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The firefighting system in the massive $736 million embassy complex in Baghdad has potential safety problems that top U.S. officials dismissed in their rush to declare construction largely completed by the end of last year, according to internal State Department documents, e-mails and interviews.

Some officials assert that in the push to complete the long-delayed project, potentially life-threatening problems have been left untouched. “This is serious enough to get someone killed,” said a State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation. “The fire systems are the tip of the iceberg. That is the most visible. But no one has ever inspected the electrical system, the power plant” and other parts of the embassy complex, which will house more than 1,000 people and is vulnerable to mortar attacks.

The finger-pointing over fire safety is a microcosm of the suspicion that hangs over the troubled project, which is built on acreage almost four times the size of the Pentagon. Originally expected to be completed by July 1, 2007, at a cost of $592 million, the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world has been plagued by poor planning, shoddy workmanship and design changes that have added to the cost. The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation of the contract and related subcontracts, sources said.

Patrick F. Kennedy, the undersecretary of state for management, said he was aware of the fire-safety concerns. He said that although the project manager determined last month that the facility is substantially complete, it will not be considered finished until Kennedy signs the certificate of occupancy.

Just days before he resigned from the State Department, retired Maj. Gen. Charles E. Williams, the head of State’s Overseas Building Operations, initialed a key document on Dec. 12 certifying that the water system was working properly.

The Justice Department probe is said to focus on James L. Golden, a contract employee who oversaw the project, and Mary M. French, the project coordinator based in Baghdad, according to sources and congressional testimony. Both Golden and French were viewed by many at State as resistant to questions, and both have left the project in recent weeks. Officials in Washington and Baghdad said their departures have greatly improved the atmosphere for the final inspections.

As early as October 2006, State Department fire inspectors raised concerns about the embassy’s alarm and sprinkler systems. Several sources said the inspectors were denied permission to reinspect the systems after Golden and French assured them that the problems had been fixed.

Then, in September 2007, the pipes burst during a pressure test, and the inspectors discovered that many of the problems they had identified had been ignored. The inspectors documented hundreds of violations of the contract specifications and of fire codes and regulations, according to portions of the report made public by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in October.

Kennedy this week praised State’s fire-safety experts as “pros, former fire marshals, who had identified problems out there so that they could be corrected.”

Nothing new here. Again, there is no oversight because the US saves money by skimping on the few underpaid inspectors they have. Outsourcing has proven very costly for these wars, the actual amount is anyones guess. What is publicised is only a sneak peek at the real numbers. Truth in advertising has become a memory with almost everything this administration has sold to the American public. Are you old enough to remember a more deceptive administration? Todays Presidential Candidates are promising transparency for their described administrations. America’s next president will have a lot of tearing down, rebuilding of departments and re-designing how they do business. Little invisible empires have existed inside the US Government since it began … today, these invisible empires run the entire country. The newly elected leader of this band of empires will have to be very strong and stay focused to restructure them. The Presidential Candidate field is narrowing, they all espouse returning the government to the people; which candidate do you trust? Washington is not transparent by nature. Back room deals are status quo. This will take not just a president, but a devoted and trusted staff of honest Americans.

Posted by bosskitty January 13th, 2008 | Category: Baghdad, Baghdad Embassy, Contractors, Corporate corruption, Fire, Justice Department, Outsource, Oversight, US State Department, War Contractors, War Cost, candidates, cover up, profiteers | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL