US Baghdad embassy will double in size: envoy

Editor's Note: The U.S. embassy in Iraq is already the largest and most expensive in the world, reportedly costing over $1.5 billion -- Now it seems safe to double that plus some inflation.

The US embassy complex in Baghdad
© AFP/File

AFP

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US Embassy in Baghdad, already the largest in the world, is expected to double its staff after American forces pull out of the country later this year, Washington's envoy said on Friday.

"We'll be doubling our size if all of our plans go through and if we receive the money from Congress in 2011 and then again in 2012," James Jeffrey, the US ambassador in Iraq, told reporters.

He said the staff would increase "from 8,000 plus personnel that we have now to roughly double that by 2012," adding that US forces would make up only a very small part of that number.