MAJOR CONSTRUCTION PROBLEMS WITH $592 MILLION U.S. EMBASSY IN BAGHDAD

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GLENN KESSLER, WASHINGTON POST - U.S. diplomats in Iraq, increasingly
fearful over their personal safety after recent mortar attacks inside
the Green Zone, are pointing to new delays and mistakes in the U.S.
Embassy construction project in Baghdad as signs that their
vulnerability could grow in the months ahead.

A toughly worded cable sent from the embassy to State Department
headquarters on May 29 highlights a cascade of building and safety
blunders in a new facility to house the security guards protecting the
embassy. The guards' base, which remains unopened today, is just a small
part of a $592 million project to build the largest U.S. embassy in the
world.  

The main builder of the sprawling, 21-building embassy is First Kuwaiti
General Trade and Contracting Co., a Middle Eastern firm that is already
under Justice Department scrutiny over alleged labor abuses. First
Kuwaiti also erected the guard base, prompting some State Department
officials in Washington and Baghdad to worry that the problems exposed
in the camp suggest trouble lurking ahead for the rest of the embassy
complex. . .

All the food from the old guard camp -- a collection of tents -- had
been carted to the new facility, in the expectation that the 1,200
guards would begin moving in the next day. But according to the cable,
electrical meltdown was just the first problem in a series of
construction mistakes that soon left the base uninhabitable, including
wiring problems, fuel leaks and noxious fumes in the sleeping trailers.
"Poor quality construction . . . life safety issues . . . left [the
embassy] with no recourse but to shut the camp down, in spite of the
blistering heat in Baghdad," the May 29 cable informed Washington.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/04/
AR2007070401685.html?hpid=topnews


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