About 1,300 nonessential diplomats and family members of staff at 34 US embassies and consulates in 17 countries have either returned to Washington or left their host countries for another "safe haven," the officials said.

"Short of the Persian Gulf War, I haven't seen this many," said Nancy Dolce, the director of the department's Family Liason Office, which assists diplomats and their families in relocating. "And they're still arriving."

"We're not even in the first stage of the evacuations yet," said Matt Cook, another official in the office, noting that many diplomatic families not under orders to leave at once would wait until the end of the school year to depart.

Their comments appeared in the April edition of the department's in-house journal "State Magazine" which was released Monday as Congress considers a 65.7-million-dollar request to fund emergency evacuations of US officials.

And they come amid unprecedented security precautions imposed at US diplomatic missions due to an Iraq-related jump in anti-American sentiment and increased terror threats, particularly in the Muslim world, as well as health precautions in Asia, notably in China and Vietnam, due to SARS.

Non-essential diplomats and embassy families at seven posts in five countries have been instructed to leave under so-called "ordered departure" programs, according to Lynn Cassel, a State Department spokeswoman.

In three of those countries -- Israel, Kuwait and Syria -- the orders are directly related to the war in Iraq. In Indonesia, the measure is due to terrorist threats and in one, the Central African Republic, the embassy has been closed due to continued unrest.

Twenty-seven posts in 12 countries are now under so-called "authorized departure" programs which allow nonessential diplomats and family members to leave at Washington's expense should they choose to, Cassel said.

The programs at 14 of those embassies and consulates in nine countries -- Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen -- were implemented in response to the Iraq war.

The four US missions in Pakistan are covered because of terrorism fears and the eight missions in China, Hong Kong and Vietnam due to concerns about the spread of the atypical pneumonia known as severe acute respiratory syndrome or SARS that has now infected more over 2,700 people worldwide.

SPACE.WIRE