The Foreign Service Journal, March 2005

December, there were between 75 and 100 American USAID employ- ees in Iraq, and all the priority slots had been filled. The total USAID mission in the country numbers about 200, Natsios said then, including Iraqi employees. Other USAID sources say that the num- ber is somewhat smaller. But some Foreign Service offi- cers interviewed for this article still worry that the recruitment efforts have yielded an unrepresentative crop of officers in Iraq: younger than is typical, “cow- boyish,” officers without families, or those going through divorces. Still, the assessment of most is that the overall team covers “the traditional spectrum: excellent, good, mediocre and bad,” according to one officer stationed in Canada, who previously spent 10 years working in hardship posts. The Iraq Tax The costs of the staffing are substantial. The State Department spent $500 million setting up Embassy Baghdad and running it through the end of Fiscal Year 2004. It says it will spend about $1 billion in the cur- rent fiscal year, though that estimate is widely believed to be low. Last year Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told Congress that State would handle its 2004 expenses with existing funds, but admitted — to the dismay of many Foreign Service officers — that it might require “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” At the same time, the department has relied heavily on the Army for both security and cashiering services, a point of concern for State Department Inspector General Cameron Hume, who urged the department last September to come to an agreement with the Pentagon to pay for the services. Meanwhile, many Foreign Service officers speak angrily of an “Iraq tax” being imposed on embassies worldwide. Specifically, in 2003 and again in 2004, State directed all bureau heads to “freeze” a certain percentage of their open positions (i.e., not hire anyone for those jobs) to allow Baghdad to be fully staffed. There is a perception that “State is funding the largest embassy in the world using existing funds,” says the officer in Canada. “One wonders how DOD can go back again and again for more funding, while State makes do with the little it has.” Some Foreign Service personnel draw a parallel to former Secretary of State James Baker’s decision to open 15 posts throughout the for- mer Soviet Union in the early 1990s without going back to Congress for supplemental fund- ing. Officers outside Iraq say that they were hit with 15-percent cuts in their security budgets for both 2004 and 2005. As a result, programs aimed at fighting terrorism were slashed. “This is my biggest concern,” says the officer in Canada. “If al-Qaida is going to go for the weakest point, ‘Hello, here we are.’” Travel budgets have also suffered, with conferences that required travel being canceled and vacant posi- tions left unfilled. One officer previously stationed at a medium-sized African post believes that his embassy’s failure to fill a General Services Officer position had contributed to “a breakdown/slow-down in services” that can “adversely impact morale, and U.S. contribu- tions to the development of the country.” “I think the department, in its zeal to attract staff to Baghdad, goofed by not imposing a firewall of protec- tion around [Special Embassy Program] posts,” says one retired officer. “Both Djibouti and Niamey lost their management officers to Baghdad, leaving both embassies high and dry for some time.” Lawmakers, ultimately, stepped in and provided some additional funding. Last year, Congress appro- priated $655 million to help cover the embassy costs. “We were tired of State going on bended knee to the Department of Defense and banging a tin cup with other agencies to get the money they needed for this embassy,” John Scofield, a spokesman for House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young (R- Fla.), told the Los Angeles Times last June. Stumbling Blocks Even so, the embassy faced some stumbling blocks as it opened its doors. Supplies that should have been in place at the embassy’s opening were stuck in the United Arab Emirates, awaiting transfer to military F O C U S 22 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 5 The material inducements for assignment to Iraq are the best the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development have to offer.