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U.S. Planning to Slash Iraq Embassy Staff by Half

Tim Arango | Baghdad | Feb 7

NYT - Less than two months after American troops left, the State Department is preparing to slash by as much as half the enormous diplomatic presence it had planned for Iraq, a sharp sign of declining American influence in the country.

Officials in Baghdad and Washington said that Ambassador James F. Jeffrey and other senior State Department officials were reconsidering the size and scope of the embassy, where the staff has swelled to nearly 16,000 people, mostly contractors.

The expansive diplomatic operation and the $750 million embassy building, the largest of its kind in the world, were billed as necessary to nurture a postwar Iraq on its shaky path to democracy and establish normal relations between two countries linked by blood and mutual suspicion. But the Americans have been frustrated by what they see as Iraqi obstructionism and are now largely confined to the embassy because of security concerns, unable to interact enough with ordinary Iraqis to justify the $6 billion annual price tag.

The swift realization among some top officials that the diplomatic buildup may have been ill advised represents a remarkable pivot for the State Department, in that officials spent more than a year planning the expansion and that many of the thousands of additional personnel have only recently arrived. Michael W. McClellan, the embassy spokesman, said in a statement, “Over the last year and continuing this year the Department of State and the Embassy in Baghdad have been considering ways to appropriately reduce the size of the U.S. mission in Iraq, primarily by decreasing the number of contractors needed to support the embassy’s operations.”

Mr. McClellan said the number of diplomats — currently about 2,000 — was also “subject to adjustment as appropriate.”

To make the cuts, he said the embassy was “hiring Iraqi staff and sourcing more goods and services to the local economy.”

After the American troops departed in December, life became more difficult for the thousands of diplomats and contractors left behind. Convoys of food that had been escorted by the United States military from Kuwait were delayed at border crossings as Iraqis demanded documentation that the Americans were unaccustomed to providing.

Within days, the salad bar at the embassy dining hall ran low. Sometimes there was no sugar or Splenda for coffee. On chicken-wing night, wings were rationed at six per person. Over the holidays, housing units were stocked with Meals Ready to Eat, the prepared food for soldiers in the field.

no comment ;)


Tina February 7, 2012 - 10:08pm
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( categories: AgonistWire | Iraq | USA: Foreign Relations )

Iraq’s Political Crisis Eases as Sunni Ministers Rejoin the Go

Iraq’s Sunni ministers returned to the cabinet on Tuesday, an incremental step that eases the tensions of the country’s political crisis but does not end it. It sets the stage for a national conference to seek a durable solution to a sectarian conflict that erupted just as American troops left in December and raised the specter of a civil war.

The decision by the ministers for Iraqiya, the parliamentary bloc that includes most Sunni lawmakers, to rejoin the government follows the recent decision by Iraqiya to end its boycott of Parliament. Together, the decisions represent what Sunni officials called good-will gestures but notably did not come after any public concessions from the Shiite-dominated central government, which is led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

The two largest issues that precipitated the boycotts, and exacerbated sectarian tensions by fueling a sentiment of disenfranchisement among the country’s Sunni minority, have not been resolved. Those were an arrest warrant issued for Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi on terrorism charges, and Mr. Maliki’s attempt to fire Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq for calling Mr. Maliki a dictator in the press. Both Mr. Hashimi and Mr. Mutlaq are Sunnis.

But officials said Iraqiya had since distanced itself from Mr. Hashimi’s case, removing it from the center of the crisis by essentially agreeing with Mr. Maliki to leave it to the courts rather than the political arena. With Mr. Mutlaq, Iraqiya continues to insist that he be allowed to return to Parliament, while officials from Mr. Maliki’s alliance have insisted that Mr. Mutlaq must first apologize.

A report in the Iraqi press this week suggested that Mr. Mutlaq, who was traveling abroad, had drafted a letter of apology. But several officials, including his brother, Hamid al-Mutlaq, an Iraqiya lawmaker, denied that.

The crisis has resulted in the weakening of Iraqiya — and thereby of the foothold of Sunnis on a stake in public life — and the strengthening of Mr. Maliki’s power, especially among his Shiite base. Not only did Iraqiya end its boycotts of both Parliament and the cabinet without receiving anything tangible in return, some ministers defied the boycott and some members of Parliament have broken away from Iraqiya.

Nada al-Jubouri, an Iraqiya member of Parliament, described the end of the cabinet boycott as simply a “good step toward holding the national conference.”

Even so, Mr. Maliki has not stopped singling out Sunni lawmakers. This week, the central government sought to lift the immunity of an Iraqiya lawmaker, Haider al-Mulla, which could be a step toward Mr. Mulla’s being prosecuted for criticizing a judge involved in Mr. Hashimi’s case.

The lull in the crisis appears to represent an effort at closed-door reconciliation among Iraq’s three main factions — Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds — to at least paper over their biggest differences and prevent a collapse of the government or worse, including a slide into civil war. President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, recently returned after knee surgery in Germany and has been meeting with leaders to set the parameters for a national conference that could be held in the coming weeks.

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Tina February 7, 2012 - 10:13pm
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I remember this :

"Saddam had his big castles; they symbolized his power and were places to be feared, and now we have the castle of the power that toppled him," says Abdul Jabbar Ahmed, a vice dean for political sciences at Baghdad University. "If I am the ambassador of the USA here I would say, 'Build something smaller that doesn't stand out so much, it's too important that we avoid these negative impressions.' 2008.

/nuff said.

graham February 8, 2012 - 4:23pm
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