Rice Reaffirms Plan To Force Diplomats To Fill Iraq Posts

Washington Post:

Calling Iraq "the most essential foreign policy and national security priority for our nation," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told U.S. diplomats yesterday that she will proceed with plans to order Foreign Service officers to Iraq if vacancies cannot be filled voluntarily.

Rice's decision has spawned angst in the State Department, where more than 1,500 personnel have served in Iraq. There are 11,500 Foreign Service employees, one of whom declared at a State Department town hall meeting this week that being sent to Iraq was a "potential death sentence." Three Foreign Service officers have been killed since the war started.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[PepperzMom]

11:35 AM on 11/03/2007

I suggest that Condi & Thomas be the first to report for PERMANENT posting to Iraq..after all, we expect leaders to lead.

Er...never mind, just remembered the "leader" in the WH.

JMO

[Snakeback]

10:55 AM on 11/03/2007

Excuse me, but does anyone not see the irony in Condi and Thomas, exhorting the state dept employees (i.e. "field" workers) to tow the line of the bosses in the big "WHITE House"?

Why do images of the small number of Jews who turned on their own people in the Nazi death camps come to mind?

As for the gappy teeth, to heck with fixing them. It's not like it would make her beautiful.

[wadenelson1]

10:21 AM on 11/03/2007

One key to leadership is never asking your subordinates to do something you're unwilling to do yourself.

Of course, this doesn't apply in this situation. Muslims are known to have a fierce hatred of gappy-toothed women, and Ms. Rize would be placed at extreme peril if sent to the Green Zone.

"Excess troops" would be required to be pulled off the line to provide the Secertary with adequate protection" said General "Hardpoint" Petrayus. "It would reduce our ability to complete our mission, whatever that may be this week."

That leaves the Bush twins who in this hour of national sacrifice to bring freedom to the Iraqi people are probably out at a bar somewhere.

GWB, of course, successfully fulfilled HIS military obligation a long time ago by working on a Senatorial campaign in Alabama while assigned to the Alabama Air National guard, where every fighter plain has a Confederate flag painted below the air intake and a gun rack beneath the wing. And dual exhausts.

Well, we all know about Congress and THEIR military service, so, a bunch of State Department employee's it's gotta be. There just isn't any other suitable cannon fodder to be found, at least not in this chickenhawk administration.

[Catiline]

09:56 AM on 11/03/2007

Aren't State department employess "volunteers"? simular to active duty troops?