Just unbelievable

I'm clipping this in its entirety from Laura Rozen's War and Peace Blog.

It's just an unbelievable statement of the state of affairs in Iraq.

Anonymous US embassy staffer in Baghdad recognized for his/her dedication, Al Kamen reports:

The State Department this week announced the winner of its annual Foreign Service National Employee of the Year award for 2005. And the winner is -- drum roll -- someone "from American Embassy Baghdad," the announcement said, "and for security reasons will remain anonymous."

The announcement explains why the "awardee," let's call him Mr. Anon , was selected from among the many thousands of non-American employees at embassies around the world. For example, "he helped to retain most of the [embassy] staff despite numerous death threats leveled against them." Anon's "life was at risk night and day," he had "many close calls personally and several friends were slain."

If that's not enough, "after a suicide bomber detonated [a] device within five yards of the dining table," the announcement says, Anon "limped in to the embassy and continued working despite suffering from shock and severe hearing loss. When a colleague was assassinated" and his U.S. supervisor sent home the following day, Anon "vowed to work 'even if no one was left.' "

And when the delegates to the Iraqi National Assembly met at a Baghdad hotel, he was "trapped in the elevator when a rocket slammed into the hotel," we're told. "Later that day, a Gurkha security guard standing a few feet away was struck in the head by shrapnel from an exploding mortar round," and Anon provided first aid...