State Department to Require Some Diplomats to Work in Iraq

In 1969, an entire class of entry-level diplomats was sent to Vietnam, and on a smaller scale, diplomats were required to work at various embassies in West Africa in the 1970s and 1980s.

More than 1,200 of the department's 11,500 Foreign Service officers have served in Iraq since 2003, but the generous incentives have not persuaded enough diplomats to volunteer for duty in Baghdad or with the State Department's provincial reconstruction teams.

When she ordered that Baghdad be given staffing priority, Rice had warned that unless more volunteers could be found, the department would have to implement directed assignments.

"It is my fervent hope that we will continue to see sufficient numbers ... volunteering for Iraq service, but we must be prepared to meet our requirements in any eventuality," she said in an unclassified cable sent to all diplomatic missions abroad on June 19.

That directive followed an earlier offer for any diplomats wanting to learn Arabic to leave their current post immediately for two years of language training before being posted to Iraq and an appeal from the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, for the urgency of the Iraq operation to be made clear to all diplomats.

Crocker has repeatedly appealed to the State Department headquarters for more and better trained personnel to staff the embassy. The embassy operation had been due to move into a vast new compound last month, but the move has been indefinitely delayed due to logistical and construction problems.