General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSURPRISE, SURPRISE! U.S. downsizing monstrous embassy in Iraq by some 50%.
"The New York Times is reporting that the United States is planning to cut its staff by as much as half at its 16,000-person strong embassy in Baghdad.
The $750 million embassy building is the largest of its kind in the world and the Times adds that a major cut in staffing just two months after American troops withdrew from the country signals a "declining American influence."
The Times adds that an embassy of that size was established because the country thought it could guide Iraq through its new democracy. But the embassy staffers are stuck inside the building because of security concerns and how much influence it could have is under question. The embassy costs $6 billion annually to run."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/02/07/146541682/report-u-s-could-cut-its-staff-at-expansive-iraq-embassy-by-up-to-half
I think it's time for the Bush-bots to step up and admit that this was nothing but a huge boondoggle for all of his wealthy buddies, and drop all pretense about it being all about "security".
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)eShirl
(18,503 posts)holy crap, is that a typo?
When you privatize security and support services the prices for military adventures go through the roof.
It's larger than Disneyland, so maybe they should just retheme it as a vacation destination.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)WHERE ARE YOU GODDAMNED COWARD FUCKHEADED TEABAG DEFICIT HAWKS??
They're ALWAYS on every cable news station pumped up about how those nickels and dimes chiseled out of the postal service, education, the arts, etc. are gonna turn this country around...
Botany
(70,582 posts).... responsible for blowing up.
leeroysphitz
(10,462 posts)Javaman
(62,534 posts)great white snark
(2,646 posts)Cuts are coming despite the "slave to the MIC" accusations.
malaise
(269,157 posts)white elephant in history -how fitting for those ReTHUG hawks.
The embassy is as useless as Bush, Cheney et al - warmongers and war profiteers.
Fuck all the neo-cons.
Old Codger
(4,205 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)not cutting the diplomatic staff as the NYT headline indicates, but they are cutting the contrators. From the MSNBC article.
"We're trying to do our best to save the American taxpayer money in the way we support our diplomatic personnel," she said.
The majority of the 16,000 people under the American mission in Iraq are contractors; 1,700 are diplomats.
Orsino
(37,428 posts)tanyev
(42,613 posts)No way, no how.
Owlet
(1,248 posts) I MET a Traveler from an antique land,
Who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings."
Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair!
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Ozymandias.
http://www.potw.org/archive/potw46.html
Octafish
(55,745 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,420 posts)Thanks for the thread, bullwinkle.