The Foreign Service Journal, March 2004

days. Soon after Hamid departed, I had second thoughts. Had I set up an ambush? To my relief, two days later 150 employees, not an ambush, were milling around as I arrived. We found in that group the nucleus of a small steering group to run the min- istry. Gaining control of Iraq’s 69 diplo- matic posts abroad was my highest priority. High-ranking Ba’thists and Iraqi intelligence operatives sta- tioned abroad still controlled signifi- cant resources. I worked with the steering group on a simple message calling on heads of diplomatic missions to cease representing Iraq, to secure all files, passports and money, and to return to Baghdad within 30 days. The biggest challenge was the almost complete lack of com- munications equipment. After a young employee typed the message in Arabic on his laptop, we rescued some usable official stationery from the rubble, and printed the message at Baghdad’s version of Kinko’s. We brought the message, typed and signed by the senior Iraqi in the min- istry, back to the palace, which had the only working scan- ner in Iraq. Then we e-mailed the scanned message to the Iraqi embassies in Amman and Damascus who, in turn, forwarded it to other Iraqi posts around the world. Finally, we set up a Hotmail e-mail account for the Foreign Ministry that became the main channel for communicating with Iraqi posts abroad. Three-quarters of the Iraqi ambassadors elected to return, a pleasant surprise. One day in early June, I interviewed in rapid succes- sion the returning Iraqi ambas- sadors from Tripoli, Tehran and Damascus. All were eager to coop- erate even though they knew they would not keep their jobs. The oth- ers, with one or two exceptions, qui- etly disappeared. Throughout this adventure I was blessed with superb assistance from retired FSO Allen Kepchar, Lt. Col. Alex Sonski, Amb. Radu Onofrei fromRomania and Jacqueline- Lawson Smith from the British Foreign Office. But the real credit for our success must go to our Iraqi colleagues, individuals of great skill and character. One in particular, Akila al-Hashemi, is engraved forever in my memory. Akila accepted an appointment as the first woman on the Ministry Steering Group in early May. In June, she ably led an Iraqi delegation to a U.N. donors meeting in New York. In July, she was one of three women appointed to the Iraqi Governing Council. In September, assassins took her life. Having known her and many Iraqis like her during my brief stay in Baghdad, I am confident that Iraq can and will emerge from the nightmare of Saddam’s rule. —David J. Dunford Amb. Dunford is a retired FSO in Tucson, Ariz. Saddam’s Arrest: Reactions from Najaf Over the past few months there have been few events of greater significance on the international political scene than the capture of Saddam Hussein. Rather than discussing where I was or what I was doing when the arrest took place, however, I prefer to discuss two experi- ences that shaped my opinion regarding the impact of this event on the people of Najaf, Iraq. F O C U S 56 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 4 The immediate question both in Tehran in 1979 and Baghdad in 2003 was: “Now that the tyrant is gone, what will become of us?” Iraqis in Najaf gather to read about Saddam Hussein’s capture. George Farag