Security fears keep diplomats inside embassies

Safety premium
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has put a premium on safety, he said.

“Her top priority is that people are protected when doing their jobs, but, at the same time, she wants them to get out from behind their desks and engage with local communities beyond capitals,” McCormack said. “We can be very creative, and the bottom line is that our officers are out there. They are out there beyond the wire.”

Many have paid the price. At least 19 embassy employees have died of unnatural causes in the line of duty over the past decade, according to AFSA.

In addition to the al-Qaida hotbeds of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, official U.S. travel is banned or curtailed due to Islamic terrorism concerns in Algeria, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Israel, Lebanon, Mali, the Palestinian territories, the Philippines, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Yemen, according to the AP survey.

Outside of areas where radical Islam is considered the main threat, travel restrictions for U.S. diplomats are in place in Burundi, Colombia, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Haiti, India, Laos, Nepal, Peru, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Venezuela. Many of those countries are beset by internal strife.

Level of severity fluctuates
Curbs on U.S. official movement are most restrictive in Afghanistan and Iraq, where diplomats are barely able to leave their offices.

In Baghdad, for example, embassy personnel rarely venture outside the fortified “Green Zone,” and even there are required to wear flak jackets and helmets outside reinforced buildings.

Elsewhere, depending on threat levels, the severity of restrictions fluctuates.

Just this week in Yemen, the U.S. Embassy in San’a expanded a longstanding ban on diplomatic visits to tribal areas to include all travel outside the capital and some travel in the city after a suspected al-Qaida car bombing on Monday killed seven Spanish tourists and two Yemenis.

The AP survey did not include countries where the U.S. does not maintain a diplomatic presence, notably Iran, North Korea and Somalia. Nor does it include nations that have slapped travel restrictions on U.S. diplomats in retaliation for similar measures imposed by Washington, such as Cuba, Eritrea and Zimbabwe.

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