[Senate Hearing 110-242]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-242
BUILDING A STRONGER DIPLOMATIC PRESENCE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
AUGUST 1, 2007
__________
Available via http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
37-366 PDF WASHINGTON DC: 2008
---------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866)512-1800
DC area (202)512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail Stop SSOP,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TED STEVENS, Alaska
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
BARACK OBAMA, Illinois PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri JOHN WARNER, Virginia
JON TESTER, Montana JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire
Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware TED STEVENS, Alaska
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana JOHN WARNER, Virginia
Richard J. Kessler, Staff Director
Jennifer A. Hemingway, Minority Staff Director
Emily Marthaler, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
------
Opening statements:
Page
Senator Akaka................................................ 1
Senator Voinovich............................................ 4
WITNESSES
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Ambassador Heather M. Hodges, Acting Director General of the
Foreign Service, and Director of Human Resources, U.S.
Department of State............................................ 7
James B. Warlick, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for
International Organization Affairs, Bureau of International
Organizations, U.S. Department of State........................ 9
Jess T. Ford, Director, International Affairs and Trade, U.S.
Government Accountability Office............................... 20
Thomas Melito, Director, International Affairs and Trade Team,
U.S. Government Accountability Office.......................... 22
John K. Naland, President, American Foreign Service Association.. 29
Thomas D. Boyatt, Ambassador (Retired), President, Foreign
Affairs Council................................................ 30
Deborah Derrick, Executive Director, Better World Campaign....... 32
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Boyatt, Thomas D.:
Testimony.................................................... 30
Prepared statement........................................... 108
Derrick, Deborah:
Testimony.................................................... 32
Prepared statement........................................... 112
Ford, Jess T.:
Testimony.................................................... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 59
Hodges, Ambassador Heather M.:
Testimony.................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 43
Melito, Thomas:
Testimony.................................................... 22
Prepared statement........................................... 82
Naland, John K.:
Testimony.................................................... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 101
Warlick, James B.:
Testimony.................................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 52
APPENDIX
Background on State Department Staffing Shortages................ 117
Questions and responses for the Record from:
Ambassador Hodges............................................ 125
Mr. Warlick.................................................. 186
Mr. Ford..................................................... 195
Task Force Report from the Foreign Affairs Council entitled
``Managing Secretary Rice's State Department: An Independent
Assessment''................................................... 199
BUILDING A STRONGER DIPLOMATIC PRESENCE
----------
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2007
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government
Management, the Federal Workforce,
and the District of Columbia,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:35 p.m., in
Room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K.
Akaka, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Akaka and Voinovich.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA
Senator Akaka. I call this hearing of the Subcommittee on
Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and
the District of Columbia to order. I want to welcome our
witnesses and thank you for being here today.
An agency's greatest asset is its human capital. Today's
hearing will examine staffing and resource needs at the
Department of State in light of current and future global
challenges. It will also examine how to encourage the
employment of more Americans by the United Nations and its
organizations.
The men and women who serve in the 266 embassies,
consulates, and other posts in 172 countries around the world
are the face of the United States in the international
community. It is these men and women serving overseas who
defend and promote America and America's interests on a daily
basis.
The same can be said of those Americans who serve in
organizations of the United Nations. While the high-level
management positions Americans secure at the U.N., the U.N.
High Commission on Refugees, the International Atomic Energy
Agency, and the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization are beneficial in helping to bring American
perspectives and issues to the U.N., it is the professional
staff who design and manage projects. Americans serving in
these positions are part of a professional network of employees
who bring the culture and traditions of the United States to
the international community.
The war on terror has brought new foreign policy challenges
to the United States. These challenges cannot be solved through
grand gestures and proclamations; they must also be addressed
in the routine work of our men and women who serve at the
embassies and consulates of the State Department, in
Washington, and within the halls of the U.N. and its
organizations. These are the interactions that, at the end of
the day, matter most. That is why it is so critical for the
State Department to assist Americans who seek employment in the
U.N.
Since the end of the Cold War, the world has dissolved into
a patchwork of competing interests, threats, and unexpected
challenges. The Cold War structure of our institutions,
including the State Department, has had to change with the
times.
In 2002, following the tragic attacks of September 11,
2001, former Secretary of State Colin Powell created the
Diplomatic Readiness Initiative to revitalize the State
Department and to bring in 1,158 new skilled, committed, and
well-trained Foreign and Civil Service employees. Congress
appropriated over $100 million for the DRI, which enabled the
State Department to hire 300 new employees and 1,700 new
Foreign Service officers.
On January 18, 2006, Secretary Rice announced her own
program, the Transformational Diplomacy Initiative, which
called for the global repositioning of Foreign Service
positions from Washington, DC, and elsewhere to critical
emerging areas including Africa, South and East Asia, and the
Middle East. Many of these posts are considered hardship posts,
which the State Department defines as locations where the U.S.
Government provides differential pay incentives to encourage
employees to bid on assignments at these posts and to
compensate them for the hardships they encounter there. Such
incentives are necessary due to extraordinarily difficult
living conditions, excessive physical hardship, or notably
unhealthful conditions affecting the majority of employees
officially stationed there.
However, global repositioning has resulted in a hollowing
out of Foreign Service staff, as the State Department has
continued to lose more staff than it has hired. To make matters
worse, in implementing the global repositioning of positions,
Secretary Rice did not obtain funding for additional positions
in these critical emerging areas, but instead moved existing
positions to them.
According to a report by the Foreign Affairs Council issued
on June 1, 2007,\1\ between 2001 and 2005, 1,069 new positions
and program funding increases were secured through the DRI. But
since that time, all of these new positions have been
redirected to assignments in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other
hardship posts. Roughly 200 existing jobs remain unfilled and
an additional 900 training slots necessary to provide language
and other skills do not exist. The report adds that in the
first 2 years of Secretary Rice's tenure at the State
Department, no new net resources have been secured. Therefore,
whatever gains the DRI secured at the State Department were
quickly eliminated because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The Task Force Report from the Foreign Affairs Council entitled
``Managing Secretary Rice's State Department: An Independent
Assessment,'' appears in the Appendix on page 199.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In fact, in order to meet the ongoing needs in these two
countries, Secretary Rice moved 280 mid-level Foreign Service
positions from other posts to staff the U.S. embassies in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
The Vice President of the American Foreign Service
Association has testified that at least 40 percent of State
Department diplomats who have served in danger zones suffer
from some form of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. It
is important to remember that, unlike members of the military,
these unarmed civilian diplomats are not well-prepared to
function in active combat zones. Increasingly, service in
hardship posts is a requirement for promotion within the
Foreign Service, which means that PTSD will likely become a
mainstay of the FSO experience over the long term. The State
Department must develop more effective means to acknowledge
this health risk and to provide the support that the FSOs
returning from these posts so greatly require.
Staffing at the State Department is not the only problem we
face in our ability to execute U.S. foreign policy. Despite the
fact that the United States contributes the largest portion of
the U.N. budget, Americans continue to be underrepresented at
the United Nations and its specialized agencies. At my request,
the GAO surveyed five U.N. organizations last year which
comprise roughly 50 percent of total U.N. organizations'
professional staff. They found that three of them--the UNHCR,
IAEA, and UNESCO--fell short of either formal or informal
hiring targets agreed upon by the organizations and their
member states while staffing levels for Americans and others.
This means that the United States is losing an opportunity to
contribute important skills, perspectives, and experience to
the U.N.
The September GAO report found that there are barriers
keeping Americans from assuming positions at the U.N. A
critical finding in that report was that the State Department
does not effectively support Americans who seek employment at
these organizations and, when it does, tends to emphasize only
director-level or higher posts.
As the chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee of the Armed
Services Committee and as chairman of the Veterans' Committee,
I am committed to ensuring that our men and women in uniform,
fighting overseas, and our returning veterans have the
training, equipment, and support they need both to accomplish
their mission and sustain morale.
We need to devote the same attention to the men and women
serving our Nation in a civilian capacity overseas that we do
to our service personnel. At the same time, I believe that if
we are going to be successful in winning the hearts and minds
of the rest of the world, which is so critical in the war on
terrorism, we must do a much better job of promoting American
participation in international organizations.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here today to
discuss this critical issue.
I now would like to move on here. Senator Voinovich is
expected to be here, and when he does, I will have him deliver
his statement as well.
But I want to welcome the witnesses to this Subcommittee
today: Ambassador Heather Hodges, Acting Director General of
the U.S. Department of State; and James Warlick, Principal
Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International
Organizations at the U.S. Department of State.
And I want you to know that it is the custom to swear in
all witnesses. I would ask all of you to stand and raise your
right hand and to respond after the swearing in. So will you
please rise with me? Do you swear that the testimony you are
about to give this Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
Ambassador Hodges. I do.
Mr. Warlick. I do.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Let the record note that the
witnesses responded in the affirmative.
Before the witnesses begin their testimony, let me state
for the record, as we deal with a hearing like this, that I
understand that our staffs have had some difficulty, and out of
that I would tell you that I was greatly disappointed to hear
that we had some problems trying to set up this hearing. And I
wish to remind everyone that we are here representing the
people of this great Nation, and I as the Chairman am holding
this hearing to understand the staffing needs of the State
Department. And I want you to know that as Chairman of the
Federal Workforce Subcommittee, this is not only your problem,
it is the country's problem. And so we need to try to get as
much information as we can from all corners and to try to use
this to deal with the problems that we face.
He is right on time. I will ask Senator Voinovich for his
statement. Senator Voinovich and I have been working on human
capital, and I look upon him as the hero of human capital.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Senator, and I apologize for
being late. I want to thank you for calling this hearing this
afternoon on the Department of State's human capital challenges
and the hiring of U.S. citizens in U.N. agencies.
As a Member of this Subcommittee, as Senator Akaka said, I
have had a longstanding interest in improving government
management in general and, in particular, an interest in the
management of the Department of State. I know that successful
diplomacy requires the support of a well-prepared and well-
managed Foreign and Civil Service.
Unfortunately, the downsizing of the 1990s left a gap in
experienced personnel, and the change in reality of the State
Department's mission after September 11 combined to make this
challenge a difficult one. As with other Federal agencies, the
State Department is losing seasoned staff to retirement at a
time when the need to engage in public diplomacy has never been
greater. I have expressed my concerns to Secretary Rice and to
Deputy Secretary Negroponte and encouraged them to make
leadership and management a top priority. I was really
concerned when Bob Zoellick got the job because I did not think
he was going to get involved in management. I am hoping that
Deputy Secretary Negroponte is paying more attention to
management.
This hearing is timely before the loss of Executive Branch
leadership due to transition and so we are concerned about what
happens in the interim. With a number of workforce initiatives
begun by Secretary Rice and her predecessor, Secretary Powell,
it is extremely important that the State Department not lose
momentum. And I know Secretary Rice has tried to really pay
attention to management, but I do not know of any Secretary of
State that has had more to do than she has. I am sure her focus
on management is not very great because she has no time for it.
I am aware that priorities in Iraq and Afghanistan have
slowed progress, but developing critical skills in management,
improving language training, changing leadership culture to
emphasize teamwork between the Foreign Service and Civil
Service are fundamental no matter who is in charge. In
addition, the Federal Government needs to be the employer of
first choice by providing meaningful incentives, such as the
student loan repayment program, to attract talented staff.
The Subcommittee held a hearing at the beginning of the
year devoted to language training in the Federal Government.
The need to improve foreign language skills is not an
abstraction. It took the tragedy of September 11 to wake up to
the fact that we were not prepared for the 21st Century.
To maintain our competitive business edge and keep our
country safe, Americans must learn to be global citizens and to
communicate effectively with other peoples around the world. I
am a strong proponent of the good that can be done through
cultural exchange programs and the opportunities for citizens
of other countries to visit and learn about our country. And
spending time in another country can be life-changing for
citizens as well.
The public diplomacy mission of the Department of State is
all about connecting to foreign audiences and explaining
American values and ideals. Yet GAO, in their 2006 report,
notes that 30 percent of officers in language-designated public
diplomacy positions in the Muslim world have not attained the
level of language proficiency required for their positions,
hampering their ability to engage with foreign publics.
Most agree that success in our war against terror will
depend on winning the hearts and minds of Muslims throughout
the world. Imam Rauf, who visited with me recently, is putting
together a coalition of Muslim scholars from all sects to show
how the principles of democracy and the West are consistent
with Islam. How does the Muslim world deal with modernity and
how does modernity deal with the Muslim world?
The State Department is also responsible for protecting and
assisting U.S. citizens who are living or traveling abroad.
Unfortunately, many Americans saw the problems of understaffing
and poor planning firsthand when they tried to comply with the
requirement to have a passport for travel in the Western
Hemisphere. My office, as well as that of every other Senator
and Member of Congress, was inundated with constituents trying
to embark on travel plans who were unable to get passports in
time. It took extraordinary intervention with the Departments
of Homeland Security and the State Department to ease the
restriction temporarily. I just saw something on Jim Lehrer the
other night, a report that you have got a bunch of young,
bright Presidential scholars, 200 of them that you brought in,
and you are working to get that backlog down.
What is dismaying is that this situation could have and
should have been anticipated. In other words, we should have
known something about this. So it brings me back to concerns I
have raised with the Secretary and Deputy Secretary about the
need for a continued focus on management. the State Department
is comprised of both the Civil Service and Foreign Service, and
many of the jobs they fill are interchangeable. Many complain
that the State Department is failing to use or retain civil
servants because there is no clear development plan for the
Civil Service cadre, and there is also no clear plan for
integrating civil servants with overseas posts when needed.
Currently, there are many civil servants who would
volunteer to serve overseas, but there is no way to do that
while continuing on an upward career path. I think this is a
missed opportunity when many other key posts are understaffed.
I have been told that public diplomacy officers in turn are
burdened with administrative duties, such as budget, personnel,
and internal reporting that compete with their public diplomacy
responsibilities. I know the State Department is making an
effort to change this, and I am anxious to hear what is being
done to help turn this situation around.
Finally, I want to say a word about our panel on the hiring
of U.S. citizens to fill positions in U.N. agencies. First of
all, I do not think we have been aggressive enough. We should
be encouraging people to apply. Ensuring that professional
merit is the standard by which candidates are chosen should
also be a goal, and we have talked to Ban Ki-moon about this.
If you want people to apply then this cannot be a patronage
operation. They have got to believe, ``If I come in here and I
do a good job, I can move up the ranks in this organization.''
We need to provide whatever support and leverage we can to
help Ban Ki-moon institute the management reforms that he would
like to make in the United Nations. I happen to believe that
the Secretary General is a decent man, understands what needs
to be done, and has got somebody working on management that I
think is terrific.
So, Mr. Chairman, again, I apologize to you and to the
witnesses for being late, and I look forward to hearing the
witnesses' testimony. Thank you for being here.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. We
have been working on human capital for many years, and we will
continue to work on it here.
At this time, I would like to call on Ambassador Hodges for
your statement.
TESTIMONY OF AMBASSADOR HEATHER M. HODGES,\1\ ACTING DIRECTOR
GENERAL, FOREIGN SERVICE, AND DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ambassador Hodges. Mr. Chairman, Senator Voinovich, thank
you for this opportunity to testify before you today and
address the State Department's efforts to develop, position,
and support our dedicated corps of Foreign Service, Civil
Service, and locally employed staff to effectively meet the
challenges of our worldwide mission.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ambassador Hodges appears in the
Appendix on page 43.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The changes we have seen in terms of the Department of
State's staffing requirements in the post-September 11 world
are nothing less than staggering. The number of State
Department positions overseas that are designated
``unaccompanied'' or ``limited unaccompanied'' for reasons of
hardship or danger has almost quadrupled since 2001, from less
than 200 to more than 750 today.
Since 2001, we have opened and staffed new embassies in
Podgorica, Montenegro, and Dili, Timor Leste, and set up dozens
of provincial reconstruction teams under the most challenging
circumstances in Afghanistan and Iraq, while still maintaining
operational readiness at our other 265 missions worldwide.
We have also enhanced interagency cooperation by increasing
the number of political military advisors to military
commanders in the field, expanding details to other national
security agencies, and developing the U.S. Government's
capacity to participate in reconstruction and stabilization
efforts.
Sustaining the State Department's high standards for
foreign language capability has also become challenging. Since
2001, the number of language-designated positions in the State
Department has doubled. Language-designated positions and
critical needs languages, including Arabic, Chinese, and Farsi,
which are often the hardest to teach, have increased by 170
percent.
Over three rounds of global repositioning, the Secretary
has approved the realignment and creation of 285 positions,
including the establishment of new American Presence Posts, by
reallocating positions and implementing other management
reforms. The regions of East Asia Pacific and South Central
Asia have been allotted the most new positions, with our
missions in India and China receiving the largest staffing
increases. We have effectively repositioned one-tenth of our
political, economic, and public diplomacy officers overseas
through the global repositioning process.
The State Department has also increased training to meet
the needs of transformational diplomacy. The Foreign Service
has expanded its foreign language training capacity to increase
the number of critical needs language speakers and raise the
proficiency of existing foreign language speakers. The State
Department enrollments in Arabic language courses, for example,
have nearly quadrupled since 2001, with roughly 450 enrollments
in the various types of Arabic courses in fiscal year 2006.
We also announced a special initiative this summer to
encourage State Department employees to learn Arabic. Under
this program, Foreign Service generalists and specialists can
curtail their current jobs to begin full-time Arabic training.
Within the Bureau of Human Resources, we have adapted our
recruitment intake and assignments processes to maintain
operational readiness in the face of global challenges. We have
adapted our intake process to meet the State Department's
transformational diplomacy agenda and retain our ability to
attract the best and brightest foreign affairs professionals.
Registration is currently underway for the first test offering
in September 2007 as part of a redesigned Foreign Service
intake process.
In addition to changing the way we recruit and hire Foreign
Service officers, we also made substantial changes to the
assignments process in 2006 and 2007. We changed the order in
which assignments are made, tightened the so-called ``Fair
share'' rules, requiring more of our personnel to serve at
hardship posts, limited Foreign Service officers to 5
consecutive years of service in Washington, DC, and eliminated
fourth-year extensions at posts with less than 15 percent
differential. I am pleased to report that the process has
worked well. As of July 31, we have also successfully filled 93
percent of our summer 2007 openings in Iraq, including those in
Baghdad and in the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, and nearly
all of our unaccompanied positions worldwide have all been
staffed with volunteers.
This year, we also introduced a country-specific
assignments cycle for Iraq. This new cycle will ensure that we
once again fully staff our mission in Iraq in 2008.
Our new assignments procedures have been successful because
of our dedicated men and women who, in the finest tradition of
the Foreign Service and the State Department in general, are
committed to serving the needs of America. One of our ongoing
challenges is staffing overseas positions, and one of our top
legislative priorities is to implement a new pay-for-
performance system within the Foreign Service that will
establish a single, worldwide pay scale for Foreign Service
members and eliminate an 18.6-percent disparity for FS-01 and
below officers serving overseas.
The State Department has included the Foreign Service pay
reform provisions in its fiscal year 2008 and 2009
authorization bill request, which was sent to Congress in May
2007. We look forward to working with Congress to pass this
important piece of legislation, which will go a long way to
help the State Department staff our most difficult posts
overseas. We are doing all we can to meet the challenges of
staffing our missions in a post-September 11 world and are
proud of our success to date. We also acknowledge that, despite
our best efforts, the State Department's staffing needs to
exceed our current resources.
The State Department is dealing with a deficit of mid-level
Foreign Service generalists due to hiring shortages in the
1990s. At the FS-02 level, we have 210 more positions than
officers. In addition, the State Department has only been able
to set aside 500 positions for long-term training, a mere 5
percent of our Foreign Service position base. As a result, we
have been forced to leave some overseas positions vacant for
long periods, or we have had to waive language requirements in
order to fill positions.
To address our staffing needs, the State Department
requested 254 new positions in the fiscal year 2008 budget to
cover training, surge, and rotational requirements. The
President's budget submission has requested new positions for
the last 3 years, but Congress has not appropriated any new
positions outside of the earmarked consular and security
positions since 2004.
Our Foreign Service corps of approximately 11,500, while
made up of the most talented and capable foreign affairs
professionals this country has to offer, is too small to handle
the United States of America's increasingly critical and
growing mission of diplomatic engagement. To put this number in
perspective, our entire corps of Foreign Service generalists
and specialists is about the size of one army division.
We are hard at work around the world with about 67 percent
of Foreign Service employees serving overseas and 68 percent of
those assigned to hardship posts. We are proud of our
committed, capable Department of State employees who make
sacrifices every day to serve the American people, and we are
committed to supporting and enabling them to effectively carry
out the State Department's mission.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to address
you today.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much for your testimony,
Ambassador. And now we will hear from Mr. Warlick.
TESTIMONY OF JAMES B. WARLICK,\1\ PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT
SECRETARY, BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Warlick. Mr. Chairman, Senator Voinovich, I am pleased
to have the opportunity to discuss the Department of State's
efforts to recruit U.S. citizens for positions at U.N.'s
organizations. We place high priority on increasing the number
of Americans at all levels in international organizations.
Americans bring to the work environment well-honed skills, high
levels of education, and relevant experience in their fields of
expertise. They are also accustomed to working in a culture
where ethics, efficiency, and effectiveness are prized, and
accountability is expected. A strong American presence in
international organizations is in our Nation's best interests
because it translates into influence and a greater likelihood
of achieving our policy goals.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Warlick appears in the Appendix
on page 52.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our highest priority is placing American citizens in policy
and senior-level positions in the U.N. system. We have worked
closely with new U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his
staff to identify the most talented Americans and place them in
positions of responsibility. We were particularly pleased that
the Secretary General selected Ambassador Lynn Pascoe to serve
as Under Secretary General for Political Affairs and Josette
Sheeran to be the new Executive Director of the World Food
Program. The appointments of Nancy Graham as Director of Air
Navigation for the International Civil Aviation Organization
and Craig Johnstone as Deputy U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees were other achievements.
We have also provided assistance to Americans who have been
successful in obtaining entry in mid-level positions. For
example, a Foreign Service officer recently obtained an
administrative officer position in the U.N. Office at Geneva,
and an American was selected as an examinations officer in the
U.N. Secretariat.
We are seeking to increase the overall number of Americans
in international organizations. As of the end of 2005, there
were roughly 2,200 Americans serving in professional positions
in the U.N. system, representing 8.2 percent of the
professional workforce. This is down from the year 2000 when
Americans held 8.8 percent of the professional positions.
But these numbers do not tell the whole story. We are
targeting particular jobs, agencies, and programs where the
presence of American citizens can make especially important
contributions. For example, there has been a major interagency
effort to increase the number of Americans at the International
Atomic Energy Agency, and we have had some success. However,
increasing the number of Americans, regardless of grade level,
is not an easy task. Many challenges are not primarily within
the control of the United States, including restrictions on the
number of positions open to external candidates, stiff
competition from nationals of other countries, many of whom are
multilingual, and limited job opportunities for spouses--a
problem for many American families that are used to two incomes
and spouses who want to work.
To achieve our goal of increasing American representation
in the U.N. system, we are working in different ways.
First, we have increased the resources devoted to this
effort. In 2002, there were only two positions assigned to this
area, while now we have six positions--four of which are fully
dedicated. One position concentrates solely on identifying and
placing Americans in senior- and policy-level jobs. Also, in
recent years, we have provided higher levels of funding for
travel, displays, and materials related to outreach events.
Second, the State Department has increased and broadened
its outreach efforts. We have reached a much wider source of
potential candidates because OPM's USAJobs website has a link
to our employment-in-international-organizations website, as do
other organizations. We have continued to compile an
international vacancy announcement list with a dissemination
list that keeps growing. We have regularly sent officers from
Washington to meet with international organization officials to
press for an increase in hiring Americans at all levels, to
supplement the message being sent routinely by our Ambassadors.
We have participated in more career fairs than in the past
and are now trying to better target our audiences. Also, we
have been broadening our outreach geographically by
participating in outreach events outside the Washington area,
such as in Arizona, California, Illinois, New York, North
Carolina, and Texas.
To help ensure that Americans are hired at the entry level
at the United Nations for the last several years the State
Department has funded the costs for holding the U.N.'s National
Competitive Recruitment Exam in locations other than in New
York--for example, in California and Illinois. We also
recognize the value of junior professional officers, and the
State Department has continued its funding for these positions.
For example, there were 15 junior professional officers funded
in 2006, which was increased to 17 in 2007.
I should note that Secretary Rice, her senior staff, and
others throughout the government have worked actively to place
Americans in positions in the U.N. American citizen employment
is a U.S. Government priority.
Third, we have been seeking better coordination and
collaboration within the U.S. Government. We created an
interagency task force as a forum for identifying issues,
seeking out best practices, and disseminating information. We
have met individually with U.S. Government agencies to examine
American employment issues in international organizations. In
addition, in 2006, Secretary Rice sent a letter to heads of
U.S. Government agencies urging them to assist and encourage
details and transfers of their employees to international
organizations.
We acknowledge that more can be done to place American
citizens in U.N. jobs, and we welcome GAO's report, issued in
September 2006, on additional efforts needed to increase U.S.
employees at U.N. agencies. We agree with each of the report's
recommendations and are in the process of implementing them.
For example, we updated all informational documents on our
international organization employment website in 2007. We began
researching Internet-based options for compiling a roster of
potential candidates. And, we initiated a study to identify the
fields of expertise most often advertised by international
organizations in order to better target our recruitment
efforts.
The Department of State is committed to placing more U.S.
citizens in international organizations at all levels. We are
continuing our efforts to place more Americans in important
posts and will continue to engage senior officials, our
missions, U.S. Government agencies, and international
organizations themselves toward this end. We will persist in
seeking to implement better, more cost-effective, and efficient
mechanisms to recruit and place Americans in the U.N. system.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Warlick.
Ambassador Hodges, it is clear that PTSD is a serious
problem for FSOs returning from hardship posts, and I would
tell you that many people do not realize this and how tough it
is to serve there.
What kinds of practices does the State Department have in
place to support Foreign and Civil Service employees who
develop PTSD as a result of assignments in those hardship posts
such as Iraq and Afghanistan?
Ambassador Hodges. Well, sir, we have instituted a seminar
that is now required for all people who are returning from
service in Iraq and Afghanistan and actually many of the other
unaccompanied posts if the people so desire who have been under
stressful conditions. We have, as I say, recently made this a
required course so that people do not see it as a stigma to go
to it, and when they show up at a course as if they have some
problem.
Also, we have recently done a survey of people who have
served in unaccompanied posts and only recently have compiled
the information available from that survey. And from that our
Medical Division finds that we are sure that perhaps 2 percent
of these employees have PTSD, and it is possible that another
15 percent have PTSD, although, obviously, it is impossible to
diagnose from a survey whether or not people have PTSD. But we
are taking this very seriously, and the Medical Division is
going to be putting together a unit, we hope, to look at this
problem, to be able to work with the military, who have far
more expertise than we do in this issue, and we also want to
become more and more aware of the problem because we know, as
you said, that this is something that we are going to live with
for many years to come.
Senator Akaka. At this time do you have follow-up support?
The reason I ask is we know that, for instance, PTSD does not
come immediately.
Ambassador Hodges. Exactly.
Senator Akaka. It may be a year or so.
Ambassador Hodges. Right.
Senator Akaka. Do you deal with that follow-up support?
Ambassador Hodges. Well, I think we have to do more, and it
is exactly right that just a follow-on course or seminar when
somebody is just back from service is not enough. We have to
make sure that these people are aware of the resources we have
within our Medical Division. Also, overseas in some posts we
have regional medical centers, doctors who are there who travel
around to the other posts, so they are always available to
people who have gone on to other assignments. But also our
Family Liaison Office does work with members of families and is
also available to people who want to go to them.
But, again, we know we have to do more.
Senator Akaka. In fiscal year 2008, the State Department
requested $398 billion plus an additional $1.88 billion for
Iraq. The Administration granted none of the positions
requested in either fiscal year 2006 or fiscal year 2007 for
training and transformational diplomacy.
Can you comment on this case?
Ambassador Hodges. As I mentioned in my testimony, we have
in many cases tried to fold the training into assignments of
people going overseas. We would like to have more positions in
order to give our people more training before they go.
Sometimes we have had to waive language requirements. Sometimes
we have shortened language training. But we have done our best
to meet the needs of the priority positions.
Senator Akaka. George Staples, the recently retired
Director General at the State Department, has said that the
current situation in which FSOs are being required to serve in
unaccompanied hardship posts is not simply a result of Iraq and
Afghanistan but a new norm that will become what he saw as
standard practice. If this is indeed the case, do you think the
State Department will have difficulty retaining qualified
personnel and attracting new personnel?
Ambassador Hodges. It is true that now the median
differential of all our positions worldwide is 15 percent, and
some of those differentials go much higher than that. Also,
there are over 750 unaccompanied or limited-accompanied
positions around the world where, for safety reasons
particularly or security in general, we do not allow family
members to come. And yes, it is very possible that this will
not change, that it could go up, it will change from post to
post over time, but it is likely that this will not change.
But it is interesting. Ambassador Staples would go out to
greet all of our new entry-level officers, our new specialists,
and over the year that he was Director General, I think his
message got grimmer and grimmer. And yet it seems as if we see
that these people who are coming into the Foreign Service are
very energetic. They are eager to serve their country. This is
very definitely a post-September 11 generation that is signing
up for the Foreign Service, and we are really very pleased by
that.
Also, I might mention our attrition rate is one of the
lowest in the Federal Government, and we actually have a lower
attrition rate at the entry level and the mid-levels than we
have had for many years.
Senator Akaka. That is good to hear. We will have another
round. I will ask Senator Voinovich for any of his questions.
Senator Voinovich. I listened to your testimony, and I
would like you to share with me as candidly as you can what it
is that we have not done that makes it difficult for you to do
your job.
Ambassador Hodges. That is a leading, question, sir.
Senator Voinovich. Well, we always have you folks here, and
we always give you a hard time about lots of stuff.
Ambassador Hodges. Right.
Senator Voinovich. But so often I have found that one of
the reasons why we have the problems is because we are not
doing the job that we are supposed to be doing. So I am going
to give you an opportunity, and Mr. Warlick, to share with us
some of your frustrations about some of the things that are
going on and how Congress could do a better job of doing our
job so you can do yours.
Ambassador Hodges. Obviously, we need positions and we have
requested positions every year, and we need to have them in
order to provide sufficient training for our people and also to
be able to meet emergency needs as well, because when we find
that we have new position needs in a particular area, we have
to shift in a way because we just do not have enough people. So
if we have a need here, we have to move somebody from somewhere
else in order to meet that need. We simply need more people,
and we need those funded positions.
Senator Voinovich. Do you know how many people you would
need in order to get the job done reasonably? Do you have any
idea of what the cost would be?
Ambassador Hodges. I am going to refer you to some of the
reports of NGOs. The Foreign Affairs Council, when they will be
testifying after us, they have come up with a recommendation of
something like 1,100 or possibly more. CSIS is doing a study on
the Embassy of the Future, and although I do not have that
data, I understand that their numbers will be very similar, or
even more than that. And that would allow for training for
positions and things like that.
If I could finish answering your original question, also I
referred to the issue of payment for locality pay overseas, the
pay for performance and reforms there, that really is a
disincentive to officers to go overseas to discover that when
you leave Washington, DC, you are going to actually take a cut
in pay. People do go overseas. They do serve their country. But
this would be very helpful to us.
Senator Voinovich. Well, the question I have is in your
budget request did you ask for locality pay over the last
couple of years and not get it?
Ambassador Hodges. Right.
Senator Voinovich. How about pay for performance?
Ambassador Hodges. The seniors have pay for performance,
but----
Senator Voinovich. I know you have pay for performance for
the SES----
Ambassador Hodges. Right, but that is what we would like to
do, is have that for the 01s and below.
Senator Voinovich. You do performance evaluation on----
Ambassador Hodges. Oh, yes, very rigorously. And we have
promotion panels every year for every level. That is, in a way,
just by promoting people, we do a measurement of performance.
Senator Voinovich. But it is not connected with pay for
performance?
Ambassador Hodges. At the moment, below 01 level, no.
Senator Voinovich. Several years ago, I had dinner with an
Ambassador and his wife, and I talked to her about Senator
Akaka's and our efforts to try and move toward pay for
performance. But the example she gave me--and, Senator, you
might be interested. She said, ``We have 15 people that work
for us: five are super hitters, five are really pretty good,
and five, they are okay. But,'' she said, ``Senator, they all
get the same pay.'' And she said that it is not the best kind
of environment for people to work in.
Would you care to comment at all on whether or not this
kind of a set-up, the current set-up has an effect on
attracting people to come to work for the State Department?
Ambassador Hodges. To be honest, I don't think that as
people come to take the examination to enter the State
Department and when they are showing an interest in being in
the Foreign Service or civil servants or whatever, I don't
think that is a factor in deciding to join the Department of
State. I think later on, though, it is a factor when people are
deciding which assignments to take because they are here, they
have their families in school, and then they discover that if
they go overseas--especially people who are the mid-level whose
salaries are lower, and then they go overseas and they actually
take a pay cut.
Senator Voinovich. Well, what we have to understand is that
we want to be the employer of choice, and the real issue is
that the competition is very keen out there for these people.
Everybody wants them and it seems to me that pay for
performance would be attractive to someone coming to work for
the State Department.
I am very pleased because the word I got as I traveled
around is that you are not losing a lot of people eligible for
retirement. In other words, you have got folks that are capable
of retiring or taking an early out and they are sticking
around.
Ambassador Hodges. When I spoke I was referring in
particular to the entry-level retention rate and to the mid-
level retention rate. The senior-level retention rate--the
retirement rate has gone up in the past couple of years, but we
believe that has to do with the baby boomers and people who
have reached their time in class within the service. And that
is something that we already have factored into our workforce
planning model. The statistics are not really anything
different from what we expected.
Senator Voinovich. What you need are more positions and
more money. As I mentioned in my opening statement, this is a
war for the hearts and minds of people. I had a wonderful
conversation with General Jones, who was in charge of Central
Command overseas and NATO forces. And if you look at the money
we are spending in the Defense Department and took some of that
money and put it in the State Department for some of these
diplomacy programs, in this new environment that we have, we
would be far better off. And when I think about, Senator Akaka,
is we have spent close to $600 billion now in Iraq, and I think
about how some of that money could have been better used in the
State Department. I think there are people in this
Administration thinking about it, but time is running out. The
challenge that we have is to figure out how to take the
resources we have and allocate them in the most effective way,
understanding that the enemy is entirely different than those
we have confronted in the past.
Right now, for example, you are worried about folks going
to places where in the past the State Department did not have
to worry about it. You could bring your family. But now with
this growing al Qaeda threat in various parts of the world, the
State Department is, ``Hey, you had better leave your family at
home because we are frightened that maybe something might
happen to them.'' Or staff might say, ``I do not want my family
to come with me because God only knows what is going to happen
to me.''
We really have to have some new thinking if we are going to
to win the hearts and minds of others and get the job done.
Senator Akaka. Well, thank you very much, Senator
Voinovich.
I have further questions for you, Ambassador. Steve
Kashkett, State Department Vice President of the American
Foreign Service Association, recently stated that Foreign
Service officers fear that the Administration is working to
transform the Foreign Service into the civilian equivalent of
the Military Rapid Action Force instead of one characterized by
the activist diplomats in the style of George Kennan. Do you
agree with this characterization? And if so, why? And what can
be done to create more of a balanced workforce in the Foreign
Service?
Ambassador Hodges. No, sir, I think that you have to look
at the Foreign Service and our missions around the world, the
multiple jobs that we do, it is absolutely incredible. And so
to say that we are being transformed into one thing or another
would be misleading.
We do great things, and some of our people are in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and some of them love being there. They love this
opportunity to bring democracy to these countries. They love
being in PRTs. Other people are in Africa where they also see
opportunities to transform countries, to help these countries
be--to support them in their democratic endeavors, or in Latin
America, but also in European countries, Western European
countries. Our people have a wide variety of roles. We do a lot
of multilateral diplomacy. We work with the European Union, and
our work with the European Union has to do with the rest of the
world.
There are just so many things that we are involved in that
depend on the country and the nature of the job that you are
going to in the individual countries.
So I think that we are meeting our priorities as the--the
Department of State is meeting the priorities that we have as
the U.S. Government. And so, sometimes we are doing something
that you could characterize as seeming, as support for what the
military is doing, or whatever. But we are doing many things.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Warlick, how does the State Department
determine whether a position at the U.N. is important enough to
warrant recruiting efforts?
Mr. Warlick. We have placed the highest priority on policy-
level and senior-level positions. The policy-level positions
are at the Under Secretary General and Assistant Secretary
General levels or the equivalent. Policy and senior-level
positions also may be considered the Office Director
equivalent.
We have placed our highest priority on those positions
because we believe that they will allow Americans to exercise
the most influence in the U.N. system. But our efforts have not
been to the exclusion of junior- and mid-level positions. We
consider those a priority as well, and we do seek for Americans
to apply for and fill as many positions as possible throughout
the U.N. system.
I would like to add that there are particular programs in
agencies within the U.N. system that are of higher priority to
us than others, and we will work most closely with those
agencies to ensure that Americans are hired, in particular to
higher-level positions.
Senator Akaka. In those cases, in those positions, is there
a process or a way in which the Department of State assists
U.S. applicants to move into U.N. organizations?
Mr. Warlick. Well, the process happens in many different
ways. Sometimes there are American citizens that apply directly
to the United Nations, and we are never aware of their
candidacies. We wish that we were aware of such Americans
because we would like to be in a position to support them.
There are other American citizens who do come to us
directly and ask for our assistance, and we do, to the extent
possible, try to provide assistance to them. Sometimes this is
done by providing factual assistance on the application
process. Sometimes it is done by endorsing their applications
for employment in particular organizations.
Senator Akaka. In its report, the GAO states that IAEA has
difficulty attracting qualified U.S. applicants, allegedly
because the pool of American nuclear specialists is decreasing.
Do you think this contention is valid? Or is it that there are
other barriers which dissuade Americans from applying for
positions?
Mr. Warlick. I think the contention is true, but there are
many factors, including some less known ones, that contribute
to the IAEA's ability to attract Americans.
First of all, I would say that we would like to see more
Americans in positions in the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA). There have been many efforts made by U.S.
agencies to encourage Americans to apply for jobs in IAEA; and
IAEA has actually hired more Americans into positions. I would
say that the contention by the GAO is, in fact, correct. We do
have available a limited pool of nuclear scientists and people
with those sorts of technical capabilities. There are very good
employment opportunities for that pool within the United
States, and there are other factors involved, too. These
include the extent to which those scientists and other people
with technical capabilities can speak other languages and the
extent to which they are willing to relocate, which often
involves the availability of job opportunities for their
spouses. So all this needs to be taken into account to
understand why Americans representation in IAEA still needs to
be improved.
I would say, though, with IAEA, we have engaged very
actively with the senior leadership because of the importance
of the work of that organization.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Senator Voinovich, do you have
any further questions?
Senator Voinovich. Yes, I do.
We had testimony in regard to the fiasco dealing with
passports. Do you have any idea when the State Department will
be able to handle its workload timely?
Ambassador Hodges. You mentioned the passports before. I
was looking to see if I had brought a fact sheet with me that I
believe Members of Congress are going to be receiving from
Assistant Secretary Bergner today or tomorrow. But we are
making tremendous progress. Certainly, as you have noted, we
have put PMFs to work, the entry-level officers, some people
who had come back for training courses. We have put people to
work at various passport agencies, and they are making
considerable progress. And I would say that we are optimistic
that we will be able to meet the commitments made to you
through Assistant Secretary Hardy that we will be fairly caught
up with the backlog by September.
Senator Voinovich. All right. But what you are doing in a
way is you are robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Ambassador Hodges. I hope not for long. The people that we
have taken out of training will be put back in training, and
then they will be able to go off to their overseas positions.
Senator Voinovich. Has anybody taken the telescope out and
looked at what the future looks like? Because there are going
to be new broder requirements, that is we are going to start
requiring identification for ground and pedestrian
transportation. How is that going to impact passport
processing?
It would seem to me that there needs to be better
coordination between the Department of Homeland Security and
the State Department. You are the ones that have got the job to
do, and I would hope that someone is looking down the road to
see whether what DHS requires is realistic, so you can plan and
we do not end up with another one of these fiascos.
I want to thank the State Department for their cooperation
in getting the Visa Waiver Program through with the 9/11 bill.
But it seems to me that there are some inconsistencies in
whether and for what reasons countries are rejected. Has anyone
looked at that, to your knowledge, or is this outside of your
frame of reference?
Ambassador Hodges. Actually, I would prefer to have the
Bureau of Consular Affairs answer that question. I am sure that
this is something, though, that is ongoing review with regard
to the various countries.
Senator Voinovich. Well, I would like to have something on
that. I would like to know what kind of training individuals
are given in the various embassies. There are supposed to be
objective standards in place, and I think there may be some
variation from one place to another. Those people have an
enormous amount of power in terms of who comes and who does not
come.
Ambassador Hodges. The standards would be the same
throughout the world, and basically you are talking about non-
immigrant visas, obviously. Unfortunately, the burden of proof
is in the--it is the applicant who has to be able to prove that
they have every intention of returning to their----
Senator Voinovich. I am telling you from my experience,
since I have been in the Senate and the calls I get, that there
are some differences about how the Visa Waiver program is being
administered, and I would like to know what standards are used,
what training is provided, and if anybody ever goes back and
audits the results.
Ambassador Hodges. OK.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Warlick, what is the difference in
pay for entry level positions? You have an ambitious young
person who wants to do something internationally, should they
go to the State Department or to the United Nations?
Mr. Warlick. U.N. salaries will vary depending on the cost
of living of an individual's work location. But U.N. system
salaries are good. They are based on those in the U.S. Civil
Service, to which a differential has been given which ranges
from 10 to 20 percent. Also, U.N. benefits overall, are
competitive with those provided for the U.S. Civil Service.
Senator Voinovich. Have you noted any new programs,
policies, or, let's put it this way: Do applicants feel more
comfortable about applying now with Secretary General Ban Ki-
moon, or is it about the same as before. He is operating more
transparently, for example, providing greater financial
disclosure than was done by the previous Secretary General.
Mr. Warlick. Right.
Senator Voinovich. I just wonder, has that filtered out
that the U.N. may be a better place to work than it was maybe 5
years ago?
Mr. Warlick. I think it is too early to identify those
sorts of trends, but we are very encouraged by the new
Secretary General and his interest in working with us on this
very issue. The message that he has communicated to his staff,
that ethics and accountability are important, we hope over time
will translate into more Americans into positions at all levels
in the U.N. system. And more broadly speaking, his effort to
enhance transparency and accountability in the U.N. system is
very welcome. We would hope that Americans will see that and
see it as a place where they would want to work.
Senator Voinovich. How much of an impediment is the problem
of the cost of living in New York and the issue of spouses
finding a job? Is that a big barrier?
Mr. Warlick. We have not quantified the spousal employment
problem but it does exist. In many places overseas American
spouses cannot easily find employment. And that does deter
applicants from applying. The U.N. provides a post differential
based in part on cost-of-living, which helps ensure that
organizations in higher cost-of-living areas will be able to
attract employees.
I would add to that, though, that there are very well
qualified Americans who apply for U.N. jobs, and we do need to
continue to encourage the United Nations to look seriously at
American applicants.
You had posed to Ambassador Hodges, earlier, a question on
what can you do. First of all, thank you very much for this
hearing. In recent memory, this is the first time, I believe,
that the State Department has testified on American citizen
employment in the United Nations. The fact that we are doing
this today does shine a spotlight on the importance of this
issue for Congress.
Second, you and many of your colleagues in the House and
Senate meet regularly with senior U.N. officials, including the
Secretary General himself, on many serious issues.
Nevertheless, we would encourage you to include this issue of
American citizen employment on your agendas. This is an
important area for us and should not be forgotten. And I know
you would not do that, but this is a message for your
colleagues as well who travel to New York and elsewhere.
And, third, I would say that this issue is beyond the State
Department. Many very well qualified applicants for U.N. jobs
are not inside the State Department, but are in other agencies
where we have technical, professional skills. The Secretary of
State has reached out to her counterparts in agencies and has
tried to encourage them to details or transfer their staff and,
to encourage other qualified Americans to apply for jobs in
international organizations, as well. I think an important
message from Congress, from you and your colleagues, sir,
should be that this should be a priority governmentwide; that
it is important for all departments of the U.S. Government to
detail and transfer their staff to international organizations.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich.
I have a number of questions to ask, and I am sure Senator
Voinovich has other questions, but we have two more panels. So
I want to thank you so much for being here today, and what we
will do is submit the questions to you and look forward to your
responses to these questions. And, of course, we are doing all
of this to try to decide what we need to do to deal with the
personnel problems that we expect to face and so we can do this
together.
I want to thank both of you for your valuable testimony
this afternoon, and I look forward to working with each of you
to ensure that the State Department is well prepared for the
challenges ahead. And there are many of them dealing with
personnel. So with that, again, I want to thank you very much
for being here
Ambassador Hodges. And thank you for having us. I second
what Mr. Warlick has said. It has been very important for us to
be here, and we look forward to working with you and answering
any questions you have.
Senator Akaka. Yes, and we look forward to our staffs also
trying to get information we will need to deal with this. Thank
you very much.
Mr. Warlick. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Now I ask the second panel of
witnesses to come forward: Jess Ford, Director, International
Affairs and Trade, U.S. Government Accountability Office, and
Thomas Melito, Director, International Affairs and Trade Team,
U.S. Government Accountability Office.
As you know, it is the custom of the Subcommittee to swear
in all witnesses, and I would like to, therefore, ask you to
stand and raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear that the
testimony you are about to give this Subcommittee is the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Ford. Yes.
Mr. Melito. Yes.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Let the record note that the
witnesses responded in the affirmative.
We would like to now hear your statements. I want you to
know that your full statements will be placed in the record,
and we look forward to your 5-minute statement to the
Committee. So will you please begin, Mr. Ford?
TESTIMONY OF JESS T. FORD,\1\ DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
AND TRADE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Ford. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, I am
pleased to be here today to discuss GAO's work on the
Department of State's human capital issues.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Ford appears in the Appendix on
page 59.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In recent years, State has undertaken several broad
initiatives to ensure that it has enough qualified staff in the
right places to carry out its mission. These efforts have
included the State Department's Diplomatic Readiness
Initiative, designed to hire a reserve of Foreign Service
officers and civil servant employees, to support training
opportunities for staff, and to enhance the State Department's
response to crises and emerging priorities, and also to fill
skill gaps.
In addition, the State Department is currently implementing
its Transformation Diplomacy Initiative, which involves, among
other things, repositioning overseas staff from locations such
as Europe to emerging critical areas, including Asia and the
Middle East. Today I will discuss the State Department's
progress in addressing staffing shortfalls since the
implementation of the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative and
filling gaps in language proficiency of Foreign Service
officers and other staff.
GAO has reported on a number of human capital issues that
have hampered the State Department's ability to carry out the
President's foreign policy priorities and objectives. My
statement today is based primarily on a report we issued in
August of last year.
The State Department has made some progress in addressing
staffing shortfalls since implementing the Diplomatic Readiness
Initiative in 2002. However, the initiative did not fully meet
its goals, and staffing shortfalls remain a problem. Without
ensuring that the right people with the right skills are in the
right places, these gaps will continue to compromise the State
Department's ability to carry out foreign policy objectives.
From 2002 to 2004, the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative
enabled the State Department to hire in excess of a thousand
employees above attrition to respond to emerging crises.
However, according to the State Department, much of this
increase was absorbed by the demand of personnel for problems
in Iraq and Afghanistan, and thus, the desired crises and
training reserve was not achieved.
In addition, the State Department has placed an increased
focus on foreign language training in certain critical areas,
which means that staff who would otherwise be working are
instead attending language training. State Department officials
recently informed us they now estimate that the State
Department needs as many as a thousand new positions to address
staffing shortfalls and to support foreign language training
needs.
In an effort to address staffing shortfalls at historically
hard-to-fill posts, many of which are of significant strategic
importance to the United States, the State Department had
implemented a number of incentives, including offering extra
pay to officers who serve an additional year at these posts and
allowing employees to negotiate shorter tours of duty. More
recently, State has made service in a hardship post a
prerequisite for promotions, and since we issued our report,
the State Department has increased its service requirements of
staff at hardship posts and has also taken a number of
additional measures to ensure that all Iraqi positions are
filled. However, State has not evaluated the effectiveness of
these incentives, and it continues to have difficulty
attracting qualified mid-level applicants for many of these
positions.
According to State Department officials, mid-level
positions at many posts continue to be staffed by junior
officers who lack experience and have minimal guidance. The
State Department has not traditionally assigned its employees
to particular posts based on risks and priorities, but instead
has basically assigned people based on their expressed levels
of interest. We recommended that the State Department consider
using its authority to direct staff to accept assignments as
necessary to ensure that critical gaps are filled. After our
report was issued, the State Department Director General
publicly indicate the State Department would consider using
directed assignments, if necessary.
The State Department has made some progress in increasing
its foreign language capabilities, but significant language
challenges remain. The State Department has significantly
increased the number of worldwide positions requiring language
proficiency and has enhanced efforts to recruit individuals
proficient in certain languages. However, State continues to
have difficulties filling language-designated positions. Gaps
in language proficiency can compromise the State Department's
ability to execute critical duties, including reaching out to
foreign audiences central to the war on terror.
In April of this year, we testified that inadequate
language skills hampered public diplomacy officers' ability to
cultivate personal relationships and explain U.S. foreign
policy. Moreover, officials at one high visa fraud post stated
that consular officers sometimes adjudicate visas without fully
understanding everything that the applicants can tell them
because of their language deficiencies.
The State Department officials told us that some language
gaps have worsened in recent years due to the State
Department's relocation of some staff positions to critical
posts that requires super-hard languages, primarily Arabic. We
reported that almost 30 percent of the staff filling language-
designated positions worldwide were deficient in the language
requirements. An example that we cited in our report was in
Cairo, Egypt, where 59 percent of the language-designated
positions were filled with people who did not meet the
requirement.
Moreover, some officers we met with who did meet the
language proficiency requirements questioned whether the
requirements are adequate. For example, officials in Yemen and
China stated that speaking and reading proficiency levels
designated for their positions were not high enough for the
staff to effectively carry out their roles and
responsibilities.
Additionally, several factors, including the short length
of some tours and limitations on consecutive tours at the same
post hinders officers' ability to enhance and maintain their
skills. The State Department officials informed us that the
State Department has recently implemented a new initiative that
would provide additional language incentive pay for staff if
they choose to be reassigned to a posting that would utilize
their existing Arabic language skills. In addition, in response
to our recommendations, the State Department is taking action
to enhance its language proficiency of staff mainly through a
focus on training.
This concludes my opening statement, and I would be happy
to answer any of your questions.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Ford. Mr. Melito.
TESTIMONY OF THOMAS MELITO,\1\ DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
AND TRADE TEAM, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Melito. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I
am pleased to appear today to discuss ways to improve the
representation of American professionals at U.N. organizations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Melito appears in the Appendix on
page 82.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The U.S. Congress has been concerned that insufficient
progress has been made to improve U.S. representation. The
equitable representation of Americans is a priority because the
United States is the largest financial contributor to most of
these U.N. organizations, and according to the Department of
State, Americans bring desirable skills that can have a
significant impact on operational effectiveness.
My testimony is based on a report that we issued in
September 2006 that analyzed U.S. employment at five U.N.
organizations. My statement today discusses three topics: One,
U.S. representation status and employment trends; two, factors
affecting these organizations' ability to meet U.S.
representation targets; and, three, the State Department's
efforts to improve U.S. representation.
In the first main finding, our analysis showed that the
United States was underrepresented in three of the five U.N.
organizations we reviewed. Based on U.N. agencies' formal or
informal targets, U.S. citizens were underrepresented at IAEA,
UNESCO, and UNHCR, and equitably represented at the U.N.
Secretariat, though close to the lower end of its target range.
UNDP had not established a target for U.S. representation,
although U.S. citizens filled about 11 percent of the agency's
professional positions. Furthermore, the Secretariat, IAEA,
UNESCO, and UNHCR will need to increase their hiring of
Americans from recent levels to meet their minimum targets for
U.S. representation in the year 2010 given projected staff
levels and separations.
I will now turn to the second main finding. While the U.N.
agencies we reviewed faced some common barriers to recruiting
and retaining professional staff, including Americans, they
also faced distinct challenges. Many of these constraints were
outside of the U.S. Government's control. Barriers common to
U.N. agencies included non-transparent human resource
practices, a limited number of positions open to external
candidates, lengthy hiring processes, and required staff
mobility and rotation policies. These barriers combined with
distinct agency-specific factors to impede recruitment and
retention. For example, candidates serving in professional
positions funded by their member governments were more likely
to be hired by the Secretariat than those who took the
Secretariat's entry-level exam. However, the United States has
not funded such positions at the Secretariat.
I will now turn to the third main finding. The State
Department has increased its efforts to support the goal of
achieving equitable U.S. representation at U.N. organizations.
The State Department has targeted its efforts to recruit U.S.
candidates for senior and policymaking U.N. positions. Although
we cannot directly link the State Department's efforts to U.N.
hiring decisions, U.S. representation in senior and policy
positions has shown some improvement in recent years in most of
the five U.N. organizations we reviewed.
The State Department has also undertaken several efforts to
improve overall U.S. representation, including adding staff to
its U.N. employment office and increasing coordination with
other U.S. agencies that work with U.N. organizations. For
positions below the senior level, State focused on
disseminating information on U.N. vacancies through its
websites, attending career fairs, and by other means. Despite
these efforts, U.S. representation in entry- and mid-level
positions tended to decline in recent years in most of the U.N.
organizations we reviewed.
In light of the issues I just discussed, our 2006 report
recommended that the Secretary of State undertake three
actions: First, provide more consistent and comprehensive
information about U.N. employment on the State and U.S. mission
websites and work with U.S. agencies to expand the U.N.
employment information on their websites; second, expand
recruitment to better target Americans for entry- and mid-level
U.N. positions; and, third, evaluate the feasibility of both
maintaining a roster of qualified candidates for high-priority
positions and also of funding positions (such as Junior
Professional Officers) where there are representation concerns.
In commenting on a draft of the September 2006 report,
State agreed to implement all of our recommendations. In July
2007, State officials said they had begun to take some actions
to implement our recommendations such as outreaching to new
groups and conducting a preliminary analysis on the cost of
maintaining a roster.
Mr. Chairman, this completes my prepared statement. I will
be happy to address any questions you or Senator Voinovich may
have. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Melito.
Mr. Ford, Executive Order 11552, dated August 24, 1970,
gives the State Department responsibility for efforts to
increase and improve participation by U.S. citizens in
international organizations through transfers and details. Do
you believe that Federal Government employees are given ample
opportunity, support, and encouragement for efforts to pursue
employment at U.N. agencies? And if they are not, then why not?
Mr. Ford. Senator, I am going to turn that over to my
colleague to my left. He is the expert on the U.N. I am the
State Department guy.
Senator Akaka. Fine. Mr. Melito.
Mr. Melito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is an Executive
order from 1970 which calls for U.S. agencies to facilitate
their own employees to work at U.N. agencies. And in May 2006,
the Secretary of State sent a memorandum out to reinforce this
Executive order. But in our discussions with the State
Department and with other agencies, it is very difficult to
actually implement this.
First of all, there is very limited information about these
opportunities, and that is one of the things we highlighted. We
wanted more information on different agencies' websites. And in
our follow-up work, we found that actually two agencies--the
Department of Justice and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission--
have actually dropped information about U.N. jobs on their
websites since our report came out last year.
The other thing is when a particular employee leaves and
goes to the United Nations, his seniority may not carry over
with him; when he returns, he might not get sufficient credit
for the experience he has there; so it is not clear that U.N.
employment is rewarded. We highlight in the report that there
should be more emphasis on U.N. employment and there should be
more recognition of its importance.
Senator Akaka. Yes. Mr. Ford, the number of unaccompanied,
danger-pay positions at overseas posts has increased four-fold
since September 11, 2001. The risks to embassy employees has,
therefore, increased significantly. Do you think this will
negatively affect recruitment for the Foreign Service?
Mr. Ford. Well, certainly we have not studied a direct
correlation between unaccompanied posts and the State
Department's recruitment efforts. I can say that it is an issue
at the State Department with regard to the assignment process.
They are concerned about having enough qualified people bid for
these positions because these positions, as you mentioned, they
are unaccompanied. If you have a spouse, there is an issue of
whether or not you are going to be separated from your spouse;
or in some cases, if you are allowed to bring your spouse,
whether there is an opportunity for the spouse to get
employment in a highly difficult location.
So I know it is a matter of concern for the State
Department, but I have not seen any data that would show
whether or not it is affecting their recruitment of individuals
in terms of having a difficult time attracting the right kind
of people.
Senator Akaka. Thank you.
Mr. Ford, GAO reported that State continues to have
significant gaps in foreign language proficiency and that this
adversely affects the State Department's diplomatic readiness
and its ability to execute critical duties, including reaching
out to foreign audiences central to the war on terror. In what
areas were the language gaps the worst?
Mr. Ford. The areas where they have the largest shortfall
are in management positions; in their public diplomacy area,
they had shortfalls in that area; their specialists, their
foreign affairs specialists, we found many of their positions
did not have people with the right skill sets.
Those were the ones where they seemed to have the most
difficulty. The effect of this, although it is somewhat
anecdotal, but we got lots of comments about--particularly in
the public diplomacy area. Most of the State Department people
in the public diplomacy business have indicated to us that in
order for them to be effective in a foreign environment, they
have to have some fairly high-level language capability. And we
found in many cases we had people in positions that they could
not speak the language at the required level and, therefore,
they could not be as effective as they ought to be for carrying
out that role and responsibility.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Melito, when the Department of State
recruits candidates for employment at the U.N., the Department
of State does not have any authority in the hiring process at
the U.N. Given that the Department of State is not the
employing body, what distinct challenges does that present? And
what recommendations do we have to address them?
Mr. Melito. This is a question of awareness as much as
anything else. The efforts of the State Department in this
realm are to reach out to universities and different
professional organizations, in order to make them aware of the
U.N. opportunities that exist and to facilitate the application
process. And this is probably successful in some realms,
although we pointed out areas where they can do better.
But ultimately the U.N. is making the hiring decision, and
that is the U.S. policy. They should be basing their hiring
decisions on the best qualified candidate regardless of which
country they come from. And the United States is against
individual countries' actively intervening with the hiring
decision. They want to make sure the best candidates are
brought forward. But the United States can do a better job of
making the individual applicants aware of these opportunities
and facilitating the application process.
We pointed out in the report that they could do this
better. They have not reached out to a particular professional
organization of international affairs schools, for example. We
met with them, and they said they would like to have their
students know about U.N. jobs. And the State Department said it
will be reaching out to them, but has not yet.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much. Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Melito, are you familiar with Lynn
Pascoe?
Mr. Melito. No. I am sorry, sir.
Senator Voinovich. He went over to the U.N. to take on a
new job. You cannot answer this question, then. I was wondering
what his background was. Was he with the State Department and
then went over there? Does anybody know?
Ms. Derrick. He was with the State Department.
Mr. Melito. That is actually a State Department person, I
think.
Ms. Derrick. He was an Ambassador at the State Department.
Senator Voinovich. If you want people to go over to the
United Nations at mid-level positions from the State Department
do you think that some type of incentive is needed? For
example, agreeing give credit for U.N. work when they return to
the State Department?
Mr. Melito. The incentives should work for both the
employee and also the agency. On the employee side, yes, it is
recognition by everyone that this is important--important for
their agency, important for the U.S. Government, so we value it
and we recognize that. So when you return, your career has not
stalled but, in fact, has benefited from U.N. employment.
But it is also difficult for the agency because the way it
currently stands, often the position has to be held open, so it
ends up actually being a slot that they have to maintain on
their rolls while it is not being filled. So it is expensive
for them as well, and there probably needs to be some
consideration of that as well.
Senator Voinovich. Is there any consideration for some of
these ``high-level positions''? For example, Christopher
Burnham went to the U.N. and he started to do some
transformation efforts, but he let everybody know he was
leaving at the end of the year. Is there any consideration made
when we are encouraging people to go to the U.N. to also get
some long-term commitments so they can really make a
difference?
Mr. Melito. As part of my work, I looked at a number of
different U.N. topics, and I have met with senior-level U.N.
officials that are Americans that have had long careers. So
that does happen.
It really depends on the type of position and also,
obviously, the circumstances of the individual. In that case,
Mr. Burnham had intended it to be a short-term position, but
others want to stay longer.
Senator Voinovich. And overall--I asked the question of the
previous witness--how do U.N. pay and benefits compare with
what the State Department offers?
Mr. Melito. It is very difficult to do an apples-to-apples
comparison, and what we highlight in our report is that if you
only look at salary, the U.N. probably does not look like a
good deal for many Americans. But the benefits package of the
U.N. can sometimes be extraordinarily generous. The difficulty
is that it is not transparent. Factors such as education
benefits only pertain if you are overseas at a U.N. agency. So
if you are working in Geneva, you may get very generous
education benefits, including for your children's college
education. But if you are posted in New York, you will not get
that because you are in your home country.
So we were looking for some way of making this more
transparent so that an American can get a sense of what his
benefits would be, maybe through some kind of a web-based
calculator.
I will point out that since our report was issued, the
State Department has added more information on benefits, and it
is actually very useful. But it would require you to do some
work to really understand you benefits.
Senator Voinovich. It could be improved, then.
Mr. Melito. Right.
Senator Voinovich. In other words, so that people really
can make the comparison.
Mr. Melito. We met with over a hundred Americans who are
currently working at the U.N. These people have already decided
to work there. But one of the things we heard many times was
that they were surprised, after they were hired, how generous
some of these fringe benefits were. So you see these are people
who actually decided anyway, but we do not know about the
people who did not decide to work at the U.N. because they did
not know about the benefits.
Senator Voinovich. Well, if I were the State Department, I
would get some of those people out doing some recruiting.
Mr. Melito. Yes.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Ford, you state that the incentives
for attracting mid-level staff to hardship posts has not been
evaluated and that certain data were not available when you did
your review. Have you or will you be reviewing the questions
the State Department plans to ask in their quality-of-life
surveys so that you get the best information that is available
in regard to whether these incentives are working or not
working?
Mr. Ford. We have not been asked to do that. The
recommendation in our report was designed for them to collect
information, and perhaps that survey would be a vehicle for
them to do so, so that they could better determine what
incentives work best and which ones do not work so well, and
then they could make appropriate adjustments.
Right now, as far as we can tell, most of the incentives
are financial, which are probably helpful, but there may be
other incentives. I mentioned the spousal issue, length of the
tour of duty, how long you are going to be in a place, things
like that. We believe they need to more systematically analyze
those situations so that they can come up with the best set of
options that would be available to try to make sure they get
the right people in the right place.
Senator Voinovich. Maybe Senator Akaka and I could send a
letter to the State Department suggesting that they discuss the
results of the survey with GAO so that we can find out really
whether these incentives are working or not.
Because of problems in filling positions, some mid-level
staff with less experience are taking some of the jobs that
senior people should be having. From a quality point of view in
terms of delivering services, has there been any examples of
this being a problem? Have you seen that at all?
Mr. Ford. Well, we talked to a lot of senior management in
the State Department--Ambassadors, DCMs, the senior people at
many of the embassies we visited--and if you have a junior
person in a stretch position, in a higher-level position, they
do not have the level of experience, because they do not have
enough supervisors at the mid-level at the embassy, they are
not getting the experience and supervision that they need.
So I think the senior management in many cases would say,
you are not getting the same quality--not that the individuals
are not quality people, but that they just do not have enough
experience yet, they have not been in this position long enough
to know how to deal with certain situations.
So, there are some risks. I mean, we cited an example in
our report in China where there is a fairly high level of visa
fraud in China. We had very junior people in mid-level
positions who are responsible for adjudicating visas. And so
there is a concern about whether they have enough experience to
do that job effectively.
But I want to make it clear we are not saying that, the
individuals in junior levels of the Foreign Service are not
quality people. As far as we can tell, they are attracting and
recruiting quality people. It is just a case of experience.
Senator Voinovich. But they need experience.
Mr. Ford. They need experience.
Senator Voinovich. Just a final question, Senator Akaka,
and that would be this: If the State Department has not had
additional authorized positions since 2004, is there any way
under the sun that the State Department will be able to get the
job done that we are asking them to do--and it has grown more
significant as time has gone on, as we have heard--without
getting the thousand new people that they need to get the job
done?
Mr. Ford. Well, let me say a couple things here.
First, with regard to the thousand people they say they
need, we have not really validated that number from a GAO point
of view as to if that is what they really need. That is what
they told us they need. But I will say that over our track
record of looking at their skill sets and their shortages over
the last 5 years, they have had a gap at the mid-level. They
recognize they have a gap. They think that by 2010 they will be
able to fill all the mid-level positions so that experience
issue that I just referred to earlier will be taken care of.
But it is clear that they have gaps in some critical positions,
and those gaps, in my view, need to be filled. But I cannot
tell you whether it is 1,000 people or 800 or what the
appropriate number is. We have not studied that.
Senator Voinovich. Maybe you should. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Well, thank you. Thank you very much,
Senator Voinovich.
I want to thank the both of you for your testimony, and
without question, your testimony will be helpful to this
Subcommittee, and we look forward to working with you in the
future. So thank you very much for being here.
Mr. Ford. Thank you.
Mr. Melito. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Now I ask our third and final panel of
witnesses to come forward: John Naland, President of the
American Foreign Service Association; Ambassador Thomas Boyatt,
President and CEO of the Foreign Affairs Council; and Deborah
Derrick, Executive Director, Better World Campaign, United
Nations Foundation.
Thank you very much for standing, and raise your right
hand. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to
give this Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Naland. Yes.
Mr. Boyatt. Yes.
Ms. Derrick. Yes.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much. Let the record note
that the witnesses responded in the affirmative.
Thank you very much for being here, and now I would like
Mr. Naland to begin with your testimony. By the way, I will
just repeat and say that your full statements will be entered
into the record.
Mr. Naland.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN K. NALAND,\1\ PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FOREIGN
SERVICE ASSOCIATION
Mr. Naland. Mr. Chairman, Senator Voinovich, thank you very
much for inviting us here today. This is a critical topic, and
I am absolutely delighted that you are shining some light on
it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Naland appears in the Appendix on
page 101.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In fact, the previous speakers and your own questions have
elicited so much of the information that I will just leave my
comments in the record and just make a few comments off the top
of my head.
There are three issues I see: Shortages. We had Ambassador
Hodges saying that there is a deficit of over 200 people at the
mid-level of the Foreign Service. Then we had Mr. Ford of the
GAO saying that we have mid-level positions being filled by
entry-level officers. Well, even I can figure out that math.
The Foreign Service is playing musical chairs with more chairs
than people. And so when everyone sits down, there are going to
be empty chairs. It is just as simple as that.
The President's budget request for the last 2 years asked
for additional people above attrition. The Congress was unable
to fund them. The budget request going through this year asks
for 254 additional positions. And so we ask you to talk to your
colleagues about the importance of filling these positions.
The next issue I would cover is training. I am a 21-year
veteran of the Foreign Service, but I also am an Army veteran,
and I just had the honor last summer as a Foreign Service
officer of graduating from the U.S. Army War College at
Carlisle, and I am just amazed at how much more training Army
officers get then Foreign Service officers. If you take General
Jones or General Petraeus or Admiral Mullen, and if you compare
their resumes to Under Secretary for Political Affairs Nick
Burns or whatever, I think you will see that the flag-level
officers have gotten [Government funded] MBAs, have gotten
PhDs, have been to the Command and General Staff College, have
been to the Army War College. And the Foreign Service folks,
they hire us, usually we are pretty good, we report for duty,
and they say, ``Well, good luck. Go ahead.''
Yes, we do get language training, but we just do not get
the kind of ongoing professional training that the uniformed
military does. And, again, that is obviously no criticism of
the uniformed military. I just wish we were not the Cinderella
service and that we had some of those opportunities.
Finally, I would mention the overseas pay disparity, which
you two obviously are very conversant with. Foreign Service
members, when they transfer overseas, currently take an 18.69-
percent cut in base pay. Next year, if there is another budget
increase and another locality pay allocation, it will probably
go to 20 percent. And that just makes no sense to me.
Now, no, there is not attrition yet, and, no, people have
not stopped applying for the Foreign Service. But at some point
it is just going to catch up to us. For the last century, the
Congress has had allowances that put incentives to overseas
service in the Foreign Service, and those allowances are being
eroded by the pay disparity.
Now, there are two versions of how to fix this. One is
backed by the Administration. The other is backed by many of
the majority members of the U.S. Congress. And the Foreign
Service union does not care which solution the wise members
agree to. We would just like to see it fixed.
So in 4 minutes, I will save the time for questions. I just
want to thank you very much for having us here today.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Naland. Ambassador
Boyatt.
TESTIMONY OF THOMAS D. BOYATT,\1\ AMBASSADOR (RETIRED),
PRESIDENT, FOREIGN AFFAIRS COUNCIL
Mr. Boyatt. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator
Voinovich, for affording me and, through me, the Foreign
Affairs Council, the opportunity to comment on strengthening
American diplomacy, which is exactly what our organization is
committed to.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Boyatt appears in the Appendix on
page 108.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a deeper sense, and on behalf of all of those who think,
as I do, and as the Foreign Affairs Council does, that
management is important, thank you for focusing the attention
of the Senate and the American people on the reality that the
management of the people who make and implement foreign policy
is just as important as the foreign policies themselves. The
problem in this town is that--and certainly in the foreign
affairs area--we get seized with policy and everybody forgets
about the management, and we have paid for that over the years.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, the Foreign Affairs Council has
just published its third biennial assessment of the stewardship
of the Secretary of State as a leader and as a manager. We have
sent copies of this report to every Senator and every
Representative and to all the relevant staffs, and particularly
to your staff. An awful lot of work went into compiling this
report, which deals with matters with which you are seized, and
I would respectfully request that our report be made a part of
and incorporated in the record of these proceedings.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Copy of the ``Third Biennial Assessment of the Stewardship of
the Secretary of State'' appears in the Appendix on page 199.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senator Akaka. Without objection, we will put it in the
record.
Mr. Boyatt. Thank you.
I, like Mr. Naland, who set a very high standard for
brevity, will simply thank you for putting my remarks in the
record. I just want to hit three or four points.
I want you to understand who the Foreign Affairs Council
is. We are an umbrella group of the CEOs of 11 organizations
plus myself. All of us are concerned with the processes of
diplomacy, concerned about the people who carry out diplomacy,
and concerned about the leadership at the State Department in
an administrative sense. We do not deal with policy.
Among the members of our constituent organizations are
virtually all serving members of the Foreign Service, a large
number of retireds; I believe every retired Ambassador, either
from the professional career or from the private sector who
have become Ambassadors are members of our organization. We
bring a great deal of experience to the party. The 12 members
of the council itself among them have something like 400 or 500
years of Foreign Service, State Department, and diplomatic
experience, and the members of our constituent organizations,
that number runs into the hundreds of thousands.
I would also like to make the point--a historical point
here. This morning's proceedings have concentrated on what has
happened more or less since 2000, with first the Diplomatic
Readiness Initiative and then the vacuuming up of all of these
positions by the needs of Afghanistan and Iraq and so on. I
would just like for the record to point out that the hollowing
out of the Foreign Service began after the collapse of the
Soviet Union in the last year of the first Bush Administration,
when Secretary Baker decided not to seek extra personnel to
staff the 12 new embassies or 14 new embassies that resulted
from the collapse of the Soviet Union. That was taken out of
our hide.
Following that, I think the United States wet into a mini-
isolationist era, and during the 8 years of the Clinton
Administration, we lost 30 percent of our people and 30 percent
of the resources, roughly. That was readdressed somewhat by the
Diplomatic Readiness Initiative, but today we are right back
where we were in 1999-2000. And, therefore, I repeat, the
principal finding of our report is that the State Department is
at least 1,100 positions short, and if we do not get these
positions, three things are going to happen: One, the gap that
exists in unfilled positions is going to remain, and that gap
at any given moment is somewhere between 200 and 400. If you
consider that our 6,300 officers are spread over the entire
world. First of all, half of them serve in Washington and New
York. The remaining 3,000 are spread over 266 posts, some of
which are large posts. A gap of 200 to 400 is huge. It is 10
percent or maybe 20 percent, or maybe more, of our officers
overseas. So the result of that is that there are an awful lot
of jobs that are not being done today.
If we do not get the training float, the result is going to
be a failure of the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative. Our GAO
colleagues made it very clear that we are not fulfilling
language requirements as they exist today without adding
personnel to the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative. If you add
that requierement, you need at least the 900 positions that we
call a ``training float'' to train transformational diplomats.
If you do not train transformational diplomats,
transformational diplomacy will fail.
And, finally, there is the issue of the militarization of
foreign policy, which has been published and commented on
extensively in the media. The situation today is that the
United States is engaged in an existential struggle against
Islamic fundamentalism and a plethora of new challenges that
arise from globalizationm. We are confronting these challenges
with a structure that was designed for the Cold War and with a
deficit of about 20 percent in our personnel. The result of
that is that whenever a new job comes along, such as
reconstruction and stabilization, the job goes to the
institution which has the people and has the resources. And
what is that institution? It is the Defense Department. It is
the military. And today, as we meet here, there are Special
Forces soldiers doing public diplomacy all over the
underdeveloped world. Why are they doing that? Because we do
not have enough people to do it.
There is economic development going on under the aegis of
the military as a result of the CERF program, Commanders
Emergency Reconstruction Funds, in the hundreds of millions of
dollars. Why is that happening in the military and not in our
development institutions? Because they do not have the people.
So what I say to you is that these three conditions are
going to remain: Inability to do the job at hand, inability to
do transformational diplomacy because of language deficits, and
a continuation of the militarization of diplomacy if we do not
get these 1,000 positions and get them in the proximate future.
The judgments that we made in the Foreign Affairs Council
are about to be ratified by a CSIS study, as I think you
mentioned, Mr. Chairman, or perhaps it was Senator Voinovich.
They are coming to the same conclusion we did. They will
conclude that we are 1,650 positions short. The Secretary's own
Transformational Diplomacy Advisory Council is going to
recommend 1,000 or maybe it is 1,200 new positions now and a
doubling of the diplomatic cadres over the next 10 years.
There is a lot of consensus on what the problem is, and
there is a lot of consensus on what the solution is. And I can
tell you that all of us who are seized with this are just
delighted, fervently delighted, that you and this Subcommittee
are taking on these challenges, because they are serious.
Thank you, sir.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador.
Now we will hear from Ms. Derrick.
TESTIMONY OF DEBORAH DERRICK,\1\ EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BETTER
WORLD CAMPAIGN
Ms. Derrick. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator
Voinovich. I would like to echo the comments earlier of my
great pleasure that you are holding this hearing. I think it is
really critical information, and I say that not just as an
employee of the Better World Campaign and United Nations
Foundation, but as the spouse of a Foreign Service officer. So
I think it is critical that we make sure the State Department
gets the resources it needs to do the job effectively.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Derrick appears in the Appendix
on page 112.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Before I launch into a longer exposition, I would like to
say that in general I would say my message is that on the U.N.,
on the employment of Americans at the United Nations basically,
with all due respect to what the State Department said and what
the GAO said, it seems to me that the United States is failing
to develop a farm team, that they have limited resources and in
putting those resources in, they are making the judgment that
they get the most bang for the buck by putting it into the
higher-level positions appointees that they have, but the
people that I know on a more informal basis that I talk to who
have applied for positions within the U.N. system are basically
left to their own devices to interpret and figure out whether
they should go to the U.N., what are the benefits, how to get
in, how to apply, and how to find the jobs.
The Better World Campaign aims to help support the U.N. and
its causes, and especially to strengthen the U.S.-U.N.
relationship. It is a privilege to work on such a mission and
to be here today to speak with you.
The underrepresentation of Americans at the United Nations
undermines America's global vision and its ability to conduct
diplomacy in this key institution. The U.N. is increasingly
being asked to tackle the biggest problems in the world--from
nuclear proliferation to global warming; from Darfur to Iraq.
Having too few Americans in the U.N. means that the United
States is operating at a strategic disadvantage when it seeks
to enact policies or reforms at the U.N. It means that we do,
and will, lack a cadre of experienced civil servants who know
how the U.N. works. It forces the United States to use its
biggest guns and bluntest instruments to get its way there--
whether that is threatening to walk out of negotiations or
standing alone in blocking budgets.
In short, underrepresentation of Americans within the U.N.
system eliminates tools from the U.S. national security tool
kit at a time when we need all the tools we can get. So I
commend you again for having this hearing and for the useful
and enlightening GAO report.
The GAO largely suggested that State Department operations
and U.N. structural barriers lay behind American
underrepresentation. I think the GAO missed one key point,
though, and that is that this shortfall comes back to
longstanding and inconsistent U.S. investments of all kinds in
the U.N. and, indeed, in the multilateral system. And I know,
Senator Voinovich, that you recognized that some of that
underinvestment comes back purely to dollars and resources and
not so much--I know the political winds go up and down with the
United Nations, but it is also just a question of resources.
And so an OECD report from last year noted that the proportion
of U.S. foreign assistance funding going through multilateral
agencies altogether, not just the U.N., plummeted from 26 to 8
percent in recent years. Thus, at the beginning of 2007, the
United States was behind in its dues or in arrears in virtually
every major international treaty organization that it belonged
to. That includes the U.N., NATO, World Health Organization,
OECD, and the IAEA.
There is nothing particularly new in shortfalls for the
U.N. I work for an institution that was founded by Ted Turner
when he became alarmed that the United States was $1 billion in
arrears at the U.N., and for a time the United States climbed
back into better standing, but at the moment, we are sliding
back towards owing $1 billion. And, once again, I think this is
more a matter of resources than it is current distrust with Ban
Ki-moon of the United Nations, because Ambassador Khalilzad has
a good working relationship with Ban Ki-moon and, in fact, has
recently asked the United Nations to take on a bigger role in
Iraq.
Rather than working to influence the U.N. with an inside
game, the United States does not pay its dues on time and in
full and does not work, I think, sufficiently to place American
civil servants within the U.N. system. The United States tends
to have to rely on, as I said, more blunt mechanisms like
threats of withholding funding or public criticism to get its
way at the United Nations. And this is not the best way, in my
opinion, to influence friends and thwart enemies.
The GAO report noted that the State Department has recently
increased the number of employees helping Americans to find
their way into the U.N. system. I believe, though, that a
couple of the political appointees recently assigned to this
work have now moved on. Further, there was a general attrition
of personnel dedicated to this task during the 1990s and the
early 2000s. So the State Department's efforts to place
Americans in the U.N. system waxes and wanes over time, and
this means that the United States lacks a long-term plan for
strategically placing Americans in the U.N. system.
I would also say that GAO's suggestion that most of the
barriers to getting Americans into the U.N. are outside of the
U.S. Government's control, I would say that I do not completely
agree with that because other countries with smaller GDPs
manage to find a way around these same barriers. European
countries are successfully putting people in, especially by
sponsoring junior professional officer (JPO) and associate
expert positions. And, in fact, if you look at a list of the
countries that sponsor JPO and associate expert positions--this
includes Austria, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Switzerland--
the United States' lack of participation is striking.
There are also a few barriers to U.S. representation at the
U.N. that were not highlighted in the GAO report, such as
language, general pressure to recruit more nationals from
developing countries, and--in the State Department--a relative
lack of expertise in technical areas where there are more jobs
accessible to U.S. personnel. But, again, I would be remiss if
I failed to note the overall effect of underfunding and
underresourcing of the U.S. State Department.
So I think that there are a couple things that could be
done above and beyond what the GAO has recommended. First, I
would say we need greater resources for diplomacy in the State
Department. Within the State Department, I would recommend
that--or we would recommend that the International
Organizations Bureau get more personnel dedicated to this
effort and specifically to head Americans into non-Secretariat
and more technical positions, like the WHO, FAO, or IAEA. And I
believe we would recommend that we go beyond GAO's
recommendation to study the potential value of funding junior
professional officers and associate expert positions. The data
is in. It is sitting there in the GAO report. These mechanisms
work, and they work to get personnel into the system. The
Congress itself could enact legislation to expand the use of
these positions, and I think that would be an excellent way of
getting more Americans into the system.
I would also encourage the United States to look at getting
a roster of candidates for peacekeeping operations positions,
and at this point I would like to thank you for the opportunity
to testify today and would be happy to take your questions.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much for your testimonies.
Mr. Ambassador, as CEO and as President of the Foreign
Affairs Council, let me ask you this question: Do you believe
that the Foreign Service has become politicized? And if so,
why?
Mr. Boyatt. I don't. I mean, we can always argue about the
number of politically appointed ambassadors versus the number
of ambassadors from the career. But, I think that the Foreign
Service does what it has always done. It serves the
administration in power, and as a career service, it must do
that. And my observation--and I have been, as you might
imagine, very close to the Foreign Service in a variety of
ways--is that at the working levels it is not very politicized.
At the political levels, it is politicized.
With respect to ambassadors, I think the percentage is
roughly what it has been for the last 50 years or so--one-third
from the outside and two-thirds from the inside.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Ms. Derrick, you mentioned Ted
Turner.
Ms. Derrick. Right.
Senator Akaka. Quite a man. I just wanted you to know that
I was very impressed with him.
The IAEA does not have formal staffing targets for
Americans. In light of the GAO's findings regarding staffing at
the U.N. agency, do you believe such targets should be made
formal for all of the U.N. agencies?
Ms. Derrick. I am not sure that it is necessary in all of
the U.N. agencies. I think that it is probably more
advantageous to actually work on getting the personnel in
rather than changing the rules of the game within the U.N.'s
individual agencies themselves.
For example, when I was talking with someone informally in
preparation for this hearing, a guy who had worked in and
around the IAEA for years, he said that the IO Bureau--and,
again, this comes back to resources--had a woeful lack of
understanding of the technical needs, the technical personnel
needs in the nuclear industry. He said the mission in Vienna
was pretty well abreast of it, but back here in Washington, DC,
in the agency that might be able to advertise positions or
notify people of positions in the United States, they did not
have as much expertise as they needed to be able to pull on the
appropriate people with the United States in this area. So I
would recommend that instead.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Naland, do you believe that the
Administration is moving toward a more military type diplomatic
corps at the State Department, one which encourages a
willingness to follow orders without question?
Mr. Naland. No, sir. The Secretary of State has always had
the legal authority to direct the assignment of Foreign Service
members. I met with Secretary Rice last Thursday at her
invitation, which I really appreciated, and she stated that she
wants to avoid direct assignment of Foreign Service members to
Iraq, but if she needs to, she will do it.
So I believe the Foreign Service--I really believe the word
``service'' in there. It is like the uniformed military in many
respects. We do what we are told by the administration in power
under the laws passed by the Congress, and that is the way it
is set up to be, and I think that is how it is going to
continue.
I don't know if that was responsive to your question, but--
--
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Yes, thank you so much for your
response. I will call on Senator Voinovich for your questions.
Thank you so much.
Senator Voinovich [presiding]. You are welcome.
Mr. Boyatt, you represent quite an impressive organization.
Mr. Boyatt. It impresses me, too, sir.
Senator Voinovich. I have been very concerned about
management at the State Department and expressed my concerns to
Secretary Rice. As I mentioned earlier, I was not real happy
about Bob Zoellick going in there because I thought we needed
somebody that would concentrate on management.
You are retired, right?
Mr. Boyatt. Yes, sir.
Senator Voinovich. Would you like to comment on the
difference between the Powell-Armitage-Rice----
Mr. Boyatt. Sure. I do not mind. I will try to be
diplomatic.
Senator Voinovich. Well, I expect you would.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Boyatt. It is just a historical reality that 9 times
out of 10, as the Secretary of State, we get either an academic
or a lawyer. It is also a reality that those are the two most
management-challenged professions in the United States. As you
know, they are sole practitioners who get ahead in life not by
managing large numbers of people but by being brilliant or
winning cases or publishing monographs, small-unit warfare.
And so we traditionally have a deficit on the management
side in the State Department and the Foreign Service. And when
somebody like Secretary Powell came along, who understands and
manages the State Department with a chief executive officer,
himself, and a chief operating officer, Rich Armitage, and a
chief management officer, Grant Green, they were
extraordinarily successful. And they have already become part
of a Foreign Service legend, which is--the only great managers
that we have had before Colin Powell were George Marshall, and
that was 60 years ago, and George Shultz. And now there is a
third. And I hope that Secretary Rice will become the fourth,
but it is going to require a lot of action in the personnel
area in these next 2 years. We have to build these numbers back
up, or the job is not going to get done.
So I had the same reaction to Bob Zoellick that you did. I
wanted to see somebody in that position who was a manager and
not another policy wonk. I will tell you, quite frankly, that
the Foreign Affairs Council has been considering supporting
legislation that was put forward some years ago by Congressman
Rogers to require by law that there be an additional Deputy
Secretary position for Management. If something like that were
to come along, I personally would support it, and I would urge
the Foreign Affairs Council to do so likewise, because I think
you are going to have to institutionalize--the only way we are
going to consistently get managers at the State Department is
to institutionalize the situation.
Senator Voinovich. Well, I am interested in that. As you
know, I am a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Mr. Boyatt. Yes, sir.
Senator Voinovich. I am trying to get a CMO for the
Homeland Security Department and also at the Defense
Department. The Defense Department has had operations and
management functions on GAO's high-risk list since 1990, 14 of
them in total. And we just do not pay enough attention to
management around here.
Mr. Boyatt. True.
Senator Voinovich. I would also suggest that you do
everything you can to impress upon Secretary Rice how important
it is to get these people on board that are needed. The problem
is that the Federal Government does not have enough money. What
we are doing is producing budgets that are not balanced, a
higher national debt, and the American people have got to know
we are not taking in enough money to provide the resources that
we need to get the job done in our respective agencies. That is
one of the reasons why I think we need to disengage in Iraq and
make some of that money available.
Think about all of the money that we have spent there and
how much difference that would make in the State Department for
you to do the job they are supposed to do and USAID and some of
the things that I think will make much more of a difference. I
mean, I do not think that people get it that this is a
different war that we are in, and they just do not understand
this. We are dealing with this like we did other wars, and it
is not the same.
So I would encourage your organization to do what you can,
and if I were you, I would also somehow get this issue into the
next presidential campaign.
Mr. Boyatt. Well, right now we are trying to raise the
money to do a zero-based budget approach to the 150 accounts,
to forget everything that exists today except the mission and
then to determine how many people and how much money it takes
to do that mission and build it up from the bottom. And if we
achieve funding for that, it will be aimed at telling both
candidates from each party what really needs to be done in the
foreign affairs side to win this war that we are talking about.
Senator Voinovich. Well, I would welcome it, and if you are
interested in somebody that is passionate about this, I am.
Mr. Boyatt. We are interested.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Naland, you were talking about this
whole issue of locality pay. I hear this everywhere I go around
the world, that when, you leave Washington you lose 18.5
percent of pay and you projected it to go to 20 percent.
Mr. Naland. Yes, sir.
Senator Voinovich. I am also a big booster of pay for
performance, and I am proud of the fact that TSA has pay for
performance. The Defense Department in their civilian workforce
we have 160,000 people today that are under pay from
performance.
Without dealing with this locality pay, how successful do
you think pay for performance is going to be?
Mr. Naland. Just a month ago, I got off a State Department
promotion panel--I was on there before I became the union
president, obviously--and we rank order everyone in the
competition group from A to Z. And so in the Foreign Service we
have been doing this forever, and so I can easily say how in
the Foreign Service we could go to a pay-for-performance system
in a heartbeat, with having the promotion panels do the rank
ordering, not some manager who likes someone or whatever, but--
--
Senator Voinovich. You are worried about the arbitrariness
that would occur.
Mr. Naland. Well, I am not, but other members are. But in
the Foreign Service, we have a decades-long tradition of having
these promotion panels rank ordering people, and so we are good
to go on it. We could do it tomorrow. It is just my
understanding is pay for performance has been rolled out with
DHS and DOD. Some of your colleagues----
Senator Voinovich. No, DHS, forget it. It is gone. We are
trying to preserve it in the Defense Department. But the
question I am asking you is: If we do not deal with this
differential, isn't that going to kind of throw a monkey into
the wrench--or a wrench into--it will foul it up.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Naland. Our original goal was to get the overseas pay
disparity fixed, and Secretary Powell worked that issue through
the White House and never got it out of the White House.
Secretary Rice was able to get it out of the White House, but
only with the White House saying, well, this should be a pay-
for-performance system. So that is kind of where we stand now.
If you had done State Department pay for performance 7
years ago before DHS or DOD ever were in the mix, it could have
passed, and we would be doing it.
So I am all for it. I can see how it would work in the
Foreign Service because we have been doing this for decades,
rank ordering people. It is just finding--getting the Congress
to agree with whatever mechanism, and as I said, we will take
whatever mechanism. If you can convince your colleagues pay for
performance, I am all for it.
Senator Voinovich. Do you think that the State Department
has the flexibilities it needs to get people to come to work
for it?
Mr. Naland. Yes, sir. We have people, tens of thousands of
people lined up to take the Foreign Service exam. As I think
Ambassador Hodges mentioned, instead of giving it once a year,
now the State Department is going to give it four times a year.
And so under Secretary Powell and now under Secretary Rice,
there have been great strides made. There are these polls,
which I sometimes question, where young people say that the
Foreign Service is compared to Disney and everything, it is one
of their top dream jobs. I do not think they know what they
would be getting into, but sure, there are plenty of people
wanting to come in. So it is very heartening.
Senator Voinovich. You are saying that is not the problem.
Mr. Naland. Good people are coming in.
Senator Voinovich. Ms. Derrick, on the U.N., I have spent a
lot of time talking to--you have got this Under Secretary
General for Management, Alicia Barcena, from Mexico I think.
Ms. Derrick. Mexico, yes.
Senator Voinovich. Took over for Christopher Burnham, and
there was a lot of concern that his replacement was not a U.S.
citizen, but she has made a commitment there. What do you think
of her so far?
Ms. Derrick. I think she is doing quite a good job, and I
am encouraged by the overall direction that Secretary General
Ban is taking the United Nations.
Senator Voinovich. I agree with you and I would comment
again about entry-level positions. We are doing fine filling
top-level positions, but other countries do a much better job
of getting people into entry-level jobs and having them work
their way up in the organization.
Ms. Derrick. That is right.
Senator Voinovich. We have failed in that area. Would you
agree with that?
Ms. Derrick. Yes, I would. As the GAO report notes, there
are a couple of sections within the U.N. where particular
sections of either the Department of Energy in the IAEA's case
or the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM)--has
a junior professional officer program where they place junior
personnel--this is like the entry-level professional program.
And the report from GAO notes that 65 percent--in the
Secretariat's case, 65 percent of the people who are put into
those positions end up getting hired on a permanent basis. So
this is a surefire way of getting people in. But the United
States has declined to participate in this in the Secretariat.
So this is just unexplainable, except for resources.
Senator Voinovich. Well, I think you ought to keep working
with this Administration, but I think you also ought to look to
the new Administration to try and get them to pay attention.
One of the things that gets me is we are a billion--we will be
a billion dollars behind in our dues to the United Nations. We
are asking them to do peacekeeping.
Ms. Derrick. In Darfur.
Senator Voinovich. I know there has been a lot of
controversy about the U.N., but I think more and more Americans
are realizing that it is fundamental to some of the things that
we want to get done with North Korea, Iran, Palestine.
Ms. Derrick. The hot spots.
Senator Voinovich. You name it.
Ms. Derrick. Right.
Senator Voinovich. And it seems to me that the U.N. is
going to become more important in the future for us in
multilateral efforts rather than the unilateral approach taken
in the first couple of years of this Administration.
So I think I would just encourage your organization to
communicate the four things that you would do that you think
really would make a difference in getting the job done, and I
would be glad to share that with Secretary Rice.
Ms. Derrick. Okay. I would be delighted to provide that.
Senator Voinovich. Would you agree that our public
diplomacy is probably at the lowest level that we have seen it?
And if you do, do you believe that because we have not put the
resources into the State Department and these international
organizations, that that is part of the problem that we are
experiencing? That we do not have the right people or the right
knowledge and skills at the right place at the right time. And
as a result our public diplomacy is declining? Do any of you
want to comment on that as a kind of finale to this hearing?
Mr. Naland. Yes, sir. I think the State Department and the
Foreign Service will be fully employed for the next 5 to 10
years rebuilding some of America's standing in the world, and
to do so we need public diplomacy officers who speak the
languages and speak them well. I mean, today we are worried
about Arabic. Ten years from now, people will be screaming,
``Why don't you have Chinese speakers?'' So I think we need the
resources, including the non-sexy training float, to provide
the training so people can go out and give America's message in
the language of the host country.
Senator Voinovich. To win this, ``war for hearts and minds
of people,'' we have to get serious about the State Department,
hire people that have the language skills needed, and maintain
embassies that are fully staffed. This would make a big
difference.
Mr. Naland. Yes, sir. And then a lot of the overstretched
uniformed military people could go back to doing traditional
military jobs or go back to a CONUS post with their family.
Mr. Boyatt. I agree with Mr. Naland with respect to
resources. Just two additional comments.
One, there is the issue of policies. There are some
policies that are never going to be--they are going to make the
United States unpopular in certain parts of the world. Until
those policies change, no amount of public diplomacy is going
to change our standing in those particular spots. But the
challenge is there, and the assessment that we did of the Under
Secretary for Public Diplomacy's office in our report was very
positive. With what they have, they are making a lot of
progress, and it is strongly supported by the PD officers
inside that organization. But there are just not enough of
them.
And one additional comment. The solution is not to re-
establish an independent USIA. It is to keep structurally the
situation where it is and to get more people doing it. And my
prejudice here is that of an ambassador. When you are in charge
of a country team, the fewer people that you have reporting
back in direct stovepipes to Washington, the easier it is to
manage that country team. And I think that having public
diplomacy----
Senator Voinovich. In other words, what you are saying is
that there is more cooperation between the embassy and the
USAID working as a team rather than reporting back to
Washington.
Mr. Boyatt. Yes.
Senator Voinovich. It should be a strategic plan, here it
is, USAID doing this stuff, and you fit it into the State
Department's diplomatic initiatives.
Mr. Boyatt. Exactly, yes. But above all, resources.
Ms. Derrick. And I would say if there is a silver lining on
all of this, it is that there seems to be a great and growing
interest in people committing themselves to the causes that are
extant in the Foreign Service and the United Nations. A
colleague of mine who works in the U.N. office here in
Washington, DC, said that they had two positions posted
recently. They had 700 Americans applying for those two
positions.
Senator Voinovich. Well, you know what? Maybe if they get
it we will make some progress. We are at a critical time right
now, and we have to get our act together and resources into
diplomacy. If we do not, we are in real deep trouble in terms
of the future of our country and our national security and our
relationship with the rest of the world.
Mr. Boyatt. Yes, sir.
Mr. Naland. Thank you, sir.
Senator Voinovich. I really thank you for being here today,
and I publicly thank Senator Akaka. The two of us have been
partners. We have spent almost 9 years on human capital and
know how important it is. I am around for at least another 3
years. And Senator Akaka just got re-elected so we are going to
stay on this. You can be assured that, this is not just a one-
time shot.
Mr. Boyatt. So the Foreign Affairs Council is going to stay
on it, also.
Senator Voinovich. Okay.
Mr. Boyatt. We look forward to working with you.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you very much.
The meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:03 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]