White Elephant

The new U.S. embassy in Baghdad, is destined, at $592 million, to become the biggest and most expensive U.S. embassy on earth when it opens in September. It will cover 104 acres of land, about the size of the Vatican. It will include 27 separate buildings and house about 615 people behind bomb-proof walls. Most of the embassy staff will live in simple one-bedroom apartments.

The U.S. ambassador, however, will enjoy a little more elbow room in a high-security home on the compound reported to fill 16,000 square feet. His or her deputy will have to make do with a more modest 9,500 sq ft. They will have a pool, gym and communal living areas, and the embassy will have its own power and water supplies.

But commentators and Iraq experts believe the project was flawed from its inception, and have raised concerns it will become an enormous, heavily targeted white elephant that will be an even greater liability if and when the Americans scale back their presence in Iraq. Edward Peck, a former American diplomat in Iraq, told reporters, "What kind of embassy is it when everybody lives inside and it's blast-proof, and people are running around with helmets and crouching behind sandbags?"

There have been suggestions that the compound will not be large enough to house hundreds of diplomats and military personnel likely to remain in Iraq for some time. Scores of US officials are currently housed in trailers which are vulnerable to bombs landing on their roofs.

The embassy is one of the few major projects the Bush administration has undertaken in Iraq that is on schedule and within budget.