Report: Embassy cost could rise $144 million

Above: The new embassy seen in the distance from a helicopter. Located across 21 buildings on 104 acres on the banks of the Tigris in Baghdad, the new U.S. Embassy will have its own water wells, electricity and wastewaster-treatment. There will be huge residences for the Ambassador (16,000 sf) and the Ambassador's deputy (9,500 sf), six apartments for senior officials, and two huge office blocks for 8,000 staff. Recreation includes the biggest swimming pool in Iraq, a state-of-the-art gymnasium, a cinema, restaurants, tennis courts and an 'American Club' for evening functions. Budgeted at more than one-half billion dollars, the actual construction costs will probably never be known.

The massive U.S. embassy under construction in Baghdad could cost $144 million more than projected and will open months behind schedule because of poor planning, shoddy workmanship, internal disputes and last-minute changes sought by State Department officials, according to U.S. officials and a department document provided to Congress.

The embassy, which will be the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world, was budgeted at $592 million. The core project was supposed to have been completed by last month, but the timetable has slipped so much that the State Department has sought and received permission from the Iraqi government to allow about 2,000 non-Iraqi construction employees to stay in the country until March...

Department officials contend that some of the delays are a result of poor workmanship by the project's primary contractor, First Kuwaiti General Trade and Contracting, a Middle Eastern firm. Apparent building and safety blunders in a facility to house embassy security guards have made it unsafe to open. Originally due to open last December, the facility is still not operational because of formaldehyde fumes in 252 prefabricated residential trailers.

First Kuwaiti denies that the formaldehyde levels are unacceptable, but Baghdad-based U.S. officials have tested the trailers and demanded that they be brought up to an acceptable standard, according to an exchange of e-mails in recent weeks between the company and State Department officials obtained by The Washington Post...

While embassy officials have blamed First Kuwaiti for many of the problems and have chafed at restrictions on access to the construction site, another arm of the State Department, Overseas Building Operations, is backing First Kuwaiti. A Sept. 18 internal report on problems with the guard facility's electrical system, prepared for Charles E. Williams, the director of building operations, suggested that KBR, the former Halliburton subsidiary hired to run the facility, was responsible for overloading the system. The facility is "electrically safe and functional," the report said.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

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