Topic: The People
Foreign service officers working for the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department are currently the middle of the "bidding" seasons trying to figure out where they will go after finishing their tours in Iraq. There is one unwritten rules for American foreign service officers stationed in Iraq – after completing your one-year tour, you generally get to go wherever you want, within reason. It is called, "using the Iraq card."

Smart foreign service officers are trying to use the experiences they have gained in Iraq to leapfrog over people who refused to come to Iraq or could not come to Iraq for family reasons, and I am certain that shrewd foreign service officers will be successful. For example, I know someone in Iraq who is managing thirty people and a $2.6 billion program. That budget is larger than almost every overseas Mission. This is a really nice thing to put on a resume when shopping around for a new post.

And in other news, NPR did a decent peiece on life inside the Green Zone. However, there is something about the tone that I don't like, and the piece gives the sense that the world inside the Green Zone is pretty large. It's not. The reporter went to almost all the "fun" places inside the Zone.