Diplomats won't be ordered to work in Iraq

Washington: The State Department is expected to announce that volunteers have filled all 48 open jobs at the US Embassy in Baghdad for next year and that it will not order any foreign service officers to work there against their will, officials said on Thursday.

Volunteers for the last three or four positions are currently being vetted. Once that process is completed, a senior department official said, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will ask personnel officers to assure her that everyone selected "does in fact have the right skill sets" and meets all requirements before an announcement is made.

Rice's decision late last month to order diplomats to serve in Iraq if enough volunteers could not be found caused an uproar at State, where large-scale "directed assignments" have not been used since the Vietnam War. But while the controversy is expected to subside for now, internal strains over personnel shortages and policy are likely to reappear as long as Iraq continues to be a dangerous diplomatic assignment and to drain resources from other posts.

"The secretary reserves the right, now and in the future," to send officers where they are needed, said the senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the formal announcement was still forthcoming.

Largest mission

The US diplomatic mission in Iraq has grown steadily and is by far the world's largest, with hundreds of American diplomatic, technical and administrative personnel. Foreign service officers, who are not accompanied by family members, serve one-year tours of duty there, and nearly 250 diplomats will be replaced next summer.

Most midsize US embassies have 30 to 40 diplomatic positions; smaller embassies have fewer than a dozen.