OVERSEAS INTEL

$750 Million US Embassy in Baghdad still largest in the world

November 9, 2021 | OVERSEAS INTEL, The Danger Zone

20 years a month ago, Americans woke up to learn that the United States had invaded Iraq. They had been told it would cost $50 billion and that it would end soon.

Forty-two days later the President declared Mission Accomplished, and that the U.S. would be greeted as liberators.

That all didn't work out as planned.

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What did work out was a luxurious compound in the heart of Baghdad on the banks of the Tigris where the thousands of Americans who would remain behind could work, shop, eat, and relax in a palatial, $750 million embassy.

Here's the Chancellery Building — located at the intersection of "Broadway" and "Main Street" within the compound.

Here, a man carries dry cleaning past the blast walls that surround the dining facility.

This is the Annex I building. The embassy compound is larger than Vatican City, and contains a food court and a shopping mall where embassy staff can spend their hazard pay.

A Christmas tree stands in the lobby of the Chancellery building in the compound.

Americans residing in the Embassy are encouraged to wash their hands when returning inside.

There's a six-lane swimming pool where Americans can swim laps.

Here's an embassy employee — one of 1,350 government employees, and thousands of contractors — working out in the fitness center.

Next to the weight room there is a regulation-size basketball court.

Here's a private contractor comment box near scales in a hallway of the facilities building. The Embassy cost seven times as much as the Iraqi Police College.

Here's the palatial dining room.

Embassy employees get to choose from burgers, sushi, "Mexican Fiesta," Thai beef, grilled shrimp salad, sandwiches and more.

Fresh fruit stands stacked next to a palm tree. While the U.S. spared no expense on the facility, the palm is admittedly fake.

Embassy employees can choose from a wide variety of desserts as well.

The Embassy generates its own power, has wells for water, as well as treatment and sewage plants.

There's even an irrigation system, which makes this regulation-size soccer field possible.

The apartment complexes within the compound are stocked with bullet-proof glass all around. Marks covering up shrapnel damage can be seen on some buildings.

Here's the commemorative plaque that hangs outside of the Chancellery wall inside the compound.

CONTRACTOR LIFE: Contractor shares experience at Kandahar

November 4, 2021 | Contractor Life

Andrea Martinez, Associate Technical Professional - Civil, traveled to Kandahar, Afghanistan to work on a KBR project based at a NATO airfield. Below is an account of her time on the project through her own eyes.

As a civil engineer, I have faced many challenging situations in my career but this opportunity offered me one of my biggest challenges to date. On my first day back in the office after the Christmas holidays last year, I was offered the opportunity to work on the KBR project based at NATO's Kandahar Airfield (KAF) in Afghanistan in the role of Building & Civil Engineering Technical Officer.

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Although Kandahar is over 7,000km from my current home in the UK, I had absolutely no hesitation in accepting the proposed role and one month later, found myself boarding the flight ahead of an exciting three week experience.

Carrying my rucksack and a lot of enthusiasm, I was welcomed at Passenger Arrivals – better known as "Taliban Last Stand" – by a smiling Ronald Semsem, KBR's Senior Administrator, who escorted me to the KBR compound to meet the in-theatre management and my new team at KAF.

In view of the location, several security procedures were involved and following KBR's routine for each new visitor, I was given a safety briefing on how to follow the different procedures depending on each possible situation of risk. Only then did I truly appreciate the severity of the dangers I could encounter on the base, however by acknowledging and considering them, I made myself aware of the necessary actions that must be followed in the event of each.

These procedures together with KBR's Zero Harm campaign are actively encouraged by all personnel within the work place and on a daily basis with trainings, safety talks and drills that aim to make accident-free days an achievable outcome.

Once the induction was concluded and I had been introduced to my accommodation, Ronald took me for a tour around the facilities on the base. KAF is one of two international airports in Afghanistan and is one of the largest military bases with an impressive size of 16 square km and more than 15,000 people currently living on the base (previously more than 30,000). KAF could be compared to a small village where contractors and soldiers from all around the world live and work together.

KBR has been at KAF since 2006, working under contract for the UK military which supports NATO. KBR aids the airfield operations in the desert of Kandahar with arduous conditions and temperatures over 50C in the summer days (over 120F) and -12c (10F) in the winter nights - further demonstrating KBR's capability of operating in remote environments. KBR is in charge of the overall maintenance of the military base and supports all the works required such as engineering support services, upkeep of road and grounds, vehicle maintenance, airfield ground lighting, transport and pest control.

My tour finished with a visit to the Design Team where I would meet my new colleagues for the duration of my deployment. These included a Document Controller, a Civils Surveyor who keeps all the base maps up-to-date and available for NATO requests, an Estate Surveyor who undertakes all conditional surveys, a CAD Technician who is responsible for dig permits and underground scanning, and the Mechanical & Electrical Technical Officers. My specific role as the new Building & Civil Engineering Technical Officer consisted of developing a statement of work with engineering technical solutions for work orders requested by the client through KBR's Helpdesk.

Working on the Design Team at Kandahar is not dissimilar to working in the office at Leatherhead – US and British standards are followed for engineering solutions and projects are supported by a friendly team that is always willing to assist and from whom I gained knowledge and experience. KBR reflects its values and commitments for quality delivery of projects with the same level of passion in Afghanistan as it does in the UK.

In regards to life on the base itself, there is a seven day work week and with not many amenities as one would expect in a town of equivalent size, most people tend to invest their spare time in self-improvement activities such as undertaking distance learning or focusing on exercise. In addition to the gym within the KBR compound, there is a free NATO gym with many classes and a good selection of equipment, and a welfare room for KBR employees in addition to the friendly group of people that was always willing to meet up for socializing.

The culture of diversity that KBR promotes in offices and locations around the world extends to Afghanistan where diversity is actively embraced and effectively implemented. As a female on base, I was certainly in the minority but was treated as an equal peer by my colleagues who were always supportive and approachable.

I was very fortunate to be given the opportunity to revisit KAF for a longer period after my initial trip. During my second visit, I had the immense satisfaction of seeing a lot of progress being made on many of the works with which I was originally involved. Overall, my time at KAF was a fantastic professional experience in addition to being an intense personal life experience.

CONTRACTOR LIFE: A Guide to Wintering in the South Pole – Antarctica

November 3, 2021 | Contractor Life

South Pole

The last big plane left the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on Feb. 14. Of the 150 scientists, technicians, and support staff, only 33 men and eight women remained for the winter: six months of darkness, no arriving supplies, average temperatures of -76F. Also: no Wi-Fi or cell phone service. At the South Pole, iPhones become expensive alarm clocks and music players. Sunrise comes on Sept. 21.

Sitting on the ice—as well as buried one mile beneath it—are telescopes and other instruments gathering data to help answer questions about the changing climate here on earth, as well as the origins of the universe. The first direct evidence of cosmic inflation—the idea that the cosmos experienced exponential growth in its first trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second—came from a telescope at the South Pole called BICEP2 (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization.)

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South Pole Telescope: It’s the largest conventional telescope at the South Pole, with the main reflector that’s 10 meters in diameter. The telescope is above ground and accessible. “That means we do everything from grease the gears and change the oil to maintaining our computer network and preliminary data analysis,” says Huang. The telescope is used for cosmic microwave background astronomy, including the study of high energy physics (that would be the Big Bang) and the formation of galaxy clusters.

IceCube Telescope: Most of the telescope is embedded in Antarctic ice 1.5 kilometers to 2.5 km below the surface. It covers one square km on the ice’s surface. The instrument observes neutrinos, the very small subatomic particles with barely any mass that come from the sun, cosmic rays, radioactive decay, and exploding stars. They could help us understand dark matter, which physicists believe makes up 25 percent of the universe.

IceCube Lab: “This sits on the center of the telescope about a kilometer from the station itself,” says Rees. “It holds about 150 computers that collect data from the roughly 5,500 light detectors buried in the ice. [The light is created when a neutrino interacts with the nucleus of an atom in ice.] About 100 of the computers are custom data-acquisition machines that include custom hardware to communicate with the light detectors. The rest are off-the-shelf Dell (DELL) servers.”

Each day the Ice Cube creates a terabyte of data. Ten percent of that is transmitted by satellite to universities and scientific institutions around the world. The rest is stored on tapes and hard drives and transferred physically in the summer.

Diesel generator: “We use a regular generator with AN8 fuel; it’s the fuel aircraft use,” says Finley. “We take the waste heat from the generator by circulating glycol through it to increase the temperature and then use it to heat the rooms and the water we use.” The temperature in the station is kept in the low 60s. When we spoke in late May, the temperature outside was -90F. Everyone is allowed two two-minute showers a week. Finley says they use less than 30 gallons of water per person every day; the average American uses three times that much.

Hydroponic greenhouse: “We operate it on a volunteer basis,” says Finley. “During the winter, it is our only source of “freshies”—that’s what we call fresh fruits and vegetables. When it’s fully operational, we harvest about 30 pounds of vegetables a week.” Among them: cherry tomatoes, lettuce, kale, zucchini, eggplant, and bell peppers. Finley says there are also a few jalapeño plants and a single strawberry plant.

Betamax players: “I think we’ve probably got the highest density of working Betamax (SNE) players and videos down here of anywhere in the world,” says Rees. “We also have a few movie traditions. We watch The Thing after the last flight of the summer. In midwinter we watch The Shining—and at the end, ConAir.”

Internet: “Our internet connection for personal stuff feels just a little faster than a 56k dialup modem,” says Rees. “One of the main satellites providing the connection is GOES-3, which was launched in 1978 as a weather satellite.”

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