Diplomats won't be forced to Iraq

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- The State Department is abandoning plans to force diplomats to serve in Iraq since volunteers filled all 48 vacant positions at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to announce an end to "directed assignments," The Washington Post reported Friday.

Although Foreign Service officers swear an oath to serve wherever they are sent, they have not been ordered to take posts since the Vietnam War, but Rice said forced deployments could return amid staffing shortages in Baghdad.

Critics, however, questioned the ethics of forcing unarmed Foreign Service officers to serve in the war-torn country, the newspaper reported.

"After all the bad publicity indicating that the Foreign Service would not step forward, it in fact turned out -- as most of us thought -- that they did step forward as volunteers to staff Iraq," said John Naland, president of the American Foreign Service Association, the diplomats' union.