ALLIES in High Places

Today we had one of our highest profile meetings: our entire group spent almost two hours with Jordan's Minister of State for Communication and Media, Nasser Judeh. His Excellency spoke off the record with us and provided great insight to the government's perspective on many of the themes that have been recurring in our other interviews. Even in our meetings that are off the record, our own learning is deepened by seeing the contrast between many points of view. We are excited about the fact that even if specific quotes will not be included in our final output, we are successfully pursuing a well-rounded picture of the effects of the Iraq War in Jordan

Our Jordanian Security and Iraqi Bilateral Relations groups had the unique chance later this afternoon to meet with the director of the Iraqi Support Unit. Foreign Service Officer Vince Raimondi seemed as excited to meet with us as we were to meet with him, even questioning if we weren't really looking for the Political Office before actually sitting down. He spent the next 45 minutes sharing every aspect of his "off-shore" facility, intermittently using the term "external relations" and "logistics staff" to modestly avoid taking credit for the entirety his responsibility; externally running the American Embassy in Baghdad from Amman, until security improves in the Iraqi capital. The Iraqi Support Unit was founded at the end of 2003 to "provide support to the embassy office in Baghdad." Currently, with only 34 staffers and working out of a make-shift office on the ground floor of the Amman Embassy, the ISU provides safe transportation, country clearance, transitional housing and the accompanying logistics for some 50 individuals per week to move to the Baghdad Embassy facility, a monstrous structure he described as "likely the size of the Vatican." The Unit is also responsible for the recruitment and staffing of the Baghdad Embassy itself, including a relatively new program that hires Jordanians to work in one-year increments in Baghdad, so as not to endanger local Iraqis as staffers. Although the ISU was intended to be a temporary office, it has become a very necessary element of the re installment of diplomacy in Baghdad. Mr. Raimondi was also very insistent that the bad press the Baghdad Embassy has received in relation to staffing is completely unfounded; in his managerial experience there has been more than enough applicants for the new positions in Iraq, civilian and military, foreign service and foreign national. On a final note, he could not have been more complimentary of the local support and the close cooperation between the US and Jordanian security forces.

Tomorrow, most of our group will leave early in the morning for an overnight hike to Wadi Hassa. We have been advised to bring only backpacks and a change of clothes, as we will most certainly get wet, and the tour company will provide all the food and equipment necessary for a night under the stars and scaling a waterfall the next morning. The rest of our group is planning to spend this weekend exploring some of the other historical sites around Amman.

-Mia and Margaret