« Also | Main | "attacked by pest" »
November 01, 2007
Real Dip Set Wants No Part of Iraq
A fascinating AP article over the wire this morning about a State Department "town hall" meeting yesterday in DC, wherein hundreds of diplomats protested State's decision to institute "the largest diplomatic call-up since Vietnam" which "require some diplomats - under threat of dismissal - to serve at the embassy in Baghdad and in so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams in outlying provinces."
Unsurprisingly, many diplomats want absolutely jack nothing to do with it, going so far as to call it a "death sentence" during what seems to have been a very contentious meeting.
"Incoming is coming in every day, rockets are hitting the Green Zone," said one who identified himself as Jack Crotty, a senior foreign service officer who once worked as a political adviser with NATO forces.
He and others directly confronted Foreign Service Director General Harry Thomas, who approved the move to "directed assignments" late last Friday to make up for a lack of volunteers willing to go to Iraq.
"It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment," Crotty said. "I'm sorry, but basically that's a potential death sentence and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?"
His remarks were met with loud and sustained applause from the approximately 300 diplomats at the meeting.
Thomas responded by saying the comments were "filled with inaccuracies" but did not elaborate until challenged by the head of the diplomats' union, the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), who, like Crotty and others, demanded to know why many learned of the decision from news reports.
Thomas took full responsibility for the late notification but objected when AFSA President John Naland said a recent survey found only 12 percent of the union's membership believed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was "fighting for them."
"That's their right but they're wrong," Thomas said, prompting a testy exchange.
"Sometimes, if it's 88 to 12, maybe the 88 percent are correct," Naland said.
"88 percent of the country believed in slavery at one time, was that correct?" shot back Thomas, who is black, in a remark that drew boos from the crowd. "Don't you or anybody else stand there and tell me I don't care about my colleagues. I am insulted," Thomas added.
Rice was not present for the meeting, but her top adviser on Iraq, David Satterfield, did attend.
Posted by caps at November 1, 2007 09:18 AM