40 out of 39,000 employees volunteer interest in going to Iraq.

The call has gone out from on high at the Commerce Department for a few good men and women.

Heeding President Bush's recent appeal for government civilians to serve stints in Iraq helping with the embattled rebuilding mission, Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez sent an agency-wide memo last week imploring workers to sign up for a year in Iraq.

"I am asking all Commerce employees to consider supporting this important effort," he wrote.

Gutierrez noted that volunteers would work "under challenging circumstances with access to few amenities." On the bright side, he said, they "may" be eligible for overtime pay -- "35 percent hardship pay and up to 35 percent danger pay differentials."

But it seems that the tepid early response to the secretary's appeal for volunteers may be a reflection of the larger struggle Bush has faced since announcing his strategy to double the number of overworked and often underqualified provincial reconstruction teams in Iraq.

Since Gutierrez sent the memo five days ago to all of the approximately 39,000 employees at Commerce, he has received 40 responses. The department would not say how many -- if any -- of those responses were "yes ..."