U.S. Planning To Slash Iraq Embassy Staff By Up To Half

New York Times:

BAGHDAD - Less than two months after American troops left, the State Department is preparing to slash by as much as half the enormous diplomatic presence it had planned for Iraq, a sharp sign of declining American influence in the country.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[Don Fitch]

03:41 PM on 02/08/2012

Give it two years and the last of the other half will be helicoptered off the roof.

[LogicalMathMan]

01:05 PM on 02/08/2012

So, another bold move by our President to protect (and remove) our citizens from where there is no love lost for them.

[uk progressive]

11:58 AM on 02/08/2012

The iraqi resistance fighters will take care of the other 50%.

[Nighthawlk]

10:29 AM on 02/08/2012

about time

[ussuri]

12:36 PM on 02/08/2012

long past due.

[April22]

10:00 AM on 02/08/2012

This US embassy in Iraq employs about 2,000 diplomats, alone?!

"After the American troops departed in December, life became more difficult for the thousands of diplomats and contractors left behind. Convoys of food that had been escorted by the United States military from Kuwait were delayed at border crossings as Iraqis demanded documentation that the Americans were unaccustomed to providing."

Ah, too bad!

"Within days, the salad bar at the embassy dining hall ran low. Sometimes there was no sugar or Splenda for coffee. On chicken-wing night, wings were rationed at six per person. Over the holidays, housing units were stocked with Meals Ready to Eat, the prepared food for soldiers in the field."

Can you imagine the salad bar ran low?!

So, too, are the shelves running low in food banks feeding hungry Americans.

http://www.truth-out.org/us-planning-slash-iraq-embassy-staff-half/1328711010

[LogicalMathMan]

01:02 PM on 02/08/2012

So basically, Iraq is returning to normal?

[Alexey Braguine]

07:56 AM on 02/08/2012

How amazingly preposterous to have an embassy with 16,000 people. It is beyond a bad joke. Never mind the cost. Hillary Clinton had to aprove such an insane project. The foreign ministers around the world must be rolling on the floor laughing.

[ussuri]

12:35 PM on 02/08/2012

how about American taxpayers rolling on the floor in nausea.?

[Rteefact]

07:00 AM on 02/08/2012

Officials in Baghdad and Washington said that Ambassador James F. Jeffrey and other senior State Department officials were reconsidering the size and scope of the embassy, where the staff has swelled to nearly 16,000 people, mostly contractors.

Americans have been frustrated by what they see as Iraqi obstructionism and are now largely confined to the embassy because of security concerns, unable to interact enough with ordinary Iraqis to justify the $6 billion annual price tag.

“The U.S. had something on their mind when they made it so big. Perhaps they want to run the Middle East from Iraq, and their embassy will be a base for them here.”


Now who would have thought that building a massive embassy wouldn't stick out?? We still left an army of occupation behind in the guise of contractors who for the most part are detested by the Iraqi citizens. Billions wasted to kill one man.

[bunty4321r]

05:01 AM on 02/08/2012

It would be wise to slash the staff by 50%. In any case the decision is definitely appreciable.

[ussuri]

12:34 PM on 02/08/2012

how about slash by 90% to 1600. isn`t enough for one embassy?

[bunty4321r]

09:37 PM on 02/08/2012

I mentioned as i thought would be better, do I must to agree with your suggestion Why?

[ussuri]

02:35 AM on 02/08/2012

16000 people, $ 6000 millions to have embassy in Iraq ? WTF !!!

WHY? who gets the bloody money are for what??

[vascopyjama]

02:27 AM on 02/08/2012

Thank God for that. Now at least the thousands of private contractors (mercenaries) will have somewhere to sleep and take their steroids.

[William Wilhite]

07:54 AM on 02/08/2012

If only you knew...almost 80 percent of contractors are Veterans. Thanks for your appreciation, and categorizing all contractors with one company that did the wrong thing. We all have families too, so before you go judging others, would you leave your country, to serve your country, away from your family, just to make good money, so that think for your-selfers like you can judge you without knowing what they are talking about?

[uk progressive]

11:56 AM on 02/08/2012

I wouldn't dream of profiting from an illegal and immoral war and oppress people that didn't want you in their country.

[wom122]

08:55 PM on 02/07/2012

A step in the right direction.

[The Mikester]

06:57 PM on 02/07/2012

1/2 the staff???? It should be all the staff unless we want them stranded there like those in Egypt.

This whole region is collapsing like house of cards. Get out or good luck!

[uk progressive]

03:10 PM on 02/07/2012

the sooner the iraqi people repeat history and visit a fall of saigon on the green zone and the grotesque vatican sized US embassy the better. The people of iraq and the region will never be free from US terror until that embassy is raised to the ground.