Baghdad Mega-Bunker And Other US Embassies

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I am aware it's rather a strange subject and one that you might dismiss on the grounds of "boring" but the piece below looks at embassies, both Baghdad and around the world, and all that is involved in building the new model for US outposts, the Embassy cum bunker.

I found it an interesting read, you might possibly find it the same.

William Langewiesche – Vanity Fair November 2007

When the new American Embassy in Baghdad entered the planning stage, more than three years ago, U.S. officials inside the Green Zone were still insisting that great progress was being made in the construction of a new Iraq. I remember a surreal press conference in which a U.S. spokesman named Dan Senor, full of governmental conceits, described the marvelous developments he personally had observed during a recent sortie (under heavy escort) into the city. His idea now was to set the press straight on realities outside the Green Zone gates. Senor was well groomed and precocious, fresh into the world, and he had acquired a taste for appearing on TV. The assembled reporters were by contrast a disheveled and unwashed lot, but they included serious people of deep experience, many of whom lived fully exposed to Iraq, and knew that society there was unraveling fast. Some realized already that the war had been lost, though such were the attitudes of the citizenry back home that they could not yet even imply this in print. more