Staffing crisis at U.S. foreign service

[babylonsister]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-diplomats6jun06,0,1147840.story?coll=la-home-center

Staffing crisis at U.S. foreign service
Stretched thin by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, it needs 1,100 more officers just to restore its capabilities to 2005 levels, a report says.
By Paul Richter, Times Staff Writer
June 6, 2007

WASHINGTON — The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have overstretched the U.S. foreign service, damaging its staffers' morale and threatening its performance around the world, a coalition of advocates for diplomats charged Tuesday.

The Foreign Affairs Council, a group of 11 nonprofit organizations, said in a report that the State Department would need to hire 1,100 foreign service officers simply to restore the capabilities it had when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took her post at the beginning of 2005.

"The foreign service is at the front end of a personnel crisis, and if something isn't done … we're going to have a very, very serious situation a year or so from now," said Thomas Boyatt, a retired U.S. ambassador and the council's president, at a news conference.

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[tanyev]

1. They don't care. That will be the next president's problem.

Along with Iraq, the economy, health care, global warming, etc.,etc.,etc.

[pocoloco]

2. How could this happen?

Don't they have a new group of Liberty University grads?