Washington ? Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the U.S. envoy to Baghdad reminded diplomats Friday of their duty to serve their country amid a revolt among some who are resisting forced assignments to Iraq.

In separate comments, Rice and Ambassador Ryan Crocker said foreign service officers are obligated by their oath of office to work at any diplomatic mission worldwide, regardless of the risks involved or their personal feelings about the policies of any given administration.

“We are one foreign service and people need to serve where they are needed,” Rice told reporters aboard her plane as she flew to Turkey for a weekend conference of top officials from Iraq’s neighbors. Crocker also is attending the conference.

Rice noted that more than 1,500 of roughly 11,500 foreign service officers already had done Iraq duty voluntarily and, while expressing an understanding of the safety and security concerns of those who might be ordered to go, said they must uphold their commitments.

“I would hope others would think about their obligation not just to the country but their obligation to those who have already served,” said Rice, who sent a worldwide diplomatic cable explaining the situation and appealing for volunteers to fill the 48 vacancies the State Department must fill next year in Iraq.

“Our mission in Iraq is the most essential foreign policy and national security priority for our nation,” Rice wrote in the unclassified cable made public by the State Department. “Our success in Iraq and beyond will have lasting consequences for our country and the world.”

“Because of your willingness to serve under extraordinarily challenging circumstances, we have until now filled our position in Iraq with volunteers,” she said, adding that her preference was to continue to rely on volunteers.

“However, regardless of how the jobs may be filled, they must be filled,” Rice wrote. “I believe strongly that it is our duty to do our part toward succeeding in the vital mission in Iraq given to us by the president.”

On his way to the meeting in Turkey, Crocker offered an even blunter assessment, saying that diplomats have a responsibility to prioritize the nation’s interest over their personal safety and that those who don’t are “in the wrong line of business.”

Joining the foreign service “does not mean you can choose the fight,” he told reporters in Dubai. “It’s not for us to decide if we like the policy or if the policy is rightly implemented. It’s for us to go and serve, not to debate the policy, not to agree with it.”

Crocker, a 36-year veteran diplomat who has worked throughout the Mideast and was personally skeptical of the Iraq war, has been the U.S. ambassador to Iraq since early this year.