U.S. Baghdad embassy will be biggest
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=431348§ion=news
Fri 2 January, 2004
Reuters
In preparation for ending its occupation of Iraq, the United States is
making plans to create the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world
in Baghdad, with a staff of more than 3,000, according to The
Washington Post.
The transition would mark the hand-over of responsibility for dealing
with Iraq from the Pentagon to the State Department, which will then
help oversee the next steps in creating Iraq’s first freely elected
democratic government.
“The real challenge for the new embassy, so to speak, or the new
presence will be helping the Iraqi people get ready for their full
elections and full constitution the following year,” Secretary of State
Colin L. Powell told The Post in an interview this week. “That’s going
to be a major effort on our part.”
One of the first steps would be resuming diplomatic relations between
Washington and Baghdad. Although the United States is the occupying
power in Iraq, the two nations have not formally resumed relations,
which were severed after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The U.S. Embassy in Egypt has a larger presence, more than 7,000
personnel. But this number includes many non-diplomats from other U.S.
agencies, including, for example, two members of the U.S. Library of
Congress who collect foreign books.
The Baghdad Embassy will have the largest U.S. diplomatic staff
anywhere in the world, The Post quoted State Department officials as
saying.
The United States is tentatively planning to build a new embassy, it
added, with construction expected to take three to five years.
Comment:
No surprises here, of course the Americans need a big embassy with a lot of personel. Its not easy to occupy and admister an oil rich colony bursting with natural resources especially when the natives are uppity and troublesome, just ask the east india company which occupied and milked India. Also when the Muslims of Iraq reject the american puppet admistration and daily attack the occupying forces there is a need for a CIA station in Iraq masquerading as an embassy.
yeah right. The occupation is just beginning. Embassy my arse. Why don’t they just move the White House and Pentagon to Baghdad and be done with it.