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State Dept Gears Up in Iraq Even as Troops Draw Down
Isn’t this war over yet? Apparently not.Even as the number of US troops in Iraq continues to (slowly) decline, the State Department is cranking up its headcount such that in many parts of Iraq the number of official Americans is actually increasing.
The number of Americans in Basra will actually increase significantly in the months ahead as the State Department dramatically expands its consulate. Officials say the consulate will employ more than 1,200 people, making it larger than most embassies. The bulk of its employees will be security contractors and civilian officials from the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.
The US consulate in Erbil will be even bigger, with eventually at least 1,400 people, including more than 100 troops.
The World’s Largest Embassy (c) in Baghdad easily retains its title, adding another couple of thousand USG employees to Team Iraq.
WTF?
The US Mission in China, country with a quarter of the world’s population and a double-digit percentage of American debt, muddles by with something like half an Iraqi consulate’s worth of staff. Same for other important Embassies in the UK, Japan, Moscow, never mind smaller places without Muslims we stopped caring about when the Cold War faded away.
Given that most of the State employees in Iraq will be contractors, at $200,000+ a year in salary, or diplomats who cost close to $500,000 to maintain and support (although they make much less than contractors in actual pay) and you’re talking billions and billions of Ameros just to pay salaries.
Which begs the question: what (or, WTF) will all those people do in Iraq? What are their jobs? What does the US need from them so badly that we’re in hock again to pay for it? What remains so special about Iraq that it needs resources so far in excess of China, Russia, or even Afghanistan?
Sorry, a bit of a trick question, because I don’t know.
I can’t conceive of what all those folks will do, except perhaps write memos to each other, provide support for memo writers and of course, security for memo writers. After eight years of war heading into a ninth, Iraq still remains so unsafe that an American cannot drive, never mind walk, the streets.
Which brings it all home. Under such conditions, exactly what are all those State Department people going to do in Iraq? Is this in fact the long-sought Obama jobs program?
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Meloveconsullongtime said...
1“Iraq still remains so unsafe that an American cannot drive, never mind walk, the streets.
Which brings it all home. Under such conditions, exactly what are all those State Department people going to do in Iraq?”
Hmm, maybe as under such conditions, UNLIKE in diplomatic posts in, say, Russia where prostitutes are readily available to American and other Western diplomats, maybe “all those State Department people” might include some professional whores, to take up the slack from the locals who don’t tolerate such things?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXybRhp7dN0
Oh dear, pity the diplomats who serve in a country such as Iraq, whose majority religion condemns alcohol and prostitution. But in that light, isn’t it illogical for the State Department to call Russia and China “hardship” posts? What’s so “hard” about being posted in a country such as Russia, where the prostitutes actually SOLICIT foreign diplomats as clients, and are highly paid for it by their FSB handlers?
10/1/11 4:43 PM | Comment Link