The prospects for a permanent US military presence in the former Republic of Iraq have lately gotten much more ominous, judging from three crucial events in late May. First, on May 24, the Democratically controlled Congress backed down from its recent efforts to tie the latest funding bill for the US occupation of Iraq (this time for $94.5 billion) to a timeline for withdrawal of US troops from the former nation-state. George W. Bush signed the bill the next day, once again giving moral and material aid and comfort to war profiteers at home and abroad.

The following week, the Bush administration, having secured a green light for an open-ended occupation of Iraq, commenced to publicly admit that they're aiming for a long-term US presence in that former country. On May 29, White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters that Bush envisions a long-term troop presence in Iraq similar to that in South Korea (where 28,000 US troops have served as a deterrent to North Korean aggression since the end of the Korean War in 1953). Then, on May 31, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, a senior US commander in Iraq, echoed Bush's statement, saying that they also favor an open-ended US troop presence in Iraq along the lines of the "South Korea model."

Finally, and also on May 31, the massive new US embassy under construction in Baghdad made the news when details of the plans for the embassy briefly turned up online, causing a panic in the US State Department, who declared their public appearance to be a security breach. Computer-generated images of the nearly completed compound were posted on the Web site of Berger Devine Yaeger (BDY), the Kansas City, Mo.-based architectural firm that was contracted to design the facility. The images were removed by BDY shortly after the company was contacted by the State Department.

The posting of the embassy plans revealed much about the massive scope of the project--as well as the motivations behind the US invasion of Iraq and the current "surge" of troops concentrated in Baghdad. The new embassy will be the largest on the planet, occupying a 104-acre stretch of land in the heart of Baghdad's four-mile-square Green Zone. At $592 million, unlike any other American construction project in Iraq (such as certain long-overdue projects to return infrastructure, electricity, and safe drinking water to much of Iraq), the embassy is coming in on budget and on time. When completed, it will reportedly employ a crew of nearly 1,000 officials and a supporting staff (including food service workers and private security contractors, among others) of several thousand more. The facility will include over 20 blast-resistant buildings--the better to withstand mortar attacks from outside the Green Zone--as well as its own self-contained electricity-generation, water-purification, and sewage systems. (Also on the bill are "retail and shopping areas," obviously important elements in the modernization of Mesopotamia.) On top of the initial $592 million construction costs (your tax dollars at work!), costs for the long-term operation and staffing of the embassy have been conservatively estimated at $1.2 billion per year.

What's most interesting right now about the new embassy--especially in light of certain recent public statements by George W. Bush--is its projected opening date: currently, September 2007. That's the same month that the "war" funding Congress gave to Bush on May 24 is due to run out. It's also the same month that Bush is expecting an assessment from Gen. David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, regarding the "success" of the current troop "surge." It will be interesting to see, come September, to what degree such "success" will be predicated upon the completion of the new US embassy in Iraq. It will also be interesting to see, in the meantime, how much--or how little--the alleged opposition party that currently controls Congress will publicly question the embassy project. To say nothing of the several US military bases in Iraq that have been predicted, in these pages and elsewhere, to be permanent.

Some Congressional leaders claimed after the May 24 vote that they intend to resume their recent efforts to end the US occupation of Iraq when the "war" funding debate begins again in September. That's a good three months for the grass roots to organize a serious clamor--especially in the offices of those Democrats who voted for the latest deadline-free funding bill (such as--surprise!--Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell). Meantime, here's one more recent Bush quote to put the preceding in proper imperial perspective. At a May 24 news conference, discussing the possibility that the current Iraqi "government" will one day officially ask the US military to leave Iraq, permanently and completely, the following Bushian slip sauntered forth from the infamous lips of Petroleum Bonaparte:

"We work closely with [the Iraqis] to make sure that the realities are such that they wouldn't make that request."

In other words, to paraphrase another infamous Bushian slip: the Iraqis never expected us to leave once we invaded, and neither do we.