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Title: Iraq Embassy Unsafe to Occupy - the Stench of Formaldehyde and Corruption
Source:
Daily Kos
URL Source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/5/02232/02654
Published: Jul 5, 2007
Author: Some Blogger
Post Date: 2007-07-05 11:41:41 by Indrid Cold
Keywords: None
Views: 360
Comments: 7
by FishOutofWater Wed Jul 04, 2007 at 09:22:32 PM PDT The slave labor built 592 million dollar Fortress America in Iraq may never be safe to occupy. Toxic contaminants used in construction have stopped efforts to move in. 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 That's right for $592 million we get a facility that is unsafe to occupy. KBR, formerly owned by Dick Cheney associated Haliburton Corporation is in charge the embassy project. The story is comic. The first signs of trouble, according to the cable, emerged when the kitchen staff tried to cook the inaugural meal in the new guard base on May 15. Some appliances did not work. Workers began to get electric shocks. Then a burning smell enveloped the kitchen as the wiring began to melt. 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, the 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. But we are spending $592 million of our dollars. That's a very small amount compared to the total amount spent in Iraq. The results are similar. The administration placed "Brownies" in charge of this project. After the electrical problem was discovered and no quick fix seemed available, the embassy was forced to serve the guards MREs (meals-ready-to-eat) for several days until all the food could be moved back to the old housing, known as Camp Jackson, according to the embassy cable's detailed account. The original plan was for the guards to wait only one or two weeks before the electrical issues were fixed. But the problems mounted. The 252 prefabricated residential trailers, with either two or three rooms each, filled with formaldehyde fumes. The trailer manufacturer, a Saudi company called Red Sea Housing Services Co., confirmed to the embassy it had used the toxic chemical in preparing the housing. Red Sea told the embassy to keep the windows open and use charcoal in the rooms to absorb the odor, but "the fumes are still prevalent," the cable said. The embassy cable noted that five people had been identified at various times as the project manager, and that it was all but impossible for embassy officials to obtain information from them, with no one seeming to be in charge. "Two of the project managers have had extremely limited previous project management experience," the cable said. A $500,000 project to install a fire-suppression system appeared to be proceeding without proper supervision, it added. The US government is proceeding without proper supervision. I am beyond outrage. I am beyond anger. Let's get the hell out of Iraq before we fuck something else up. GO HOME. It's just that simple. There is absolutely nothing we can do right in Iraq. We have even contaminated the ground the embassy is built on. Finally, on May 25, a KBR hazardous-materials expert discovered that all 10 generators had developed leaks. The fuel tanks were installed without corrosion protection or leak detectors, and fuel had begun to saturate the soil around the tanks. The cable said that Teflon tape designed for water pipes had been used on the fuel tanks, and that such tape "will dissolve on contact with diesel fuel." KBR refused to operate the power generators unless its liability was waived. The criminals guilty for this corruption must be held accountable. You know who they are and what we must do.
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#1. To: Indrid Cold (#0)
GO HOME. It's just that simple. There is absolutely nothing we can do right in Iraq omg. it's that reverse midas thing bush has got going. everything he touches turns to crap. this was true way before he ever got installed in the white house. it amazed me that anyone voted for him in 2000 or 2004, as if giving a loser more power and more authority would suddenly give him a brain.
This is just like the managers who think offshoring/outsourcing is a great way to save $$. Fools. I think the Iraq mess is a little bigger than they intended it to be.
Me too, but it is because I am sputtering! I am laughing so much I can hardly type! This is GREAT! And to be expected, but not to this degree! Which is why I am laughing. Actually, why I am laughing is because these people want to run the world!!!! Amazing thought, isn't it. And, do not forget that WE give power to these kinds of people. That, over all, is the part that amazes me the most.
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest.
I knew we'd never occupy it, but I thought it would be due to terrorist attacks, not shoddy construction...
The "Department of Defense" has never won a war. The "War Department" was undefeated.
The lead paragraph in today's front-page Washington Post article on this story indicates that the people in the Green Zone have more problems than the shoddy construction of the embassy.
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
I guess when you use slave labor, like First Kuwaiti did, you can't expect the slaves to do a good job. And it looks like that is precisely the aspect of this which Waxman's committee will concentrate on in investigating this mess: Waxman to Investigate U.S. Embassy Construction Mess.
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
#2. To: Indrid Cold (#0)
Let's get the hell out of Iraq before we fuck something else up.
#3. To: Indrid Cold (#0)
But according to the cable, the 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.
Ron Paul for President
#4. To: kiki, Indrid Cold, lodwick, all (#2)
I am beyond outrage. I am beyond anger.
#5. To: richard9151, kiki, lodwick (#4)
And to be expected, but not to this degree! Which is why I am laughing.
#6. To: Indrid Cold (#0)
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.
#7. To: Indrid Cold (#0)
(Edited)
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