTC management was 95% Lebanese, the State Dept. had a handful of Americans, except for security none had worked on an Embassy construction site, and they also had about twenty or so Indonesian engineers and administration people working for the State Dept.
Most of these people had never been inside a US Embassy except to get turned down for a visa to the states, they certainly didn't know how to build one.

I could write a book on this, I mean, who would think you find could Anti-Americanism on an American Embassy Construction Project.

There's a lot of information about that job if the American public found out about, well, they would probably really get angry, think about all the skilled American tradesmen in the states who would have gone over there and built an Embassy that wouldn't be condemned before it's occupied, too bad Americans weren't allowed to work there, they just send tax dollars for foreigners who don't seem to like Americans, only American dollars.

Johnnyo

johnnyo1959@yahoo.com

The problem, Paddy, is that you assumed the goal was to build a functioning building. In fact, the goal was to advance the corporitization of our government by doling out hundreds of millions of dollars to friendly corporations. So, mission accomplished. And the fact that the building itself has so many problems that require ongoing work to fix is not a flaw -- it is a bonus feature because we get to keep handing out money to corporations to try to fix it all.

I've just started reading a new book, Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein, that outlines the rise of disaster capitalism. Fiascos like the Baghdad embassy are part of that. I'm only a few chapters in so far, but WOW, one of those eye-opening books that really changes how you view the events shaping our world.