U.S. to post 3,000 diplomats in Baghdad

[CatWoman]

WASHINGTON In preparation for ending its occupation of Iraq, the United States is making plans to create the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world in Baghdad, with a staff of more than 3,000, The Washington Post reported on Friday.
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The transition would mark the hand-over of responsibility for dealing with Iraq from the Pentagon to the State Department, which would then help oversee the next steps in creating Iraq's first freely elected democratic government.
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"The real challenge for the new embassy, so to speak, or the new presence will be helping the Iraqi people get ready for their full elections and full constitution the following year," Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an interview with The Post. "That's going to be a major effort on our part." One of the first steps would be resuming diplomatic relations between Washington and Baghdad. Although the United States is the occupying power in Iraq, the two countries have not formally resumed relations, which were severed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo has a larger presence, more than 7,000 personnel. But this number includes many nondiplomats from other U.S. agencies.

The United States also is tentatively planning to build a new embassy in Baghdad, The Post reported, citing U.S. officials, with construction expected to take three to five years. WASHINGTON In preparation for ending its occupation of Iraq, the United States is making plans to create the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world in Baghdad, with a staff of more than 3,000, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

The transition would mark the hand-over of responsibility for dealing with Iraq from the Pentagon to the State Department, which would then help oversee the next steps in creating Iraq's first freely elected democratic government.

http://www.iht.com/articles/123454.html

[Sagan]

1. typo

I think they meant to say "CIA agents"...

[mozart]

10. Sagan

They meant NOT to say CIA agents:)

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Ahem this sound more like a Colonial

Administration than an Embassy

[stickdog]

3. 3,000 diplomats.

Not 3,000 colonial administrators, so stop saying that.

[pw]

12. What a tempting target

Is probably what the thought of every guerilla in Iraq.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

4. Are they going to call it Whitehouse East?

Christ, there are towns with populations smaller than that.

[goforit]

14. LOL!!!!!....................Send Cheney to lead that wing.

:bounce:

[alcuno]

5. Hand over political control and keep economic control.

Isn't that what happened in South Africa? The Blacks got the political control and the whites retained economic control.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. Boy I bet the state department

employees are thrilled. Wanna bet that all the ones who don't jump up and down enough at the morning prayer meetings get assigned to Baghdad.

[Dalton Trombone]

7. Boosting the job numbers

Perhaps this is why the unemployment numbers have been dropping!

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. I hear the Army is hiring too.

What a waste. All Bu$hCo wants to do is take our beautiful young men and women, just so they can kill them and disable them for life.

[Minstrel Boy]

8. Wanna bet that 2,900 of them

don't come from the State Department?

[snippy]

16. Agreed.

[DuctapeFatwa]

11. Diplomats? Is that what they're calling Boykins' death squads now?

I don't know if 3000 will be enough. There are 26 million or so Iraqis and hundreds of thousands of Mosques that haven't been "Iron Gripped" yet.

[goforit]

13. Are going to all be Southern Babtists and Pat Robertson evangelists?

Spread the Christian Doctrine alright.

[Jacobin]

15. They're gonna have to build a HUGE bunker for them

[cliss]

17. I swear, these guys give me reason to doubt their sanity

...every day. I wonder if they have cute 3-story doll houses like my niece used to have as a little girl. She dressed up the dolls and put them in different rooms and it was all so very cute.

The administration doesn't seem to realize this is still a war zone. They are ignoring the fact that our soldiers are getting killed almost every day.

Untold thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed and it continues to be one of the most hazardous places on earth. Private contractors have lost employees. Journalists continue to get killed. Let's see...when do they plan to do this? The article says 'the following year', so maybe 2005?

They're also planning to build a new American embassy. Can you imagine the safeguards to protect it? They will have 3 square miles of barbed wire and mine fields around it, and 3,000 armed guards around it.

And who's going to go work there? Not me, or anyone who values their life. At least they'd better have a huge life insurance policy.