May 17, 2002	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 4, 1423

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WASHINGTON, May 16: At a time of a fresh bout of brinkmanship between India and Pakistan, America’s top diplomatic posts in the two countries have been in the news here, but for different reasons.

The United States ambassador in Pakistan, Ms Wendy Chamberlin, has already said she wants another assignment because she wishes to be with her daughters, who were evacuated along with other embassy families following the heightened state of terrorist warnings since the bombing of a church in Islamabad.

On Wednesday, press reports suggested that the state department inspector-general’s office has twice sent teams to the US embassy in New Delhi to review the operations of the ambassador there, Mr Robert Blackwill.

Morale at the embassy was said to be low because of the “combative ambassador”, who, according to The Washington Post, was described in an article in the Far Eastern Economic Review as following an “allegedly autocratic management style”.

The state department has dismissed innuendoes that Mr Blackwill, who has been in New Delhi for less than a year, might be transferred.