POLITICS: U.S. State Dept. demands decreasing of its Baghdad Embassy Staff

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The US State Department has demanded all sections of its Embassy in Baghdad to study the decrease of its Embassy staff by 25%, in an attempt to save funding, in a statement by a high-level US official, who described the US presence as an “abnormal high diplomatic presence,” according to the Washington Post on Thursday. The newspaper quoted the US State Dept.’s Undersecretary, Thomas Nedis as saying: “We are heading towards studying taking such a step next year,” adding that “we do now is to avoid taking unstudied decisions that may harm thousands of American citizens working in Iraq.” The US Official was speaking to journalists after a press report that US President Obama’s Administration was re-evaluating the size of the US Embassy in Baghdad, after less than 2 months of the final US Army’s withdrawal from Iraq, as more than half of the Embassy cadres that exceed 16,000, are American citizens, whilst non-Iraqis working in the Embassy are those who are employed in the security of the Embassy. He refused to announce the number of Embassy staff who will be cut down, saying: “We hope that we will be able to drop down the size of our staff. SKH (PT) 221