Testimony: 40% of State Department employees from Iraq have PTSD symptoms

Located across 21 buildings on 104 acres on the banks of the Tigris in Baghdad, the new U.S. Embassy in Iraq will have its own water wells, electricity and wastewaster-treatment. There will be huge residences for the Ambassador (16,000 sf) and the Ambassador's deputy (9,500 sf), six apartments for senior officials, and two huge office blocks for 8,000 staff. Recreation includes the biggest swimming pool in Iraq, a state-of-the-art gymnasium, a cinema, restaurants, tennis courts and an 'American Club' for evening functions. Budgeted at more than one-half billion dollars, the actual construction costs will probably never be known.

At least 40 percent of State Department diplomats who have served in danger zones suffer some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, Steven Kashkett, vice president of the American Foreign Service Association, said in congressional testimony yesterday.

Troubling medical and psychiatric symptoms have become a growing problem for Foreign Service personnel in recent years, particularly among those exposed to deadly violence in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, where diplomats often work and live among U.S. troops, Kashkett told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee...

"Foreign Service officers, while accustomed to serving their country overseas under extremely difficult conditions, are not soldiers and are not trained for combat," Kashkett told the subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. "Yet in Iraq, they are often directly exposed to conditions of war [with] which they may not always be well adapted to cope." Some 2,000 diplomats have volunteered to serve in Iraq since 2003, he said.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

Related Link:
Report: State Department facing staffing crises, worsening morale

Related Link:
Report: New U.S. embassy, world's largest, may be too small

Related Link:
Report: U.S. Embassy employees fearful over Green Zone attacks

Related Link:
Embassy orders staff to start wearing flak jackets, helmets

Related Link:
Report: Iraq diplomats returning to U.S. with PTSD symptoms

Related Link:
Some State Dept. employees joining new Provincial Reconstruction Teams

Related Link:
Perspective: Agencies tangle in search to win in Iraq

Related Link:
Rice: Provincial reconstruction teams in Iraq to be doubled by end of March

Related Link:
Perspective: Iraq Rebuilding Short on Qualified Civilians

Related Link:
Pentagon to Fill Iraq Reconstruction Jobs Temporarily

Related Link:
Analysis: Few Veteran Diplomats Accept Mission to Iraq

Related Link:
Rice: Military Reservists to be used in place of State professionals in Iraq

Related Link:
State Department lags in Iraq redevelopment staff (10/30/06)