Shocking Memo from U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Details Increasing Danger

[Douglas Carpenter]

link:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002690071

"'Wash Post' Obtains Shocking Memo from U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Details Increasing Danger and Hardship

By Greg Mitchell

Published: June 18, 2006 6:20 PM ET

NEW YORK The Washington Post has obtained a cable, marked "sensitive," that it says show that just before President Bush left on a surprise trip last Monday to the Green Zone in Baghdad for an upbeat assessment of the situation there, "the U.S. Embassy in Iraq painted a starkly different portrait of increasing danger and hardship faced by its Iraqi employees."

This cable outlines, the Post reported Sunday, "the daily-worsening conditions for those who live outside the heavily guarded international zone: harassment, threats and the employees' constant fears that their neighbors will discover they work for the U.S. government." A PDF copy of the cable shows that it was sent to the SecState in Washington, D.C. from "AMEmbassy Baghdad" on June 6. The typed name at the very bottom is Khalilzad -- the name of the U.S. Ambassador, though it is not known if this means he wrote the memo or merely approved it"

snip:"Among the other troubling reports:

-- "Personal safety depends on good relations with the 'neighborhood' governments, who barricade streets and ward off outsiders. The central government, our staff says, is not relevant; even local mukhtars have been displaced or coopted by militias. People no longer trust most neighbors."


-- Iraqi staff at the embassy, beginning in March and picking up in May, report "pervasive" harassment from Islamist and/or militia groups. Cuts in power and rising fuel prices "have diminished the quality of life." Conditions vary but even upscale neighborhoods "have visibly deteriorated" and one of them is now described as a "ghost town." "

snip:"- Embassy employees are held in such low esteem their work must remain a secret and they live with constant fear that their cover will be blown. Of nine staffers, only four have told their families where they work. They all plan for their possible abductions. No one takes home their cell phones as this gives them away. One employee said criticism of the U.S. had grown so severe that most of her family believes the U.S. "is punishing populations as Saddam did."

-- Since April, the "demeanor" of guards in the Green Zone has changed, becoming more "militia-like," and some are now "taunting" embassy personnel or holding up their credentials and saying loudly that they work in the embassy: "Such information is a death sentence if overheard by the wrong people." For this reason, some have asked for press instead of embassy credentials."


read full article:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002690071

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"I think of war with Iran as the ending of America's present role in the world. Iraq may have been a preview of that, but it's still redeemable if we get out fast. In a war with Iran, we'll get dragged down for 20 or 30 years. The world will condemn us. We will lose our position in the world."

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Vanity Fair, 2006.

Iranian showdown – great resource page:

http://reseaudesign.com/research/iran/iran_summery.html

______________________

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. The begining of the Pentagon Papers

perchance? I sure hope so

[Fridays Child]

2. Has the Post published this memo? If they have...

...I can't find it.

[Douglas Carpenter]

4. not yet this article is from Editors and Publishers

[Doctor_J]

3. "...sent to SecState in DC..."

I wonder if she stopped rubbing Smirk's back long enough to read it. Does anyone in this admin actually do any work?

[Douglas Carpenter]

5. kik

[Supersedeas]

6. and where is the M$ Television Media...where are the panelists to

discuss the significance of this memo to the deployment of our troops.