A bit over a year and half ago there were several stories about US diplomatic postings and support personnel positions remaining empty due to career State Dept personnel refusing, or otherwise fighting,being posted to Iraq despite the clear understanding they had in undertaking a State Department career, that hazard duty posts would potentially be part of the deal.
I never heard any more about it. What was the resolution to this issue?
I never heard either so I assume they eventually got enough people to agree to go. Or else the people forced to go never talked to the media .
In a lot of cases people make big money to go work there but I assume that doesn’t apply to government jobs, only contractor jobs.
When I was in the Foreign Service, it was not uncommon for a posting to remain vacant. If nobody bids on a posting, then it usually just stays open and the post muddles by without that particular slot being filled, up to and including ambassador. New officers can just be assigned to a post, and it would be a poor career move for a junior officer to turn down an assignment, but they can turn it down. I turned down both Ulaan Bataar and an African post to take Lisbon when I first joined. But I was support staff, not a diplomat. I knew a lot of FSOs who turned down assignments, and I imagine the DOS had a very hard time filling Iraq positions. I’ve never heard of anybody being fired for refusing a posting.
Basically, things got fixed. Enough volunteers were found.
http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2008/1012/ed_voliraq.html
It’s very possible that they merely did a recruitment for most of the support positions, with the stipulation that the first assignment would be Iraq. I’m wondering what the differential pay is for those folks. Hell, I got 25% locality and 15% medical differential just for serving in Uganda, which was peaceful at the time. 40% of your salary tax-free is a pretty fair incentive, so I would imagine that Iraq is probably up in the 75% bracket.