BAGHDAD — The U.S. flag was raised Monday over the mammoth new American Embassy in Iraq, symbolizing a new era of restored Iraqi sovereignty and reduced U.S. power, despite the fact that it's the biggest American mission on Earth.
Some have likened the pink-hued complex along the Tigris River to a prison, but Iraqi President Jalal Talabani called it a symbol of a close and growing relationship between Washington and Baghdad.
"This edifice that you constructed is not an edifice of just an embassy but it is of the deep friendship between the American and Iraqi peoples," Talabani said at the dedication ceremony as he stood alongside U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
"It is therefore our big hope that the embassy will play the desired role . . . in emphasizing, developing, improving and expanding the Iraqi-American relations at all levels: political, economic, energy, military, cultural, technological and others," Talabani said.