Wanted: Image Czar Who Can Improve State Department Image Inside State Department

Seems that the State Department doesn't like the State Department's policies, either. A new order requires all American diplomats to sign up for potential Iraq duty, or face the axe. Diplomats rebelled at a contentious town meeting with a senior official at the State Department in Washington yesterday.

I for one am impressed by the dedication to public service of American diplomats I've encountered. Hundreds of them have already served in Iraq, leaving families behind for months at a time and facing the dangers and some of the most difficult diplomatic challenges in the State Department's history.

One of them is Ryan Crocker, the current ambassador in Baghdad (as it happens, I interviewed Crocker in Qatar Thursday as he was en route to the Iraq conference in Istanbul), who was in the U.S. embassy in Beirut in 1983 when it was blown to pieces by terrorists. Dozens of his colleagues were killed in that attack. I know one American diplomat who is on his second or third volunteer tour in Iraq. I think it's perfectly understandable that some diplomats are resisting the mandatory duty. All U.S. diplomats face security risks--American embassies in the Middle East in particular now resemble Crusader castles--but some, including those with great family responsibilities, may not want to dramatically increase those risks.

I imagine that a reason behind the lack of enough volunteers and the resistance to the order for mandatory service has to do with the fact that the State Department was not exactly gung-ho on the Iraq invasion in the first place. If you remember, that was the work mainly of Cheney's and Rumsfeld's departments. Diplomat Jack Croddy was quoted in the town meeting saying, "It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment." He called the order a "potential death sentence, and you know it" and was cheered by colleagues at the meeting.

Idea: Maybe the mandatory service should start with the political appointees in the vice president's office? To set a good example, and all that.

Some diplomats apparently first found out about the order when they read about it in the Washington Post. A poll of the American Foreign Service Association found that only 12% of its members felt Condi Rice was fighting for their interests. I reckon undersecretary of state Karen Hughes should hang on a bit longer; the State Department needs an image czar to improve the State Department's image in the State Department.

--By Scott MacLeod/Doha