Rice Tries To Quell Revolt Over Forced Iraq Assignments

While the Chimperator and Emperor Palpatine Cheney try to convince the American public that things are improving in Iraq (personally, I take everything they say as a lie at this point), a veritable revolt has broken out in the State Department where diplomats are on verge of refusing to accept assignments in Iraq. One senior diplomat described assignment to Iraq as a "potential death sentence." Hmm, seem to me as if the folks within the State Department would have some feel for the reality on the ground. (We know that the Chimperator surely does NOT). If they do NOT want to go, I suspect things are in fact pretty bad. Here are some highlights from the Washington Post's coverage (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/31/AR2007103101626.html?hpid=topnews):

Uneasy U.S. diplomats yesterday challenged senior State Department officials in unusually blunt terms over a decision to order some of them to serve at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad or risk losing their jobs.

At a town hall meeting in the department's main auditorium attended by hundreds of Foreign Service officers, some of them criticized fundamental aspects of State's personnel policies in Iraq. They took issue with the size of the embassy -- the biggest in U.S. history -- and the inadequate training they received before being sent to serve in a war zone. One woman said she returned from a tour in Basra with post-traumatic stress disorder only to find that the State Department would not authorize medical treatment.

Yesterday's internal dissension came amid rising public doubts about diplomatic progress in Iraq and congressional inquiries into the department's spending on the embassy and its management of private security contractors. Some participants asked how diplomacy could be practiced when the embassy itself, inside the fortified Green Zone, is under frequent fire and officials can travel outside only under heavy guard. Service in Iraq is "a potential death sentence," said one man who identified himself as a 46-year Foreign Service veteran. "Any other embassy in the world would be closed by now," he said to sustained applause.

In notices e-mailed to Foreign Service officers around the world late Friday night, Thomas wrote that State had decided to begin "directed assignments" to fill an anticipated shortfall of 48 diplomats in Iraq next summer. Separate e-mail letters were sent to about 250 officers selected as qualified for the posts. If enough of them did not volunteer, the letters said, some would be ordered to serve there. Foreign Service officers swear an oath to serve wherever the secretary of state sends them, but no directed assignments have been ordered since the late 1960s, during the Vietnam War.

Amid the anger expressed, the woman who was stationed in Basra said she had "absolutely no regrets" about serving in Iraq. "I wanted to go to a place where I knew it was important for my country to be," she said, "even though I had a lot of questions about the origins of the war to begin with." But citing her own medical situation and sounding near tears, she said: "The more who serve in war zones, the more that will come back with these sorts of war wounds. . . . Now that you are looking at compulsory service in war zones . . . we have a moral imperative as an agency to take care of our people."

First the Chimperator destroys Iraq and the U. S. military (especially the Army) and now he and Rice are on the way to destroying the diplomat corp too. One heck of a job, Chimpy.