Anyone have a lighter?

McClatchy: 'Even sprinkler systems fail at U.S. embassy in Baghdad'

Now would be the best time, before the building is put into "service" -- a giant, moated base full of spooks, inaccessible to Iraqis, performing none of the services of traditional embassies, requiring thousands of troops (or mercs) to defend.

Update: 7:40 pm, 9 Oct - Maybe Sec. Rice will end up wanting to torch it herself:

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Tuesday he was unable to provide a revised date for the completion of the project [originally September 30]. "We don't have an answer," he told reporters, adding that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was pursuing the matter. "I can't tell you when it will open up."

But McCormack insisted the repairs would be made and that the contractor in question, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Co., would be required to finish the embassy for the $592 million it agreed to build it for. At the same time, he noted that changes ordered to the original design would cost an additional $144 million. "We're not going to buy ourself a turkey here," he said. "We're going to make sure that we get what we paid for."

Update: 5:45 pm,, 30 Oct - David Phinney has been reporting for a long while on the almost unbelievable levels of corruption involved in the embassy scam: go read this round-up, and check in at his site regularly for more.