Hard go for Iraqis working at U.S. embassy

BAGHDAD, June 20 (UPI) -- In a confidential memo, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, says life for Iraqi embassy employees is dangerous, difficult and expensive.

The memo to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is marked "Sensitive," and is titled "Snapshots from the Office," The Independent reported Tuesday.

Khalilzad wrote of sectarian problems within the staff where women were being persecuted for wearing western clothes, using cell phones and men being afraid to wear shorts in 115-degree heat.

He said outside the city's fortified Green Zone, where all of the Iraqi staff live, most have electricity for less than eight hours a day and often spend most of their days off lining up for gasoline.

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060620-113143-3567r

To date...he is the ONLY one I heard talking about it.