In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Diplomacy is so pre-9/11
Rumsfeld at war with reality opens up a new front against the state department. And as with his war with reality - lives are at stake.
Cannon fodder at State
The U.S. is sending diplomats into Iraq, but refusing to give them military protection. No wonder Foreign Service morale is collapsing.Rather than being received as invaluable intelligence, the messages from Foreign Service officers are discarded or, worse, considered signs of disloyalty. Rejecting the facts on the ground apparently requires blaming the messengers. So far two top attachés at the embassy have been reassigned elsewhere for producing factual reports that were too upsetting, according to the State Department officials.
The Bush administration's preferred response to the increasing disintegration in Iraq is to act as if it has a strategy that is succeeding. "More delusion as a solution in the absence of a solution," a senior State Department official told me. Under the pretense that Iraq is being pacified, the U.S. military is partially withdrawing from hostile towns in the countryside and parts of Baghdad. By reducing the numbers of soldiers the administration can claim its policy is working going into the midterm elections. But the jobs that the military will no longer perform are being sloughed off onto State Department "provincial reconstruction teams" led by Foreign Service officers. The stated rationale is that the teams will win Iraqi hearts and minds by organizing civil functions.
The Pentagon has informed the State Department that it will not provide security for these officials and that State should hire mercenaries for protection instead.
- rob 6:02 PM - [PermaLink] -
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