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US Embassy in Baghdad to Double Staff
The US Embassy in Baghdad, already the largest in the world, is expected to double its staff after American forces pull out of the country later this year.
"We'll be doubling our size if all of our plans go through and if we receive the money from Congress in 2011 and then again in 2012," James Jeffrey, the US ambassador in Iraq, said.
"This will be an extraordinarily large embassy with many different functions," James Jeffrey, the US ambassador in Iraq. He also said a private security force some 5,500 strong will protect the large US diplomatic presence in Iraq. (photo: AFP) He said the staff would increase "from 8,000 plus personnel that we have now to roughly double that by 2012," adding that US forces would make up only a very small part of that number.
"This will be an extraordinarily large embassy with many different functions. Some we took over from USFI (United States Forces in Iraq) and some of them continuation of the work we are doing now."
Mr Jeffrey said that US military advisers and trainers would stay or be added to support the Iraqi military with US-made equipment such as M1A1 tanks and other weaponry. He said the added personnel would not include combat troops.
Fewer than 50,000 US troops are currently in Iraq, down from a peak of more than 170,000 and ahead of the planned full withdrawal in late 2011.
Jeffrey and Lieutenant General Lloyd Austin, the commander of US military forces in Iraq, told members of the Armed Services Committee in February that the embassy would be well protected after the withdrawal.
A private security force some 5,500 strong will protect the large US diplomatic presence in Iraq, Jeffrey told the lawmakers.
He and Austin said they were confident that the force was adequate, and that Iraq will remain stable once US troops have departed.
They said that in 2012, the American presence in Iraq will consist of up to 20,000 civilians at sites that include two embassy branches, two consulates, and three police training centres.
The figure includes armed private security personnel, support staff and diplomats.
Currently there are 2,700 armed security contractors in Iraq, Jeffrey told the senators.
40 Comments so far
Show AllYes, Horrified. We are getting out by staying in.
Additionally it has been estimated that the number of mercenaries in Iraq exceeds the 50,000 troops still in that nation.
Just another in a long list of broken promises and poor judgments by our current CinC. Obama is doomed, I think, to a one term Presidency by his absolute inability to find the right road on which to steer this nation. Every broken promise adds up to another vote against him.
Isn't the Iraq "embassy" a prototype for embassies the US will build in other nations that it controls?
He is not yours or my "CinC", only of poeple in active duty in the military.
The way the POTUS has come to be called "Our [US citizens] Commander in Chief" is quite chilling.
See, despite the naysayers, our burgeoning economy is adding jobs at a marvelous rate.
This little blast from past comes to mind;;;
Breakfast woodsmoke on the breeze --
On the cliff the U.S. Embassy
Frowns out over Managua like Dracula's tower....
- Bruce Cockburn, "(Don't let them stop you now) Nicaragua".
Given what we have learned from the Raymond Davis affair in Pakistan, where it turns out that the US has had hundreds of present and former Special Forces personnel and Blackwater/Xe mercs working in undercover roles with embassy and consular "cover," it should be clear that this article should have put quotes around the word "staff" in the headline.
Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz is said to have coined the phrase "diplomacy is war by other means." But in the case of the US embassies, particularly those in the Third World, it is really just war, not by other means.
Dave Lindorff
www.thiscantbehappening.net
So true, Dave. What an arrogant and ostentatious symbol of economic warfare upon the local inhabitants that embassy is.
I don't doubt that this oil theft will piss off enough Arabs to assure the US/Israel M/I/I complex will stay in the terrorism protection business courtesy of the impoverished American taxpayer.
Thanks ezeflyer
You said so much in few words.
No Terror No Torture Just Truth.
gee, wonder if they'll be union jobs? nah, just more corporate mercs. well, at least they'll be exporting some of that american made military hardware. join the mic and see the world. great pay and benefits. adventures to die for, or kill for. be a part of the exceptional elite in their never-ending quest of empire building. ask not, what your empire will do to you, but how you, too, may serve your oligarch masters. oh, and god bless america.
the number of mercenaries is set to double.
Are you saying the number of USans economically dependent upon illegal/immoral US imperialism is set to quadruple? Gawd bless Merka!!!
What are we bringing home from Iraq?
As bad as it currently is, our corporate overlords have an uncanny knack for making it worse.
As bad as all those "mercs" are in Iraq, what role might they have in our enhanced surveillance state, right in our cities and towns?
Remember NOLA and Blackwater? All future disaster plans are sure to be a real disaster, with our corporate & military Iraq Vets applying their skills in America real soon.
"All future disaster plans are sure to be a real disaster, with our ... Iraq Vets applying their skills in America real soon."
How can you say that? Everyone in the military is a "Hero." Didn't you get the memo?
"o beautiful for spacious skies" dum dum dum filled with DRONES!
RE: "US Embassy in Baghdad to Double Staff" - The Telegraph
"OLDE SNARKY" SEZ: The Empire Strikes Back (with a hell of a vengeance)!
A MARGINALLY RELEVANT FACEBOOK GROUP
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Wait, wait the US is broke. If we can't afford NPR how can we afford this?
Easily. We just continue to cut public spending at home (except on corporations and millionnaires of course) and borrow abroad in order to hang onto our empire. This is what all empires end up doing. Except, as Chalmers Johnson pointed out in the last of his "Empire" trilogy, the Brits in the election of 1945: They demanded a welfare state and so the Labour Party coming to power at the time set up the welfare state and dismantled the empire. (Stupidly the Brits later bought the Thatcher nonsense and began dismantling the welfare state and diddling about in imperial nonsense on behalf of the USA--but that's another story.)
We all know pretty well how horrible our government is.....and we feel how it is to be working class people in a nation controled by the extremely wealthy---who, for some insane reason, can never get enough. It is bad -- and it is going to get worse. We must get away from these computers and get out on the street. As Chalmers said, the British Empire was ended by a change in government---we must end the American Empire.
Never again vote for either of the two corporate parties. You see where that gets us. As more of us get active and out on the streets talking to other people who share our pain and concern, we may be able to come up with ideas on how to make a regime change here in bankrupt ruins of our democracy.
Monday is the anniversary of the day that government forces killed Martin Luther King Jr. He was bold enough to stand up and say the war in Viet Nam was wrong and that those funds should be used to for needed programs here at home.
Monday would be a good day for us to stand up and instead of "I have a dream" we say, as Martin did, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritural death". He also said, "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is our own government."
Martin's work has not been finished. It is our duty to honor him by moving forward his program for our nation. We must end the illegal immoral wars of conquest and looting and improve conditions for the people of this nation and to protect the earth.
We must learn to care for one another and to share the bounty of the earth.
Check your local news. There are plans to have demonstrations on April 4th. We need to tax the rich and establish a welfare state in the United States. A welfare state is not to throw moldy crumbs to the poor, but to be concerned with the welfare of all the people.
"As Chalmers said, the British Empire was ended by a change in government..."
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The British Empire ended when after two world wars it was materially, financially and spiritually depleted and it's colonies revolted. The coup de grace was the failure of the Suez War in 1956, when the U.S. made it clear to Britain that THEY would be taking over Britain's role in the Middle East and beyond. Neo-colonialism was born with Britain the junior partner to the U.S. hegemon.
Amen friend! We probably all agree that we either are or are headed for corporate oligarchy. That said and agreed, we do out number them. We do not need to believe most of the lies and deceptions on the MSM. We have the internet - the information is there - we need not be sheep.
I believe that the time has come for a serious street presence. The MSM cannot ignore it forever.
The entire 2011 budget for the "Iraqi" government is $79.5 billion
http://www.dinarbanker.com/2010-iraqi-dinar-news/iraqi-government-approves-budget-2011.html
The cost of the "Embassy" for 2010 is $144 billion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War
Why does it cost twice as much for us to run Iraq, than it does the Iraqi's ?
Post-Constitutional America
Great !, Triple the staff, I dont care, as long as the war bill gets paid by the war profiteers, banksters,and the no bid contract military industrial complex.
By my calculations, 6 billion a month, thats 8 year x 12= 576 billion , if you can believe anything that comes out of the mouths of the crooks in Washington. Just triple the number, and add 10 percent.
Thats just the Iraq war based on lies and deception . Do the same for Afghanistan , and the war by the CIAs Al CIA da, and the cost of 9/11.
Than add in the bank bail outs caused by deregulation and more fraud.
My figures, where ever they are hiding the 20 trillion they owe America and us Americans, they can just give it back.
Have your Embassy, we will take the money. And if you need more staff in the middle east , feel free to take your fusion center community watch stasi and TSA pricks with you.
We dont mind shipping the worst part of American non-democracy and non freedoms over.
So, that's where the jobs are!
Down with Big Brother! Down with Big Brother!! DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER!!!
Oops, sorry, "Resentment toward government." Naughty me.
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16,000 plus personnel--that's not an embassy, that's a shadow government.
and all with diplomatic impunity...er...immunity.
More offshoring..more waste..more empire building.. "When will they ever learn?"
War is peace and leaving Iraq is staying in Iraq.
Among the biggest lies the American people swallow is the idea that they are not imperialists and they do not try to colonize the victims of their overseas aggressions. They are as bad as the Soviets were.
>>Fewer than 50,000 US troops are currently in Iraq, down from a peak of more than 170,000 and ahead of the planned full withdrawal in late 2011.<<
First off, this is very likely just another lie. How would we ever know? Even, so, how many mercs are left in Iraq? The State Department funds its own army of mercs, and of course it would be the State Department running that "embassy" wouldn't it? Embassy, my ass. It's a fort.
>>Currently there are 2,700 armed security contractors in Iraq, Jeffrey told the senators.<<
Most likely another lie. All this government does is lie.
16,000 people to administer an embassy! I doubt that even the office of the British Raj had a staff that big.
Sounds like a breathtaking example of bloated, inefficient government, eh tea partyers?
Stop paying taxes. I did.
I guess the work on this embassy is running down and it's time to build a larger one somewhere else. Now, the NYT is beating the drums for our military adventure in Libya.
To whit: "Mr. Obama and other world leaders did something truly extraordinary, wonderful and rare: they ordered a humanitarian intervention that saved thousands of lives and that even Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s closest aides seem to think will lead to his ouster." Nicholas Kristof, NYT
Yeah. And like Howard Zinn said: We bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki so we could save so many lives.
"Humanitarian interventions" U.S. style.
Then we build a similar embassy in Tripoli, and another in Afghanistan, etc.
The second verse of our national anthem goes:
"Then conquer we must
For our cause it is just,
And this be our motto:
In God is our trust.