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WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States has taken ownership of the mammoth new, heavily fortified embassy in Baghdad after months of delay, the State Department said Monday.
The government had held off on taking legal possession of the $736 million complex until construction problems and delays were resolved. An order signed Monday covers the main embassy building but not additional office space now set aside for the top U.S. ground commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.
The "certificate of occupancy" means the U.S. government can now move into 27 buildings inside the heavily protected compound inside the Green Zone, where a recent spate of insurgent attacks has killed at least two U.S. soldiers and two American civilians.
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