November 01, 2007

Foreign Service Revolt Is Latest Headache For State

The bad news keeps mounting for the State Department this week. In addition to the furor over immunity deals granted to Blackwater USA guards in an internal agency investigation, diplomats are now staging a revolt over the department's threats of dismissal for officers who refuse to work at the massive U.S. Embassy in Iraq.

Foreign Service Director General Harry Thomas sent e-mails to diplomats around the world last week informing them that State would need to fill nearly 50 slots at the embassy next summer and that if the agency did not receive enough volunteers for the "directed assignments," it would have to begin forcing officers to serve there or face dismissal.

Tensions ran high at a department town hall meeting addressing the issue yesterday. With several hundred Foreign Service officers attending, senior officials heard many concerns about the forced Iraq postings and the agency's overall handling of its personnel in the volatile region. Diplomats complained of inadequate training and a lack of care for those who returned from service scarred by the experience of working in a war zone. They also said the embassy in Baghdad is too large and that dangerous conditions in the Green Zone mean employees must travel in heavily guarded convoys, which hinders their diplomatic efforts.

According to the Washington Post, the meeting came to an abrupt end when a man who claimed to be a 46-year veteran of the Foreign Service called Iraq "a potential death sentence" for State employees.

"'Any other embassy in the world would be closed by now,' he said to sustained applause," the Post reports. Thomas responded, "OK, thanks for your comment," and closed the meeting.

The Post has audio excerpts from the town hall meeting.

The heated debate comes at a time when U.S. diplomatic efforts in Iraq and the entire Mideast region are already on shaky ground. The Blackwater incident, in which employees of the private security contractor are accused of shooting and killing 17 Iraqi civilians while guarding a diplomatic convoy, has greatly angered the Iraqi government. Parliament is on the verge of removing immunity for such contractors and bringing them under the rule of Iraqi law.

In its report on yesterday's meeting, the New York Times notes that State's new "directed assignments" order "underscores a fundamental problem at the department: Many of the employees who have signed up for Iraq have tended to be younger entry-level types, not experienced diplomats."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who for much of her tenure at State has avoided the conflicts with Congress and public animosity that other prominent members of Bush's Cabinet have endured, has begun to draw fire in recent weeks for her handling of the Blackwater investigation and her alleged obstruction of other inquiries.

Rice is already taking steps to defuse the internal department tensions over the new Iraq policy. She was not present at the meeting yesterday, but AP reports that Rice was planning "to send a cable to all U.S. embassies and missions abroad" today "explaining the rationale behind the decision to begin the largest diplomatic call-up since Vietnam."

Posted at 3:32 PM
Posted to: Bush Administration, Condoleezza Rice, Iraq, Middle East
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