Iraq

Violence steals comfort, not zeal, from mission

The bombing of the Rashid Hotel hasn't changed the U.S. State Department's mission in Iraq, but it has made some of its employees a little more cramped and uncomfortable.

"We're literally out of beds," said Tony Spakauskas, who works for the State Department's Iraq support unit in Washington, D.C.

The deadly assault on the Rashid Hotel on Oct. 26 and the steady stream of terrorist attacks in Baghdad have forced the department to make some critical changes to its Iraq operations. State Department employees once housed in the Rashid Hotel have been moved to the more secure palace compound in Baghdad, Spakauskas said.

About 130 State Department workers are stationed in Iraq. Many live in dormitory-style housing, according to department officials. With the June 30 deadline for the U.S. to hand back control of Iraq looming, department employees routinely work 16-hour days, six or seven days a week.

"In spite of all that, people's morale is very high," Spakauskas said.

Roughly 9,000 Americans work in the State Department's foreign service division, which operates in about 260 posts around the world, according to a department Web site.

Foreign service employees receive extensive training on everything from foreign languages to basic safety regardless of where they are stationed. But the department now requires most workers who go to Iraq to undergo specialized antiterrorism training.

"It basically teaches them what's the political situation on the ground," Spakauskas said. "And because of the absolute randomness of acts of violence on the ground, we stress emergency medicine training."

State Department employee Paula Wikle credits her training with saving her life and her arm. When missiles struck the exterior of her room at the Rashid Hotel in October and nearly severed her right arm, she immediately applied the medical techniques she had learned.

"Because of my training, I knew I had to slow the bleeding down," Wikle said.

Assaults on Americans working abroad can happen anywhere, not just Iraq. In 1998, dual terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, injured thousands and killed more than 200 people, including 12 Americans. Since then, the department has substantially beefed up its security measures for operations abroad.

Wikle says she knew her job could bring serious risks when she signed up to work in the foreign service division 41/2 years ago. She's pretty certain she doesn't want to go back to Iraq any time soon. But she said she's still eager to work for the department elsewhere.

"It's one of the best jobs in the world," Wikle said.

- Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report.

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