The State Department said it has ordered the departure of all nonessential personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad based on its latest review and a commitment “to keeping Americans safe, both at home and abroad.” The embassy already had been on limited staffing, and the order will not affect a large number of personnel.
The department, however, also is authorizing the departure of nonessential personnel and family members from Bahrain and Kuwait. That gives them the option of leaving those countries at government expense and with government assistance.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “has authorized the voluntary departure of military dependents from locations” across the region, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. The command “is monitoring the developing tension in the Middle East.”
Speaking at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump stated, “They are being moved out, because it could be a dangerous place, and we’ll see what happens. We’ve given notice to move out, and we’ll see what happens.”
Tensions in the region have been rising in recent days as talks between the U.S. and Iran over its rapidly advancing nuclear program appear to have hit an impasse.
Trump, who has previously said Israel or the U.S. could carry out airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations failed, gave a less-than-optimistic view about reaching a deal with Iran, telling the New York Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast that he was “getting more and more less confident about” a deal.
“They seem to be delaying, and I think that’s a shame. I’m less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago. Something happened to them,” he said in the interview recorded Monday and released Wednesday.
Iran’s mission to the U.N. posted on social media that “threats of overwhelming force won’t change the facts.”
“Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon, and U.S. militarism only fuels instability,” the Iranian mission wrote.
Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh separately told journalists Wednesday that he hoped talks with the U.S. would yield results, though Tehran stood ready to respond.
“If conflict is imposed on us, the opponent’s casualties will certainly be more than ours, and in that case, America must leave the region, because all its bases are within our reach,” he stressed, adding, “We have access to them, and we will target all of them in the host countries without hesitation.”
