But they were such nice plans

The State Department, embarrassed by its architects' posting of plans for the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, asks that they be removed from the architects' Web site.

Published June 1, 2007 2:17PM (EDT)

The plans for the proposed U.S. Embassy in Iraq were supposed to be shrouded in secrecy -- and given the continued instability in that country, it's not hard to see why.

So it's probably more than a little embarrassing for the State Department that it has had to contact the architects for the project, Berger Devine Yaeger, and ask them to remove detailed renderings of the plans for the embassy from their Web site.

Wednesday, Salon reprinted an essay by Tomdispatch.com's Tom Engelhardt about the embassy; accompanying that essay are two of the images once up on BDY's Web site, which can still be seen.

The embassy itself will be no small undertaking; scheduled to be completed this fall, it will cost almost $600 million and take up more than 100 acres, which will include residences for an ambassador and a deputy ambassador, restaurants, a movie theater, basketball and volleyball courts, and a swimming pool, not to mention extraordinary security measures.


By Alex Koppelman

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.

MORE FROM Alex Koppelman


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