State Department to Downsize Massive Baghdad Embassy

Posted on Feb 8, 2012

State Department

Diplomatic Security Service Director Jeffrey Culver tours Baghdad by air.

A $750 million, 104-acre complex that employs 16,000 people might have been George W. Bush’s concept of an embassy, but the people who run the country that happens to surround America’s fortress in Baghdad aren’t thrilled and the State Department has decided to scale back.

The New York Times reports that the State Department may remove as many as half of the 2,000 diplomats stationed in Baghdad.

Americans have complained of Iraqi obstruction. The Times describes the shocking ordeal embassy workers have been forced to endure:

After the American troops departed in December, life became more difficult for the thousands of diplomats and contractors left behind. Convoys of food that had been escorted by the United States military from Kuwait were delayed at border crossings as Iraqis demanded documentation that the Americans were unaccustomed to providing.

Within days, the salad bar at the embassy dining hall ran low. Sometimes there was no sugar or Splenda for coffee. On chicken-wing night, wings were rationed at six per person. Over the holidays, housing units were stocked with Meals Ready to Eat, the prepared food for soldiers in the field.

And that’s the thanks we get for killing Saddam Hussein and/or occupying their country, torturing its inhabitants and unleashing a bloody civil war. Some people have no sense of gratitude.  —PZS

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