re: "State Still Not Prepared to Bully Iraq, Might Lose Lunch Money"

Peter Van Buren at We Meant Well ("How I Helped Lose The Battle For The Hearts And Minds Of The Iraqi People") is keeping up with his old neighborhood.

Money quote(s):

"No matter what form of US military is left in Iraq by year’s end, the State Department takes over the mission from the Army on October 1 (don’t anticipate any parades, maybe a press release or infomercial) and will have to fend for itself in Iraq."

This is more than a little scary. It's sort of like pulling all the occupation troops out of Germany after World War II, only with Nazis still in Poland and France.

"State would like to hire its own army, 5500 mercs, dropping a couple of billion in protection money so that Sadr doesn’t steal the embassy’s lunch money. Congress may or may not ante up (it looks like things are covered for part of the next FY) but the task of supervising all those bad boys and filling in the security gaps the Army will leave falls on State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, or “DS” if you’re cool in a nerdy kind of cool way."

All due props to DS (and CAA loves him some DS), this goes way beyond what anyone ever expected DS to do. Secure a reconstruction effort, diplomatic and consular missions in a war zone. If they manage to do it at all, they still won't be able to do it well.

"Among other tasks, the diplomats themselves will somehow be responsible for “downed aircraft recovery, explosives ordnance disposal, route clearance, and rocket and mortar countermeasures,” all of which they “have had little or no experience in providing.”

The horrible death of a State contractor last week in Iraq may be a sad portent of things to come.

Choose your Iraq assignments wisely and stay thirsty my friends."

I've quietly asked fellow officers, from time to time, whether or not they were prepared to be on that embassy roof, waiting for that last chopper, a la Saigon.

Perhaps that scenario should now be amended to omit the helicopter.