The State Department on Monday ordered additional drawdowns of U.S. diplomatic missions in and around the Middle East, directing nonessential staff and families to leave Saudi Arabia and the U.S. consulate in Adana, Turkey. The latest orders arrived amid lawmakers’ criticism that the department did not do enough to prepare embassies, consulates and American citizens abroad for conflict involving Iran. Department officials acknowledged that they underestimated the scale and scope of Iran’s retaliation early in the war, but they also said they faced constraints tied to congressional limits on what they can do and the need to maintain operational security as events rapidly change.
Officials said the response included a quick shift from general caution to expanded departure instructions as the conflict broadened. They ordered nonessential staff departures not only from Saudi Arabia and Adana, but also from additional missions across the region, building on earlier steps to reduce staffing at other posts. The agency said the drawdowns were the largest since the Iraq War began in 2003, a scale that lawmakers said could complicate efforts to respond to growing complaints from Congress about evacuation planning and the speed of assistance.
The department said the actions bring to 10 the number of U.S. embassies and consulates in the region with reduced staffing, though only two have fully suspended operations. The cuts include departures that affect diplomatic missions and consulates where the department had allowed some nonessential staff to leave previously, and Monday’s additional orders extended that approach further after escalation became clear. The department said no Americans had been injured at embassies or during evacuations so far, even as several strikes hit parts of U.S. diplomatic facilities or nearby areas.
The State Department said it had assisted more than 23,000 people with information or offers of seats on charter flights to return to the United States. It also said it advised Americans in 14 Middle East countries to leave, issuing a warning two days after the war began when closed airspace and flight cancellations made travel difficult. As of Monday, the department said at least 36,000 Americans had returned, with the majority able to make their way home through commercial travel rather than government-arranged options. Officials said at least half of the people offered seats on U.S.-organized charter flights declined, and a flight from the United Arab Emirates was canceled over the weekend because no one showed up.
Lawmakers and officials criticized the department’s leadership and timing of evacuation planning. Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote on X that he was glad Americans returned, but called it “an unacceptable failure of leadership that (Secretary of State Marco) Rubio did not have plans in place to evacuate New Yorkers & Americans in the Middle East until after Trump started dropping bombs.” A group of eight Democratic senators led by Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire said in a letter last week that “despite clear military planning for a significant conflict in the Middle East with the potential for regional escalation, it appears the administration failed to take sufficient steps to protect our diplomats and their families.”
The department said it began with earlier general warnings before the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28. It said that before the fighting began, it had a general advisory urging Americans to use caution throughout the Middle East. It had also ordered nonessential diplomats to leave the embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, and it allowed nonessential staff to depart from missions in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. As the conflict progressed, it expanded orders for departure for all but critical staff from embassies in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and from the consulates in Karachi, Pakistan, and Adana, Turkey, with only the embassy in Kuwait City and the consulate in Karachi fully suspended.
In addition to the staffing reductions, the department faced the operational reality of strikes affecting diplomatic sites. It said a strike on the embassy in Riyadh caused part of its roof to collapse, and that a helicopter landing pad inside the U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad was hit. The department said strikes also landed in a parking lot adjacent to the U.S. consulate in Dubai and near the embassy in Kuwait City. The State Department also described how it handled requests for voluntary departures and ordered departures for nonessential personnel across the region as retaliation intensified.
According to internal State Department cables and situation reports obtained by The Associated Press, the agency generally approved requests from embassies and consulates to allow or order evacuations of nonessential staffers and families within 24 hours. The documents described a timeline that began with requests for voluntary departure status from the U.S. embassies in Doha, Qatar, and Kuwait City, Kuwait, on March 1, with those requests approved later that day and announced on March 2. They also described an advisory issued on March 2 telling Americans in 14 Middle East countries to “depart now via commercial means due to serious safety risks,” and they said that as Iranian retaliation increased on March 3, many diplomats eligible for voluntary departure had declined, prompting orders for nonessential staff to leave Kuwait and Qatar and also instructing departure of staff in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
The documents described additional escalation milestones, including instructions on March 5 that operations at the embassy in Kuwait were suspended, and Monday’s step of ordering nonessential personnel and families in Saudi Arabia and the consulate in Adana to leave. The department has also faced repeated scrutiny in past crises, with criticism of its evacuation planning spanning Democratic and Republican administrations, including responses to the 2021 chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan. In those prior situations, lawmakers argued the department did not do enough to assist Americans before key attacks occurred, a pattern officials now face again as Congress pushes for accountability over what they say were shortcomings in preparation and response.