E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSBAGHDAD -- The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is facing a 10 percent funding cut next year but top officials say it will still be one of America's largest diplomatic missions in the world.
Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides says contracting costs will be tightened and diplomatic outposts may be trimmed as part of the $4.8 billion spending plan the State Department is requesting in 2013.
Nides told reporters in Baghdad on Wednesday that security costs will be the last expense to be cut.
He declined to estimate how many in the current work force of 16,000 embassy employees would remain after an ongoing review during what he described as a "transition" year.
When it opened in 2009, the embassy was the largest U.S. mission in the world.
Earlier in the day, officials said gunmen wearing military uniforms killed the wife and two children of an Iraqi policeman in an attack on his home south of Baghdad.
Read: US to 'right-size' embassy in Iraq
Police officials said the gunmen stormed the house Wednesday morning in the town of Jurf al-Sakhar, about 30 miles south of Baghdad. Among the dead was a one-year-old girl.
The policeman was seriously wounded and taken to a nearby hospital.
A hospital medic confirmed the death toll.
Since the U.S. pullout in December, militant groups have stepped up attacks on Iraq's security forces in an attempt to undermine public confidence in the Shiite-dominated government's ability to protect its citizens.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
More from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Iran claims steps toward nuclear self-sufficiency
- Officials: Hundreds die in Honduras prison fire
- Uganda minister shuts down gay rights conference
- Syria's Assad sets referendum date
Leave a Comment:
I wonder how many of those 16,000 'employees' are mercenaries? What a complete load of BS we're being fed, it doesn't matter how many troops are pulled out of Iraq b/c they'll just be replaced by mercenaries who are a lot more expensive to maintain. Yeah, we're really tightening our belts around there huh...I'm sure all of the mercenaries were hired under carefully scrutinized bidding processes too, right?
So what's the problem? Close the entire damn embassy. Hillary and the rest of the state department have proven they are incompetent, lazy and totally inept. Send every one of those wasted, expensive 16,000 bums home, let Iraq have the facilties, just get the hell out of that worthless, failed muslim country now!
Bush's Folly should be given to Iraq to be used as a university, or hospital. This giant waste of tax money should be closed, and the 16,000 friends of the republicans sent home.
It should be a 100 percent funding cut this year.
Right on Jack. Alternately, let the Iraq government pay the bill to cover the cost of billions that it will take to run the US embassy. With the US troops out of the picture, the country will slowly fall apart..........................