Free American Way of War by Tom Engelhardt Page A

the benighted land.
    And then, as the Iraqi capital’s landscape became ever more dangerous, as an insurgency gained traction while the administration’s dreams of a redesigned American Middle East remained as strong as ever, its officials evidently concluded that even a palace roomy enough for a dictator wasn’t faintly big enough, or safe enough, or modern enough for the representatives of the planet’s New Rome.
    Hence, BDY. That Midwestern firm’s designers can now be classified as architects to the wildest imperial dreamers and schemers of our time. And the company seems proud of it. You could, in May 2007, go to its website and take a little tour in sketch form, a blast-resistant spin, through its particular colossus of the modern world. Imagine this: At a pricetag of at least $592 million, its proudest boast was that, unlike almost any other American construction project in that country, it was coming in on time and on budget (though, in the end, the cost overruns for the embassy would be humongous). Of course, with a 30 percent increase in staffing size since Congress first approved the project, it is estimated that being “represented” in Baghdad will cost a staggering $1.2 billion per year .
    The BDY-designed embassy may lack the gold-plated faucets installed in some of Hussein’s palaces and villas (and those of his sons),
but it was planned to lack none of the amenities that Americans consider part and parcel of the good life, even in a “hardship” post. Consider, for instance, the embassy’s “pool house.” (There was a lovely sketch of it at the BDY website.) Note the palm trees dotted around it, the expansive lawns, and those tennis courts discretely in the background. For an American official not likely to leave the constricted, heavily fortified, four-mile square Green Zone during a year’s tour of duty, practicing his or her serve (on the taxpayer’s dollar) would undoubtedly be no small thing.
    Admittedly, it became harder to think about taking that refreshing dip or catching a few sets of tennis in Baghdad’s heat once the order for all U.S. personnel in the Green Zone to wear flak jackets and helmets at all times went into effect. Lucky then for the massive, largely window-less-looking Recreation Center, one of more than twenty blast-resistant buildings BDY planned for. Perhaps this will house the promised embassy cinema. Perhaps hours will be wiled away in the no less massive-looking, low-slung Post Exchange/Community Center, or in the promised commissary, the “retail and shopping areas,” the restaurants, or even, so the BDY website assured visitors, the “schools” (though it’s difficult to imagine the State Department allowing children at this particular post).
    And don’t forget the “fire station” (mentioned but not shown by BDY), surely so handy once the first rockets hit. Small warning: If you are among the officials staffing this post, keep in mind that the PX and commissary might be slightly understocked. The Washington Post reported at one point in 2007 that “virtually every bite and sip consumed [in the embassy] is imported from the United States, entering Iraq via Kuwait in huge truck convoys that bring fresh and processed food, including a full range of Baskin-Robbins ice cream flavors, every seven to 10 days.”
    When you look at the plans for the complex, you have to wonder: Can it, in any meaningful sense, be considered an embassy? And if so, an embassy to whom? The Guardian ’s Jonathan Freedland more aptly termed it a “base,” like our other vast, multibillion-dollar permanent bases in Iraq. It is also a headquarters. It is neither town, nor quite city-state, but it could be considered a citadel, with its own anti-missile defenses, inside the breachable citadel of the Green Zone. It may already be
the last piece of ground (excepting those other bases) that the United States, surge or no, can actually claim to fully occupy and control in Iraq—and yet