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Mega U.S. embassy in Iraq..why?

S

SAWYER

Lifer
I was listening to No Agenda today and one of the hosts played a clip from some State Department employee who has a book out or coming out and he is claiming the embassy is the largest in the world and that there will be 1000's of armed mercenaries/security out of it and it will have it's own air defense..wtf? Any credibility to this?
 
"The State Department is asking Congress to approve funds to more than double the number of private security contractors in Iraq with a State Department official testifying in June at a hearing of the Wartime Contracting Commission that the Department wants "between 6,000 and 7,000 security contractors." The Department also has asked the Pentagon for twenty-four Blackhawk helicopters, fifty Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles and other military equipment. "After the departure of U.S. Forces [from Iraq], we will continue to have a critical need for logistical and life support of a magnitude and scale of complexity that is unprecedented in the history of the Department of State," wrote Patrick Kennedy, under secretary of state for management, in an April letter to the Pentagon. "And to keep our people secure, Diplomatic Security requires certain items of equipment that are only available from the military."

What is unfolding is the face of President Obama's scaled-down, rebranded mini-occupation of Iraq. Under the terms of the Status of Forces agreement, all US forces are supposed to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Using private forces is a backdoor way of continuing a substantial US presence under the cover of "diplomatic security." The kind of paramilitary force that Obama and Clinton are trying to build in Iraq is, in large part, a byproduct of the monstrous colonial fortress the United States calls its embassy in Baghdad and other facilities the US will maintain throughout Iraq after the "withdrawal." The State Department plans to operate five "Enduring Presence Posts" at current US military bases in Basrah, Diyala, Erbil, Kirkuk and Ninewa. The State Department has indicated that more sites may be created in the future, which would increase the demand for private forces. The US embassy in Baghdad is the size of Vatican City, comprised of twenty-one buildings on a 104-acres of land on the Tigris River.

In making their case to Congress and the Defense Department for the expansion of a private paramilitary force in Iraq, State Department officials have developed what they call a "lost functionality" list of fourteen security-related tasks that the military currently perform in Iraq that would become the responsibility of the State Department as US forces draw down. Among these are: recovering killed and wounded personnel, downed aircraft or damaged vehicles, convoy security and threat intelligence. The department also foresees a need to run a tactical operations center that would dispatch of armed response teams. Ambassador Kennedy said that without military equipment and an expansion of personnel, "the security of [State] personnel in Iraq will be degraded significantly and we can expect increased casualties."

For years, companies operating in the private security/defense logistics industry have predicted an increased reliance on contractors in Iraq that would accompany a draw-down of official US forces. What is clear from the current State Department plan for Iraq is that the United States is going to have armed forces in the country for the foreseeable future. The only question is, How many will be there as uniformed soldiers and how many will be private paramilitaries?"

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...n+iraq&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari
Click to expand...

Guess U. S. has the modern equivalent of medieval castles going up in Iraq.
 
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Size wise it's fairly accurate. 104 acres with something like 21 buildings hosting 1000 regular employees plus additional staff of an addition 2000 or so including security. This includes apartments, power and water facilities etc...
 
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This all seems like a really really bad idea.

What happens if the Iraqi government becomes less sympathetic to the west and objects to having foreign mercenaries on its soil?
Are we going to send in troops to back up the mercs if they need it?
That ridiculously large embassy is just going to be a magnet for trouble as well, it's the kind of thing that needs a standing army there to defend it.

There's a phrase which involves old flour making machinery and cervical vertebrae that springs to mind.
 
People think the whole " war for oil " argument is silly.

But, if a global conflict broke out right now.. guess who controls a huge chunk of the oil? That's right. America. Fuck yeah.
 
WelshBloke said:
This all seems like a really really bad idea.

What happens if the Iraqi government becomes less sympathetic to the west and objects to having foreign mercenaries on its soil?
Are we going to send in troops to back up the mercs if they need it?
That ridiculously large embassy is just going to be a magnet for trouble as well, it's the kind of thing that needs a standing army there to defend it.

There's a phrase which involves old flour making machinery and cervical vertebrae that springs to mind.
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Since the Iraq is not a safe place yet, it would be silly to build the same type of embassy we would build in Canada.
 
I hear people using the term "mercenary" when they are simply hired guards. According to the people here, every mall in the US is manned by mercenaries...
 
cybrsage said:
Since the Iraq is not a safe place yet, it would be silly to build the same type of embassy we would build in Canada.
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How long is it going to be kept?
How long is it going to be staffed at these levels?
What's going to happen to it afterwards?
What are this week's power ball numbers?
 
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cybrsage said:
I hear people using the term "mercenary" when they are simply hired guards. According to the people here, every mall in the US is manned by mercenaries...
Click to expand...

Mall cops don't have blackhawks, mraps, heavy machine guns, body armor & the other goodies that embassy "security" will have.

All things considered, it's reasonable to refer to them as Mercenaries, because that's what they are. We're not talking about Barney Fife with a single bullet in his shirt pocket.

The whole thing is a leftover from the grand designs of the Neocons, and a reflection of the lingering desires even in the Obama Admin to exert some sort of dominance over the Iraqis.

It'll last until there's some dust-up between the "Contractors" & the Iraqi military, at which point we'll be asked to leave, and we will, with a lot of hand wringing & domestic fearmongering.

Letting go is *hard*.
 
Obviously it's not an embassy in the strict sense. It would be hard to imagine it being anything other than a major intelligence gathering facility.
 
That place is a fortress. We knew that that State Department would be ramping up their security forces with the withdrawal of US military forces. State has been recruiting pretty aggressively among US Army NCOs and officers.

These contractors won't be asked to leave, because they provide the security for Iraq's leaders too. They also contribute plenty of cash to those leaders' coffers while being paid out of the public's funds.
 
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