Construction cranes loom above the site of the new being built in Baghdad. The embassy will sit on 104 acres, six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York and two-thirds the acreage of Washington’s National Mall.

The Lang Report declares this monstrosity and farcical testament to George Bush’s attempt to force American democracy down the throats of the Iraqi citizenry, this months "Golden Fleece Award," for the wasting of American tax dollars.

The new U.S. Embassy, cloaked in secrecy, is a fortress-like compound about the size of Vatican City and the largest of its kind in the world. It has its own defense force, self-contained power and water with an estimated price tag of over $1 billion.

When asked for information about the project, Roberta Rossi, a spokeswoman at the current embassy, whispered “We can’t talk about it. Security reasons,”. Baghdadis who for months have openly watched the “city within a city” being built would be surprised to know that to the outside world the location was being kept secret.

WHAT A WASTE - WATCH THIS:

The embassy complex resides in the “Green Zone” just east of a former palace of Saddam Hussein and consists of 21 buildings on 104 acres.

This huge American contingent of 5,500 Americans and Iraqis working at the embassy, almost half of which are listed as security, are far more numerous than at any other U.S. mission worldwide and whose size has drawn a considerable amount of criticism.

A European-based research group, in one of its periodic reports on Iraq, stated, “The presence of a massive U.S. embassy — by far the largest in the world — co-located in the Green Zone with the Iraqi government is seen by Iraqis as an indication of who actually exercises power in their country,”

Original cost estimates ranged over $1 billion, but Congress appropriated only $592 million in the emergency Iraq budget adopted last year. Most has gone to a Kuwait builder, First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting, with the rest awarded to six (secret) contractors working on the project’s “classified” portion — the actual embassy offices. It will have its own water wells, electricity plant and wastewater-treatment facility, systems to allow 100 percent independence from city utilities.

OH…let’s not forget about the important stuff for any U.S. Embassy, like the swimming pool, gym, commissary, food court and American Club, all housed in a recreation building.