State Department Seeks to Outsource Iraq Diplomacy

[babylonsister]

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/23937

State Department Seeks to Outsource Iraq Diplomacy
Submitted by davidswanson on Sun, 2007-06-24 22:27. Media

By William Fisher, www.truthout.org

The Bush administration is seeking to recruit foreigners to fill 16 critical jobs at the massive new American Embassy in Baghdad while close to 50 experienced American Foreign Service Officers remain in legal limbo at the State Department in Washington.

This is the claim being made by an organization known as Concerned Foreign Service Officers (CFSO). It comes on the heels of an urgent memo to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from the US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, who complained that his embassy was seriously understaffed and asserted that too many of its personnel were inexperienced.

The pool of up to 50 in limbo consists of seasoned Foreign Service Officers who have had their security clearances suspended by State's Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS). CFSO says DS frequently suspends security clearances based on bogus allegations, without due process, and often takes years to complete its investigations. During that time, experienced diplomats cannot serve abroad and are given make-work assignments in Washington.

One senior State Department official, not a member of CFSO, says the practices of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security have turned it into "the State Department's own version of Guantanamo."

In a statement, the CFSO said that, "as part of its efforts to staff critical positions in the American Embassy in Baghdad, the State Department sent a telegram to all American diplomatic and consular posts worldwide, seeking to recruit locally employed staff to serve in temporary duty assignments in Iraq."

The organization noted that "locally employed staff are foreign nationals who do not hold security clearances."

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[HCE SuiGeneris]

1. Send Condo to the unemployment line then... NOW!

[babylonsister]

2. .