The Foreign Service Journal, March 2006

cal officer in Baghdad notes: “Our days in the political section begin at 8:15 a.m. and usually don’t end until 10 or 11 at night. Our official days off — Friday and Saturday — are a joke. The front office makes periodic statements of the need to take time, but then tasks indis- criminately on the days off. Congressional delegations and VIP visits eliminate most holidays.” “Fourteen-hour workdays seven days a week are the norm,” says a Foreign Service officer in Baghdad. “In view of the security situation, access to Iraqis and travel opportunities are severely constrained. Mortar and rock- et shellings are routine. Foreign Service National staff are risking their lives daily merely by showing up for work.” One officer calls the key difference in the working environment the “dual command structure” between the embassy and the military. It’s “not a workable model — one leader [is] needed for the U.S. government mission in Iraq. Ongoing fighting of the war conflicts with acknowledging Iraqi sovereignty and strengthening the Iraqi government. The two structures have competing and conflicting goals.” Echoing the same concern, a specialist serving in Baghdad writes that “there are some frustrating aspects of working in an organization this large with two leaders — military and State. There doesn’t seem to be a big push for a joining of the two, even though we occupy the same building. There isn’t even a comprehensive tele- phone listing, which is extremely frustrating.” “Working in Iraq is totally different from any other embassy,” says another officer serving in Baghdad. “First, the mission is huge. It is impossible to know who is who and who is working on what. Portfolios overlap … between the embassy, the military, IRMO, USAID and many other agencies that are bumping into each other out here. Many of the people here have never served overseas or in an embassy and are pretty much clueless about how an embassy works. … Second, the military dominates everything we do. They have manpower and resources to throw at every issue. … Third, security is an ever-present issue. You can never forget you are in a war zone and that you are a target of attack at all times. Fourth, the workload is overwhelming. There is no such thing as free time, at least not for those of us who work in substantive sections. We have standing meetings that start at 8 p.m.! Entreaties by the front office to take time off ring hollow in the face of never-ending taskers, e-mails, … phone calls from Washington, and the daily crises that always need to be handled ‘immediately.’ … There is no privacy. … We work in cramped conditions, nearly on top of each other. There is no place to ‘get away’ and there’s certainly no going ‘home’ at the end of the day.” The work differs, says an FSO serving in Baghdad, “in every way possible. … FSOs spend much of their time serving as administrative assistants to contractors. The contractors have money to fund their operations fully, while State is running on a shoestring. All the FSOs in the political and public affairs sections spend inordinate time … escorting contacts into the Green Zone for meet- ings. …Our local employees cannot tell friends and fam- ily where they work; several employees have been killed. We cannot do contact work for the most part, because to travel into the Red Zone is to alienate most contacts, as well as hundreds of Iraqis who are terrified of our motor- cades (Iraqis are run off the road if they don’t get out of the way). On the plus side, every day is a challenge that keeps all your senses alive. It’s a lab and a school and a bomb shelter rolled into one. Often job descriptions change daily because of massive turnover and staffing gaps. There is almost no institutional memory.” 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 6 Richard Bell Provincial Action Officer | Kirkuk | 2005 Eat copious hot buffet breakfast at KBR-run dining facility, drop off clothes at KBR-run laundry, don body-armor and helmet, get into armored vehicle and set off with heavily armed motorcade that barrels down the road at high speed, often “counterflow” (that is, on the wrong side of the road, purposely, to avoid roadside bombs). At destination, march into building surrounded by bodyguards, take off body armor, have cordial meet- ings with Iraqi officials who provide tea and other refreshments as a matter of course. Then head home to regional embassy office, a small compound pro- tected by armed guards and watchtowers. Send and receive a lot of e-mails (classified and unclassified) late into the evening, then go to bed in sin- gle room with air conditioning and color TV that gets AFN, CNN, Fox, Eurosport, Star Movies, Fashion TV … A Day i n t he L i f e o f . . .