US's $1bn Islamabad home is its castle: Atimes

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - The ambitious US$1 billion plan of the United States to expand its presence in Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad underscores Washington's resolve to consolidate its presence in the region, particularly in pursuit of the endgame in the "war on terror".

This marks the beginning of direct American handling of "war and peace" diplomacy in the region, following the forging of a seamless relationship between the Pakistani military establishment and the US military. (See Pakistan-US plan falls into place Asia Times Online, July 24, 2009.)

Standing in the way are Pakistan's restive tribal areas and the seemingly never-ending - and escalating - Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan's Pashtun provinces.

According to reports, the US will spend $405 million on the reconstruction and refurbishment of its main embassy building in the diplomatic enclave of the capital; $111 million for a new complex to accommodate 330 personnel; and $197 million to construct about 250 housing units.

For this purpose, the US Embassy has acquired about 7.2 hectares of land at what is widely considered a mark-down price of 1 billion rupees (US$12 million), courtesy of the state-run Capital Development Authority. A Turkish firm has already built a 153-room compound for the embassy.

The fortress-like embassy will eventually accommodate close to 1,000 additional personnel being sent to Islamabad as part of the US administration's decision to significantly raise its profile in the country. The new staffers will augment the current 750-strong American contingent already based in Pakistan; this against a sanctioned strength of 350.

"What appears to be more alarming is that this staff surge will include 350 [US] marines. Additionally, the Americans are pressuring Islamabad to allow the import of hundreds of Dyncorp armored personnel carriers," reported Pakistan’s largest English-language daily Dawn.

A spokesman for the US Embassy in Islamabad, Richard W Snelsire, told Asia Times Online that the US was "redoing" the embassy compound as it was 40 years old. He said this was also largely because US aid to Pakistan had tripled to US$1.5 billion a year and therefore additional staff were needed. Snelsire dismissed the report of armored vehicles being used at the embassy and also said the notion of 350 marines being stationed there was "fictitious".

The point can't be denied, though, that the embassy is undergoing massive expansion, and one cannot easily assume all of the new staff will be pencil-pushers.

Indeed, since the last few months of 2008, the Americans have quietly been working on extending their physical footprint in the country.

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