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Title: Even kitchens are fire hazard at new U.S. Embassy in Iraq
Source:
McClatchy Newspapers
URL Source: [None]
Published: Feb 29, 2008
Author: Warren P. Strobel
Post Date: 2008-02-29 23:08:45 by kiki
Keywords: None
Views: 103
Comments: 6
WASHINGTON — None of the 26 buildings in the new $740 million U.S. Embassy complex in Baghdad is ready to be occupied. Fire alarms intended to safeguard more than 1,000 U.S. government employees aren't working. Kitchens in some of the buildings are fire hazards. A senior State Department official in December certified that embassy construction was "substantially complete," but department inspectors found "major deficiencies" at the unoccupied embassy, according to their inspection report, which Rep. Henry Waxman , D-Calif., released Friday. McClatchy reported earlier this week that the new chief of the State Department's embassy-building arm, Richard Shinnick , has voided the Dec. 16 certification— made under his predecessor, retired Army Gen. Charles Williams — that the embassy is nearly ready to be occupied. In a blistering letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice , Waxman, who chairs the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee, accused the State Department of withholding documents about the troubled project. "It appears that the State Department is concealing from Congress basic information about the status of the embassy project and the activities of officials and contractors involved. This continued intransigence is inappropriate," wrote Waxman, who threatened to haul Rice's deputy before his panel. The new embassy, a 104-acre complex in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, which has been the target of sporadic mortar and rocket attacks, has become a symbol of wartime mismanagement. It's months behind schedule and the subject of two criminal probes. The documents Waxman released Friday cited a number of specific problems: — Fire alarms in three of six apartment buildings that will house U.S. diplomats didn't operate properly during tests. — There are problems with a diesel engine fire pump that sends water to fire hydrants and sprinklers. — The fire alarm network, which alerts firefighters and security personnel to a fire, doesn't operate properly. State Department officials said the problems with the embassy's fire-safety systems were being addressed. The building won't be accepted from the contractor, First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting Co. , until it's up to specifications, they said. "We certainly have no intention of taking occupancy or establishing occupancy in a facility that doesn't fully meet all our standards," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said. As to Waxman's document request, Casey said, "I am sure that we will prepare an appropriate response to his questions." Waxman complained that he's been requesting documents about the bidding-selection process and embassy construction since July and hasn't received them, despite personal assurances from Rice. He didn't say how he received the fire inspectors' report. He demanded that Rice provide the documents, some of which were subpoenaed in early February, by March 7 . Otherwise, he said, "I intend to initiate steps to require the deputy secretary of state to appear in person" at a mid-March committee hearing. The Feb. 13 fire safety inspectors' report said the complex was far from ready to house legions of diplomats and military personnel. Dozens of repairs are being done, and new problems still crop up. "There still remain deficiencies, both critical and non-critical, in most of the buildings," the inspectors wrote. Even sending a team to commission the building is premature, they said, until fire safety systems are "100 percent complete, 100 percent tested, 100 percent functional." Waxman also disclosed that because the embassy was prematurely declared ready, First Kuwaiti is being paid another $4.5 million under a new contract to maintain it.
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#1. To: kiki (#0)
Rice and beans are to be the latest food craze in the US.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" that's healthy! low fat and lots of fiber. hey, are you in figi or australia or where? I've had pneumonia not once, not twice, but three times since december and haven't been keeping up. I'm feeling barely alive. I hope your trip was, or is, great! did your dad tell you any secrets we should all know?
Was in fiji thirty hours ago.Or so. The flights are just brutal. I caught a throat infection on the plane from fiji too LAX , so now I am useless in Colorado Springs. Spent the day doing laundry (much needed for a month washing out of hotel taps)and sleeping trying to get in sych with rocky mtn time. And dealing with the biz I left behind. Thank for my fine wife who took care of all the crap that happened in our biz, even in the slowest of months for us. My thought is doing the international traveler thing ALONE is flawed from the get go. I had so many times when if I had Susan along with me (and she is a experienced third world traveller), so so so many things would have been easier and sosososo many things would have been sosososso much more enjoyabler. Taking the chicken buses to the villages in Fiji was fun but uncomfortable, so many time I was looking for my wife's smileing eyes to be there, saying Yeh its hell but it is an advenure, and maybe we'll find a bed in Singatoka in a hour. I felt like a stranger all the time - every cab driver wanted to know where my wife was. Every cab driver in Fiji anted to know how many kids I had and waht were their age, and shared with me their childrens history.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" that's cool Tom. I've been married for 26 years, and we've learned by doing that there are things we do better apart, and things we do better together. that's the great thing about being together a long time. I take several trips a year, alone or with friends, without my husband, that just make so much more sense that way and are more fun for me, and that he wouldn't enjoy anyway. other activities are better done together. so next time you know. having been a spouse and a parent for so long, it seems a little silly that I get a bit of a thrill when I get to travel single, but there it is, it's real. I get a charge out of having a drink in an airport bar, all by myself. then I come home, and I'm happy to be there too :)
I thought just the plumbing was bad.
'He will make Cheney look like Gandhi.' The Bush Regime hauled in thousands of foreign workers for this project, even though unemployment in Iraq has been sky high. Then they did a substandard job. What a surprise.
'He will make Cheney look like Gandhi.'
#2. To: tom007 (#1)
Rice and beans are to be the latest food craze in the US.
#3. To: kiki (#2)
hey, are you in figi or australia or where? I've had pneumonia not once, not twice, but three times since december and haven't been keeping up. I'm feeling barely alive. I hope your trip was, or is, great! did your dad tell you any secrets we should all know?
#4. To: tom007 (#3)
#5. To: kiki (#0)
Fire alarms intended to safeguard more than 1,000 U.S. government employees aren't working. Kitchens in some of the buildings are fire hazards.
U.S. conservative pundit Pat Buchanan, imagining presidential hopeful John McCain in the White House.
#6. To: kiki (#0)
U.S. conservative pundit Pat Buchanan, imagining presidential hopeful John McCain in the White House.
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