Ambassador Hill on NPR

Five months after Iraqis voted in a general election, Iraq is having trouble forming a new government even as U.S. troops draw down, but the outgoing U.S. ambassador says the country is making progress.

"I think any country where the election result is 4/100th of a percentage point difference between the winner and the second-place coalition is going to have some pushing and shoving, and that's what going on," Christopher Hill told NPR's Steve Inskeep. "So the question is: Are they getting anywhere? And, I must say, in the last couple of weeks, the pace has really quickened. And there's a feeling that things may be heading in the right direction."
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129119290


Christopher R. Hill arrived in Baghdad on April 24, 2009, to begin serving as America’s Ambassador to Iraq. Immediately prior to this assignment, Ambassador Hill was Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, in which capacity he also was the lead U.S. negotiator at the Six-Party Talks on the North Korea nuclear issue.

Ambassador Hill’s lifelong career as a public servant began in 1974, when he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1977.