The Embassy of the United States of America in Baghdad is the diplomatic mission of United States of America in the Republic of Iraq. At 104 acres (42 ha), it is the largest and most expensive embassy in the world, and is nearly as large as Vatican City.
The embassy is a permanent structure which has provided a new base for the 5,500 Americans currently living and working in Baghdad. During construction, the US government kept many aspects of the project under wraps, with many details released only in a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report.[8] Apart from the 1,000 regular employees, up to 3,000 additional staff members have been hired, including security personnel.
With construction beginning in mid-2005, the original target completion date was September 2007. "A week after submitting his FY2006 budget to Congress, the President sent Congress an FY2005 emergency supplemental funding request. Included in the supplemental is more than $1.3 billion for the embassy in Iraq ..." An emergency supplemental appropriation (H.R. 1268/P.L. 109-13), which included $592 million for embassy construction, was signed into law on May 11, 2005. According to the Department of State, this funding was all that was needed for construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.[9] However, Walter Pincus of the Washington Post found that the new embassy had cost more than $700 million by 2012,[10] and Business Insider reported in 2013 that the cost of the embassy had surpassed $750 million.[11] The Obama administration requested more than $100 million for a "massive" upgrade to the embassy compound in 2012.[12]