Contingency plans - evac of personnel from Kabul and Baghdad

[TomInTib]

I found this from Steve Clemons over at HuffPo
And I know they have to plan for everything, but the tone of this is disturbing.

from article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-clemons/foreign-service-pessimism_b_58949.html

But I just got an intriguing anonymous tip -- not double sourced -- but from a source I have confidence in.

Apparently, the State Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has commissioned some real heavyweights in the foreign service -- several high-ranking former ambassadors and others -- to participate in a large scale exercise on how non-combatant American personnnel would be evacuated from Kabul and Baghdad where America's largest embassy operations are now based. These are called NEO plans, or non-combatant evacuation operations.

Perhaps they have been watching the Department of Defense squirm in response to Hillary Clinton's question about planning for military withdrawal and are getting the State Department ready for her next letter on the subject. Or perhaps the State Department has reasons to worry given on the ground realities that we might not know about.

According to someone close to this effort, the evacuations from Liberia and Saigon are on peoples' minds, not the more rosy outlook offered by O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack.

This effort has been coordinated with CENTCOM and the 5th Fleet, in part because the latter would deploy anti-terror Marine teams to secure escape perimeters.

The word is that the "tone" of the diplomats was "not good" and "quite pessimistic about conditions." My source said that "there is a high level of concern."

According to another source, Al Jazeera posed a question to State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher about this NEO effort, and his response was "I'm not gonna comment on that."

Perhaps Dick Cheney will quote this Huffington Post item now in his next reference of contending outlooks on America's mess in Iraq.

[billyoc]

1. "Poppin' Smoke for Dummies"

:eyes:

[SoCalDem]

2. Here's a plan.. It's "worked' before

[Bluebear]

3. So I was looking for that exact same picture. nt

[TomInTib]

4. I will never forget that image. I cried like a child the first time I saw it.

I was at my Mother's house with my new bride (who was unaware of my service - I wasn't very proud of what I had done at that time).

Just the sight of that image is still very emotional for me.

God, it all seems as if it happened to someone else, sometimes.

[Adsos Letter]

5. Well...

...setting aside for the moment the overwhelming disaster of America in Iraq, it is probably for the best that they get a realistic, workable plan in order BEFORE the necessity arrives.

Maybe they can get the retreat right...

TomInTib: As you well know, it most certainly did happen in your life but, in another sense, it also happened to someone else.

[TomInTib]

6. I agree about contingencies, but....

I've been around the block a few times and I believe any attempt at evacuating people in either city will be an unmitigated disaster.

Not only are (Iraqis especially) fully armed (RPGs, surface-to-air, etc.), they have people on the inside.

I'll bet those bastards had zero plans for an evac of this size going in to this cluster*.


Yeah, adsosletter, it happened to a lot of someone elses.
I am a winner because I am sitting here typing this to you.