Former Ambassador of Germany in the "red zone" in Baghdad .. Two years of isolation and fear

and fear among the concrete walls and under strict security measures.

 "Baghdad was not my favorite place," This is what Britta Wagner said after she ended her work as ambassador of Germany in Iraq, recently. She adds, "But, when I was offered with the job, a great curiosity prompted me to agree on it."

Britta Wagner remained in her post as ambassador in Iraq for two years. She witnessed in this period, a country in transition. She wanted to see the extent of Iraq's progress toward democracy and how the economic development has affected on the lives of the citizens of the country. "I expected at the outset that the country is experiencing a period of rise," she says.

However, Britta Wagner saw instead the continuing deterioration of Iraq and the escalation of terrorism again. "I realized the extent of the difficulties that you find in a state after decades of dictatorship and civil war to return to normal conditions and build a democratic political institutions," says the former ambassador.

There is a personal aspect that Britta Wagner remember with joy, in the period of her residence in Baghdad she started to meet her husband more than usually. Her husband, Martin Kobler was in the same period, the President of the United Nations mission in Iraq. Thus enabling the couple to meet every Wednesday in the neighborhood in Baghdad that the United Nations has decided to make it as a headquarter.

But the last two weeks of Britta Wagner’s stay in Baghdad was the worst period, as "Islamic state" organization known in the media as "ISIS" dominated in this period large areas north of Iraq. "ISIS fighters will arrive within three days also to our doors," That's what the Ambassador thought at the time. Thus security procedures were tightened at the embassy.

The Married Diplomats

Today Britta Wagner, 59 years old. Since her childhood, wanted to become diplomatic. So I studied the rights and specialized in international law. However, she did not think at the time that she will take a senior position in crisis areas. After the birth of her daughter , ​​Britta Wagner and her husband submitted in the eighties of the last century, a request to work in the diplomatic corps. in this period, her two sons were born.

As Britta Wagner says, the work of the couple in the diplomatic corps at the time was a rare phenomenon. 20-years later , the couple suffered from criticism in the media and the German media because of her husband (Martin Kobler) took office in 2003, the German ambassador in Cairo, while she served as a consul there.

When Martin Kobler took over the position three years later in the position of the United Nations Mission in Kabul, his wife Britta Wagner moved to Istanbul to take her first leading position, as served as consul-general there. As she says, her residence in Istanbul made a very beautiful impression to her.

Contrary to Istanbul

However, Britta Wagner’s residence in Baghdad have left the opposite impression, she worked in the embassy behind concrete walls , barbed wire , iron gates and a network of surveillance cameras. Moreover, the Ambassador is surrounded by soldiers and Iraqi armed men from a private security unit of the German police office of security companies.

The Embassy is not in the Green Zone, where special security procedures exist, but they are in the red zone, i.e. in a residential area, "as Britta Wagner says to justify security measures to protect the embassy. The former Ambassador adds " This is why working here is difficult, the concerned people are working and living in a country that they cannot be get to know it but partially. "

The German Interior Ministry responsible for guarding diplomatic missions abroad have identified security standards to Baghdad in the biennium of the civil war in 2006 and 2007. And stuck to it, even when the tension decreased in 2009 and the new threat of “ISIS" to tighten security standards again.