TSB at The Skeptical Bureaucrat ("From deep inside the foundations of our Republic's capital city") examined remarks related to AmEmb Baghdad by DepSec Nides.
Money quote(s):
"Downsizing the U.S. Mission in Baghdad isn't really about rationing chicken wings in the embassy's dining hall after all, despite yesterday's New York Times story.
Instead, it's all about the reducing the footprint, according to remarks by Thomas Nides, Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources, at a press teleconference today. He said "footprint" seven times."
The chicken wing (and arugula) story was never really more than just another big-media club with which to pummel Americans serving their country in a warzone, uniformed or not.
"(I)f we replace enough third-country security contractors with Iraqis, buy our groceries in the local market, and always, always, always re-think our engagement (Deputy Secretary Nides also said "engagement" seven times) we will eventually fit into a more nearly normal shoe."
Thinking is good. Right-sizing an embassy is a useful activity, particular when it's a out- (notice I don't say "over-") sized as our diplomatic/reconstruction/development/democratication establishment in Iraq.
That being said, placing too much of our embassy security in the hands of essentially un-vettable Iraqis, to say nothing of surrendering our food security, is a recipe for disaster.
"(M)ost of this footprint reduction will come about by hiring fewer foreign (i.e., non-Iraqi) security contractors and replacing them with local hires. That will help in at least two ways. First, it will eliminate a leading source of aggravation for the Iraqis. Second, the mission will not have to house and logistically support so many contractors, since our local hires will go home after their shifts are over, just like a normal local guard force does at a normal mission."
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