In preparation for ending its occupation of Iraq, the United States is making plans to create the largest US diplomatic mission in the world in Baghdad, complete with a staff of over 3,000 personnel, according to US officials.
The transition will mark the handover of responsibility for dealing with Iraq from the Pentagon to the State Department, which will then help oversee the two definitive steps in creating Iraq's first freely elected democratic government.
"The real challenge for the new embassy, so to speak, or the new presence will be helping the Iraqi people get ready for their full elections and full constitution the following year," the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, said this week. "That's going to be a major effort on our part."
One of the first steps will be resuming diplomatic relations between Washington and Baghdad. Although the US is the occupying power in Iraq, the two nations have not formally resumed relations, which were severed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
The other major challenge will be sorting out the terms of the US military presence, which is expected to exceed 100,000 troops even after the occupation ends.
"We have to determine what command American troops will be under," a senior administration official said. "Will it be part of some kind of multinational force, under the United Nations, under NATO, or will they be relatively independent in an agreement with the Iraqi government? These are huge questions to be answered in a very short amount of time."
Mr Powell said he would spend the next six months pressing for larger international participation.
Over the next six months, the State Department will increasingly assume responsibility for jobs now carried out by the US- led coalition authority, senior US officials say. Several teams of lawyers are immersed in the complicated legal issues of handing back sovereignty to Iraq and making arrangements for a formal diplomatic relationship.
The bulk of the US staff will continue to have their headquarters in Saddam Hussein's former Republican Palace. To prevent the potential psychological fallout from staying in the headquarters of the previous dictatorship, the new embassy will officially be in a building not far from the Green Zone, where the Coalition Provisional Authority operates.
The embassy, however, will have nominal use.
The US is tentatively planning to build a new embassy, although construction could take three to five years, US officials say.
Staffing has been an issue in recent months. Many on the staff of Mr L. Paul Bremer, the top US administrator in Iraq, are young, comparatively inexperienced in the Middle East, non-Arabic speakers and political appointees rather than career Foreign Service officers. Some have already left or plan to do so before occupation ends to work on President Bush's re-election campaign.
"There will be a fairly dramatic shift of personnel over the next six months," the US official said. "It can't be precipitous and happen all at once."
The US Embassy in Egypt has a larger presence, more than 7,000 personnel, but they include many non-diplomats from other US agencies. The State Department says the Baghdad embassy will have the largest diplomatic staff in the world. - (Washington Post service)