US building huge "embassy" in Iraq

Story by Cox's Larry Kaplow on ajc.com: "Construction cranes puncture the capital's skyline as a new $592 million U.S. embassy rises behind the walls of the Green Zone.

When completed next year, the walled, 104-acre complex will be the largest U.S. embassy in the world, with apartments, office buildings, a recreation facility and a beauty parlor. More than 3,500 people will work there, including Americans, Iraqis and foreign contractors.

The buildings are only concrete shells at the moment, but already they carry the symbolic weight of America's presence here: foreign, enormous, expensive and fortified.

Some Iraqis view the new complex as a hopeful sign that the United States will not abandon Iraq.

The more common view is that the construction simply signifies the real power in their country. Over the decades of Saddam Hussein's rule, Iraqis became accustomed to seeing grand palaces and monuments rise in this restricted area of the city."