I think it's a pretty odd story myself.

Like the war on drugs, the war in Iraq enriches many powerful people, so it's doubtful that we will be leaving there. As I previously said, we've just built our largest and most expensive embassy right there in Baghdad. That's not the kind of construction you abandon.

[quote=Dax] .... we've just built our largest and most expensive embassy right there in Baghdad. That's not the kind of construction you abandon. [/quote]

This (though a very odd way of looking at it) says much more than meets the eye. I guess it stands to reason that housing and protecting a record number of CIA agents (in one country) would require something particularly substantial. Perhaps the largest number of helicopter LZ's on one compound, the likes of which the world has never seen. Then there are the 155 self-propelled howitzers manning the whole perimetre of the premises, on their own able to repell a small army.