Town Meeting at Foggy Bottom

We didn’t think there was anything left you could tell us about the State Department that would make us cringe and say, “EEEEWWW, yuck.” But there is and we’ve heard it.

The State Department has filled about 200 of the 250 required Foreign Service Officer (FSO) slots in Iraq for postings in Summer 2008. The announcement has been made that others may be filled by involuntary assignment, something that has not happened since the late 1960s.

We didn’t think there was anything left you could tell us about the State Department that would make us cringe and say, “EEEEWWW, yuck.” But there is and we’ve heard it.

The State Department has filled about 200 of the 250 required Foreign Service Officer (FSO) slots in Iraq for postings in Summer 2008. The announcement has been made that others may be filled by involuntary assignment, something that has not happened since the late 1960s.

Yesterday, State held a “town meeting” (in what must be the most rarified town in America) where its personnel vented loud and long about Iraq, some of which was aired on radio. “It’s dangerous; I might get killed.” “Who will raise my children?” “This is unrealistic and unfair.” “I didn’t sign up for this.”

Oh yes, you did. You signed up to serve the foreign policy interests of the Government of the United States. You took an oath “to flag and country” that includes “worldwide availability,” according to Human Resources Director Harry Thomas. It’s nice to do it in Brussels or Bermuda, but our country’s most pressing foreign policy interests are in Iraq and yes, Iraq is dangerous. So are Lebanon, Kenya and Tanzania; it was dangerous – deadly – to be Cleo Noel and George Curtis Moore. But there they were, American diplomats fulfilling their chosen duty to our government when PLO terrorists assassinated them in Sudan in 1973. You are little different from soldiers who volunteer to serve and then serve where they are sent. And Iraq is where the soldiers are – every day, helping, working, fighting and dying in a place they no doubt prefer not to be, but in a place the government needs them.

It cannot be right to send our military, but fail to provide them with diplomatic support. Even American soldiers cannot do everything. They have done an extraordinary job of creating secure space in Iraq. Beyond that, they have turned themselves inside out to teach Iraqis how to govern from the ground up – organizing, mediating, and creating strategies to help Iraqis meet the minimal requirements of consensual government and learn to serve the people. But the Iraqi government needs civilian, diplomatic and organizational help – and that is the job of State Department personnel.

We have been pressing other governments in the Middle East to establish full relations with the government of Iraq. We have been pressing the Europeans and Asians to give Iraq non-military assistance and try to shore up the civilian side. How can we ask other countries’ diplomats to do what our diplomats will not do?

A recent poll conducted by the American Foreign Service Association found that only 12 percent of FSOs believe that Secretary Rice is “fighting for them.” Gee. We thought her job was to represent the President of the United States in diplomatic intercourse.

This leads to the suspicion that, aside from the obvious danger, some State Department personnel may not be fully vested in the success of the mission in Iraq. To the extent that is true, we cite Mr. Thomas: “If someone decides they do not want to go, then we would then consider appropriate actions… We have many options, including dismissal from the Foreign Service.”