The Foreign Service Journal, March 2005

M A R C H 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 17 F O C U S O N I R A Q , T W O Y E A R S L A T E R E XTREME D IPLOMACY : E VALUATING E MBASSY B AGHDAD t was never ordinary with Ed Seitz. It was never routine,” recalled State security spe- cialist Harry Jacobson in his letter to the Washington Times . “It was always some prickly investigation. There were always feathers to be smoothed, and skids to be greased. Buckle your seat belts, everybody. Ed’s working another hot one.” Edward J. Seitz, 41, had 16 years under his belt with State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security when he volunteered to go to Baghdad last July. He’d just finished a four-year tour with a terrorism task force in Detroit. He died on “ I F OREIGN S ERVICE EMPLOYEES WORK HARD IN DANGEROUS PLACES ALL AROUND THE WORLD . B UT NOWHERE ARE THE RISKS — AND THE STAKES — HIGHER THAN IN I RAQ . B Y S HAWN Z ELLER Adam Niklewicz