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Iraq
Last envoys ready to leave Iraqi capital
2003-03-15
Bags are packed. Spouses and cooks have been dispatched. Letters of apology to the chief of protocol have been printed. Among the dwindling diplomatic corps of Baghdad, only one important official duty remains before ambassadors and consuls form their convoys across the Iraqi desert to Jordan, and that is their calculation on the timing of this war.
Tuesday. Maybe Wednesday...
Though the Swedish flag still flutters over the embassy in Baghdad, they, like most governments, long ago instructed their envoys to leave. At the latest diplomatic gathering in the Iraqi capital, just 24 representatives appeared from the 58 resident missions. Those left behind are absorbed in the motions of departure, but will take their final cue from New York, and the likelihood that the security council will take up Britain's proposal for a second resolution on Iraq. If there is to be no vote, the exodus could get under way immediately. Otherwise, the diplomats will wait until Monday evening to bid their final adieus. Aside from rumours of a few diehards or those stranded by political upheavals at home - like the Somali - leaving is a foregone conclusion. "It makes no sense to stay. We would merely be a burden on Iraq, and an embarrassment to our governments," said one diplomat, padding barefoot in his pyjamas through his cavernous stripped-down residence.
Good question for the Somali delegation: where are you safer, Baghdad or Mogadishu?
"Do you think if I stay I would be seen as a hero at home? I would be crucified. People will say: 'You are too dumb to be an ambassador. Were you seriously thinking you could stop the war by being there?"
Good question.
He paused to turn up the volume on the television set, tuned permanently to CNN. "The dilemma is to strike a balance between leaving too soon and leaving too late. The point will come when it will be impossible to leave."
Like when you get rounded up to "volunteer" as a human shield?
It's been more than 10 years since the 1991 Gulf war when Britain and America last had a chargé in Baghdad. The Poles and Hungarians evacuated last month. The Bulgarians, who have said they will vote with America and Britain for war, deemed it prudent to decamp once the security council began to take up the subject of a second resolution. The Russians flew in large planes to bring out their nationals last week. The German embassy - whose ambassador is still in town - has brought in sandbags. At the Italian embassy the phone just rings and rings.
But it did that when the Italians were there.
A parallel exodus is under way at the United Nations, where the quotient of international staff in Baghdad and in the northern Kurdish enclave, has been drastically reduced. The numbers of weapons inspectors has also been in flux since early March, and this dropped to about 80. The UN says this was a natural outcome of short-term contracts ending, and not a lessening of faith in their mission. Officially, the Arab envoys are staying - bar the Bahrain ambassador who has left - and a trio of ambassadors led by the Algerian envoy stepped out for tea yesterday at a cafe frequented by Baghdad intellectuals. But the Libyan envoy, and the dean of the diplomatic corps, has not been seen since the mid-February Eid holiday.
That's the better part of valor, I'd say...
Yet despite the diminishing of their numbers since February, discussion of departure dates remains a sensitive topic among the shrinking expatriate community. Though they gather twice a week - in restaurants since the evacuation of families and support staff - only the most intimate of associates are open about their plans. When the ambassadors do go, it will be in a series of small departures, not the grand exodus that presaged the start of the last war. "Everybody is pretending not to leave," said one expatriate. "You see them at dinner and they say: 'Hi, we'll see you around', and the next morning you find out they have left."
They never told you where they'd 'see you around'.
The realists admit there is little to keep the diplomats here. Except for the Chinese, the Russians and the French, commercial interests in Iraq are marginal. A few dozen Indian and Pakistani nationals remain - students of Arabic on Iraqi government scholarships or those with years of residence - and those who want to go will be evacuated over the weekend. The diplomatic corps is granted relatively little access to the inner power circles of Iraq. Aside from the ambassador from Vietnam - who first met Saddam Hussein as his translator during a visit to Hanoi before he rose to power - none has seen the Iraqi leader except on television. The closest they have come is the ritual group photo following military parades - and even these events occur only once every few years. "It has not been very stressful, let me tell you," said one ambassador. But the countdown to war has shaken them from their routines. As they gather around their TV sets, there is a sense they are about to become central to a drama that they do not yet fully comprehend. "Let's face it," one said, "We are the ones who know least about what is going to happen."
Typical diplomats!
Posted by:Steve White

#1   The story I find more telling is that many of these countries are giving Iraqi "diplomats" the heave-ho.

There was some reportage a while back on these Iraqis "casing" potential US targets in foreign capitals, e.g., we go in, they respond with a car bomb in, say, Sofia.

I know the Swedes and the Hungarians have booted out Iraqis in the last 48 hours so, despite some countries publicly saying Saddam hasn't been provably linked to terror, privately their security services must know Saddam has such a plan.
Posted by: JDB   2003-03-15 20:36:48  

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