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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Saturday, October 27, 2007

The State Dept's "Stop-Loss"

Holy Crap is this going to go down badly.
Facing staff shortages in Iraq, the U.S. State Department announced on Friday that diplomats would have no choice but to accept one-year postings in the hostile environment or face losing their jobs.

In what is likely to be an unpopular move with staff, State Department human resources director Harry Thomas said about 250 "prime candidates" for vacant Iraqi posts would be notified on Monday of the decision.

He said they would have 10 working days to respond to the demand that they go to Iraq in summer, 2008, and only those with valid reasons such as a medical problem, would be exempt.
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posted by mikevotes at 8:16 AM

4 Comments:

  • If I was looking for a promotion, a raise, and a ticket to Baghdad....

    By Blogger Praguetwin, at 8:20 AM  

  • That's actually been the belief in the military since about 2004.

    Anyone looking for a career in the Army knows they have to have at least one Iraq tour in their record.

    (Although, I wonder if the diplomatic failures in Iraq might make a tour look different on a State Dept. personnel file.)

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 8:48 AM  

  • I admit to being cynical, but I see at least one hidden agenda here.

    The career foreign service personnel will leave and be replaced by cronies whose primary qualifications are loyalty to Bush. We've seen the same pattern in Justice, HS, and intelligence services. And, to a considerable extent, the senior officer corps.

    Ironically, the al-Maliki government has employed the same model of loyal incompetents being given preference over qualified candidates, and look how well that has worked for them.

    By Blogger Todd Dugdale , at 2:26 PM  

  • I hadn't thought about it in replacement terms (I'm not sure Condi Rice is competent enough to be that evil,) but it did occur to me that they're going to be driving out many of the most Arab qualified diplomats.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 2:59 PM  

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