The Foreign Service Journal, March 2004

Disincentives for Iraq Service? Thank you to all State Department personnel serving in Iraq in spite of many disincentives. In 1994, tight budgets led to a reduction in hardship and danger pay allowances for almost all posts, while life became increasingly “unpleasant” at these posts, resulting in fewer bid- ders. In contrast, Washington, D.C., locality pay grew and grew, and is now over 14 percent, an added deterrent to bidding on all overseas posts, especial- ly hardship posts. On Jan. 11, Senior Foreign Service personnel assigned overseas were slat- ed to receive what appears to be a 14 percent permanent salary reduction. This may be corrected by press time. ( Editor’s note: It has been corrected. See update in AFSA News. ) Added to the potential financial disincentives noted above are ques- tions about promotions and onward assignments for those who serve in Iraq. Might service in Iraq be viewed “unkindly” by future promotion boards considering the disdain of some (perhaps many) FSOs toward President Bush and the Iraq War? Will those who serve in Iraq be rewarded with choice NEA Bureau assignments like Khartoum or Algiers? Are they silly to hope for onward assignments to Canberra, Berlin, Rome, Brussels or Paris? Employees respond to the incen- tive system of their employer, and at present it is unclear what the State Department is doing to create incen- tives for Iraq service. I understand that even interns are being sent to this war zone: Is this to enable State to claim more “bodies” in country? I encourage Secretary Powell to clarify whether those who serve in Iraq will receive at least equal promo- tion and assignment opportunities as those who chose to avoid service at our most important diplomatic post. Peter Rice FSO, retired Sarasota, Fla. Broadcasting to Iran Thomas Dine mentions Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s impor- tant new focus on broadcasting to Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan (“Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Today and Tomorrow,” January 2004). As such, RFE/RL has a potentially signif- icant role in U.S. public diplomacy toward countries that Dine says “are now on the front line of the U.S.-led war against terrorism.” But while broadcasts to Iraq and Afghanistan persist with the tradition- al RFE/RL fare of news and informa- tion to adult audiences, broadcasts to Iran have taken a different direction. In December 2002 the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees all U.S.-sponsored broadcasting abroad, abruptly terminated RFE/RL’s Persian Service, which had been mandated by Congress in 1998. Its focus on human rights and political development in Iran, and Persian cultural program- ming, modeled on a National Public Radio format, had won many loyal lis- teners among students and leaders seeking change. Though this influen- tial listenership rivaled in size that of the 60-year-old BBC Persian Service, the BBG decided that the nature of the target audience was less important than absolute numbers of listeners, and that the way to build audience numbers was to go after Iran’s huge youth population. The new radio service, Radio Farda, aims to attract Iran’s youths with a computer-generated mix of cur- rent American and Persian pop music, with occasional short features of spe- cial interest to young people. The for- mat gives secondary place to serious news and information. Though Dine reports that news content averages eight hours daily, in reality most of it is in hourly 10-minute segments spread out over 24 hours, with zippy head- lines and swoosh sounds meant to appeal to young people. It is modeled after the Voice of America’s Arabic- language Radio Sawa, perhaps in the mistaken view that Iranian youths are as anti-American as their Arab coun- terparts. They most certainly are not, nor do they lack access to any amount of Western rock music. In any case, the new format has turned away much of the Persian Service’s more mature and influential listeners, who disdain the pop music and truncated reports. The switch to a pop music format reflects the perception, expressed to me by the BBG consultant who dictat- ed the Farda format, that Iranian young people (like many elsewhere) lack sufficient tolerance for serious discussion and information. That sim- ply is not the case. As an Iranian author who frequently visits Iran told NPR last year, “this radio program has a lot of music and does sort of news bites ... [but] has come under some criticism because Iran right now is at a M A R C H 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 7 L ETTERS