WASHINGTON — The State Department says its diplomatic staff won’t be safe after the military leaves Iraq unless it has its own combat-ready protection force, a warning that underscores concerns about the Iraqi army and police that the U.S. has spent billions of dollars training and equipping.
Vehicles and aircraft used by the department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security to protect personnel in other parts of the world are “inadequate to the extreme security challenges in Iraq,” according to documents the State Department sent to the Pentagon in April.
The bureau will need to “duplicate the capabilities of the U.S. military” by December 2011, the documents say, when all U.S. forces are scheduled to leave Iraq.
The State Department wants 24 of the Army’s Black Hawk helicopters, 50 bomb-resistant vehicles, heavy cargo trucks, fuel trailers and high- tech surveillance systems, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Patrick Kennedy, the State Department’s undersecretary for management, wants the equipment transferred at “no cost” from military stocks.The Associated Press
