Embarrassing emails may hinder nominating McGurk as new US ambassador to Iraq

(IraqiNews.com) The US State Department is standing by the nomination of Brett McGurk as the new US ambassador to Iraq, due to the publication of intimate emails revealing an extramarital affair with a journalist who later became his wife.

The emails between McGurk and a Wall Street Journal reporter, Gina Chon, written in 2008 when the diplomat posted to Baghdad, were leaked to a blog, Cryptome, in an apparent an attempt to scupper his approval as ambassador by the Senate.

Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman, called McGurk “uniquely qualified” for the post.

“He spent the better part of the last decade serving our country in and out of Iraq, working for a Republican administration and a Democratic administration,” she said.

She stressed “He is in our view uniquely qualified to serve as the ambassador and we urge the Senate to act quickly on his nomination.”

Nuland declined to comment on the content of emails between McGurk and Chon other than to say “They’re out there for everybody to see.”

However, their publication is expected to lead to questions at McGurk’s Senate nomination hearing as to whether he shared classified or diplomatically sensitive information with Chon.

In one email he suggests that he could provide information “if treated to many glasses of wine.”

A Republican senator, James Inhofe, cancelled a meeting with McGurk in a sign that unease about the emails could raise problems since any senator is able to put a hold on the nomination.

McGurk is also facing opposition from some senators because of his handling of the Iraq situation, earlier this week before the emails were made public,

Senator John McCain