Officials said the U.S. embassy in Iraq will be one of the largest in the
Middle East and will hire 1,000 Americans for the Baghdad facility.
The United States plans to hire private contractors to
provide security at the new embassy.
U.S. officials said the State Department will not have access to
sufficient military or government security personnel and as a result, will seek out private security firms, Middle East Newsline reported.
The greatest challenge in the diplomatic transition will be ensuring
the security of the embassy personnel in Iraq, officials said. They did not
say how many security personnel would be needed for the embassy, headed by
ambassador John Negroponte.
"The fact is the number we're anticipating of Americans permanently
assigned desks in the embassy is oscillating somewhere under 1,000," State
Department official Frank Ricciardone said.
Speaking at a recent seminar at the U.S. Institute for Peace in
Washington, Ricciardone said about 700 Iraqis would be employed by the
embassy, housed in one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces. He said that as
the security situation in Iraq improves, Iraqis would take over many of the
jobs held by Americans.
Ricciardone said the United States would establish a diplomatic presence
in the Iraqi provinces. But he added that such a presence would be less
visible than that of the defunct Coalition Provisional Authority.
"We intend to have Americans working outside of Baghdad in the
provincial areas, much as CPA has done, but quite frankly with a lesser
footprint," Ricciardone said. "We are not the colonial administrators of
this country. We are there as guests, as a supportive good friend."
Mick Kicklighter, a senior Defense Department official who serves on the
Pentagon's Iraq Transition Team, said the insurgency war in Iraq was
hampering the conversion of the CPA into a diplomatic presence. Kicklighter
said the Pentagon and State Department were approaching the problem in an
integrated manner.
"Anyone who has served in the military knows that one of the most
difficult operations you ever have to perform is the changing of an
organization ø withdrawal of an organization ø in combat," Kicklighter
said. "That's exactly what we're embarking on, changing the Coalition
Provisional Authority into a U.S. mission."