Iraq

Between 2005 and 2009, more than $567 million was spent on one contract in Iraq to build up the logistical capabilities of the Iraq security forces, with almost no oversight whatsoever. When an audit was finally done on the invoices, it found that 14 percent of the money examined in sampling -- that's more than $4.2 million -- was completely unaccounted for.

The audit was conducted by the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), which found in one example that the contractor, a company called AECOM, charged $196.50 for a package of 10 washers that should have cost $1.22, a markup of 16,000 percent. "There just weren't enough people to look at this contract, which was a half a billion dollars," Deputy Inspector General Ginger Cruz told The Cable.

The contract is one of the hundreds of investigations done in recent years by SIGIR. But as the U.S. military withdraws from Iraq, SIGIR is losing its funding and its staff, begging the question of how the U.S. government will be able to discover such abuses going forward. Special Inspector General Stuart Bowen has been meeting with various government officals and groups to try to create a permanent organization to oversee reconstruction  projects in warzones, an idea that hasn't gotten any official traction so far but could be included in any of a number of government reform efforts now ongoing.

Since its inception in 2004, SIGIR claims to have produced $82 million of direct savings, $49 million of seizures and restitution payments, $224 million of funds put to better use, 31 criminal indictments, and 25 convictions. Right now, SIGIR has 96 ongoing investigations. But SIGIR's budget is being cut in half over the next two years and the organization will cut its staff correspondingly. The office could close completely as soon as 2012.

"The ramp-down has begun," said Bowen told The Cable. "A year from now, we will be in a serious windup mode and in two years from now there will be 30 people left," meaning basically no investigations will be able to move forward.

SIGIR has almost gone out of business five times since 2004. First it was created as the Inspector General for what was then the Coalition Provisional Authority. Congress has extended its mandates, albeit temporarily, several times since then. But with the clock running down on the U.S. military presence in Iraq, SIGIR's nine lives are just about up.

There is $6 billion left to spend of the $52 billion appropriated by the U.S. Congress for reconstruction in Iraq. The law stipulates that when the money runs out, so too will SIGIR's mandate.

Bowen is currently searching for a way to keep SIGIR's institutional knowledge and expertise in the government and to keep his staff employed. He has been shopping around town his idea for a new U.S. government agency that would manage all reconstruction efforts in areas where the military is deployed. He calls it the U.S. Office for Contingency Operations, which would exist in perpetuity and stand independent of either the State or Defense Departments, as SIGIR does now.

"It assumes that over time, contingencies will occur," said Bowen, "It's sort of like FEMA. FEMA is set up to address disasters, but disasters aren't continuous. The history of the last 50 years, with 15 contingencies or so, indicates that the next 50 years will probably have more contingency operations."

Bowen met with Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg on Thursday and plans to meet with Policy Planning chief Anne Marie Slaughter's office soon. The hope is that his proposal will find its way into the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Defense Review (QDDR) ongoing inside State now.

"The idea is contribute to the ongoing efforts to reform how the United States approaches this critical issue," Bowen said.

If that's too ambitious, Bowen has a scaled-back idea that he hasn't yet proposed, creating a Special Inspector General for Overseas Contingency Operations. This would be a version of his other proposal, but focused on oversight and investigations, rather than actually managing contracts.

"It makes sense to have a body that can look at both pots of money without resistance. That ‘s the genius of this organization, there's no door we can't get through."

SIGIR's top officials point to $100 billion spent by the U.S. on reconstruction in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. When Lebanon and Georgia are added, more than $16 billion will be spent in fiscal 2010. Afghanistan alone will see at least $1 billion in reconstruction money coming next year, and very few of the 68,000 troops there are trained as program managers, much less contract oversight specialists.

The Pentagon office for Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics, run by Ashton Carter, is working to rapidly increase the contracting staff in Afghanistan now, "but are they going to be able to ramp up fast enough so that when you start moving all this money really fast in Afghanistan, that it is properly managed?" asked Cruz. "You run the risk of it being wasted or stolen."

U.S. taxpayer money that was supposed to be used for emergency purposes in Iraq was spent to buy a special advertising issue for an Anbar businessman in a British trade magazine, a U.S. government investigation has found.

FDI magazine, a bimonthly print publication and website owned by the Financial Times, nearly simultaneously showered Anbar Governor Qasim Abid Muhammad Hammadi Al Fahadawi with positive coverage, praising the dangerous Anbar province as "a hot place to invest in" and giving the businessman an award as "Global Personality of the Year for 2009."

FDI's award was announced three days before the "Special Report" on Anbar, entitled, "Bridge to the Future," was published on its website. The award was immediately praised by the U.S. military in Iraq, without mention of the U.S. funds spent on the supplement, and the website makes no mention of it having been paid for by the American government. Then again last month, FDI magazine Editor Courtney Fingar handed the governor another award naming Anbar province one of FDI magazine's "standout regions of the year."

Reached by The Cable, Fingar confirmed the U.S. government had spent "in the neighborhood of $50,000" on the special supplement but denied her magazine's content had been bought and paid for, calling the report on Anbar "balanced and accurate."

The investigation was disclosed in the October quarterly report of the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction (SIGIR), which is tasked with monitoring U.S. expenditures and projects in Iraq, but has so far not been publicly reported. Sources told The Cable that after the report is submitted to Congress, it's up to that body to determine if the payment violated funding rules or the law.

The 14-page special advertising edition, the SIGIR report found, was completely paid for by U.S. military money from what's called the Commanders Emergency Response Program (CERP).

"CERP was originally designed for urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction," said Deputy Inspector General Ginger Cruz told The Cable. "Over the past six years its use has been greatly expanded and expenditures such as promotional media pieces emphasize the importance of having clear criteria to ensure appropriate use of taxpayer dollars."

"It just seems odd at all parts from whatever angle you look at it," said one administration source who requested anonymity because of the sensitive relationship between SIGIR and the military. Another source called the use of emergency funding to advertize for the governor "bizarre."

Defense Department financial regulations define CERP funding as "designed to enable local commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan to respond to urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction requirements within their areas of responsibility by carrying out programs that will immediately assist the indigenous population."

Fingar told The Cable that that while "travelling to Anbar to write the supplement provided an opportunity to become aware of the developments in the province and the work of the Governor," the editorial credibility of the publication was not for sale.

"The decision to grant the award was made after my return from Anbar, based on my experiences there and without consultation with the U.S. government, Anbar governor or any external sources," she said, "The decision is an editorial one alone."

She admitted that the special edition of the publication was paid for by the U.S. government and claimed it had a clearly identified sponsor, but the website version of the supplement made no mention the U.S. government involvement.

"As per standard practice in the [business to business] specialist publishing business, the cost of the report was underwritten by a clearly identified sponsor -- in this case the US government -- but as per the very strict editorial code of conduct under which we operate at The Financial Times Ltd, reporting and editing were carried out independently and with no interference," said Fingar, who described her reporting as "balanced and accurate.'

"We stand by our coverage," she said.

The Defense Department did not respond to requests for comment.

The State Department is owed $134 million by a Kuwaiti firm that poorly and dangerously constructed the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, according to a newly released report by the Inspector General's Office.

The severe problems in the building of the compound, which opened last April almost one year late and more than $100 million over the $592 million budget, are so bad that the State Department will be paying for them in repairs and maintenance for years to come, the IG's office found.

Among the most shocking problems still present at the embassy: The walls are in danger of cracking; the "safe areas" for emergencies aren't safe; the fire protection systems might not protect from fires; and oh, by the way, the plumbing and electrical systems don't work.

This is only the latest piece of bad news for the lead contractor, First Kuwaiti Trading and Contracting, a firm the U.S. has used for hundreds of projects in Iraq but stands accused of shoddy work and widespread abuse of third-country workers it ships in from all over the world.

John Owens, one of the First Kuwaiti foremen on the project, quit in disgust after witnessing what he called labor trafficking and widespread worker abuse, including tricking migrant workers into going to Iraq, placing them in sub-human living conditions, and holding their passports so they couldn't escape.

"I've never seen a project more fucked up. Every U.S. labor law was broken," he said.

A House oversight committee held hearings on the mess in 2007, featuring testimony from Owens and Rory Mayberry, another First Kuwaiti employee who detailed the kidnapping practices of First Kuwaiti and accused the State Department of covering up the allegations.

Unfortunately, it was later discovered that Mayberry was basically a career felon who had been fired by First Kuwaiti for completely falsifying his credentials, casting doubt on his testimony.

Regardless, the new IG report confirms that severe safety problems at the embassy persist to this day and also lambasts State's Bureau for Overseas Building Operations (OBO) for its conduct throughout the affair.

The report criticizes the State Department for a total lack of oversight, mainly because OBO established something called the Emergency Project Coordination Office (EPCO) that didn't do its job in monitoring the construction when it was going on.

EPCO paid First Kuwaiti tens of millions of dollars not authorized by the contracts, didn't require proper documentation before paying invoices, and didn't enforce design and construction requirements, leading to a lot of the cost overruns and persistent problems, the IG found.

The OBO bureau responded to the IG by saying that "stand alone project offices [such as EPCO] are a mistake" and would not be used in the future. The Baghdad embassy did not respond with any comments to the IG report.

Photo by Iraqi President Office via Getty Images

Much ado was made last month about the reported rift between U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Chris Hill and the top U.S. military commander in Baghdad Gen. Ray Odierno, a rift that Hill strenuously denied.

But a real policy dispute lies at the heart of the story, senior diplomatic and military sources in Baghdad tell The Cable. Increasingly, the two men are said to differ over the proper American role in Baghdad, specifically with regard to how heavy a hand the U.S. should apply in trying to influence the decisions of the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The clashing approaches speak to both the institutional culture of the two organizations and their different view of U.S. priorities and interests during this critical time of pullback in the U.S. presence in Iraq, the sources said. "State has a respect for sovereignty and institutional relations," one official explained. "DOD is much more activist and hands on in pretty much every area. Their attitude is if there's a problem you get in there and do what you can to fix it."

The current dispute between the two camps centers around how involved the U.S. should be in the Maliki government's coalition politics ahead of Iraq's January 2010 elections, an event that has Middle East hands worried after the Iraqi parliament again failed Monday to pass a crucial law that would govern the polls. The U.S. government has hinged the entire redeployment strategy around the elections law, one government official working on Iraq in Washington said, warning that if it the process drags on, the withdrawal of U.S. troops will have to be correspondingly delayed.

Maliki has assembled a wide coalition for the upcoming poll. But according to reports, Iraq's lower house of parliament, the Council of Representatives (COR), might remove members of the Independent High Election Commission or withdraw its vote of confidence in the body at the prime minister's behest -- a move that military officials want to try to forestall.

But because the State Department places a high priority on holding the January elections on time as a precursor to fulfilling President Obama's withdrawal timeline, the embassy favors a more hands-off approach, and the White House is said to agree.

"State believes it would be fraught with danger to intervene on these COR decisions, and yet at the same time, it is equally dangerous if the COR decides to remove IHEC officials so close to the election," one senior military source in the region said, arguing that State's concerns about the Jan. 10 election date slipping are overblown.

A senior diplomatic source in Iraq responded by presenting the issue of U.S. involvement in Maliki's dealings as a balance between risk and reward.

"To what extent do we try to pick winners? What are the risks of that? How have we fared in the past with such an approach? This is not so much a civil-military problem, but it does go to the heart of how to disengage," the source explained. "Subtly versus with a heavy hand, could well determine what kind of partner we might have in Iraq."

The source also said State is very involved in the COR processes, including having embassy officers in every meeting and exerting influence when appropriate, such as in prodding individual members and suggesting solutions to get around impasses. "We are on it like the proverbial Iraqi carpet," the source said.

Clash of civilizations

Maliki alluded to the controversy in his remarks Monday after meeting with President Obama, saying that the two had "discussed the issue of the elections and the importance that these elections be held on time based on the national principles."

But the elections aren't the only issue in dispute, some Iraq experts say, pointing to the several outstanding issues between the Maliki government and both the Sunni and Kurdish communities as additional examples of how the State Department wants to disengage from Iraq at a faster pace than the military there.

"The question is, in this period of transition: What are the few things we really need to get traction on, and how much leverage do we have to do that?" said Sam Parker, an Iraq expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace. "It's about how much you should get involved."

Major disputes still exist between the Maliki government and the Iraqi minority communities over such things as the status of the city of Kirkuk, the distribution of oil profits, and payments to former Sunni insurgents who have been persuaded to lay down their arms.

"Odierno continues to believe that the Sunni community depends on the U.S. to defend them against the Maliki government," said one Washington Iraq expert. "State doesn't believe that the U.S. military should play a significant role in any of that."

Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Center on Foreign Relations, said that part of the dispute was a lack of agreement on the trustworthiness of Maliki.

"The key question is, What model of Maliki's motivations do we use as we make policy?" said Biddle. "As long as it's at least an open possibility that he's opportunistic or trying to consolidate power in his office in an unnatural way, either one of those implies increased U.S. engagement."

Some Iraq experts defend State's approach as the most pragmatic and realistic way to acknowledge the fact that the Americans are leaving Iraq.

"The Defense Department has to come to terms with the fact that its influence is waning there," said Marc Lynch, director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University.

"Sure, Chris Hill isn't doing as much on a personal level as [previous U.S. ambassador] Ryan Crocker did, but it's not clear that he should be," said Lynch. "The surge improved things militarily, but the political problems remain and those will have to be solved by the Iraqis. There is little we can do about it at this point."

Amb. Peter Galbraith, who was recently fired from his job as the second-highest ranking U.N. official in Afghanistan, admitted Thursday that he had financial interests in Kurdish oil dealings at the time he was helping to craft the Iraqi constitution.

Galbraith has been under pressure to talk about his dealings regarding the Norwegian oil company DNO, which had been part of an agreement to develop Kurdistan oil fields beginning in 2004. The Kurdistan Regional Government's own dealings with DNO are controversial in and of themselves.

Last month the KRG temporarily suspended DNO's operations in the Kurdish areas to allow time to settle a dispute between DNO and the Oslo Stock Exchange. The exchange suspended trading on DNO stock after it was revealed that the KRG aided in the selling of DNO stock to the Turkish company Genel, in what some see as an example of insider trading.

But Galbraith's involvement with DNO dates back to 2004, when he was actively involved in helping the new Iraqi government sort out its structure in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion. Galbraith pushed hard for the Kurds to seek maximum autonomy at the time, but now denies there was any conflict of interest.

"The business interest, including my investment into Kurdistan, was consistent with my political views,'' he told the Boston Globe, "These were all things that I was promoting, and in fact, have brought considerable benefit to the people of Kurdistan, the Kurdistan oil industry, and also to shareholders.''

The Globe also has details of how Galbraith was playing both the political and financial sides of the Kurdish issue:

In speeches, meetings with US officials, and articles in the New York Review of Books, Galbraith said Kurds should be given maximum autonomy and should have the right to develop their own oil fields, free of control by Iraq's central government.

But the same time, Galbraith was quietly entering into business deals that gave him a financial stake in the positions he was advocating. In late 2003 and early 2004, he worked as a paid consultant to Kurdish politicians, advising them on legal language they should seek to insert into Iraqi laws to keep future oil development under their control. Later, in 2005, he advised them again on an unpaid basis.

On June 23, 2004, Galbraith and his son, Andrew, registered a Delaware partnership called Porcupine, which entered into a business arrangement with DNO, a Norwegian oil company, according to company documents and a statement recently circulated by Porcupine.

Two days after Porcupine was established, the Kurdistan Regional Government signed a contract to develop Kurdistan's first oil field with DNO, ushering in a potential economic windfall for the semiautonomous region. DNO eventually struck oil, and currently owns a 55 percent stake in the Tawke field.

Many also see the revelations of Galbraith's involvement in DNO, which were detailed in a harsh manner on the Norwegian Web site historiae.org, as part of a retribution campaign following Galbraith's public and scathing criticism of his former U.N. boss Kai Eide, the Norwegian diplomat who stands accused of helping to ignore massive election fraud in Afghanistan.

AFP/Getty Images

America's top commander in Iraq responded today to Tom Ricks's report that his relationship with Amb. Chris Hill is "rapidly deteriorating," which Hill denied to The Cable yesterday.

Here's what Gen. Ray Odierno told the House Armed Services Committee in response to a question from Rep. Joe Courtney, D-CT: (via Spencer Ackerman):

"First, I interact every single day with - We probably meet personally three or four times a week. I have an office in the embassy that I man. But I also have about 300 people within MNF-I [Multinational Forces-Iraq] that are actually in the Embassy that are in support of economic, police, training, and other agencies, planning that are there every single day working with the Embassy, so we're completely integrated at every level, we continue to be completely integrated. We're updating this Joint Campaign Plan, which is- it's a joint plan between Amb. Hill and myself. We are working this very hard, very closely together. It's very important because it really is going to set what the deliverables are as we transition to civilian capacity-building once the military completes the capacity building.

"And the way I put it to all my people is: in 2003, we had a chance to do this, we didn't do it quite right. We have a chance to do this now, and we have to make sure we've got the planning and the deliverables necessary to make sure this works as we reduce our presence. And we're hand-in-hand doing a joint process with the embassy and I feel very comfortable with this.

"So I believe we have a real good system in place. Every meeting that I hold, we have a member of the Embassy at the meeting. So, I mean, I think our relationship is good. Amb. Hill and I work very closely together on a daily basis. As I tell him, the only thing Amb. Hill and I disagree on is that he's a Red Sox fan and I'm a Yankee fan. So besides that we do pretty well."

Was that a denial of the alleged rift between the two leaders? Did he address the substantive policy issues that separate them? You be the judge.

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill denied today the substance and details of a report by fellow Foreign Policy blogger Tom Ricks yesterday, which quoted anonymous sources as claiming that Hill's relationship with U.S. Iraq commander Gen. Ray Odierno was "deteriorating rapidly" due to fundamental differences over America's role there.

"Ray Odierno and I have an excellent relationship," Hill wrote in an e-mail to The Cable. "In addition to working together on all things Iraq in this crucial period of handover from the military to civilians, we smoke cigars together, we talk college and NFL football, we even talk baseball, not easy since Ray is a huge Yankees fan and I am, um, from New England."

Hill said he didn't ever remember meeting Ricks in the Balkans. Moreover, he criticized Ricks for reporting the alleged rift without visiting Iraq since he took over as ambassador and for not contacting him for comment before running with the story.

Moreover, Hill denied that the rift exists in the first place.

"Whatever 'source' he had was obviously not someone privy to my relationship with Ray. In short, Ricks is 180 degrees wrong about our relationship," Hill said, "I know Ray Odierno agrees with me that living and working in this place is tough enough without having to deal with this sort of thing out of Washington."

For his part, Ricks is standing by his reporting and publishing accounts from dissatisfied officials who interacted with Hill when he was the lead North Korea nuclear crisis negotiator.

Odierno himself will have an opportunity to weigh in tomorrow when he testifies before the House Armed Services Committee.

There's one as yet unremarked constituency increasingly disturbed by some Republican senators' efforts to block the confirmation of former North Korea envoy Christopher Hill to be the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq: the U.S. military.

Sources tell The Cable that Centcom commander Gen. David Petraeus, top Iraq commander Gen. Raymond Odierno, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are frustrated by the delay in getting a U.S. ambassador confirmed and into place in Iraq, and support Hill's confirmation proceeding swiftly.

Opposition to the Hill appointment has been led by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Brownback has called Hill's past dealings with Congress over North Korea "evasive and unprofessional." In a joint statement last week, McCain and Graham wrote that Hill had a "controversial legacy" on North Korea, and added, "The next ambassador should have experience in the Middle East and in working closely with the U.S. military in counterinsurgency or counterterrorism operations. Mr. Hill has neither."

Since the previous ambassador, Ryan Crocker, left the job Feb. 13, Odierno has complained of doing double duty: serving as the commanding general and the de facto ambassador.

The power vacuum in Baghdad comes at a critical juncture in Iraq's transition, sources noted. The U.S. mission is becoming increasingly focused on political stabilization and economic development over military missions; Arab-Kurd tensions are rising in the north; struggles for dominance within and across sectarian groups are heating up in the aftermath of January's provincial elections; the Baghdad government is facing tough budget choices due to declining oil prices; and national elections that will determine whether Iraq can consolidate its democracy are due by year's end.

Keeping a lid on such political tensions is "crucial to consolidating the security gains from the surge," a Washington Iraq hand said, "yet the advocates of the surge want to slow down the process of getting an ambassador to Iraq."

Crocker is an Arabic-speaking "superstar" who garnered tremendous respect from the military in Iraq and will be hard to replace, said a currently serving U.S. military officer on condition of anonymity. But it's particularly important to get another ambassador in there to beef up the State Department role and resources during this moment of transition, he argued.

"I would not at all be surprised if military commanders in Iraq are frustrated that they don't have a new ambassador in position," added Gen. William Nash (ret.), the former top U.S. commander in Bosnia, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "The issues are far more political and economic than they are military and U.S. efforts need to move forward on those fronts. That's particularly critical in the execution of the withdrawal plan."

Asked if Republican objections to Hill that he is not a Middle East expert are legitimate, Nash said the opposition is "being difficult to be difficult. I have known Chris Hill for 14 years. He is a wonderful diplomat and exactly the kind of guy we need in Iraq."

Asked about information indicating that Petraeus supported getting Hill quickly into place, a spokesman for the general told The Cable that it was a good question but Petraeus declined to comment. A message to Odierno was not immediately returned. (See update, below. "Generals Odierno and Petraeus have come out very publicly and very forcefully in support of Amb. Hill’s nomination," Secretary Gates' spokesman Geoff Morrell told The Cable Thursday. "They know him from previous assignments, they like him, they believe he is well suited to the job and are anxiously awaiting his confirmation because they do need help, frankly.")

A Republican Senate staffer who asked for anonymity said he thought the opposition to Hill was not opportunistic but was based on the senators' desire to get to know the would-be ambassador a little better. He said he thought it was just about over.

On Tuesday, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), an occasional Obama confidant, came out in favor of Hill. So did former Ambassador Crocker, former Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad in a letter quoted by the Associated Press. "We need his experience during this crucial time in Iraq," the letter reads. "His previous experiences will serve him greatly when addressing extreme challenges in Iraq."

Hill met with Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff Monday, along with relevant member offices, including that of Senator Lugar, committee sources said. Staffers were advising the candidate on how best to prepare for his nomination hearing before the committee, which is currently scheduled for March 25. They predicted he was likely to get voted out of the committee, but said the real battle would be getting him a vote on the floor.

"This is all about retribution," said one Senate Democratic foreign-policy staffer. Conservatives blame Hill for nudging Bush's second term North Korea policy towards multi-party talks. "They want to give Hill a black eye."

If this drags on, Democrats may look to turn the tables on the Republican senators, who have argued that Iraq was so central to U.S. national security. "Why are they dicking around and not putting an ambassador in there if Iraq is so important?" the Senate Democratic foreign-policy staffer said.

It's a point the generals are quietly saying among themselves, if not yet publicly.

UPDATE: The U.S. military's chief spokesman, Geoff Morrell, told The Cable Thursday: “Generals Odierno and Petraeus have come out very publicly and very forcefully in support of Ambassador Hill’s nomination. I know they support it. They know him from previous assignments, they like him, they believe he is well suited to the job and are anxiously awaiting his confirmation because they do need help, frankly. ... Everybody involved with Iraq wants to find a way to replicate that arrangement" -- the effective interaction between Generals Odierno and Petraeus and former Ambassador Crocker. "So that you have an even yoke that on the civilian/diplomatic side and on the military side which share the burden and are working together to get the job done. It’s what’s in the best interest of the Iraqi people and the American people.   “With regards to [Senate] members who have issue with him, I would say this," Morrell added. “We appreciate their steadfast support of the Iraq mission. But you can’t be bullish in support of that mission and not send an ambassador in a timely fashion.” 

UPDATE II: Col. James Hutton, a spokesman for Gen. Odierno, responds: "While Gen. Odierno is clearly interested in a new ambassador coming to Iraq, he recognizes the importance of the process that leads to
confirmation.  It is key that an ambassador arrives to help address
important policy issues and begins interfacing with the senior leaders
of the Government of Iraq. Gen. Odierno has not said and does not see himself, as you wrote, as the 'de facto ambassador.' He fully understands the importance of the unique role of the embassy staff, particularly that of the Charge d' Affairs. He places a high value on the extraordinary skills provided by our foreign service officer professionals and has never presumed a role beyond command of Multi-National Force-Iraq."

FILE PHOTO: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images