$10B in govt contracts for constructing govt buildings in Afghanistan
The Washington Times reports,
The United States is spending $92 million to build Afghanistan a new “Pentagon,” a massive five-story military headquarters with domed roofs and a high-tech basement command center that will link Afghan generals with their troops fighting the Taliban across the country. . . .
The military headquarters building is one of the most prominent public symbols of the United States’ financial commitment to Afghanistan. Even at this late stage in the war, with American troops beginning their withdrawal, the U.S. government is working its way through a $10 billion menu of construction projects aimed at bolstering Afghanistan’s security forces. Of the 1,150 buildings planned, more than 600 have been completed, at a cost of $4 billion.
In addition to the Defense Ministry headquarters, the United States is building a $54 million Kabul headquarters for the Interior Ministry, which oversees the Afghan police, as well as a $102 million base for the Afghan military’s 201st Corps in the east.
Something similar is true in Iraq. The New American writes,
A pre-solicitation notice published on June 14 put the construction cost of a planned upgrade of the vast U.S. embassy in Baghdad at $60 to $80 million, wrote Pincus, who reported the State Department is planning to spend ”up to $115 million” on the project, which is expected to take two years to complete. American diplomats and staff moved into the new $700 million embassy, set on 104 acres, just 3 1/2 years ago. Upgrades to the facility, said to be the world’s largest embassy, will include a central utility power plant, an underground fuel storage facility holding a 21-day supply, and improvements to a compound-wide fire and water distribution, the domestic water system, the sanitary sewer system, the storm water system and the telecommunications system.
The United State has already spent more than $100 million on a new Police College facility in Iraq that includes living quarters, a dining facility, office building, gymnasium, and helicopter landing site, Pincus reported. The facility is to be turned over to the Iraqis at the end of this year. A news release from the embassy heralded the June 17 grand opening of the $15 million Al-Nahrain Center for Strategic Studies, “with funding from the U.S. embassy.” Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki described the facility as “an important step in the process of state building,” but did not mention the U.s. funding, according to the National Iraqi News Agency.