With shortage of volunteers, U.S State Department to order diplomats to serve in Iraq

With shortage of volunteers, U.S State Department to order diplomats to serve in Iraq

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WASHINGTON —  In the largest call-up of U.S. diplomats since the Vietnam War, the State Department is planning to order some of its personnel to serve at the American Embassy in Iraq because of a lack of volunteers.

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I wonder if this is the reason why the two way approach in Iraq is failing. How they are going to be able to work a political solution in Iraq if the people that are supposed to be there to make that happen don't want to go.

More importantly I wonder for how long this has been going on.

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I wonder if political disedents will be sent there such as ron paul or anyone against the agenda to be taken out.or a form of punishement for thos ewho dont go with the agenda

reply to post by Bushwacked


This administration already has a bad record when it comes to deal with people that don't serve their purposes, so I'm pretty sure that anyone that they send over to Iraq is going to be in with whatever agenda they trying to pursue.

Well things are heating up over this. The diplomats say it's a potential death sentence as they'll be outside the green zone working without any protection now that Blackwater is being pulled out. Oddly enough, I heard this angle on talk radio this morning - a caller came up with the idea that these guys were all Clinton appointees and drafting them to Iraq is payback for their whining about Blackwater. It got a lot of laughs, but I wonder..?

Iraq Assignments Anger U.S. Diplomats
By MATTHEW LEE,
AP
Posted: 2007-11-01 12:49:12
Filed Under: Iraq News, Politics News

"It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment," Croddy said. "I'm sorry, but basically that's a potential death sentence and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?"

His remarks were met with loud and sustained applause from the approximately 300 diplomats at the meeting.

Thomas responded by saying the comments were "filled with inaccuracies." But he did not elaborate until challenged by the head of the diplomats' union, the American Foreign Service Association, who, like Croddy and others, demanded to know why many learned of the decision from news reports.

Thomas took full responsibility for the late notification. But he objected when the association's president, John Naland, said a recent survey found only 12 percent of the union's membership believed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was "fighting for them."

"That's their right but they're wrong," Thomas said, prompting a testy exchange.

"Sometimes, if it's 88 to 12, maybe the 88 percent are correct," Naland said.

"Eighty-eight percent of the country believed in slavery at one time, was that correct?" shot back Thomas, who is black, in a remark that drew boos from the crowd. "Don't you or anybody else stand there and tell me I don't care about my colleagues. I am insulted," Thomas added.