Crocker sworn in as new US ambassador to Iraq
Ambassador Ryan Crocker was sworn in as the new top US envoy to Iraq today.
He said he was taking over the “most critical foreign policy mission” facing the United States.
The oath was administered by junior foreign service officer Tina Tran, who had served with Crocker in Islamabad and has been in the Baghdad embassy since last summer.
The fluent Arab speaker used that language when he told Iraqi employees of the embassy: “You are the heroes of the country, in the true meaning of the word.”
Taking up where his predecessor, Zalmy Khalilzad, left off, the 57-year-old warned Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that his government “must take all the necessary steps to unite the country.”
After listing challenges faced in the coming months, including shepherding benchmark legislation through the parliament, Crocker said: “All of this will be very hard, but if I thought it was impossible I would not be standing here today.”
Crocker flew directly to Baghdad from his post in Islamabad, Pakistan, bypassing the usual Washington swearing-in ceremony.
