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US state department stands by ambassador to Iraq despite email leak
Source: The Guardian
US state department stands by ambassador to Iraq despite email leak
Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 June 2012 22.39 BST
The state department is standing by the nomination of Brett McGurk as the new US ambassador to Iraq, despite the publication of intimate emails revealing an extramarital affair with a journalist who later became his wife.
The emails between McGurk and a Wall Street Journal reporter, Gina Chon, written in 2008 when the diplomat posted to Baghdad, were leaked to a blog, Cryptome, in an apparent an attempt to scupper his approval as ambassador by the Senate.
Victoria Nuland, the state department spokeswoman, called McGurk "uniquely qualified" for the post.
"He spent the better part of the last decade serving our country in and out of Iraq, working for a Republican administration, a Democratic administration," she said. "He is in our view uniquely qualified to serve as the ambassador and we urge the Senate to act quickly on his nomination."
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Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 June 2012 22.39 BST
The state department is standing by the nomination of Brett McGurk as the new US ambassador to Iraq, despite the publication of intimate emails revealing an extramarital affair with a journalist who later became his wife.
The emails between McGurk and a Wall Street Journal reporter, Gina Chon, written in 2008 when the diplomat posted to Baghdad, were leaked to a blog, Cryptome, in an apparent an attempt to scupper his approval as ambassador by the Senate.
Victoria Nuland, the state department spokeswoman, called McGurk "uniquely qualified" for the post.
"He spent the better part of the last decade serving our country in and out of Iraq, working for a Republican administration, a Democratic administration," she said. "He is in our view uniquely qualified to serve as the ambassador and we urge the Senate to act quickly on his nomination."
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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/08/us-state-department-brett-mcgurk
