U.S.  diplomats warned of compulsory Iraq duty

updated 6:10 p.m. ET April 15, 2008

The State Department warned U.S. diplomats they may be forced to serve in Iraq next year and said it will soon start identifying prime candidates for jobs at the Baghdad embassy and outlying provinces, according to a cable obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

A similar call-up threat last year caused a revolt among foreign service officers who objected to compulsory work in a war zone, although in the end the State Department found enough volunteers to fill the jobs.

Now, the State Department anticipates another staffing crisis.

"We face a growing challenge of supply and demand in the 2009 staffing cycle," the cable said, noting that more than 20 percent of the nearly 12,000 foreign service officers have already worked in the two major hardship posts — Iraq and Afghanistan — and a growing number have done tours in both countries.

As a result, the unclassified April 8 cable said, "the prime candidate exercise will be repeated" next year, meaning the State Department will begin identifying U.S. diplomats qualified to serve in Iraq and who could be forced to work there if they don't volunteer.

Looking for special abilities
The prime candidate list will be composed of diplomats who have special abilities that are needed in Iraq, such as Arabic language skills, deep Mideast knowledge or training in specific areas of reconstruction.

"We must assign to Iraq those employees whose skills are most needed, and those employees should know that they personally are needed," Foreign Service Director General Harry Thomas said in the cable sent to all diplomatic missions.

The cable describes how the department will fill upcoming vacancies at hardship posts like those Iraq and Afghanistan — although it doesn't plan to force any Afghanistan assignments. Diplomats will "bid," or apply, for positions in the war zones that will be advertised in May. After that, the department expects to begin identifying prime candidates for about 300 Iraq jobs that come open next summer, Thomas wrote.

The cable said more details will be announced next month, but identification of prime candidates is the first step in implementing so-called "directed assignments." That means ordering diplomats to work in certain locations under threat of dismissal unless they have a compelling reason, such as a health condition, that would prevent them from going.

Last year, after prime candidates were identified for 48 Iraq jobs that come open this summer, enough qualified volunteers came forward to avoid what would have been the largest diplomatic call-up since the Vietnam War — but not before the uproar over the prospect of forced tours made national headlines.

'Potential death sentence'
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday that she had been personally offended by the critical comments of some diplomats who questioned the ethics of sending people against their will to a war zone. One diplomat, during an October session held at the State Department to explain the policy to employees, called the forced assignments a "potential death sentence" to loud applause.

"I was deeply offended myself, and deeply sorry that these people who had self-selected into this town hall went out of their way, to my view, cast a very bad light on the foreign service," Rice told a House panel.

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