BAGHDAD: The new $700-million, fortress-like US Embassy in the heart of the Iraqi capital was inaugurated yesterday by Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
Addressing an inauguration ceremony, Crocker said the new embassy was testimony to America’s commitment to a long-term friendship with Iraq, where about 146,000 US troops are deployed.
The ambassador was joined at the ceremony by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who served as the first American ambassador to Iraq after the US-led invasion of this country in 2003.
“From this embassy in the years to come, we look forward to building our partnership and contributing to the future,� Crocker said during the ceremony.
The ceremony was held under very tight security as attacks once again rocked Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq a day after a suicide bomber killed at least 38 people at a Shiite mosque just 6 km north of the site of the new embassy. At the ceremony, US Marines raised the US flag over the world’s largest US Embassy.
The embassy sits on a 104-acre site in the heavily fortified Green Zone and cost more than $700 million to build. Its adobe-colored buildings resemble a corporate campus surrounded by huge walls of reinforced concrete. It has working space for 1,000 people.
“It is from the embassy that you see before you that we will continue the tradition of friendship, cooperation and support begun by the many dedicated Americans who have worked in Iraq since 2003,� Negroponte said at the ceremony, held in the complex’s courtyard.
Talabani, a Kurd, praised President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and topple the regime of Saddam Hussein, who was executed two years ago.
“The building of this site would not be possible without the courageous decision by President Bush to liberate Iraq,� Talabani said. “This building is not only a compound for the embassy but a symbol of the deep friendship between the two peoples of Iraq and America.�
US diplomats and military officials moved into the embassy on Dec. 31 after vacating Saddam’s Republican Palace, which they occupied when they captured Baghdad in April 2003. The palace will now seat the Iraqi government and the office of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who did not attend yesterday’s ceremony because he was traveling in Iran.
For nearly six years, the grandiose and gaudy Republican Palace, with its gold-plated bathroom fixtures and enormous chandeliers, served as both headquarters for occupying forces and the hub for the Green Zone — the walled-off swath of central Baghdad that was formally turned over to the Iraqi government on New Year’s Day.
The handover came on the same day that a security agreement between Iraq and the United States went into effect. It replaced a UN mandate that allowed the US and other foreign troops to operate in Iraq.
Under the new agreement, US troops will no longer conduct unilateral operations and will act only in concert with Iraqi forces. They must also leave major Iraqi cities by June and the entire country by the end of 2011. Another accord mapped out the bilateral relations.
Patrick Quinn I AP