Insiders: State Department ill-equipped to lead Iraq transition

Eighty percent of National Journal's National Security Insiders said the State Department would not be ready to assume control of the mission in Iraq with only a small number of U.S. troops remaining in the country. Separately, the pool of national security and foreign policy experts were split down the middle over whether the Obama administration took sufficient action against Iran for its alleged role in a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States and bomb embassies in Washington.

Just before President Obama's recent announcement that virtually all of the remaining 43,000 troops would be pulled out of Iraq by the end of the year, the Insiders said State would be ill-equipped to lead the transition with the U.S. military presence there limited to hundreds of troops guarding the American embassy in Baghdad and its consulates in Erbil and Basra. "Basic security continues to be a concern in Iraq for the local population, as well as for U.S. government agencies charged with providing training and technical assistance in the political, economic, educational, and social arenas," one Insider said.

The White House had until recently been trying to persuade the Iraqis to allow 2,000 to 3,000 troops to stay beyond the Dec. 31 deadline -- already far less than the 10,000 to 15,000 recommended by top American commanders in Iraq. "State is prepared to continue conducting diplomacy in Iraq, but diplomats are no substitute for military trainers and advisers," one Insider said.

Another Insider said that American civilian officials, who will primarily be guarded by thousands of private security contractors, "will be prisoners on the ridiculously large but poorly constructed compound and will be unable to leave the grounds without a security package so large and costly that being out of the embassy will be the exception rather than the rule."

Even the 20 percent who said State would be able to lead the mission without troops in the country acknowledged the challenges to come-and called for more action by Congress and the administration to protect civilian personnel. "The President needs to assign the armed forces the mission of protecting our diplomats in conflict zones. This is an urgent need," one Insider said. "We must keep State from spending its scarce funds on funding security contractors."

Read the whole story and see graphs of the poll results at National Journal.