The Foreign Service Journal, March 2006

Lane Bahl FSO on State Embedded Team | Ramadi January 2006 0730 Rise in my run-down steel trailer. It is surprisingly cold in the desert during the winter and my heat’s been out for months. Quickly trot along the kilometer of our tiny base on the banks of the Euphrates River for the staff huddle. 0800 Jump to attention with the staff colonels when the generals enter, and provide some input or political analysis to group. Briefly scan the volumes of military intelligence and embassy products at desk that I share with four Civil Affairs Group officers. 1000 Usually head over for the convoy brief. Always ride with Humvee 2, my trusted staff sergeant, gunner ‘Trigger’ and skilled 19-year-old driver. Tear out of the base, while other Marines hold up a huge line of traffic, negotiate a broken water pipe on the opposite side of the barrage that has created a meter-deep pothole, whip around the traffic circle and make a beeline for the government center in wartorn, downtown Ramadi. 1100 Meetings with sheiks, the governor, provincial council or ministry representatives usually go for three, four, five hours. We often take mortar or sniper rounds during the sessions, but the building’s a fortress and a dedicated platoon snipes at improvised explosive devices periodically from the towers surrounding the enclo- sure. Then it’s “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” home to the regular intelligence briefing (if I don’t stay down at the Civil Military Operations Center behind the Government Center). 1600 Attend intelligence briefing. 1700 Perhaps a KBR dinner of yellow iceberg lettuce and mystery-meat burger. 1800 Return to the Civil Affairs trailer to write my cable. During more pleasant times, I join my Marine colleagues for an evening cigar, and then get back to typing. 2200 Walk back to the trailer in the pitch blackness (no lights allowed on base at night to make it harder for the insurgents to aim), shower (almost always water on base!), read for 15 minutes (no TV). Then I’m out. A Day i n t he L i f e o f . . . the compound is very difficult to arrange and extreme- ly dangerous because there are improvised explosive devices everywhere.” An FSO who served in a regional embassy office in 2005 comments that “Political contact work was extremely difficult in that it a) took 48 hours of plan- ning for a simple meeting, b) required 20 armed guards as an escort, and c) put the lives of our contacts in dan- ger for the simple fact of having met with an American official.” Several respondents in administrative and IT posi- tions say that security precautions do not limit their ability to do their jobs. Is housing adequate and sufficiently secure? Housing security is described by respondents as a sig- nificant problem for Foreign Service personnel serving in Baghdad who are not with USAID. Without being spe- cific (though respondents were very specific) about the security problems, suffice it to say that most respondents feel that the trailers — informally referred to as “hooches” — are unsafe. While a few State respondents said the housing is fine, the vast majority commented on the vulnerability of the trailers. Looking to their USAID colleagues, respondents commented that their sister agency had built far superior housing for its people in Baghdad. F O C U S 26 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 Iraqi Prime Minister Jafari (seated, center) visits Ramadi