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Cafeteria-Style Public Service

U.S. may not have to order griping cowards to Baghdad.  But it should anyway. And fire those who refuse.    

 WASHINGTON, Nov 16 (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said on Friday it may not need to force diplomats to serve in Iraq as enough staff have volunteered to go to the war zone.

Last month, the department said it might have to order some diplomats to Iraq, where many foreign service officers are reluctant to work because violence still rages four years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled President Saddam Hussein.

Because of a lack of volunteers, the State Department had roughly 50 spots at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and at joint U.S. military-diplomatic provincial reconstruction teams around the country that it could not fill.

“It appears that we are getting very nearly to the point where we will have volunteers for all of the open, identified jobs,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. “We have candidates identified for all the jobs.”

The possibility that the department might order some of its people to Iraq had upset U.S. diplomats, including one who publicly called this a “potential death sentence.”

I recommend Jack Croddy to lead the new contingent. They don’t like it, they know where the door is. It leads to the Dreaded Private Sector. I’m sure there are wanktanks that would eagerly scoop up disgruntled anti-Bushite foreign service officers.  NGOs might be a problem … a lot of them, Kumbaya-singers though they may be,  also require their employees to go to grubby, inconvenient, dangerous places.

Topics: Iraq, hacks

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:46 pm on Friday, November 16, 2007

5 Responses to “Cafeteria-Style Public Service”

1. Vanguard of the Commentariat Says:
   November 16th, 2007 at 3:04 pm

   Pretty sure those weanies took an oath, so it should be out the door if they refused, but firing civil service types is a lonely quest. I wonder if their response would have been as disgustingly pathetic if this was a Democrat inspired war?

   Hats off to the volunteers BTW.

2. RebeccaH Says:
   November 16th, 2007 at 5:18 pm

   I wonder if their response would have been as disgustingly pathetic if this was a Democrat inspired war?

   No. Little fuckers.

3. Consul-At-Arms Says:
   November 17th, 2007 at 7:03 pm

   Nobody refused to go, because nobody had to be ordered to go. Just like in every year since the re-opened embassy operations there in 2004 (working out of a palace Saddam was no longer using, while they build a new one), every State job was filled by a volunteer. To the tune of over 2,000 officers in a FSO generalist corps of only 6,500. And with about 50 additional positions ti be filled next year than current manning.

   Speaking of manning, the Foreign Service as a whole is one-seventh understrength of its authorized numbers, with new hiring being funded at a rate below attrition. If they tried to run the military on that basis (and with two-thirds of it constantly deployed overseas, as is normal for the Foreign Service) there’d be blood on the walls at the Pentagon not to mention 1970’s style (and accurate) cries of a “hollow army.”

   Next year will be a whole new ballgame as every one of these jobs has to be filled again.

   BTW, for those who are truly interested in serving in Iraq in a civilian capacity but don’t want to make the life commitment of actually becoming an FSO, please see the information here: http://careers.state.gov/iraq-jobs/index.html

4. Michael Lonie Says:
   November 17th, 2007 at 11:54 pm

   I tried to become an FSO back about 1982. Did fine on the exam, less well on the “In-box test” to see if I was a good paper shuffler. They told me that I was rejected for medical reasons, which I suspected was a euphemism for whatever objections they really had, but a few years later I learned I had diabetes, so maybe that was the reason. I doubt I could qualify for an overseas post now, no matter how temporary, what with age and diabetes. And my Arabic is still rudimentary.

5. Consul-At-Arms Says:
   November 18th, 2007 at 2:01 am

   I’ve linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2007/11/re-cafeteria-style-public-service.html

   Frankly, I’m disappointed with you.

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