The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2008

A F S A N E W S J U L Y - A UGU S T 2 0 0 8 / F OR E I GN S E R V I C E J OU R N A L 63 W hile serving as U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Jeffrey Feltman demonstrated exceptional intellectual courage, integrity and leadership in challenging a decision by the Department of State’s Office of Buildings Operations to proceed with the construction of a new embassy compound on a site in Beirut that he recognized would put the lives of American and Lebanese employees at risk. For this, he has been selected as the winner of the 2008 Herter Award for a senior-level officer. Embassy Beirut’s tragic history includes more than 350 lives lost through terrorism in the last 30 years. After the bombing of the original chancery inWest Beirut by Hezbollah elements in 1983, the embassy was moved to a “temporary” building in a less hostile area in the eastern sector of the divided city that it long since outgrew. Accordingly, plans for constructing a new embassy became a priority inWashington and in Beirut. In explaining why he took a stand against the new site, Amb. Feltman says, “My concerns developed out of the devastating 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, and were exacerbated in January 2007, when Hezbollah completely took over all access roads to and from the proposed new embassy compound site. The Marines who helped protect us during the war said that, had we been at that new site during the war (with Hezbollah all around us), the U.S. military would have come in exactly once: to extract us.” Amb. Feltman knew that the U.S. diplomatic presence was key during that critical time, and the work they were doing out of the embassy — including running an evacuation of over 15,000 Americans, Secretary of State visits, delicate negoti- ations over a cessation of violence, delivery of humanitarian supplies, out- reach to the media, etc. —would have been impossible had they been in the new site. “But most of all,” says Amb. Feltman, “I was concerned about the security of our personnel: the war and subsequent developments made me see that we would have been in a part of Beirut utterly at the mercy of Hezbollah.” When the site was select- ed, the Syrians still controlled Lebanon and the security environment was far different. A series of emergency action committee meetings at the embassy, during which the ambassador asked members to com- ment on the pros and cons of the selected site, led to a unani- mous recommendation from the country team in Beirut that the new embassy compound was not a secure site and construction there should be put on hold. This recommendation, which Amb. Feltman sent to Washington in September 2006, did not go over well in the Overseas Buildings Office, which wanted to see the NEC project completed expeditiously. Amb. Feltman invited then-Under Secretary of State for Management Henrietta Fore to visit Beirut and hear the embassy’s concerns, which she did. Later, Amb. Feltman appealed directly to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The final decision inWashington was to postpone until 2012 a decision on whether or not to use the NEC site. This successful outcome would not have been possible without the persistent and courageous lobbying of Amb. Feltman. Jeffrey Feltman joined the Foreign Service in 1986. Prior to serving as ambassador to Lebanon, he headed the Coalition Provisional Authority office in the Irbil province of Iraq and simul- taneously served as deputy regional coordinator for the CPA’s northern area. He previously served in Jerusa- lem, Tunisia, Tel Aviv, Budapest, Port- au-Prince andWashington. Amb. Felt- man studied Arabic at the University of Jordan and also speaks French and Hungarian. He is married to FSO Mary Draper. Christian A. Herter Award FOR A SENIOR-LEVEL FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER Jeffrey Feltman 2008 AFSA CONSTRUCTIVE DISSENT AWARD WINNERS (Stories by Shawn Dorman) On March 22, 2007, Amb. Feltman shows Lebanese Druse leader Walid Jumblatt the memorial at Embassy Beirut hon- oring all those Lebanese and American U.S. government employees killed by terrorist acts in Lebanon. On that day, Amb. Feltman planted an ancient olive tree from the Chouf mountains (homeland of the Druse) on the embassy com- pound. The tree was a gift from Jumblatt to the embassy to symbolize U.S.-Lebanese friendship and to thank the U.S. for its support of Lebanon. Amb. Feltman with clerics in a Druse religious shrine outside the Lebanese Chouf mountain town of Baakline in August 2007, following the announce- ment that the Ambassa- dor’s Fund for Cultural Preservation would help fund renovation of that important religious, his- toric and cultural site.