US State Department Scales-down Presence in Iraq

By Staff, Agencies

The US State Department sent Congress this month detailed plans to dramatically and permanently reduce the number of US personnel in Iraq.

The measure, critics say, runs directly against US President Donald Trump administration’s stated goals of ‘countering Iranian influence’ in the country and undercuts Washington’s efforts to stabilize the Iraqi government.

Documents sent from the State Department to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and obtained by Foreign Policy shed new light on the department’s decision earlier this year to draw down the number of diplomats and other US personnel in Iraq.

The US Mission in Iraq will reduce the number of staff at its embassy, diplomatic support center, and consulate in Erbil in Northern Iraq from 486 to 349, a 28 percent decrease, by the end of May 2020.

The majority of the staff leave will come from the State Department, but other government agencies, including the Defense Department and US Agency for International Development [USAID], will also cut the size of their staff at the embassy, as the document shows.