The Foreign Service Journal, March 2006

housing contractor, KBR, regularly goes into private housing for inspections without notice. Three such recent ‘inspections’ to my hooch did not result in needed repairs. … When there is indirect mortar or rocket fire (a fairly common occurrence), the announcement tells us to seek cover under our beds (eight-inch clearance) or under our flimsy desks. I certainly do not feel safe when the entire hooch shakes violently from a nearby hit (five occurrences during four months so far).” “I spent many a night listening as the rockets literally whooshed over my head,” says one FS specialist who served in Baghdad in 2004 and 2005. “I had two AK-47 bullets come through my roof. One landed two feet from my head.” A comment from an FSO at a regional embassy office illustrates possible issues that will come up as all the PRTs are staffed in upcoming months. “The recent expansion of this office without the necessary administrative sup- port (e.g., additional housing) [means] people are being shoved into smaller and smaller spaces. At one point, a member of management was considering housing one of our officers in a walk-in closet underneath the stairs, just like Harry Potter. The biggest problem now is that this place is way too overcrowded. This enhances the fish- bowl effect. All of this wears on morale.” Is enough being done to protect FS employees in Iraq? If not, please suggest what should be done to improve security. There was almost complete agreement among respon- dents that security personnel — civilian and military — take extremely seriously the protection of Foreign Service personnel. The security of housing was the exception frequently mentioned as an area needing improvement. A few respondents expressed concern about the relative lack of security for their travel within the Green Zone. One explained, “FSOs are regularly required to go to checkpoints (extremely dangerous — several of us have been shot at) to escort visitors …” “Aside from the housing issue, in my mind everything that is humanly possible to do is being done to safeguard those persons assigned there,” says a diplomatic security agent serving in Baghdad. “I believe the department tries sincerely to protect employees,” writes an FSO who served in a regional embassy office in 2005, “Obviously, there is a balance between running a functioning critical-threat embassy and a minimum-security prison. Employees have to be willing to take personal risks, within security guidelines of course, in order to get the job done. As someone instructed us, ‘Stay safe, but not too safe.’” “The best way to protect FS employees would be to ensure that no one is assigned to Baghdad unnecessarily,” writes an officer who served in Baghdad from 2004 to 2005. “As of May 2005, there were too many people in the embassy and in the constituent posts.” “I think that enough is being done, and in some cases, too much is done,” says an officer serving in Baghdad. “If we are so protected that we can’t get out to see Iraqis, how can we do our work?” “It seems that almost everyone who works on this compound is allowed to carry a weapon for personal F O C U S M A R C H 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 29 Marlene Wurdeman Information Management Specialist | Baghdad July 2004–July 2005 Our workdays were typically 12 to 15 hours. My life consisted of getting up, walking from Palisades to the chow hall for breakfast, and proceed- ing to the north end of the palace into the IPC [Information Program Center] to work. My work varied from day to day. It consisted of fielding customer service requests, reading a ton of e- mails, doing video teleconferencing meetings, prepar- ing for our three-day classified pouch run. At noontime, we went to the chow hall for lunch. After lunch, we went back to the IPC for more of the same. Toward the end of the day, I would try and go to the gym for half an hour or so, then walk back to my trailer, where I would stay tucked in for the rest of the evening. The same thing would start the next morning. It was definitely [like the movie] “Groundhog Day” for the majority of the time there, except we never traveled out of our 1 / 4 -mile-square area. On rare occasions, I might walk to the PX [post exchange, military grocery store] across the street from the palace; or even more rarely, go to the Al-Rashid Hotel’s chow hall. A Day i n t he L i f e o f . . .