[Strategic Culture Foundation] Why is America’s Baghdad Embassy the world’s largest embassy ‐ and the largest by far?"It's as if the US Embassy is there not only to protect American interests, but to manage the entire world from the heart of the capital, Baghdad."
‐ Iraqi Sheikh Qassim Al Ta’ee, as quoted on 27 December 2011 in Al Iraq News and translated by Ibrahim Zaidan from the original Arabic by Nicholas Dagher
Zaidan’s article went on to say:
The world's largest embassy is situated in the Green Zone and fortified by three walls, another barrier of concrete slabs, followed by barbed wire fences and a wall of sandbags. It covers an area of 104 acres, six times larger than UN headquarters in New York and ten times larger than the new embassy Washington is building in Beijing ‐ which is just 10 acres.
[Editor's' Note: The ten-acre US Embassy in Beijing is the second largest overseas construction project in the history of the Department of State ‐ and the 104-acre US Embassy in Iraq is the largest.]
So, America's largest diplomatic mission is surrounded by high concrete walls, is painted in black, brown and grey and is completely isolated from its environment. ... The United States announced several months ago that between diplomats and employees, its embassy would include 16,000 people after the pullout of US forces.
On January 1st, Will Sillitoe headlined at the Helsinki Times, "What does the US embassy in Baghdad export to Finland and dozens of other countries?" and he reported that:
More than a million kilograms of cargo were shipped from Baghdad to different parts of the world, reveals US embassies procurement documents.
Mysterious cargo shipments from the US Embassy in Baghdad to other American embassies and consulates around the world have been revealed on a Wikileaks' database. Procurement orders of US embassies are public documents, but Wikileaks put them in a searchable database making it easier to analyse.