State Department orders nonemergency employees out of Iraq

Anticipating a war in the region, State Department officials Sunday ordered nonemergency personnel and family members of federal employees to evacuate Syria, Kuwait, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

A travel warning issued on March 16 said the shift to "departure status is a result of an overall assessment of the security situation in the region due to the threat of military action in Iraq." The alert also indicated there was a risk of chemical or biological attack in the region.

"The embassies in those countries remain open and continue to provide services to Americans in those countries," a State Department spokeswoman said Monday. "But we strongly urge Americans to leave those countries."

While the spokeswoman would not reveal how many people might be affected by the evacuation order, at least 376 federal employees were based in the countries affected as of September 2002, according to FedScope, the Office of Personnel Management's online database of information on the federal workforce.

According to reports from the Associated Press, nearly 300,000 U.S. and British troops have been deployed to the Persian Gulf in anticipation of an invasion of Iraq.

Most of the 8,000 American civilians remaining in Kuwait are military contractors, journalists and children or spouses of Kuwaiti nationals, according to the Associated Press

On Monday, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan ordered U.N. inspectors and humanitarian workers to leave Iraq.

"This does not mean that, should war come to Iraq, the U.N. will sit back and not do anything to help the Iraqi population," Annan said. "We will find a way of resuming our humanitarian activities to help the Iraqi people who have suffered for so long and do whatever we can to give them assistance and support. And as you know we have undertaken major contingency planning to be able to move forward as soon as we can."

President Bush declared Monday the deadline for diplomatic efforts to avert war with Iraq.