The Foreign Service Journal, December 2007

DE C EMB E R 2 0 0 7 / F OR E I GN S E R V I C E J OU R N A L 59 A F S A N E W S Department has diplomats worldwide. The military does have a greater per- centage of its personnel serving in unac- companied tours than the ForeignService. Ihavenot foundsolidstatisticsonthispoint, but subtracting those stationed at accom- panied postings inWestern Europe, Japan andSouthKorea, it appears that around11 percent of the military is serving in unac- companied tours. But the Foreign Service is catching up. Since 2001, the number of unaccompaniedand limited-accompanied ForeignServicepositionshasquadrupled to 700 (representing6.1percent of theForeign Service) at two dozen danger-pay posts in suchcountries as Iraq,Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. This represents a dra- matic change for ForeignServicemembers, who previously had fewer than 200 unac- companied slots to fill at a few posts such as Bogotá and Beirut. Further, consider these facts. Around40 percent of the 7,800 overseas Foreign Servicepositions comeup for reassignment eachyear (including all 700one-year unac- companiedpositions andamixtureof two- year greater-hardship posts and three-year lesser-hardship and non-hardship posts). Thatmeans that, inanygivenannual assign- ment cycle, almost one quarter of all over- seas Foreign Service jobs to be filled are at unaccompanied or limited-accompanied danger pay posts. What about the toughest duty assign- ment, Iraq? Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice, in an Oct. 1 interview with the New York Post editorial board, stated that more than20percent of theForeignService has served, or is serving, in Iraq. I would have guessed that the percentagewas a lit- tle lower, but let’s stickwithSec. Rice’s offi- cial estimate that 20 percent of our nation’s diplomats have served inwar-zone Iraq since 2003. I have not found comparablemilitary statistics. Presumably, at least for the Army and Marine Corps, it is over two- thirds, with many troops serving two or more tours. But again, unlike the mili- tary, which maintains 79 percent of its active members stateside, the Foreign Service has worldwide staffing responsi- bilities that necessitate posting themajor- ity of its members in the 188 countries besides Iraq. Thus, of the 80 percent of Foreign Service members who have not (yet) served in Iraq, most are now at, or have recently returned from, a hardship assignment. There are currently approximately 200 Foreign Service positions at Embassy Baghdad and another 70 or so at the 25 Provincial Reconstruction Teams. Com- pared to theU.S. military presence in Iraq, those numbers look small. Of course, the U.S.civilianpresenceinIraqincludesarange of other types of employees. But if press reports are accurate that around1,000U.S. citizensworkatEmbassyBaghdad, thenthe Foreign Service positions constitute about 20 percent of that total. Turning to the PRTs,whichcompriseup to600members, the Foreign Service component is 10 to 15 percent. There are good reasons for those ratios. As Sec. Rice has repeatedly explained in public statements, no coun- try’s diplomatic corps has people with many of the skills now needed in Iraq: oil and gas engineers, electrical gridmanagers, urban planners, city managers and trans- portation planners. If any U.S. defense planner in 2003 thought that the State Department andother civilian federal agen- cies had suchpeople on staff in large num- bers (Arabic-speaking or not) ready to rebuild Iraq, theywerewrong. Obviously, if they wanted to do so, the president and Congress could staff up civilian agencies to take responsibility for stabilization and reconstruction. But theyhave not done so. Here are some other points to consid- er. While some Foreign Service members inIraqare engaged in support activities that do not require them to leave the International Zone, many do travel in the “Red Zone” — working out of Embassy Baghdad, serving at one of the pre-surge PRTs, or serving at oneof the 10newPRTs embeddedinBrigadeCombatTeams. Also, most Foreign Service members serve one- year tours in Iraq with only a relative few going for shorter temporary-duty assign- ments. A small but growing number of Foreign Service members have served more than one tour in Iraq. None, except for someDiplomaticSecurity special agents, are permitted to carry a weapon. ForeignServicemembers receivevery lit- tle preparationbefore deploying to Iraq— less than two-weeks of special training to serve in a combat zone. Contrast that to theirpredecessors40yearsago,whoreceived three to six months of training before deploying toSouthVietnamintheCORDS program. WhileForeignServicevolunteers in Iraq do receive added pay and other incentives (but not tax-free income like the military enjoys), surveys show that most ForeignServicevolunteers inIraqhavebeen motivated by patriotismand a profession- al desire to try to advance the administra- tion’s top foreign policy objective. From2003 through 2007, every one of themore than2,000 career ForeignService members who stepped up to the plate to serve at the large andgrowingU.S.mission in Baghdad and the expanding Provincial ReconstructionTeams around the country didsoasavolunteer. Unfortunately,onOct. 26, 2007, thedirector general of theForeign Service, AmbassadorHarryK. Thomas Jr., announced to the news media (and, later toemployees via anALDACcable) that the well of volunteers had finally run dry. He announced that, if volunteers couldnot be found for 48 remaining positions by mid- November, then directed assignments would begin. AFSA immediately issued a statement encouraging any Foreign Service employ- ee who has been contemplating a tour of duty in Iraq toconsider volunteering. This followed up on an earlier call to Foreign Service retireeswithMiddleEast experience, particularlythosewithArabic-languageskills, to consider serving in Iraq. At the same time,AFSArestated its long- standing position that directed assign- ments of Foreign Service members into a war zonewouldbedetrimental to the indi- vidual, tothepost andtotheForeignService as a whole. AFSA urged the State Departmenttofindwaystoincreasethepool of qualified voluntary bidders. Only time will tell how this all plays out.