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DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
The colossus of Baghdad
By Tom Engelhardt
Of the seven wonders of the ancient Mediterranean world, including the Hanging
Gardens of Babylon and the Colossus of Rhodes, four were destroyed by
earthquakes, two by fire. Only the Great Pyramid of Giza remains today.
We no longer know who built those fabled monuments to the grandiosity of kings,
pharaohs and gods; nowadays, at least, it's easier to identify the various
wonders of our world with their architects. Maya Lin, for instance, spun the
moving black-marble
Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, from her remarkable brain for the US
veterans of that war.
Frank Gehry dreamed up his visionary titanium-covered museum in Bilbao, Spain,
for the Guggenheim; and the architectural firm of BDY (Berger Devine Yaeger),
previously responsible for the Sprint Corporation's world headquarters in
Overland Park, Kansas; the Visitation Church in Kansas City, Missouri; and
Harrah's Hotel and Casino in North Kansas City, Missouri, turns out to have
designed the biggest wonder of all - an embassy large enough to embody the Bush
administration's vision of a US-reordered Middle East.
We're talking, of course, about the still-uncompleted US Embassy, the largest
on the planet, being constructed on a 42-hectare stretch of land in the heart
of Baghdad's embattled Green Zone, now regularly under mortar fire. As Patrick
Lenahan, senior architect and project manager at BDY, has put it (according to
the firm's website): "We understand how to involve the client most
effectively as we direct our resources to make our client's vision a reality."
And what a vision it was! What a reality it has turned out to be!
Who can forget the grandiose architecture of pre-Bush-
administration Baghdad: Saddam Hussein's mighty vision of kitsch Orientalism
melting into terror, based on which, in those last years of his rule, he
reconstructed parts of the Iraqi capital? He ensured that what was soon to
become the Green Zone would be dotted with overheated, Disneyesque, Arabian
Nights palaces by the score, filled with every luxury imaginable in a country
whose population was growing increasingly desperate under the weight of United
Nations sanctions.
Who can forget those vast, sculptured hands, the Hands of Victory, supposedly
modeled on Saddam's own, holding 12-story-high giant crossed swords (over piles
of Iranian helmets) on a vast Baghdad parade ground? Meant to commemorate a
triumph over Iran that the despot never actually achieved, they still sit
there, partially dismantled and a monument to folly; while, as US-based
journalist Jane Arraf has written, Saddam's actual hands, "The hands that wrote
the orders for the war against Iran and the destruction of Iraqi villages, the
hands handcuffed behind his back as he went to trial and then was led to his
execution, are moldering underground."
It is worth remembering that when the American commanders whose troops had just
taken Baghdad wanted their victory photo snapped, they memorably seated
themselves, grinning happily, behind a marble table in one of those captured
palaces; that American soldiers and newly arrived officials marveled at the
former tyrant's exotic symbols of power; that they swam in Saddam's pools, fed
rare antelopes from his son Uday's private zoo to its lions (and elsewhere shot
his herd of gazelles and ate them themselves); and, when in need of someplace
to set up a US embassy, the newly arrived occupation officials chose - are you
surprised? - one of Saddam's former dream palaces. They found nothing strange
in the symbolism of this (though it was carefully noted by Baghdadis), even as
they swore they were bringing liberation and democracy to Saddam's benighted
land.
And then, as the Iraqi capital's landscape became ever more dangerous, as an
insurgency gained traction while the US administration's dreams of a redesigned
American Middle East remained as strong as ever, its officials evidently
concluded that even one of Saddam's palaces, roomy enough for a dictator
interested in the control of a single country (or the odd neighboring state),
wasn't faintly big enough, or safe enough, or modern enough for the
representatives of the planet's New Rome.
Hence Missouri's 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 can go to its
website and take a little tour in sketch
form, a blast-resistant spin, through its President George W Bush-inspired
wonder, its particular colossus of the modern world.
Imagine this: At US$592 million, its proudest boast is that, unlike almost any
other US construction project in Iraq, it is coming in on budget and on time.
Of course, with a 30% increase in staffing size since the US Congress approved
the project two years ago, it is now estimated that being "represented" in
Baghdad will cost a staggering $1.2 billion per year. No wonder, with a crew of
perhaps 1,000 officials assigned to it and a supporting staff (from
food-service workers to marine guards and private security contractors) of
several thousand more.
When the BDY-designed embassy opens in September (undoubtedly to the sound of
mortar fire), its facilities will lack the gold-plated faucets installed in
some of Saddam's palaces and villas (and those of his sons), but they won't
lack for the amenities that Americans consider part and parcel of the good
life, even in a "hardship" post.
Take a look, for instance, at the embassy's "pool house", as imagined by BDY.
You will see palm trees dotted around it, the expansive lawns, and those tennis
courts discreetly in the background. For an American official not likely to
leave the constricted, heavily fortified, 6.4-kilometer-square Green Zone
during a year's tour of duty, practicing his or her serve (on the taxpayer's
dollar) is undoubtedly no small thing.
Admittedly, it may be hard to take that refreshing dip or catch a few sets of
tennis in Baghdad's heat if the present order for all US personnel in the Green
Zone to wear flak jackets and helmets at all times remains in effect - or if,
as in the present palace/embassy, the pool (as well as ping-pong tables) is
declared, thanks to increasing mortar and missile attacks, temporarily "off
limits". In that case, more time will probably be spent in the massive, largely
windowless-looking recreation center, one of more than 20 blast-resistant
buildings BDY has planned.
Perhaps this will house the promised embassy cinema. (Pirates of the Middle
East, anyone?) Perhaps hours will be whiled away in the no less
massive-looking, low-slung post exchange (PX) and community center, or in the
promised commissary, the "retail and shopping areas", the restaurants, or even,
so the BDY website assures us, 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
about to staff this post, keep in mind that the PX and commissary might be
slightly understocked. The Washington Post recently reported 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". Recently, there has been a "theater-wide delay in food
deliveries", due to unexplained convoy problems. Even the yogurt supplies have
been running low.
Take a moment to consider this new wonder of the world with its own
self-contained electricity-generation, water-purification and
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
effectively as we direct our resources to make our client's vision a reality."
