*EPF503 11/26/2004
State Department Mourns James Mollen
(Diplomat Mollen worked to rebuild Iraqi higher education) (530)

The U.S. Department of State is mourning the death of American diplomat James Mollen, who was shot and killed November 24 in an attack near the fortified sector of central Baghdad known as the Green Zone.

At the time of his death, Mollen, 48, was the U.S. special adviser to Iraq's Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, which has some 45,000 employees working throughout the country.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said November 24 that Mollen's "sacrifice and heroism embody the greatest American virtues: courage, commitment, charity, and an abiding faith in the promise of a better tomorrow." Secretary Powell promised that "Jim's sacrifice would not be in vain. His State Department colleagues and the American people will not waver in their commitment to building a peaceful and prosperous Iraq."

Mollen's brother Tim told his hometown newspaper, The Press & Sun-Bulletin of Binghamton, New York, that his brother "very passionately believed in helping the people of Iraq. He wanted to help with the reconstruction effort and help the Iraqi people get back on their feet."

James Mollen, a political appointee who had worked in the 2000 election campaign for President Bush, first went to Iraq in 2003, working for the Coalition Provisional Authority. His goal with the Iraqi Education Ministry was to rebuild Iraq's 20 major universities and more than 40 technical institutes, research centers and colleges.

Concerned with Iraq's "intellectual isolation," Mollen said in a Washington File interview in December 2003 that he was working to bring online digital video conferencing (DVC) capabilities to universities in Iraq so the country's students and faculties could "meet" their contemporaries in the United States and exchange information.

He had successfully assembled a medical technology program providing Iraqi medical students with state-of-the-art information that had previously been inaccessible to them. He had also been working to develop Western-style graduate business schools and executive management education programs.

Mollen first joined the U.S. Department of State in 2002. He worked in the Bureau of International Information Programs, heading its Global Technology Corps, a public-private partnership that engaged the private sector in technology projects abroad.

Mollen's family told the press that he had been involved for more than a decade with programs to help orphans overseas. As a member of the board of directors for Orphanage Outreach, he had made many trips to the Dominican Republic.

Before joining the Bush administration, Mollen worked as a computer systems analyst for the Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta.

Mollen was unmarried and had no children. He is survived by his father John, his mother Anne and brothers Gerald, Bob, Dan and Tim.

Mollen's body will be flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. His burial is expected to take place in Binghamton, New York.

Mollen is the second U.S. diplomat to be killed in Iraq. The first, Edward J. Seitz, an assistant regional security officer for the U.S. Embassy, died October 24 during an attack on a U.S. military base near Baghdad's airport.

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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