[Senate Hearing 110-679]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-679
NATIONAL SECURITY BUREAUCRACY FOR ARMS
CONTROL, COUNTERPROLIFERATION, AND
NONPROLIFERATION: THE ROLE OF THE
DEPARTMENT OF STATE--PARTS I AND II
=======================================================================
HEARINGS
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
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 15 AND JUNE 6, 2008
__________
Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs
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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
Joel C. Spangenberg, Professional Staff Member
Jennifer A. Hemingway, Minority Staff Director
Thomas A. Bishop, Minority Legislative Assistant
Jessica K. Nagasako, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statement:
Page
Senator Akaka................................................ 1
WITNESSES
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Hon. Thomas Graham, Jr., Former Acting Director, Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency............................................. 4
Hon. Norman A. Wulf, Former President's Special Representative
for Nuclear Non-Proliferation (1999-2002); Former Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation (2001-2002);
Former Deputy Assistant Director, Nonproliferation and Regional
Arms Controls, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1985-1999). 6
Andrew K. Semmel, Former Deputy Assistant Director, Nuclear
Nonproliferation Policy and Negotiations, U.S. Department of
State.......................................................... 7
Friday, June 6, 2008
Patricia A. McNerney, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary,
Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, U.S.
Department of State, accompanied by Linda S. Taglialatela,
Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Human Resources, U.S.
Department of State............................................ 31
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Graham, Hon. Thomas Jr.:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 53
McNerney, Patricia A.:
Testimony.................................................... 31
Prepared statement........................................... 92
Semmel, Andrew K.:
Testimony.................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 83
Wulf, Hon. Norman A.:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Report on Securing the Nonproliferation Capability of the
Department of State........................................ 67
APPENDIX
Charts submitted by Senator Akaka................................ 104
Background for May 15, 2008...................................... 108
Background for June 6, 2008...................................... 113
Post-Hearing Questions and Responses for the Record submitted by:
Hon. Graham.................................................. 118
Hon. Wulf.................................................... 121
Mr. Semmel................................................... 130
Ms. McNerney and Ms. Taglialatela............................ 134
NATIONAL SECURITY BUREAUCRACY FOR ARMS CONTROL, COUNTERPROLIFERATION,
AND NONPROLIFERATION: THE ROLE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE--PART I
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THURSDAY, MAY 15, 2008
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 2:05 p.m., in
Room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K.
Akaka, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senator Akaka.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN AKAKA
Chairman 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. Thank you so much for
being here today. Some of you have worked on the Hill and your
experiences will certainly contribute here today.
As you know, this is the second in a series of hearings
that the Subcommittee is holding to explore the effectiveness
and efficiency of government management in various aspects of
national security.
The first hearing considered proposed reforms to the U.S.
export control system. Today's hearing focuses on the
management of the arms control, counterproliferation, and
nonproliferation bureaucracy at the Department of State,
commonly known as the ``T Bureau.''
Just as our last hearing disclosed serious problems in our
export control licensing system, this hearing will examine
disturbing management issues in the T Bureau. These issues
include a hostile political environment, a poorly conducted
reorganization in 2005, and a resultant loss of well-qualified
Federal Civil Service employees. Senator Voinovich and I
recently requested the Government Accountability Office examine
in depth these disturbing developments.
Arms control, counterproliferation, and nonproliferation
are critical functions to our national security. If this
bureaucracy is not doing its job, our security is jeopardized
and the leadership of this bureau and the Department of State
should be held accountable.
Our arms control, counterproliferation, and
nonproliferation bureaucracy has evolved since the end of the
Cold War. In 1961 during the Kennedy Administration, the Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) was established to
address the growing international security threat posed by
nuclear weapons and fears of a dangerous missile gap between
the U.S. and the Soviet Union. But after almost 40 years of
performing admirably, ACDA was disestablished. Its role and
responsibilities were placed under the Department of State
since some viewed its stand-alone role as out of place in the
post-Cold War world. This, in my view, is a tragic mistake.
Despite the many international efforts to control the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, these weapons,
especially nuclear, continue to pose a threat to international
security.
India and Pakistan detonated nuclear devices in 1998
causing a regional nuclear crisis. North Korea, which opted out
of the Nonproliferation Treaty in 2003, detonated a nuclear
weapon in October 2006. Iran's nuclear program threatens
stability in the Middle East. Pakistan's A.Q. Khan ran a secret
black market of nuclear items which revealed a growing demand
for nuclear weapons. Osama bin Laden has called the acquisition
of a weapon of mass destruction a religious duty.
For the United States to handle these national and
international security issues, we need not just good policies
and international agreements but a healthy organizational
structure to implement policies.
My goal in this hearing is to identify possible
recommendations for improving the arms control,
counterproliferation, and nonproliferation bureaucracy.
The Department of State is the lead agency for managing
U.S. arms control, counterproliferation, and nonproliferation
efforts. The Under Secretary for Arms Control and International
Security leads the bureaus of International Security and
Nonproliferation, Political Military Affairs, and Verification,
Compliance, and Implementation.
If you will see these three charts that we have here,\1\
you will see that this bureaucracy has changed from 1999 when
it was an independent agency, known as ACDA, until today. ACDA
was merged into the State Department bureaucracy where its long
term and worldwide focus has unsuccessfully competed against
prevailing regional and bilateral interests.
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\1\ The charts submitted by Senator Akaka appears in the Appendix
on page 105.
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From 2005 until today, these charts clearly demonstrate the
elimination of bureaus singularly focused on arms control and
nonproliferation. These charts begin to tell the story of how
our country's security has been imperiled by bureaucratic
reorganization. If this Administration cannot begin to correct
the damage, the next Administration must do that.
A number of concerns include: The loss of independent
agency status for the arms control, counterproliferation, and
nonproliferation bureaucracy, making it less responsive to
national needs.
Another is a loss of experienced Federal employees,
especially those with critical physical and social science
backgrounds.
Another is the overburdening of an assistant secretary
handling arms control and nonproliferation.
And another is the fear that other nations may perceive our
concern for these critical national issues as weak and fleeting
since the arms control bureau was merged into another bureau.
Some of the reforms I want to explore are: (1)
Reestablishing an independent arms control agency or granting
greater autonomy through the existing bureaus within the
current structure, (2) Updating the bureau structure to support
a greater focus on nonproliferation and arms control efforts,
and (3) Ensuring that there are enough qualified arms control,
counterproliferation, and nonproliferation professionals to
carry out national policies and our international obligations.
We cannot wait until terrorists or more unfriendly states
obtain a nuclear weapon.
Today's hearing will help us identify ways to reform the
key government agency responsible for preventing this from
happening.
I want to at this time welcome our witnesses to the
Subcommittee.
Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr., Former Acting Director and
Deputy Director, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
Andrew K. Semmel, Former Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy and Negotiations,
Department of State.
And Ambassador Norman Wulf, Former Deputy Assistant
Director for Nonproliferation and Regional Arms Control, Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency.
As you know, it is a custom of this Subcommittee to swear
in all witnesses and I would ask you to please stand to take
the oath. Will you raise your right hand?
Do you swear that the testimony that you are about to give
this Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Graham. I do.
Mr. Wulf. I do.
Mr. Semmel. I do.
Chairman Akaka. Thank you very much.
Let the record note that the witnesses answered in the
affirmative.
Before we start, I want to let you know that your full
written statements will be part of the record. I would also
like to ask you to keep your remarks brief and I certainly look
forward to your testimony.
So, Ambassador Graham, will you please proceed with your
statement.
TESTIMONY OF THE HON. THOMAS GRAHAM, JR.,\1\ FORMER ACTING
DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY DIRECTOR, ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT
AGENCY
Mr. Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to
come here and participate in this hearing on the national
security bureaucracy for arms control and nonproliferation.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Graham appears in the Appendix on
page 53.
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I personally, along with many others, appreciate your
interest in this subject which is important to the future
security of our country. I also thank you for your perceptive
opening remarks.
On April 1, 1999, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency (ACDA), a mainstay of the U.S. national security policy
since 1961, went out of business.
As part of a reorganization of foreign affairs agencies in
1998 and 1999, the main functions of ACDA were absorbed by the
State Department.
Was this a wise decision? Are America and the world safer
with the arms control portfolio integrated into the range of
foreign policy concerns that occupies the State Department
rather than constituting the sole responsibility of a
specialized agency?
President Kennedy and his Secretary of State, Dean Rusk,
strongly supported the legislation that established ACDA.
The fundamental rationale for not placing the arms control-
nonproliferation bureaucratic structure within the State
Department structure was and is that the pursuit of arms
control and disarmament goals will often conflict with the
primary mission of the Department of State which is to foster
good relations with other countries.
For example, to press Pakistan on nuclear nonproliferation
issues or criticize Russia for perceived arms control treaty
violations can be contrary to pursuing with those countries
good relations and will often be opposed by the regional State
Department bureau responsible for relations with the country in
question.
Most often in the competition of ideas within the State
Department, interests of improved short-term bilateral
relations will prevail over arms control, disarmament and
nonproliferation interests.
The early years of the agency in the 1960s were prosperous
and successful as Secretary Rusk believed in and supported the
role of ACDA.
Over strong opposition by the State Department, ACDA
successfully pressed for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
(NPT), which is now considered a centerpiece of international
security.
Other highlights, all of which depended on the existence of
an independent arms control agency, were negotiation of the
SALT agreements, negotiation of the START agreements,
negotiation of the chemical weapons convention, the extension
of the nuclear weapon test moratorium in 1993, the indefinite
extension of the NPT, and the negotiation of the comprehensive
test ban treaty.
However, in the 1990s, the Department of State pressed for
the termination of ACDA and the merger of its functions into
the Department of State. While this effort failed in the early
1990s, it succeeded later in the decade with the support of the
new Republican-led Congress in place after 1994.
However, this step was taken pursuant to a compromise
solution agreed to by ACDA and the State Department, supported
by the White House and the Congress. This compromise solution,
reached in 1999, contains certain conditions which it was
intended, if not observed in the future, would remove the
legitimacy of this new bureaucratic and legislative
arrangement.
These were principally the preservation of the independent
arms control advocacy role within the government at the highest
levels and that the ACDA arms control-nonproliferation
functions transferred would be strengthened and have the lead
role in the Executive Branch.
However, the Bush Administration chose not to appoint
officials who were committed to the success of arms control-
nonproliferation policies and not to observe the conditions of
the 1999 decision.
Rather the arms control process was destroyed by the
abrogation of the ABM Treaty by the United States, the
abandonment of the START process, initiated by President
Reagan, and many other comparable actions which resulted, among
other things, in the grave weakening of the NPT.
On top of all of this, Secretary Rice essentially abolished
the Arms Control Bureau and reconstructed the Nonproliferation
Bureau in the State Department so as to make it much more
difficult to develop and follow nonproliferation policies.
Mr. Chairman, it is of the highest priority that the United
States return to its traditional role of pursuing a world order
built on rules and international treaties designed to enlarge
international security and lead the world to a safer and more
stable future. Only with a workable bureaucratic structure in
place to support sound arms control-nonproliferation policies
and agreements can this be accomplished.
The structure built on the 1999 compromise has demonstrated
that it cannot work. The soundest solution would be for
Congress to reestablish by statute an independent arms control
agency. In that way, the independent voice for arms control and
nonproliferation can best be preserved, and even if there
should be sometime in the future another attempt to marginalize
the arms control-nonproliferation process, with an independent
agency in place, it can always be brought back by a subsequent
Administration.
However, having said this, if the independent agency
concept proves not to be politically possible, at a minimum I
would urge that the Congress should require by law observation
of all the conditions agreed as part of the 1999 compromise
solution.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Akaka. Thank you very much, Ambassador Graham.
And now we will hear from Ambassador Wulf.
TESTIMONY OF THE HON. NORMAN A. WULF,\1\ FORMER PRESIDENT'S
SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION (1999-
2002); FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR
NONPROLIFERATION (2001-2002); FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
FOR NONPROLIFERATION AND REGIONAL ARMS CONTROL, ARMS CONTROL
AND DISARMAMENT AGENCY (1985-1999)
Mr. Wulf. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you for this
opportunity to appear before this Subcommittee.
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\1\ The report entitled ``Securing the Nonproliferation Capability
of the Department of State,'' submitted by Mr. Wulf appears in the
Appendix on page 67.
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I, like my colleagues, found myself nodding in agreement
with much of your opening statement.
I am here today to present a report that was prepared by a
volunteer task force. The genesis for the report was a concern
among many of us that the State Department no longer had the
capability of meeting the nonproliferation challenges that are
facing us today.
We were catalyzed into action by the statement of Defense
Secretary Gates last fall. He gave a speech decrying the
abolition of, ``Cold War Agencies,'' specifically citing the
USIA. He also expressed concern that the present State
Department structures were inadequate to meet development
assistance needs.
Well, for us, another Cold War agency that was abolished
along with USIA was the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
And we believe and our report stresses that there are serious
problems in the State Department structures supporting arms
control and nonproliferation.
What I would like to do is briefly summarize the report's
findings. I will hopefully have the opportunity to express my
personal views at a subsequent point.
Our group believes that the organizational capacity of the
State Department must be strengthened to meet nonproliferation
and arms control challenges.
Critical personnel have left. The Arms Control Bureau has
been abolished. The bureau whose mandate includes
nonproliferation is burdened with tasks outside of its
traditional purview, and the State Department is simply not
organized to ensure that these critical issues are accorded the
priority that they deserve.
Regarding bureau structure, the report suggests
streamlining the work of the Nonproliferation Bureau. This
means removing issues such as missile defense, the U.N. First
Committee or the Conference on Disarmament from that bureau and
allowing it to focus solely on nonproliferation issues.
The report recommends that these issues that have been
removed and others related to arms control be addressed in one
bureau, either a separate bureau devoted to arms control as in
the 1999 approach or consolidated into the existing
Verification and Compliance Bureau.
Regarding verification and compliance, the report urges
that steps be taken to reduce bureaucratic turf battles that
exist among the bureaus in the T family and free up resources
by reducing verification activities to those required to meet
statutory requirements.
To address the growing staffing problems, the report
recommends taking steps to halt further departures, improve
morale, and to encourage those who have gone to other agencies
to return.
Reliable career paths must be developed for both Civil
Service and Foreign Service. It is not acceptable, in our
judgment, to rely on other departments for all technical
expertise, but that is increasingly becoming the case as steps
to recruit and retrain scientists and others with technical
expertise are scaled back.
As a part of the State Department, it is appropriate that
certain office director positions in these functional bureaus
be made available to Foreign Service officers, but it must be
recognized that doing so reduces the management positions
available to Civil Service employees. This not only makes a
service in the State Department in these areas less attractive,
but it also is made less attractive by the continuing decline
in the number of SES positions available to the
nonproliferation area.
Finally, the group believed that the Foreign Service must
take steps to develop career paths that reward and do not
punish Foreign Service officers working in the nonproliferation
area.
The area in which there are differing views among those
preparing this report was how to ensure that nonproliferation-
arms control equities were heard at the highest levels.
Some argued for reliance on personal relationships among
the various State Department officials. Some urged use of the
existing statutory authority allowing the Under Secretary a
separate voice from the State Department and some urged the
creation of an independent agency.
As I indicated, we could not reach any agreement and all
those options are included in the report.
Since my time has expired, I will stop at this point, but I
hope that I could have the opportunity at some point to express
my view as to which of these options I would support. Thank
you, sir.
Chairman Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Wulf.
And now, we will hear from Mr. Semmel.
TESTIMONY OF ANDREW K. SEMMEL,\1\ FORMER ACTING DEPUTY
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION POLICY AND
NEGOTIATIONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Semmel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Semmel appears in the Appendix on
page 83.
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I share my colleague's applause of your opening statement.
I think you touched upon the critical issues that we need to
address here.
And thank you again, as my colleagues have, for the
opportunity to discuss some of the important management and
organizational issues of the so called T Bureaus of the
Department of State.
Mr. Chairman, I am going to go to my statement very quickly
but during my tenure as the Deputy Assistant Secretary--I left
the Department in December of last year--I served under five
different assistant secretaries or about one assistant
secretary on average ever 11 months. Three served in acting
capacity and only two were confirmed by the Senate.
When I left in December, all four occupants in the front
office of the ISN Bureau held acting positions or temporary
positions and three were political appointees.
The reason I mentioned this is there is a price to pay with
leadership instability and frequent change. It makes
formulating and implementing our arms control and
nonproliferation policies more difficult at home and abroad. It
weakens the Bureau's voice in the department and in the
interagency fora. It creates confusion among the permanent
staff whose expertise and experience are vital for continuity
and clarity, and it impairs our ability to negotiate with
counterparts in other countries.
Turning to the Arms Control and Nonproliferation Bureau
merger, I was a member of the senior management panel appointed
in September 2005 tasked with implementing the merger of the
Arms Control and Nonproliferation Bureaus.
I might point out that I recall that no one in the
Nonproliferation Bureau at the time and I was told by the
senior leadership in the Arms Control Bureau that no one there
really supported or thought this was a good idea at the outset.
The case was made for the merger on the grounds of
minimizing duplication and redundancy and on the benefits of
streamlining and cost savings.
There are a number of, what I call, anomalies in that
merger which I want to point out, Mr. Chairman.
What I mean by anomalies is the sort of developments that
occurred outside the normal that have a bearing on the efficacy
of the new ISN Bureau.
The first is that the combined workforce of the new ISN
Bureau resulted in substantially fewer full-time equivalents.
This is permanent personnel, about a 16 percent reduction than
the combined workforce of the two bureaus prior to the merger.
Several offices were severely truncated in size and remain
understaffed today. One office was cut nearly in half.
Paradoxically, the newly named Verification, Compliance and
Implementation Bureau which had received a critical review by
the Office of the Inspector General and a recommendation for
reduction in size and responsibilities was, in fact, expanded
in size and function.
The second point that I see as an anomaly of that merger:
The report of the Inspector General concluded that the
Nonproliferation Bureau was overworked and was well led and
that the Arms Control Bureau was underemployed and had low
morale. Despite this, the leadership of the ISN Bureau was
almost exclusively drawn from the Arms Control Bureau.
Three of the four ISN front office leaders and the special
assistant were chosen from the Arms Control Bureau by the then
Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International
Security. In the process of doing that, the arms control
function was deflated and the role of the Arms Control Bureau
was elevated, at least the leadership.
There are other things that happened and I will not go into
them, but one of them was, as was mentioned already, that staff
flight that took place, i.e., members either went into early
retirement, sought other jobs, and so forth.
Finally, I would mention that the senior management panel,
on which I served, interestingly enough was composed of four
political appointees, political appointees including myself,
who had dim knowledge about the Foreign Service and Civil
Service personnel systems.
We were required to function pretty much in secrecy and we
were bereft of the day-to-day help of the human resources
elements within the State Department.
The bottom line on the merger, as I see it, is that the
merger of the Arms Control and the Nonproliferation Bureau has
done little to strengthen the voice in the State Department on
nonproliferation and arms control.
I see my time is running out, Mr. Chairman, but I want to
mention four things that could be done.
One of them is a cultural change in the State Department
and that is to change the internal biases and the working
assumptions within the State Department, so that serving in
functional bureaus, like the ISN, yield greater rewards and
greater status than they now enjoy.
Another one is to have the Foreign Service Institute
institute courses on multilateral diplomacy and on arms control
and nonproliferation which they are starting to do just now.
The second broad suggestion I mentioned in my statement
pertains to separate entity which has already been discussed.
Whether it is based on the model of the Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency or some other mechanism, some separation
would give it greater independence and voice within the State
Department, greater clarity and visibility when dealing with
foreign countries.
The third suggestion is organizational reform and there are
a series of suggestions I make in my paper, a half dozen or so,
that could be made that would work to improve the structure and
the process as well as maintain, attract and maintain the
skills in the State Department for arms control and
nonproliferation.
The fourth area I mention almost gratuitously is what I
call policy. Any organizational change, whether it is on the
margins or if it is fundamental change such as creating a new
independent organization, can only be as good as the soundness
of the policy of the new Administration and the leadership that
is set up to manage that policy.
I conclude, Mr. Chairman, by simply saying that there are a
number of options that we have on this panel laid out today and
more I suppose that we will discuss in the questions and
answers.
And sorting through all of these maze of options is a
difficult chore. It would be a wise thing, it seems to me, to
create a bipartisan blue ribbon task force to think through
some of these recommendations and others, on what our
nonproliferation and arms control policy agenda should be and
how this agenda should be structured and managed to optimize
chances of success in furthering our national interest.
This should be done as soon as possible so that its
findings and recommendations are available for consideration by
the next Administration. Thank you.
Chairman Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Semmel.
I thank you very much for your testimonies and the
recommendations that you are making to this Subcommittee.
I would like to ask my first question to Ambassador Wulf
and also Mr. Semmel.
Ambassador Graham states that enforcing the terms of the
1998 ACDA compromise solution is better than reestablishing an
independent agency for arms control and nonproliferation. If
you could choose between an independent agency or a semi-
autonomous agency status for arms control and nonproliferation
within the State Department, which would you choose and why?
Ambassador Wulf and also Mr. Semmel.
Mr. Wulf. It is a question that I have wrestled with
myself, and the answer that I came out with is clearly, I am
strongly in favor of an independent agency.
The primary reason for favoring an independent agency is
that an independent agency gives independent representation in
the inter-agency process at every step in the process whereas,
if you are a semi-autonomous agency, the benefit of that is the
State Department need not and probably would not form its own
nonproliferation and arms control bureaus.
But the compromises and decisions that have to be made with
respect to the State Department's position would be made solely
by the State Department. Whereas if you have a separate agency,
you have a State Department position going into an inter-agency
meeting and presumably the independent agency position which
may or may not be different.
So for those reasons, I think an independent agency is far
preferable. There are a variety of other reasons I could add as
well, but that is the fundamental one. Thank you.
Chairman Akaka. Mr. Semmel.
Mr. Semmel. Yes. It is a good question. I think we have
all wrestled with this and I know that the document that Mr.
Wulf has identified that was put together has a series of pros
and cons which I think summarize, in many respects, the
benefits or the lack of benefits of an independent or semi-
independent or semi-autonomous organization dealing with these
issues.
I have to tell you, and this is not a cop out, but I am
somewhat agnostic about that because I think there are strong
arguments on both sides. I think certainly what we want to give
the function of pursuing sound arms control, nonproliferation
policy much greater visibility and a stronger voice within the
national security bureaucracy.
Any organization, whether it is a separate organization
like the ACDA, will only work if the senior leadership want it
to work. In other words, you can design on paper a seemingly
infallible organizational structure, but if the leadership does
not want it to work for whatever reason, you may get a seat at
the table on the critical issues but you may not be heard, if
you are at that table.
So it really depends upon what comes down from the top. I
personally think that there is some strong merit in a separate
organization either within the State Department or outside the
State Department like one modeled after ACDA.
The other point I would mention, Mr. Chairman, is that if
we are thinking about the new Administration, and this is
perhaps obvious, but if we are thinking about a new
Administration, going back to a separate entity like ACDA or
whatever it may be, whatever its merits and it has considerable
merits, will require a considerable amount of effort on its
part at a time in which they are reorganizing the entire
government or reorganizing much of the entire government, and
something has to give in that process.
The presumption is the new Administration will want to
embark on a whole series of, perhaps, new initiatives in the
area of arms control and nonproliferation. Can it do everything
at once? Can it reorganize and still pursue these new
initiatives? It may be too much carrying capacity, too much of
a load for a new Administrative. So I would caution against
that in terms of taking on too much at once.
Chairman Akaka. Ambassador Graham, would you want to
respond to their answers?
Mr. Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I very much agree with my two colleagues that, if possible,
a separate agency would be the best solution.
As I said in my opening remarks, it has long been
recognized that there is an inherent conflict between arms
control and nonproliferation policies and the central mission
of the Department of State--enhancing for lateral and
multilateral relations with other countries--and to put them
together almost inevitably is going to lead to the downgrading
of arms control and nonproliferation policies which, I believe
in the age in which we live, are essential to our national
security.
Secretary Dean Rusk said, ``Disarmament is a unique problem
in the field of foreign affairs. It entails not only a complex
of political issues but involves a wealth of technical
scientific and military problems which, in many respects, are
outside the Department's formal concerns and in many instances
reach beyond the operational functions the Department is
designed to handle.''
And critical in all of this, if nonproliferation-arms
control is important as I and my colleagues believe that it is,
it is essential to preserve that independent advocacy voice
which means that the person, the official who is in charge of
arms control and nonproliferation has the right to go to the
President if he or she believes it is necessary and also has
the right to have a seat on the National Security Council when
arms control and nonproliferation issues are discussed and to
have a separate vote, in other words, to be able to vote in
favor, if he or she so chooses, for a nonproliferation proposal
even if the Secretary of State disagrees.
Well, I would submit that it defies human nature to give
such a vote to someone who works for the Secretary of State. My
guess is his performance evaluation might be adversely affected
if he were to vote contrary to what the Secretary of State
wanted, and that is why, in my view, an independent agency is
far and a way the best solution if we want to have the best
policies.
Chairman Akaka. Ambassador Wulf, you wanted to say
something?
Mr. Wulf. Yes. Thank you. I wanted to elaborate, if I
could, a little bit on why I think an independent agency is the
best way to go.
First, it is worth noting, as Ambassador Graham did, the
Department of State's focus must be upon the totality of U.S.
interests with a given country. Contrast that with an
independent agency whose single focus is nonproliferation or
arms control.
The result is that the State Department is often forced to
focus on the crisis of the day and that often times will lead
to some compromise on nonproliferation principles.
I would suggest as a general proposition that incremental
decisionmaking on any issue will almost always lead to a
weakening of the general principle. The classic example of this
is the decision to engage in civil nuclear cooperation with
India.
We abandoned the principle that all nonproliferation is
bad, but India did not abandon its principle that it wanted to
maintain and build its nuclear weapons capability.
I would also submit that the time horizons that the
Department of State often times thinks in are dictated in part
by the 3-year rotational assignment that Foreign Service
officers have.
I am not suggesting Foreign Service officers are incapable
of thinking in long terms perspectives, but I am suggesting
there is a fundamental difference between a career civil
servant who has worked in this one area for 20 years and a
Foreign Service officer that came in last year and began
working on a given issue.
I also think that an independent agency is best able to
design a personnel system that emphasizes career civil servants
and recruits people with technical expertise or scientific
knowledge. It can create an environment where there is a
synergy between, what I will call, techies and policy wonks.
Time horizons are not influenced by Foreign Service
rotation but Foreign Service officers can still make valuable
contributions by working in that independent agency as, indeed,
was the case with ACDA.
While the crisis of the day, whether it is North Korea or
Iraq, will command the headlines and the senior level
attention, someone needs to maintain and improve the overall
nonproliferation regime.
The expertise within the U.S. Government in, for example,
IAEA safeguards, continues to dwindle. Yet those safeguards are
the first line of defense against nuclear proliferation.
Neglect of the NPT has been noted by friends, both domestic and
foreign. So that the experience to date, I would suggest, is
that the State Department is not capable of supporting arms
control and nonproliferation policy in the manner in which it
needs.
I would also pick up a point I think you had in your
opening statement, Mr. Chairman, and that is that the creation
of an independent agency will send a clear message to the rest
of the world, friends and allies who may fear that we have lost
our way, they will be reassured by the creation of a new agency
and they will believe once again that the United States
continues to see nonproliferation and arms control as essential
components of international security.
And I think for those tempted to proliferate, I think the
message would be sent that the United States is ready to
maintain a leadership role against proliferation.
Finally, I would emphasize that with an independent
agency--Mr. Semmel outlined some of the deficiencies in Senate-
confirmed individuals that now occupy the Department of State.
With an independent agency, you will have a multiplicity of
Senate-confirmed individuals.
When a U.S. official engages in discussions with a foreign
country, that country matches the rank of the individual coming
there. What is now being done by office directors should be
done and used to be done by people confirmed with the advice
and consent of the U.S. Senate. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Akaka. Thank you. Ambassador Graham, of course,
has mentioned the independent agency and so have you.
So, Ambassador Wulf, could you elaborate for me why a semi-
autonomous agency within the State Department, roughly modeled
on the National Nuclear Security Administration, can be an
improvement over the existing model?
Mr. Wulf. I think it could be an improvement over the
existing model, but I do not think it would be as good as an
independent agency; and the fundamental reason is, as a semi-
autonomous agency, they would be subject to the direction of
the Secretary of State; and the likelihood, as Ambassador
Graham has indicated, of someone who works directly for the
Secretary of State taking a totally contrary view to the
Secretary is very small.
We had some recent experience with that model. The ACDA
merger legislation provided the Under Secretary, the ``T'',
with the possibility of an independent voice at the NSC
meetings. It worked ``sort of'' well, I would say, during the
end of the Clinton Administration but not terribly well, and it
certainly has not worked, I do not think at all, during the
last 7 or 8 years.
There are those who claim that the model in the Department
of Energy has not worked very well either. But I think the
biggest drawback to a semi-autonomous agency is the lack of a
separate voice at inter-agency meetings.
If you are a part of the State Department, you will
represent the Department of State's views. You will not have an
independent voice to represent a view contrary to the State
Department's views.
Chairman Akaka. Thank you. Would any one, Ambassador Graham
or Mr. Semmel, want to comment on the semi-autonomous model?
Mr. Semmel. Well, just one general comment, Mr. Chairman,
and this is perhaps in the area of the obvious.
As you know, President Bush, Secretary Rice, Secretary
Gates, and most commentators on national security and foreign
policy have pointed out that the challenge with the threat of
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, missiles and the
materials and technology associated with that getting into the
wrong hands constitutes the most significant threat that we
face. It is what I like to call column ``8'' on the front page,
the upper fold of the newspaper type of issues that we have to
deal with in the world.
And right now the structure that we have is embedded in the
State Department seems to be a disconnect between the saliency,
if you want to call it, of the issue area that we are facing,
an issue area that is going to grow and expand by the way. It
is not going to retract unless we do something about it and are
successful.
So that the current organizational arrangement that we
have, it seems to me, is inadequate to measure up to the
dangers that we face in this area; any incremental change, it
seems to me, whether it is organizational or dealing with
personnel, resources, and the like of this function, whether it
is a semi-autonomous entity within the State Department or an
independent agency, I think would be an important step, the
right step in the direction that we have to face. I think both
Ambassador Wulf and Ambassador Graham have already pointed out
some of the positives of a separate organization.
I only made that one caveat about the difficulty of making
a transition again. This would be the third. If the new
Administration coming in were to want to have either a semi-
independent or independent, this would be the third major
reorganization in 10 years. All of them were deemed to be
necessary. All of them have been problematic.
None of them really solved the problem, I think, in a
satisfactory manner, and whether we want to go through that
again, I think, is a question we really have to think through.
Chairman Akaka. Thank you.
Ambassador Graham, I have a question for you, but you may
begin with your comment that you want to make.
Mr. Graham. I would just like to add, Mr. Chairman, that
the problem with a semi-autonomous agency, if we want really
sound nonproliferation and arms control policies, is that it is
not independent.
From time to time in order to clearly present the arms
control-nonproliferation alternative at the highest levels of
our government so that the President, the Cabinet can
understand all that is involved, the person responsible for
arms control-nonproliferation policy may have to take a
position contrary to the Secretary of State, and that is
difficult to do when you work for the Secretary.
As one example that comes to mind, during the 1980s or
early 1990s, according to law, the Arms Control Agency, the
Department of Defense and the Department of State were required
to submit recommendations to the President as to whether or not
Pakistan should be recertified each year that they did not have
a nuclear weapon and, therefore, it was OK to sell military
equipment, and in particular, fighter-bombers to Pakistan.
And for several years the Department of Defense would
recommend certification and the Department of State would
recommend certification. The Afghan war was going on but ACDA
always recommended not to certify. And in fact, Pakistan did
have a nuclear weapon, at least they had parts of a weapon that
could quickly be assembled into a workable weapon.
Eventually when the Afghan war ended, President Bush chose
the ACDA option but the President had it in front of him every
year, which he would not have been the case had there not been
an independent agency. I do not think an autonomous agency
within the State Department could do that.
Chairman Akaka. Thank you.
Ambassador Graham, you have identified a number of
instances where the current Administration has abandoned its
commitment to arms control and nonproliferation. Let me give
you some examples.
The rejection of the anti-ballistic missile treaty. The
abandonment of the Second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and
the decision not to continue pursuing the ratification of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
In this post-September 11, 2001 world, does the current
organization best support this new strategic priorities as the
Secretary states, ``to prevent the acquisition of WMD by
terrorists and hostile states and contribute to the
international effort to secure and remove and eliminate WMD,
their delivery systems and related materials through diplomacy
and counterproliferation efforts.''
Does the current organization, in the post-September 11,
2001 world, best support the new strategic priorities?
Mr. Graham. You will be getting my personal opinion, of
course. I would say no because I believe that part of the
effort to reduce the threat to the United States of weapons of
mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons of course, but
all weapons of mass destruction, is intimately related to the
advancement of and success of sound arms control and
nonproliferation policies.
The chemical weapons convention, for example, prohibits
chemical weapons worldwide, at least to all of those countries
that have signed up to it.
That helps with limiting the possibilities of the
proliferation of chemical weapons and the ultimate use of them
by terrorists. The fewer such weapons that exist, the more the
world community moves towards zero, the less is the likelihood
that terrorists are going to be able to have them and use them.
With respect to the ABM treaty and the START II treaty, it
remains in our interest, while at the same time dealing with
the terrorist threat based on WMD, to stabilize at lower levels
the nuclear weapon balance with Russia and those two treaties
greatly contributed to that.
The reason that the START process ended which had been
begun by President Reagan and there are no more negotiated
reductions, negotiated reductions in long-range nuclear weapon
systems, is that when we withdrew from the ABM treaty, the
Russians had always made it clear that they would not continue
with the START, the second START treaty, unless the ABM treaty
was in force. We withdrew so they backed away from START II and
that was the end of it and that was most unfortunate.
With respect to the test ban, the test ban will help in
inhibiting proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world in
two ways. First, more than any single thing the United States
could do, it will strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation
treaty and make it more effective because from the earliest
days it has been clear that the quid, the principal quid that
the rest of the world wanted for giving up nuclear weapons
forever from the nuclear weapons states, for their quo of
giving up nuclear weapons forever was the test ban. If we are
going to give up nuclear weapons forever, at least the nuclear
weapon states could stop testing was and is the viewing the NPT
nonnuclear weapon states.
The NPT is based on a compromise. It was not a free gift
from the rest of the world. It was a compromise, a strategic
compromise; and the principal, the most important part of the
price that the nuclear weapons states paid for stopping
proliferation with the NPT was the test ban. So it is very
important to the long-term health of the NPT.
And second, with the test ban in force, it is going to be
not impossible but much more difficult for additional states to
acquire nuclear weapons.
Yes, you can assemble a Hiroshima-type bomb without
testing, yes, you can do that. But there are many other things
in creating a nuclear arsenal that the test ban monitoring
system would detect.
When the Kursk submarine exploded in the Arctic waters, a
small conventional explosion underwater, some of the test ban
monitors picked that up 3000 kilometers away. So it would
improve the proliferation situation.
So in dealing with the world that we have today, which is
one of declining order, a threat of weapons of mass
destruction, particularly nuclear weapons spreading to unstable
countries and terrorist organizations, a less than perfect
relationship with Russia and China, these measures are an
important part of our national effort to enhance our security
and the security of the rest of the world and they should not
be abandoned. They should be pursued.
Chairman Akaka. I am glad to hear the last sentence you
made because I wondered if you thought it was a national
security concern and you just mentioned that.
Ambassador Graham, you just said ``dealing with the world
that we have today.'' When ACDA was the lead agency for arms
control and nonproliferation, its director could appeal
directly to the President for support.
You mentioned in your testimony that Under Secretary of
State for Arms Control and International Security who is also a
senior adviser to the President and Secretary of State can
still appeal to the President.
What is the difference today?
Mr. Graham. Well, the difference is twofold. One, he works
for the Secretary of State, and two, in this Administration, at
least my understanding is, the various Under Secretaries have
never availed themselves of that right.
It only works if, in the inter-agency struggles over what
is the soundest approach to particular arms control and
nonproliferation policies, the ACDA Director or the arms
control-nonproliferation director, Under Secretary, whatever he
may be called, is free to approach the President directly.
Now, if he works for the Secretary of State, he is
obviously bypassing the Secretary of State, but he is not if he
is head of an independent agency.
And the independent arms control and disarmament agency
directors in the past actually did avail themselves of that
right.
I remember once I was doing some research for the
confirmation of a ACDA director in the 1980s and I do not have
any figures for the 1980s and 1990s; but I do remember this
that we found, just by looking at White House logs, that
Ambassador Gerard Smith, who was the director of the Arms
Control Agency from 1969 to 1973, had 46 private meetings with
President Nixon during his 4-year stay there. His successors, I
think, had far less, but they did have some.
During the year that I was acting director, on the nuclear
test ban issue, I personally experienced and utilized the right
at an NSC meeting to cast my own vote and I did so twice on the
decision to extend the test ban moratorium in 1993.
So it was a real, particularly the second vote on the test
moratorium, it was a real right and it was utilized. It is much
more difficult for an Under Secretary, two levels down from the
Secretary of State, to do that.
We tried to fashion the 1999 compromise so that the legal
right to do that existed, but the only way it would have ever
had a chance of working, although this is difficult, would have
been for the Under Secretary to frequently use it, to establish
that precedent that it would be used with some frequency, that
is, both the access to the President and the separate vote at
the NSC.
Chairman Akaka. Do you think the Under Secretary is
silenced before his views can be presented before the National
Security Council or President?
Mr. Graham. If he is silent, can his views be----
Chairman Akaka. Yes.
Mr. Graham. I would think not. My guess is if the National
Security Council members, the principals, when they are
discussing whatever nonproliferation issue of the day it may
be, if nobody mentions the Under Secretary, nobody is going to
think of him. That would be my guess as to what would likely
happen, that the only way that his views or her views would
register on National Security Council principals is if he or
she were there expressing them.
Chairman Akaka. Mr. Semmel.
Mr. Semmel. May I just make one caveat to what Ambassador
Graham just mentioned and that is going back to a point I
alluded to before that. If the Under Secretary for Arms Control
and International Security has the full confidence of the
Secretary of State and if the Secretary of State makes it
known, through whatever means, but certainly makes it known
that the Under Secretary has his or her full confidence and
speaks on her behalf on these issues, that automatically
elevates the Under Secretary's role in the inter-agency fora,
the National Security Council, and so forth.
I don't want to be trite about this, but I used to teach
political science and my favorite definition of politics, which
is what we are really talking about, is that it is a process
involving mobilization of bias. It is mobilization of a point
of view that you favor and somebody else does not favor.
So that the Under Secretary, if he or she is able to have
allies within the Administration at senior levels, there is a
lot of articles, for example, that when Mr. Bolton was Under
Secretary of State he had very close relationships with the
White House over at the Vice President's office.
And in the inter-agency fora at the senior levels of
National Security Council, you could begin to, as Under
Secretary, mobilize those assets in terms of the process.
So while I agree basically with what Ambassador Graham is
saying, I think that having a separate vote has much more clout
in the process. There are ways in which that can be mollified
somewhat. Thank you.
Chairman Akaka. Thank you very much for that.
Mr. Semmel, you mentioned that the State Department Office
of Inspector General pre-determined the outcome of its T Bureau
investigation findings in 2004 and 2008. These findings had an
impact on the 2005 reorganization.
Can you elaborate on this?
Mr. Semmel. What I said in my statement was that it was the
feeling, it was the judgment of those of us who were involved
with the Office of the Inspector General that somehow or
another the outcome of its investigation was going to be
determined even before the investigation took place.
Whether we were right or wrong on that, as subsequent
developments unfolded, I think we were right that somehow or
another we knew what the end result was going to be before the
process began.
I think because it was made known to us at the outset that
there was considerable redundancy of functions between the Arms
Control Bureau and the Nonproliferation Bureau and that others
at senior levels were talking about the need for us to readjust
to the post-September 11, 2001 security world that we faced and
that this was one way in which we could make that kind of
adjustment.
There was a perception also and others can comment on this
on this panel and outside that the current Administration had
given far less weight to the function of arms control.
Subsequently it was determined in the Inspector General's
report, as I mentioned in my opening statement, that the Arms
Control Bureau was deemed to be under-worked. They had a lot of
people not doing a whole lot of work simply because they were
not assigned a lot of work.
It was, again, the senior level policy preferences sort of
seeped down and manifested itself in a way in which these two
bureaus functioned. Whereas the Nonproliferation Bureau which
was a policy area in which the Administration did give
considerable credence to in terms of preventing weapons of mass
destruction getting in the wrong hands, was an area that was
deemed to be very important and a high priority within this
Administration.
So putting all of that together, there was the deep
suspicion at the outset that if it is not broke, do not fix it.
The system was working pretty well in terms dealing with
nonproliferation and that merging the two bureaus together was
not the optimum strategy for us to engage in at this point in
time, particularly the way in which it unfolded.
There was the perception that somehow or another the Under
Secretary at that point liked the leadership in the Arms
Control Bureau but did not like the function. He liked the
function in the Nonproliferation Bureau but did not like the
leadership. And when the two merged, certainly that was the
outcome.
In other words, if our perceptions were correct at the
outset, indeed, that is the way in which the merger unfolded
where you had the leadership of the Arms Control Bureau which
had very little to do, taking over basically the leadership of
the new combined International Security and Nonproliferation
Bureau.
Others can comment on this as they see fit. So most of what
we thought was a part of the motivation behind the request for
the Office of the Inspector General to look into the possible
merger of these two bureaus did, in fact, unfold in their
report and the subsequent merger that took place.
Chairman Akaka. Ambassador Wulf.
Mr. Wulf. Could I just add my understanding, and I have to
say that I have never read the entire contents of the IG's
report. I have been only shown portions of it.
My understanding is the IG concluded that the
Nonproliferation Bureau was doing extremely good work but, as
Andy indicated, it was overworked.
The Arms Control Bureau was under worked and the IG
recommended the merger of arms control and nonproliferation. I
would suggest that those who sought the abolition of the Arms
Control Agency in the 1990s did not do it because they were
proponents of the Department of State. They did it because they
disliked arms control and I would suggest that the merger in
2005 was largely driven by the same motivation, a dislike, a
distrust of arms control.
I am taken, personally, by the fact that we have three
Secretaries--Secretary Kissinger, Secretary Shultz, Secretary
Perry and former Senator Nunn saying we are really at a very
serious point with respect to nuclear weapons and we really
need to start doing things much differently than we have been
doing it.
I do not believe that the Department of State structure can
meet the challenge that those four have posed to the political
establishment as to what needs to be done to enhance our
national security.
Thank you.
Chairman Akaka. Thank you.
Mr. Semmel, you mentioned that the 2005 Bureau
reorganization has done little to strengthen the voice of the T
Bureau on nonproliferation and arms control issues.
What is your net assessment of the effectiveness of this
reorganization?
Mr. Semmel. Mr. Chairman, one of the things that did result
from the merger that took place is that the new bureau, the
International Security and Nonproliferation Bureau, the ISN
Bureau, did create two new offices. It created two new offices,
one to deal with weapons of mass destruction terrorism, called
WMDT office, and another to work on questions of
counterproliferation and interdiction issues in which the
Proliferation Security Initiative, something calculated PSI,
was the focal point.
I think those were creative additions. Whether they should
be lodged in the ISN Bureau or not is another question, but
certainly they were a creative policy for this bureau. I think
that is a step forward in the reorganization. I think that made
a lot of sense.
There was also an office or suboffice created to deal with
strategic planning which really had been moribund, I think, in
this area for sometime.
I do not want to convey the impression that this merger is
all sort of backsliding or negative. There were some creative
things.
Maybe the fourth thing I can say on the positive side is,
and this may be real conjecture, that subsequently when the
current Assistant Secretary for International Security and
Nonproliferation, who, by the way, is now acting as the Under
Secretary, probably has given some strength to this bureau
because he has the confidence of the Secretary of State. They
have worked together at the National Security Council, and
elsewhere.
So, from a personal relationship, the interpersonal
dynamics which are very important in policy making as they are
up here in the Senate, as I used to recall, probably gave some
additional strength to the International Security and
Nonproliferation Bureau, given that confirmation of the current
Assistant Secretary.
But I see nothing apart from that that gives us greater
entre into the senior decisions at the National Security
Council. I do not see our issues being given greater weight in
the inter-agency fora.
As I mentioned in my statement, the size of the bureau has
been truncated as a result of the merger, about 16 percent
fewer persons than one might have expected.
Across the board, the nonproliferation and arms control
function has been a voice that simply is, I would not say
silenced, but certainly has been subdued in the process. I say
that only in the context that the issues that we are dealing
with are going in this direction and the organization that we
are dealing with are going up in another direction, and there
is a wide gap between what we need to do organizationally and
other means in dealing with these issues.
So I do not see any major leaps forward in terms of this
organization even though it was designed to strengthen the
voice certainly within the Department and within the inter-
agency fora. I do not see that happening. I do not see that
happening in terms of our international negotiations as well.
As Ambassador Wulf pointed out, there are fewer senior
officials with senior ranks who are engaged in those
international negotiations and much of that responsibility
falls to more junior persons such as the Deputy Assistant
Secretary, and myself, office directors, and others.
So I think the net result, despite some positives that one
should not discount, the net result is I think at best a static
organization in terms of its strengthening the role in this
particular policy area.
Chairman Akaka. Mr. Semmel, you mentioned that the senior
management panel, the group that led the 2005 reorganization,
did not directly benefit from the Department's human resources
expertise.
In what ways would this panel have benefited from human
resources expertise?
Mr. Semmel. Thanks. I could wax on this issue for sometime,
Mr. Chairman. But let me just say that, first of all, the
senior management panel was asked to make recommendations on
the decisions that were subsequently made on the
reorganization. Our recommendations were not all accepted by
the Under Secretary when we made recommendations to him.
We got involved in some very micro-planning. We had little
name cards for every member of the ISN Bureau and began to
place them in bureaus and offices within the bureaus, and so
forth. It was micro-management of the highest order.
Specifically on your question, without getting into the
internal workings of the senior management panels, which I do
not think I should do, there was a decision that was made early
on to not have present during our deliberations, which were in
secret I might point out, members of the human resources
offices, both within the T family or within the larger
Department of State for reasons that I objected to, but for
reasons that we do not have to get into at this point in time.
So there we were in a sense, as I characterize it, feeling
our way in the dark on issues. Eventually we did get obviously
human resources people engaged who knew the personnel system,
Civil Service, Foreign Service personnel systems but not during
our deliberations. It was outside of the deliberations, which I
believe was a mistake.
In other words, as I described in my statement that
initially the four members of the senior management panel were
all political appointees, including myself, who had limited
experience in personnel management within these two personnel
services in the Department. You could measure the number of
years of experience in the State Department on my two hands.
We really did need some additional expertise to help guide
us through some of these decisions, but it was decided at that
point in time that they would not be included in the room when
we were deliberating and I think that was a mistake in terms of
the efficacy of our group, in terms of wisdom of the kinds of
options that we were deciding upon. It was one of the anomalies
I pointed out in my opening statement.
Chairman Akaka. Ambassador Wulf.
Mr. Wulf. Could I just add that I have stayed in contact
with many of the colleagues that I used to work with in ACDA
and in the State Department, for 3 years, before retiring. And
I never saw a more dispirited bunch of people in my whole life
than those who went through the 2005 reorganization.
In 1999, when ACDA was merged into the State Department, we
went out of our way to be as transparent as possible, to share
fully the information and to make sure everybody was treated
fairly.
This approach that Mr. Semmel has described, and I commend
him for his efforts to try to make it a more fair process, was
characterized to me by one of the lawyers in the legal
adviser's office as within the letter of the law but certainly
not what anybody would call good management practice, and I
think the bitterness that was generated by how it was done
continues to this day. You have a very demoralized staff as a
result of how the 2005 merger was handled.
Chairman Akaka. I have one more question for Mr. Semmel,
and following that question, I am going to ask the panel if
they have any final comments to make to the hearing.
Mr. Semmel, you argue that changing the cultural biases in
the State Department is worth doing since regional bureaus tend
to be favored over functional bureaus within the Department.
How would you recommend the Department change these
cultural biases?
Mr. Semmel. It is a very difficult thing to do because, Mr.
Chairman, I do know there have been efforts in the past to
address this question and address this issue. They have not
amounted to any substantial change. I think this is because
this is a part of the personality of the State Department, part
of the personality of the Foreign Service that is very
difficult to change. Personalities are very difficult to change
in general.
I do not know if in the wake of the merger that we were
just talking about, that created the ISN Bureau, that one of
the things I personally suggested to the Under Secretary which
came to fruition sometime later, was that we set up within the
T group our own task forces within this family, within the T
family, our own task forces on the Foreign Service and a
separate task force on the Civil Service to see whether or not
internally we could make some positive changes so that we could
recruit Foreign Service officers who are essential for our
function, retain them, and find a good satisfactory post-
service employment after they leave the ISN Bureau, and the
functional bureaus.
But the problem is a much larger one. The problem is a
State Department-wide problem and it is one in the Foreign
Service. And I think that again to try to fundamentally change
something, it needs to come from the top down. It needs to come
from the Secretary. It needs to come from the management bureau
within the Department, and so forth.
So I think every time there is a new Administration, there
is an opportunity for beginning to take a re-look at, take
another look at the way in which we are organized. The new
Administration may very well want to do that.
I think civil servants tend to be looked upon as
technicians. They tend not to serve in our foreign country
posts. I think that serving in international institutions is
looked upon with disfavor as I mentioned. I think much of the
State Department also looks upon multilateral diplomacy and
international organizations as feckless organizations that do
not accomplish very much. These are all things I think that are
out of step with the way in which the world is evolving.
So it is very difficult to make those changes from the
bottom up. They really have to come from the top down. Somebody
has to say, this is the way we are going to do business and
these are the ways we are going to change the way in which we
function.
It is not easy. It will take a long time to transform any
personality or any inbred cultural attributes, but I think it
would certainly enhance this function of arms control and
nonproliferation as well as some of the other so-called
functional bureaus and the conduct of foreign policy by giving
some greater voice to multilateral diplomacy.
But I do not want to suggest that it is going to be easy.
It is something that I do advocate and I think should be done.
It should be a sustained effort because it requires a sustained
effort from the top down.
Chairman Akaka. I want to ask the panel to close with any
summary remarks they may have on this hearing.
You have all recommended ways to the improve arms control,
counterproliferation, and nonproliferation bureaucracy. In
addition to what I just asked you to do, I am going to ask you
to, if you would, mention your top three recommendations to
address the staffing, management and organizational challenges
that we face.
Ambassador Graham.
Mr. Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, let me again
commend you for holding this hearing.
Just from my own personal perspective, I think these issues
are very important and little attention has been paid to them
for years and, as a result, developments have taken place which
affect our national security in a negative way which, if these
issues had been addressed earlier, perhaps the result might
have been somewhat different.
We live in, in my opinion, Mr. Chairman, a very dangerous
world today. It is, at least in part, featured by a decline in
world order everywhere, certainly in many places. I have heard
experts say that there are 50 to 70 countries that are sliding
into the failed or failing states category, and as such, a
breeding ground for international terrorists and then we have
the strengthening of international terrorism worldwide and the
terrorists desire to acquire weapons of mass destruction,
particularly nuclear weapons. As you said in your opening
remarks, Osama bin Laden said that acquiring nuclear weapons is
a religious duty.
And the technology is so much more available or at least
much of it is. I can remember in the early 1990s there were
very strict controls on computer technology. There had existed
computers of great power which are very useful in nuclear
weapons programs, and these computers were in the possession of
only a few governments. No one else. Well, it was not long ago
that the technology developed in a way that you or I could walk
into a shop in Hong Kong and walk out with a computer
capability comparable to those computers that used to be
possessed by only a few nations.
So the potential for nuclear weapons and other weapons of
mass destruction to spread is considerable. It is going to
require a serious effort to persuade some countries not to
acquire nuclear weapons.
In 1958, the British Prime Minister said, during a
television interview, that our independent contribution--he
meant by that, the British nuclear weapons program--puts us
right where we ought to be, a great power; and 3 years later,
President de Gaulle said something similar in a speech. ``Any
great state that does not possess nuclear weapons when others
do makes itself hostage to fortune.''
The Indian prime minister said something to that effect,
India is a big country now, we have the bomb, in 1998.
Nuclear weapons, particularly nuclear weapons, carry with
them political prestige that is attractive over and above any
military utility they might have, which in most cases is
negligible.
We have a situation where the nuclear nonproliferation
treaty is much weaker than it used to be. The NPT nuclear
weapon states have not delivered on their disarmament
obligations. Indeed, we have gone in reverse direction since
1995 and since Norm's work in 2000.
These are very worrisome conditions to anyone who cares
about our country's national security. And it is clear, the
United States cannot go it alone under these conditions. We
need allies. We need multilateral treaty arrangements that we
can rely upon. We need international security treaty regimes
which we can rely on both because they are soundly conceived,
but also because they are effectively verifiable.
It will be very difficult for us to improve the situation
and develop the international cooperation that we need to have,
to expand the multilateral treaty arrangements that we need, to
strengthen the international security treaty regimes that are
essential to controlling the proliferation of nuclear weapons
and other weapons of mass destruction which can arrest the
potential for grave danger to our country unless we have in our
government a bureaucratic structure that is capable of
developing sound policies to meet these threats.
That is not to say that the arms control or
nonproliferation alternative always should prevail, but it is
extremely important for the President and the National Security
Council to have that alternative in front of them as one
possibility to consider.
So I would urge serious consideration by the Congress of
the creation through legislation of some sort, of an
independent agency that can help strengthen our security in a
very difficult and dangerous age.
Chairman Akaka. Thank you. Ambassador Wulf.
Mr. Wulf. As my colleagues have mentioned, I also extend my
thanks for this hearing on this extremely important topic
obviously, Mr. Chairman.
A couple of comments on comments by others. Personalities
clearly matter, but one should not put a system solely at risk
because personalities change.
I think the way to look at the issue of what structure is
required is not, ``well, we get the right people in place and
they will work with each other and things will work out just
fine.''
I think the better way to look at the issue is, assuming
that you have the right people in place, that they are good and
competent people, how can we design a structure to make them
even more effective and hopefully perhaps a little less
susceptible to changing political whims?
An example that builds on one Ambassador Graham cited, is
the CTBT itself. Early on in the Clinton Administration when a
lot of people were not yet in place in the various departments
and agencies throughout the government, the question of what
position should the United States take on a comprehensive test
ban was hotly debated.
The State Department early on decided on a compromise
position which I will characterize as a limited number of tests
per year at a lower threshold than the existing threshold that
was in place at that time.
ACDA took zero tests and zero yield as its preferred
approach and it kept that option alive. It could not force the
rest of the inter-agency to accept that, but it kept it alive
until the Department of Energy had enough people in place and
Secretary O'Leary got enough advice from enough different
quarters that she came to the conclusion that was the best
option, and it ultimately was the position adopted by the U.S.
Government.
Had there not been an independent agency like ACDA, that
option would no longer have been on the table by the time the
Secretary of Energy and the Department of Energy was organized
enough to promote that option.
I think there is something to be said for a small agile
agency made up of, shall we say, similarly motivated people as
opposed to a small part of a very large agency.
I think, for example, that when I was a Deputy Assistant
Director in ACDA I spent perhaps 10 percent of my time keeping
my senior management informed of what the bureau was doing. I
contrast that to when I was a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the
Department of State and I probably spent 40 percent of my time
trying to keep my senior management informed of what my part of
the bureau was doing instead of actually doing things.
It is simply, shall I say, the difference between 250
people and what is the Department now? Around 19,000. So there
is something to be said for the culture that comes with a small
dedicated agency with people similarly motivated.
There has also been a question about whether the
substantive issues that will face the new Administration at the
start are so big that we should not take time away from them to
work on structure? You have to turn that question around. Can
you do the substance if you do not have the structure?
I would argue that you can work on both. I would urge that
whoever is the President-elect spends his time during the
transition addressing the question of what kind of priorities
he wishes to achieve during his presidency in the areas of arms
control and nonproliferation? What structure do I need to
achieve those priorities? And if he reaches a conclusion which
I recommend, that is an independent agency, he begins drafting
during the transition and begins working with the Congress to
lay the groundwork for prompt action on that.
I believe the time period between the introduction of
legislation to create ACDA back in 1961 and its enactment was
something a little over 3 months. It can be done, Mr. Chairman,
and I think you can address structure and address substantive
issues.
So my top three recommendations, I only have two. Draft
legislation now creating an independent agency and the mandate
of that agency should be nonproliferation,
counterproliferation, safeguarding of nuclear materials and
arms control, and I am not putting arms control last because I
think it is least important.
And I would say the second recommendation is an interim
step until such an independent agency is established would be
to recreate the Arms Control Bureau in the Department of State
and remove from the nonproliferation bureau issues like missile
defense and the Conference on Disarmament.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Akaka. Thank you very much, Ambassador Wulf. Mr.
Semmel.
Mr. Semmel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and, I too
congratulate you on this hearing. I think it is absolutely
important and it certainly is timely.
Let me say, first of all, to echo some of the comments that
my colleagues have made, that we are, I think, at a critical
juncture on this issue in terms of our national security, in
terms of world affairs, and I think the new Administration,
whoever it is, whoever comes into the White House and the State
Department will be tested the very first day. I think the
issues are boulders rolling down hill towards the next
Administration. They are going to have to contend with them now
or as soon as possible.
As I have mentioned in my longer statement, the tide is not
moving--the trend lines are not moving in the right direction
right now. I think it is going to be very difficult for the new
Administrative as the problems begin to pile up.
I mean to suggest that there is state of urgency about this
issue and about doing it right as we move into the next
Administration. Having said that, I think it would be correct
for me to say there have been some very constructive things
done over the last few years. We ought not to forget those
things.
Innovations have taken place across-the-board in dealing
with the issue of nonproliferation and counterproliferation
include the Proliferation Security Initiative and there has
been some stock pile reductions. We have had a moratorium on
testing since the early 1990s. We have not produced any fissile
materials in a long time, etc., and there are a number of
negatives that have been pointed out already.
I think the NPT is hanging on not by a thread but certainly
the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is being very stressed
right now and will become even more so if we do not get the
right answer to Iran and North Korea. If what comes out of
those two processes in dealing with their nuclear programs are
unsuccessful, I am not sure where we are going to stand with
the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The conference on disarmament in Geneva has been virtually
at an impasse for at least 10 years, and not produced much that
we can shout about, and enforcement of IAEA reports have been
somewhat lacking at the moment. So there are some positives and
negatives and we can actually expand upon those if we wanted
to.
The three priorities, if you will, that come to mind for me
is, first of all, per your question, we need to elevate the
status and the role of this function within the State
Department, within the U.S. Government. It has to be elevated
because of the nature of the challenge, the nature of the
threat that exists now and that is going to grow in the future.
It is not going to dissipate in the immediate future.
Whether that involves the strengthening, or rather the
creating of a semi-independent entity within the State
Department, or an independent entity, or strengthening the role
of the Under Secretary, any one of those, it seems to me, would
move in the right direction but, as I say, I am somewhat
agnostic about this.
I would say this, that if the new Administration has a set
of ambitious nonpoliferation goals, whatever those goals may
be, maybe a departure from where we are, or augmentation of
where we are at right now, then it will not be able to
accomplish those ambitious goals in the absence of some kind of
restructuring and strengthening of this role within the State
Department, or within the national security bureaucracy.
So the first thing is to strengthen and elevate the status
and role of this function.
Second, I like to combine what is desirable and what is
doable, and one of the things that I think can be doable over
the long run is to increase the funding, programmatic funding,
on this function. Programmatic, by that I mean, obtaining--and
Congress can play a role in this obviously--funding in the
areas of cooperative threat reduction, in the area of
redirection of former weapons scientists, funding for the
International Atomic Energy Agency, and export controls, and so
on. That is a doable priority.
And so is, I think, augmenting the personnel, not only the
numbers of people working in this function, but also the skills
that they have, which are oftentimes technical skills. We need
to recruit more physical scientists, natural scientists, and
engineers into this area. And one of the ways we might do this
is, as I suggest in my paper, is to revive something akin to
what used to exist, namely, the Foreign Service Reserve Officer
system where the Foreign Service Reserve Officer system was
developed to find skills that could otherwise not be found
within the State Department through its normal recruitment
system.
The third area is, as I mentioned, and you and I have
talked about, Mr. Chairman, to change the rewards structure in
Foreign Service. That is to say, to make part of a Foreign
Service career path the inclusion of service in a functional
bureau, that all foreign officers at one point or another in
their career should be required to serve in some functional
bureaus. It does not have to necessarily be the ISN Bureau, to
get that kind of experience that they would otherwise be
lacking.
If you change that reward structure, you are going to get
more interest and more ability to recruit and retain Foreign
Service officers in this function. Thank you.
Chairman Akaka. Well, I thank you so much. You have been
very helpful to us. I thank all of you.
Mr. Graham. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Akaka. Yes, Ambassador Graham.
Mr. Graham. Mr. Chairman, I apologize for intervening here
at the end, but I realize I forgot to give you my
recommendations.
My recommendations, well, first let me say I do support the
recommendations that Ambassador Wulf and Mr. Semmel have
suggested. They all seem very sound to me.
The ones I would focus on myself is, first, draft
legislation for an independent agency.
Second, I hope the Senate early next year will take a close
look at those individuals who are going to be selected to have
responsibilities in the arms control and nonproliferation area
and question them to get a sense as to whether they are
interested and support these policies at least in general
terms.
Third, it seems to me that substantively next year the
overridingly most important arms control-nonproliferation issue
will be ratification of the comprehensive test ban treaty as
has been urged by Messrs. Shultz, Nunn, Kissinger, and Perry.
And along with that, it is important for the Congress to keep
up the funding, as Mr. Semmel has suggested, for the
comprehensive test ban treaty office in Vienna that operates
the worldwide verification system and the International Atomic
Energy Agency. Thank you.
Chairman Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador.
I want to say that your recommendations highlighted many
fundamental improvements that can be implemented now and also
when the next Administration comes, and we are working on that.
This Subcommittee will continue to focus on reforms to
critical aspects of our national security. Over the next few
months we will continue to examine the arms control and
nonproliferation bureaucracy. We will also look into ways to
improve our foreign assistance and public diplomacy
bureaucracies and processes.
These are our plans and I was glad, ambassador, in your
remarks that you mentioned that our country should have allies
as well as international treaties in our relationships.
All of this will be helpful to us, and so again, thank you
so much for your comments and your testimonies.
The hearing record will be open for one week for additional
statements or questions other Members may have.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:52 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
NATIONAL SECURITY BUREAUCRACY FOR ARMS CONTROL, COUNTERPROLIFERATION,
AND NONPROLIFERATION: THE ROLE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE--PART II
----------
FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 2008
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 2:06 p.m., in
Room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K.
Akaka, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senator Akaka.
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 today, and I want to thank you so much for being
here.
This is the third in a series of hearings that I am holding
to explore the effectiveness and efficiency of government
management in various aspects of national security. The first
hearing considered proposed reforms to the U.S. export control
system. During the second hearing, former Administration
officials discussed the management of the arms control,
counterproliferation, and nonproliferation bureaucracy at the
Department of State, commonly known as the ``T Bureau.''
Today's hearing will allow us to hear from current State
Department senior leaders about these same issues within the T
Bureau and give them the opportunity to respond to the
testimony of our previous witnesses. As I mentioned to the
witnesses at our last hearing, Senator Voinovich and I recently
requested the Government Accountability Office to examine the
effect of organizational changes on the State Department,
specifically on its capabilities and resources.
The major powers of the world signed the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty in 1968. Since then, four other
countries have developed nuclear weapons through their efforts
outside of the NPT. And now we confront the desire of
terrorists to obtain similar weapons. The nuclear genie has
emerged from the bottle. We must re-cork it before
international security is further threatened.
Leading Presidential candidates have spoken forcefully
about containing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Senator
McCain recently declared that his highest priority, if elected,
is to reduce the danger that nuclear weapons will ever be used
while strengthening all aspects of the nonproliferation regime.
Senator Obama is also dedicated to bolstering the NPT and
securing loose nuclear materials. Both candidates have
committed themselves to fighting proliferation. However, both
candidates know that policy statements are not enough.
Statements need to be matched by action.
The right policies are critical, but equally important are
effective and efficient institutions to support policy
implementation. My goal in this hearing, along with examining
possibly damaging personnel practices that occurred during the
T Bureau's reorganization during 2005, is to identify possible
recommendations for improving the arms control,
counterproliferation, and nonproliferation bureaucracy.
As you can see in the three charts that I have on my
right,\1\ the Department of State leads U.S. arms control,
counterproliferation, and nonproliferation efforts. The Under
Secretary for Arms Control and International Security leads the
bureaus of International Security and Nonproliferation,
Political-Military Affairs, and Verification, Compliance, and
Implementation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The charts submitted by Senator Akaka appears in the Appendix
on page 105.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This bureaucracy has changed in two significant ways from
1999 until today. First, ACDA, which was an independent agency
that led the national arms control and nonproliferation effort,
was merged into the State Department bureaucracy where its
multilateral and long-term focus has largely taken a back seat
to the prevailing regional and bilateral interests of the
Department.
These charts demonstrate clearly the second significant
change to this bureaucracy. In 2005, the bureaus singularly
focused on arms control and nonproliferation were eliminated
and merged into the International Security and Nonproliferation
Bureau. I am concerned that this merger further weakened the
State Department's ability to implement effective arms control
and nonproliferation policy. I believe that steps must be taken
quickly to repair damage that has been done.
The number of controversial issues from the 2005
reorganization include: The absence of human resources and
Civil Service personnel from the Senior Management Panel, which
had the responsibility of crafting the reorganization and
reporting its recommendations to the Under Secretary; the
significant reduction in the number of full-time equivalent
personnel despite the creation of two new offices within the
International Security and Nonproliferation Bureau; the loss of
an independent arms control bureau, which may have convinced
other nations that America was not committed to reducing
weapons of mass destruction; an inadequate process for
selecting strong leaders with distinguished backgrounds for the
bureaus; and concern that morale problems have discouraged
well-qualified and experienced career employees in the T Bureau
from remaining in the Department.
In addition to gaining a better understanding of the impact
of the reorganization on the T Bureau, I also want to explore
possible reforms, including: Reestablishing an independent arms
control and nonproliferation agency that is modeled on ACDA;
creating a semi-autonomous arms control and nonproliferation
agency within the State Department; reestablishing an arms
control bureau alongside nonproliferation and verification and
compliance bureaus within the T Bureau; elevating the role of
the head of the arms control, counterproliferation, and
nonproliferation bureaucracy to have an unobstructed and
clearly defined role in national security decisions; and,
following in the footsteps of former Secretary of State Colin
Powell, finding ways to address the diplomatic and human
capital readiness challenges confronting the T Bureau so that
there are enough qualified arms control, counterproliferation,
and nonproliferation professionals to carry out national
policies and our international obligations.
We need to work together to prevent terrorists and rogue
nations from obtaining a nuclear weapon. This hearing, taken
with the last hearing on this subject, is particularly
important since it will help clarify the challenges ahead and
provide possible solutions.
Again, I want to welcome our witnesses to this Subcommittee
today: Patricia McNerney, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
for the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation,
Department of State, and Linda Taglialatela, who is Deputy
Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Human Resources,
Department of State.
It is the custom of the Subcommittee to swear in all
witnesses, and I would ask both of 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?
Ms. McNerney. I do.
Ms. Taglialatela. I do.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much. Let it be noted for the
record that the witnesses answered in the affirmative.
Before we start, I want you to know that your full written
statement will be part of the record. Also, I would like to ask
you to keep your remarks as brief as you can.
And with that, Ms. McNerney, please proceed with your
statement.
TESTIMONY OF PATRICIA A. MCNERNEY,\1\ PRINCIPAL DEPUTY
ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND
NONPROLIFERATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, ACCOMPANIED BY
LINDA S. TAGLIALATELA, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF
HUMAN RESOURCES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ms. McNerney. Thank you, Senator. Mr. Chairman, I also just
wanted to note, I am serving as the Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary for the International Security and Nonproliferation
Bureau, not the Human Resources Bureau. In that capacity, I am
currently the acting head of that bureau, for the record.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. McNerney appears in the Appendix
on page 92.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senator Akaka. Thank you for that.
Ms. McNerney. Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity
to discuss the State Department's role in protecting U.S.
national security and ensuring that we are responding
appropriately and robustly to today's nonproliferation and
international security challenges.
When Secretary Rice began her tenure, she called upon the
Department of State to transform the way we think about
diplomacy and to consider how we might best use our diplomatic
tools to meet today's threats and prevent tomorrow's problems.
Thanks to that vision of Secretary Rice, we reshaped the
structure of the so-called T Bureaus, moving away from a system
designed to address the challenges presented by the Cold War
toward a structure more capable of countering today's
nonproliferation and international security challenges. By
creating a robust Bureau of International Security and
Nonproliferation, strengthening the Bureau of Political-
Military Affairs, and expanding the Bureau of Verification and
Compliance's mandate to include treaty implementation,
Secretary Rice not only effectively enabled the Department to
better respond to the challenges of the post-September 11, 2001
world, but strengthened our commitment and our ability to
support the nonproliferation and arms control regimes already
in place.
With the merger of the Arms Control and Nonproliferation
Bureaus to form the Bureau of International Security and
Nonproliferation, the redundancies lingering from the 1999
merger of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency into the
Department were removed.
As a bureau that covers both traditional and non-
traditional security threats, I believe we have thoroughly and
effectively enabled each of our 13 offices to examine and
monitor the multifaceted elements of nonproliferation and arms
control. Our offices not only focus on conventional, nuclear,
missile, chemical, and biological threat reduction; WMD
terrorism; but also on the nexus between WMD and terrorism, and
on complex regional affairs and their effect on
nonproliferation and international security. By placing a
greater focus on counterproliferation and global cooperative
threat reduction in addition to multilateral and bilateral
engagement, we have enhanced our national ability to engage on
the full range of nonproliferation issues.
I am proud of the work that the ISN Bureau and its highly
skilled Civil Service and Foreign Service officers have done in
leading the U.S. Government's nonproliferation and security
efforts. We continue to attract and retain exceptionally
qualified and motivated individuals, with many young and
talented officers who are our best investment in future
capability to address these security threats.
With more than 180 civil servants, as well as Foreign
Service officers, we feel confident that the quality of work
produced by our bureau reflects positively on the caliber of
its employees and the quality of our work environment. All of
the T Bureau employees have been strongly encouraged to take
training courses at the Foreign Service Institute and other
outlets to continue to enhance their skills and expertise, and
to work with their leadership to develop a long-term career
plan to include training opportunities.
Additionally, we have implemented a new T Family Award for
Excellence in International Security Affairs in order to
recognize the outstanding Foreign and Civil Service employees
in the Arms Control and International Security field, and to
further motivate our employees to strive for excellence.
As Senator Lugar noted when he participated in the
announcement of the reorganization by Secretary Rice in 2005,
the changes made by the Secretary to enhance our
counterproliferation, counterterrorism, and threat reduction
efforts ``are important reforms that will both streamline
governmental action and provide greater safety for all
Americans.'' We have worked hard to achieve success
internationally as well as domestically, through implementing
the Secretary's and the President's vision in creating a
workforce prepared to meet these challenges of the 21st
Century.
I look forward to any questions you have for me, as well as
my colleague from the Human Resources Bureau, and we appreciate
your time. I have a longer statement that I would ask be
submitted for the record. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Akaka. It will be included in the record.
Well, thank you very much. I would like to direct my first
question to Ms. Taglialatela.
Ms. Taglialatela, in previous testimony, we heard that
there has been a significant loss of civil servants from the
State Department in recent years. A Nonproliferation Bureau
career officer who retired a few weeks after the reorganization
in the year 2005 mentioned in an article in Arms Control Today
that the reorganization of the bureaus in 2005 led many
experienced career officers to leave the new International
Security and Nonproliferation Bureau.
How much attrition has the ISN Bureau experienced since the
implementation of the reorganization of 2005?
Ms. Taglialatela. Thank you for that question, Mr.
Chairman. I would like to say that during the reorganization,
while the final decisions on specific person placements were
made by the individuals who were the managers of the bureau,
the Bureau of Human Resources and a representative from the
Office of the Legal Adviser at the State Department, and I can
assure you that there were no violations of Merit System
principles and there were no violations of any law or
regulation.
At the same time, when we worked and developed the
crosswalk between the two bureaus, we put the two bureaus
together, and we ensured that everyone had a position to go to,
that no one was displaced, that no one lost grade and no one
lost salary. Some people, because of the positions that they
were moved into, may have felt that there were opportunities
elsewhere or it was time for them to leave.
This is the sort of phenomenon that happens any time there
is management and organizational change. You will find people
who are uncomfortable with the way things are, and they choose
to leave. There was a number of--not a large number, but there
was a number of employees who chose to either find other work
and/or retire. I do not believe that in the more recent years
since then, the initial merger, that we have had any large
increases or continued large amounts of attrition in the
bureau. It has pretty much stabilized.
As you may be aware, the State Department has one of the
lowest attritions in the Federal Government. We run below the
average on our Civil Service. Our attrition overall is about 8
percent a year, whereas the Federal Government is about 12
percent on Civil Service. And basically, the bureaus have fit
into that average and maintained similar comparable attrition
numbers to the State Department on the whole.
Senator Akaka. How does this compare to the typical
attrition from the Arms Control and Nonproliferation Bureaus
from 1999 to 2005?
Ms. Taglialatela. I do not have specific numbers on what
the attrition was from 1999. Basically, again, when the merger
took place and we also merged individuals from the U.S.
Information Agency, everyone from both of those agencies were,
again, guaranteed a crosswalk position at grade without loss of
salary into the new, redesigned organization. Again, if people
chose to leave, it was because they did not want to become part
of the State Department proper or they had other opportunities
elsewhere.
Ms. McNerney. Mr. Chairman, I might just add on that point
that if you look at a snapshot of vacant positions in August
2005, just prior to the reorganization, between the
Nonproliferation Bureau and the Arms Control Bureau, that rate
was about 12 percent. If you look at what we have now in 2008,
that rate is about 8 percent. So we are actually doing better
as a bureau under the new construct than we were with the two
bureaus.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Taglialatela, in previous testimony, we
heard that the number of full-time equivalent employees, FTEs,
was reduced by the merger of the Arms Control and
Nonproliferation Bureaus. Were any FTE positions eliminated? If
so, why were they eliminated?
Ms. Taglialatela. Thank you for the opportunity to explain,
Mr. Chairman. There were no positions eliminated or taken away
from the T area when the merger took place, the merger of the
Arms Control Bureau and the Nonproliferation Bureau. What
happened was in the decisions that went forward in a
reprogramming letter, there were decisions to rearrange the
functions within the whole T area. Some positions went to the
Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. Some positions shifted to
the Verification, Compliance, and Implementation Bureau. So
there was not a loss of total FTE. What happened was it was a
shift. And the total number of FTE left in the new bureau was
probably less than what was in the Bureau of Arms Control and
the Bureau of Nonproliferation only because some of those
functions were shifted to other areas.
Senator Akaka. Did you have an overall strategic plan,
including the human capital aspects, for the reorganization?
And if you did, what was that plan?
Ms. Taglialatela. From the standpoint of the Bureau of
Human Resources and the management area in the State
Department, we were involved in reviewing the organizational
structure that was proposed and sent forward in the
congressional notification. We were involved in making sure
that all of the offices had work statements determining what
functions would be performed by the newly formed offices
because there was a realignment of functions in the new
organization. And we looked at the number of positions to
ensure that there was a crosswalk of if there were X number of
positions in the two bureaus, that many positions plus the ones
that went to either the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs
and the Verification, Compliance, and Implementation Bureau
both got--that all of the people in positions were accounted
for.
From a standpoint of strategic planning, we looked at the
resources and made sure that the skill sets were transferable
between the two bureaus. But as far as actually assigning
people and/or looking for any staffing gaps, we did not do that
at the time.
Senator Akaka. Ms. McNerney, in the previous hearing on
this matter, I was disturbed by a witness who stated that the
office responsible for nonproliferation had to rely on
temporary help--interns, short-term scholars, and retirees. For
me, this was shocking.
How much temporary help is currently assisting the ISN
Bureau?
Ms. McNerney. Well, Mr. Chairman, we maintain, obviously, a
high level of full-time employees that do our day-to-day work,
but we actually think we benefit by a number of consultants
that are--for example, recently retired Ambassador Don Mahley,
who brings a wealth of years of experience in arms control, we
have retained that ability. We have tapped him to continue to
negotiate some specific arms control kinds of agreements.
Again, we rely on what we call AAAS fellows. These are
scientific experts that come into the Department for a year or
two. Our bureaus actually are one of the key areas to attract
these kinds of fellows that we think augment our capabilities
and our scientific reach-back. Often they come from the labs
and places like that, and we have got about 20 percent of all
the Department's AAAS fellows.
Additionally, sometimes young students come in on an
internship, and this is a good way to get to see some of these
students as they are coming out of school. Oftentimes, they
will apply later for full-time positions, and having worked in
the bureau, we know whether they are talented, what their
expertise is. And so, again, this is a program that I actually
think is very helpful and useful to us. But certainly the real
day-to-day work, the long hours, the hard work that gets done
by our staff, it is done by our full-time workforce. And that
is what we rely on for the bulk of our work.
Senator Akaka. Ms. McNerney, a previous witness testified
that one of the goals for the 2005 merger of the
Nonproliferation and Arms Control Bureaus was to achieve
greater efficiencies and to reduce costs through streamlining
and consolidation. Have you or the Department examined the
effects of the 2005 merger to determine if it generated any
cost savings?
Ms. McNerney. I am not sure about cost savings, but if I
would look at it more from the policy standpoint of how we are
accomplishing our core objectives, one thing, we review
regularly where our key priorities are. For example, at the
time of the reorganization, there were only just over two full-
time equivalent staff in our Regional Affairs Bureau working on
Iran. Obviously, Iran is a key challenge of the day, and so we
have moved a number of our FTEs from other offices to that
office to greatly augment our team that deals with the Middle
East and Iran.
Similarly, our counterproliferation initiatives that does a
lot of the work to interdict shipments of concern, look at
financial measures that we do to support our Iran policy and
our North Korea policy, we thought that we needed to have
additional individuals working on those key core issues. And
so, again, we shifted some from other offices into that office
in order to focus on those areas. And just recently, we
followed up with some of our WMD terrorism personnel that were
still straddling two bureaus to move them into our WMD T Bureau
to really focus the leadership and attention in one group. So
that is the kind of thing we are doing on a regular basis to
make sure that our people are meeting the key challenges of the
day.
The actual costs, what has really been the case across the
Department and across government, is we are all having to
readjust our costs and our figures, the appropriations that we
get. We have been working under CRs a couple years in a row,
and so travel monies are tighter. Our program monies are
tighter. And so I personally have really focused in on reducing
any kinds of contract employees that really do cost a lot more
than your standard government employee and trying to eliminate
those kinds of costs so we can focus them on the core mission,
which is to address threats like Iran, like North Korea, like
terrorist access to nuclear weapons and nuclear materials.
Obviously, we have got a responsibility to meet those core
challenges, and so under tight budgets and constraints that we
all face across the Department, I think it is incumbent on the
leadership of our bureau to look at those costs in that context
and try to move and shift resources.
Senator Akaka. Ms. McNerney, you mentioned in your
testimony that the new T Bureau structure is more capable of
countering nonproliferation and international security
challenges. Can you explain this in more detail?
Ms. McNerney. Yes, sir. Before this reorganization, we did
not have an office that was devoted to counterproliferation
initiatives. This has been a really key area for us in the last
several years as we address North Korea and Iran. We now have
an office that looks at interdictions on a regular basis, that
looks at our financial measures against banks that might be
supporting proliferation activities, companies, front companies
that might be part of larger networks to try to avoid some of
our other programs designed to impede proliferation activities.
It is an office that focuses on the new resolution, Security
Council Resolution 1540, which was adopted in 2004, looking at
a broad-based increase in every State's export control
authorities, laws, implementation. So that is one area where we
certainly have retooled and refocused ourselves, and that
office did not exist before this merger.
A second office that did not exist before this merger dealt
with WMD terrorism. There is, obviously, in government a large
WMD community, a large terrorism community, but often there is
that seam in between where you are not really bringing the two
communities together and focusing on that nexus between WMD and
terrorism. And so we created an office as a result of--the
Secretary created this office as a result of the merger to
better focus and drill down on this particular threat. And
through that, we have evolved what is called the Global
Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism and really reached out
across the world to develop capabilities in other governments.
Currently, there are more than 70 governments now participating
in that initiative, and that is a partnership globally that did
not exist 2 years ago. And so that is the kind of thing that
the bureau really has focused on.
Additionally, we have sort of retooled some of our offices
to focus on the problems of nuclear energy today, for example.
There is a growth of nuclear energy, but obviously with that
responsibility comes to reduce the proliferation risks of civil
nuclear energy. And so even as we are looking to work with
countries to have that capability, which is one of the promises
of the Nonproliferation Treaty, we are trying to do it in a way
that ensures that things like enrichment and reprocessing,
which have a much greater capability to be misused or diverted
for proliferation activities, we're trying to eliminate those
kinds of aspects of the nuclear program through things like an
assured fuel supply with the IAEA and other initiatives of that
sort.
So, I think if you really look at sort of what we are doing
as a bureau, how we are integrated better with the Department,
one of the key things is our team really has been part of Nick
Burns' team and now Bill Burns running Iran policy. We have
integrated very closely with that process because we are in the
State Department. We are not fighting each other. Obviously,
people have disputes over policy all the time, but they get
worked out. But we are supporting that process in a direct way.
Obviously, when the Secretary has an issue related to
proliferation, she has us to call upon, and we are obviously
working her broader agenda and the President's broader agenda.
When she has meetings with the President on our issues, she
brings the Under Secretary, John Rood, to those meetings and
obviously relies on him, and he obviously relies on us for all
of that work and expertise.
So, it takes time because the ACDA merger brought us into
the Department, but kind of just plopped it in the middle. Then
I think this second reorganization really integrated us further
into the work and the challenges we are facing today. And, it
takes time, but we are really working, I think, as a team
throughout the Department.
For example, if you look again at the North Korea issue,
Assistant Secretary Chris Hill relies on us to support all of
the settlement actions. We have a nonproliferation disarmament
fund, and we are funding all the actions to eliminate
components from the reactor at Yongbyon, and that has been
something that our bureau has really led the charge on.
So I think there are always going to be personnel
departures. Unfortunately, when we were being stood up through
this reorganization, the government was also standing up the
new DNI with a lot of new jobs that had better resources
attached to some of those jobs, and they were able to steal a
few of our people. But some of them went over and they realized
they did not like it as much, they wanted to be back at the
Department and working on these vital issues, we think, for
national security.
Senator Akaka. Ms. McNerney, when the Arms Control Bureau
was abolished in 2005, some of the functions and staff were
transferred to the International Security and Nonproliferation
Bureau. In previous testimony, it was argued that this action
made it much more difficult to achieve priority U.S.
nonproliferation objectives.
The Office of Inspector General's reports from December
2004 noted that the State Department's Nonproliferation Bureau
was already burdened with a wide range of issues. When you add
to this list responsibility for topics such as missile defense,
the chemical and biological weapons conventions, and the
Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, one result, a previous witness
argued, is an Assistant Secretary who is spread too thin to
provide the senior policy leadership necessary in this critical
area of national security.
What would your response be to this assertion?
Ms. McNerney. Well, I guess what I would argue is that, in
fact, by merging these two, we have--and some of the
responsibility of the Arms Control Bureau went to another
bureau, so these were divided.
Another aspect of that merger was there was a new Deputy
Assistant Secretary position created, so it actually gave
greater day-to-day front office management over a number of
these issues by having an additional Deputy Assistant Secretary
focused on the issues.
The other part is, again, we did not just give all that
responsibility in sort of one chain. For example, the Fissile
Material Cut-Off Treaty became a core responsibility of the
Deputy Assistant Secretary who is responsible for nuclear
affairs. And so they are really integrating that into our
larger agenda on a number of these nuclear affairs, the NPT
Treaty, etc.
You look at the Chemical Weapons Convention, again,
integrating that into our broader chemical, biological office
that has the range of issues.
Then on the missile defense--the Missile and Space Policy
Office, that office was originally put in the Verification,
Compliance, and Implementation Bureau, and it was soon realized
that it just didn't fit well there, that it fit more broadly
into our larger nonproliferation agenda, and so that office,
with the full complement of personnel, was later then moved to
the International Security and Nonproliferation Bureau in order
to accomplish that mission as well.
So we think we have got a pretty good--people are working
hard, obviously, and lots of long days, but I think we have got
a pretty good mix and balance in our issue area.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Taglialatela, in our previous hearing
testimony, it was stated that the Senior Management Panel, the
panel tasked with crafting the recommendations for the
reorganization, operated in near secrecy without the direct
benefit of the Department's human resources expertise. Why was
the Under Secretary for Management not put in charge of
implementing this reorganization?
Ms. Taglialatela. Mr. Chairman, I apologize, but I do not
know why senior management made the decision. Generally at the
Department, when a reorganization or merger has been approved
through congressional notification, the actual implementation
is left up to the individual bureaus. In the case of the
merger, the then-Under Secretary for Arms Control and
International Security formed a Senior Management Panel made up
of Deputy Assistant Secretaries from each of the three
bureaus--being Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and
Verification, Compliance, and Implementation--to sit down and
work through the actual reassignment of individuals. Also
included was the executive assistant to the Under Secretary.
At that time initially, they started to meet to work
through the concept, sort of the idea of where people would go.
Some of the employees expressed concern both to the employees'
union, being the American Foreign Service Association and the
American Federation of Government Employees, as well as some of
the employees expressed their concerns within the T hierarchy,
and they asked that a member from the Bureau of Human Resources
and a member from their Executive Director Office sit in on the
meetings.
When they had their initial preliminary planning meetings
and started talking about actually moving people, I personally
sat in on a number of those meetings. We did begin halfway
through the process to have meetings with the employees. I will
tell you that had I been left in charge, I probably would have
done it differently and engaged the employees much sooner. But
when they had finalized their organizational structures and
started to identify people, they did meet with employees. They
did offer them an opportunity to express where they might like
to go, which of the offices they would be most interested in.
Some of them had obviously specific places that they were well
suited for, which was basically where they were in the old two
bureaus. They moved into similar positions under the new
bureau, and they moved forward.
I think in hindsight, the process could have been a little
more transparent. It could have been a little more informative
throughout the process. This is not the first merger or
reorganization I have been through in the Department. I think
that every one of them has had its share of problems because I
think employees, when you start talking about their occupations
and their careers, everyone gets very nervous, very excited
about what is going to happen to them specifically, as well as
what is going to happen to their office, their organization,
and their colleagues. We probably should have done things a
little bit differently. But in the end, employees were kept
aware of what was happening and were allowed to express their
interests in what they would like to do.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Taglialatela, I have a series of
questions I would like you to answer about personnel
management, and you can even answer yes or no, if you wish. And
here are the questions.
Is it normal procedure there for career staff to be removed
from management positions and be replaced by someone with less
rank and experience?
Ms. Taglialatela. It is not normal to do that, sir. What
happens in a merger when two organizations that are performing
similar functions or you are going to merge two similar offices
together, you always start out with two office directors,
possibly two deputy office directors, several branch chiefs.
And when you merge the offices together, you have to figure out
first what is the best appropriate organizational structure.
Then what you have to do--and that is where the Bureau of Human
Resources participates, is in the design of those
organizational structures. Then it is up to the managers who
are well aware of the capabilities of the individuals, their
contributions, what abilities and skills they have as managers,
as well as their expertise in the area, and figure out how best
to place people within the organizational structure that has
been approved.
Senator Akaka. Is it common to name detailees from other
agencies in positions such as acting office directors?
Ms. Taglialatela. It is not prohibited; it is something
that is not encouraged. Obviously, we look to put individual
employees from within the Department in those key jobs as a way
of giving them opportunities to expand their career, to enhance
their abilities to perform and to retain the talent and
expertise within the Department.
Senator Akaka. Is it normal to have employees indicate job
preferences without position or office descriptions being
provided?
Ms. Taglialatela. Yes and no. I think when you look at
organizational--when you are taking two functions and putting
them together, one of the first things that they did in the T
reorganization is look at their office structures and determine
how many people were needed--sort of guesstimate how many
people would be needed in each of the offices to perform the
functions. Based on that, there were generic descriptions of
what each of these offices would do, the kinds of functions
they would perform, the areas of responsibility they would
have. And they asked people to identify where they might like
to work based on that, with the understanding that no one was
going to lose grade. Obviously, some people would be moved at
grade, but if they departed, their jobs would be reclassified
and reassessed to fit better into the organization.
I think some people were a bit concerned because, yes, if
you do that, then you are never sure what the grade of the job
is you are going into. But everyone was guaranteed up front
that no one would lose grade. So that there shouldn't have been
concern about where they fit into the organization and what
their role would be.
Senator Akaka. Is downgrading SES level office director
positions to the GS-15 level a normal practice at the State
Department?
Ms. Taglialatela. I would not say that it was normal. It is
a practice that goes on because when you redefine the work
being performed, sometimes the grade of the job goes down;
sometimes the grade of the job goes up.
Senator Akaka. Is it normal for the State Department,
specifically the T Bureau, to not notify employees of promotion
opportunities for which they may be well qualified?
Ms. Taglialatela. When there are promotion opportunities
anywhere in the State Department, they are to be advertised in
the appropriate forum through Merit Promotion Vacancy
Announcements and individuals are allowed to apply and
considered fairly and equitably for those positions.
Ms. McNerney. Mr. Chairman, I might add as well, something
we have done to try to encourage even better transparency is
not only expect officers to look at the normal Federal sites
for notification of positions, but also to e-mail to each and
every officer any opening and vacancy so that they are aware of
that and have the opportunity to compete for such a position.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Taglialatela, I understand that the
State Department's Office of Inspector General reports released
in December 2004 concluded that the Nonproliferation Bureau was
overworked, the Arms Control Bureau was underworked, and that
another bureau--the Verification and Compliance Bureau--should
be downsized and its responsibilities severely reduced.
However, the newly merged International Security and
Nonproliferation Bureau was reduced in staff size, according to
a previous witness, far below the total size of the combined
number before the merger, while the newly named Verification,
Compliance, and Implementation Bureau grew in size and
responsibilities.
Can you explain to me this apparent departure from the
findings and conclusions of the OIG?
Ms. Taglialatela. We monitor the compliance responses to
the OIG. We are not responsible for ensuring that they are
implemented. Any time the Inspector General's office does an
inspection of an organization and they have a list of
recommendations, it is incumbent upon the appropriate bureaus
to provide response.
In the case of the reorganization, I can only assume that
ISN provided responses--ISN, VCI, and the Under Secretary for
Arms Control and International Security--to the Inspector
General which defined how they were going to allocate their
resources and why--if, in fact, the recommendations were to
reduce the Verification, Compliance, and Implementation Bureau,
why, in fact, it grew.
Ms. McNerney. Yes, just on that point, obviously this was a
decision by then-Under Secretary Bob Joseph and Secretary Rice.
But my understanding is they looked at the recommendations from
the OIG and felt that a way to address the core concerns laid
out by the OIG was to take some of the responsibility of the
Arms Control Bureau and add them to the Verification and
Compliance Bureau. And so it is that shifting of responsibility
which meant some shifting of personnel. But there certainly was
no overall reduction in people, and if you look at the two--if
you look at the International Security and Nonproliferation
Bureau, it is obviously much larger than the original NP Bureau
or the original AC Bureau. But the additional people that would
have been in one of those bureaus, basically the Arms Control,
were shifted to the Verification and Compliance Bureau. And so
they had more responsibility and, therefore, more personnel
were put towards that new responsibility.
There was just a very small shift of four personnel to the
Political-Military Affairs Bureau, so that was quite minor.
So, overall, the International Security and
Nonproliferation Bureau certainly grew as a single bureau, but
then overall, the numbers pre-reorg and post-reorg within the T
Bureaus stayed static.
Ms. Taglialatela. May I add a comment, please?
Senator Akaka. Yes.
Ms. Taglialatela. I think one of the things--and I am not
sure what specifically your witness was alluding to, but one of
the things that I would like to make clear is that from 2004 to
the present time, the State Department has not received any
additional resources. A lot of our resources have gone to
staffing our embassy in Iraq, our embassy in Kabul, expanding
our presence in Pakistan. And because of that, we have taxed
the bureaus for reductions to gather up new positions that can
be reprogrammed to these priorities.
So since 2004--or 2005, the bureaus domestically have all
lost resources because of reprogramming to these priorities. So
over time, I believe ISN has lost resources that were not
necessarily attributed to the fact that we did not believe they
needed them, but because the Secretary declared we had a
priority that we needed to staff to 100 percent, and we moved
resources to that priority.
Ms. McNerney. But just to follow up on that, we all across
the Department, all bureaus were required to give the Under
Secretary for Management sort of a snapshot of where we could
impose cuts. And it was our view that given that we had just
gone through this exercise, we really were pretty close to the
bone in terms of our staffing. And he agreed with that, Pat
Kennedy, the Under Secretary for Management. So we were as a
bureau certainly less impacted than others around the
Department, including many of the regional bureaus.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Taglialatela, I heard in previous
testimony that three of the four International Security and
Nonproliferation Bureau leaders, as well as the Special
Assistant, were chosen from the Arms Control Bureau by Bob
Joseph, who was then the Under Secretary for Arms Control and
International Security. This appears to go against the Office
of Inspector General's December 2004 findings.
Why would the Under Secretary choose to eliminate leaders
from the Arms Control Bureau, which has, in the words of the
OIG, faced--and I am quoting--``palpable morale problems''?
Ms. Taglialatela. My understanding is that at the time, if
I remember correctly, Mr. Semmel, who came from the
Nonproliferation Bureau, Mr. Mahley, and Mr. Record, both who
came from the Arms Control Bureau, were made the Deputy
Assistant Secretaries. They had all previously been Deputy
Assistant Secretaries, and they continued to serve as Deputy
Assistant Secretaries. Only at the time of their departures
were adjustments made to the staffing of the Deputy Assistant
Secretary positions.
Senator Akaka. I understand that the Under Secretary for
Management, Henrietta Fore, met in December 2005 with at least
11 individuals who had expressed concerns about the
implementation of the T Bureau reorganization. Their concerns
included the complete absence of career civil servants advising
the panel charged with reorganization and a lack of
transparency in the selection process for acting office
directors.
Was any action taken to address their concerns?
Ms. Taglialatela. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Based on that meeting,
along with issues raised by the two employee unions, the Under
Secretary, Henrietta Fore, had a conversation with then Under
Secretary Joseph, and the two of them decided that it would be
appropriate for a person from the Bureau of Human Resources to
sit on the Senior Panel. I was asked to join the Senior Panel.
I participated in many of their meetings. We talked about the
assignment of employees. I focused primarily on the grades and
previous jobs of the employees and where they were being
crosswalked to. When it came down, again, to two individuals
who had similar backgrounds and were serving in similar
positions and one of them was being reprogrammed because we did
not need two, such as deputy directors or branch chiefs or
division chiefs, they were the ones who made the final
decisions because they knew the individuals and their specific
strengths, weaknesses, their specific expertise, and they made
the final decisions. I ensured that everybody was being looked
at in a fair, honest way. When there were promotion
opportunities, they were advertised. People were given the
opportunity to compete.
So I believe that, in essence, the process was fair, and
the Under Secretary for Management was very concerned and made
sure that there was fair representation for the employees. She
also attended a townhall meeting with them, at which Under
Secretary Joseph was present, and from that time forward, we
had periodic townhall meetings with all of the employees to
answer their questions.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Warren Strobel, formerly of the Knight-
Ridder news service, wrote an article in which he mentioned
that a half-dozen State Department employees who were very
concerned about the loss of knowledgeable experts in the newly
merged bureaus would only speak on condition of maintaining
their anonymity because they feared retaliation.
From your perspective, do you think these employees had any
reason to fear retaliation?
Ms. Taglialatela. From my perspective, no, sir.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Strobel from that news service
identified Thomas Lehrman, who headed the new Office of Weapons
of Mass Destruction Terrorism, as advertising for government
positions, citing political loyalty to President Bush and
Secretary of State Rice as a qualification. I am very troubled
by this report because it clearly violates the Merit System
principles. Is this story true? If so, what specific actions
were taken to correct Mr. Lehrman's actions?
Ms. Taglialatela. Mr. Chairman, I am sorry to say that is a
true story. The individual did send out such an e-mail to a
number of colleagues and associates asking if they were
interested in positions. When we found out about it, we asked
him and made sure that he responded and sent out a follow-up e-
mail basically taking down the offer for employment. We
explained to him very clearly that there is an appropriate
process by which we advertise jobs at the State Department. And
we told them if they wanted to go ahead and advertise jobs,
that we would work with them to do so.
Senator Akaka. Was any Department or bureau-wide training
conducted to prevent this from happening again in the future?
Ms. Taglialatela. No, sir. We talked specifically to the
Executive Office, who is responsible for posting or advertising
their vacancies. The people who were responsible for filling
positions in the bureau were not aware of what this gentleman
did until we saw the e-mail that went out. It was an informal
job advertisement as opposed to an official advertisement from
the Department. But you would have to ask someone in the bureau
if senior management talked to all of their managers about this
issue.
Ms. McNerney. I can discuss what we do now. That obviously
was an appalling action on the part of that particular officer,
and he came to realize that he had obviously acted outside of
his responsibility.
When we look at employment now, I make sure that any time
there is a vacancy that the office director begins to talk to
their Deputy Assistant Secretary, about what are the needs,
what are the gaps, what kinds of employees do we want; and then
we work closely with our Executive Office within the bureau to
create the position description; and then we move to do that
through the normal advertisement channels. So there has been
reoccurrence of such an activity, and I think all of our office
directors are working very closely with their Deputy Assistant
Secretaries as well as the front office management to be sure
that we are doing this by the book. And I certainly would not
tolerate such behavior.
Senator Akaka. Well, Ms. McNerney and Ms. Taglialatela,
recently I held a hearing on the Federal hiring and recruitment
process. One of our witnesses was a chief human capital officer
from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. While NRC has some
unique hiring flexibilities, they have a robust and effective
recruitment process that could be applied to any Federal
agency. For instance, NRC has partnered with the University of
Puerto Rico to hire and further train engineering students.
Additionally, all the managers at NRC also serve as recruiters
at conferences and meetings, and I was glad to hear you mention
in your statement that you have interns that come in. These are
ways of dealing with the problems we have with personnel
hiring.
What similar recruitment efforts could be done at the State
Department to improve the staffing needs in the scientific
fields?
Ms. Taglialatela. Mr. Chairman, we have a very robust
recruiting program. The State Department is very concerned
about the baby-boomer retirement tsunami that is beginning now.
We assume we are going to lose a lot of our talent. For the
last 5 years, we have been the No. 2 agency in the Federal
Government for recruiting Presidential Management Fellows, some
of whom are educated in the scientific and technical areas,
some of whom have other job experiences in the area of arms
control and nonproliferation.
We also have an active program--called Pickering and Rangel
Fellows--which are predominantly geared towards the Foreign
Service, but they do come on board and work in various areas,
both in Washington and in our embassies overseas, again and who
have scientific and interests in arms control and nuclear
nonproliferation.
We have partnered very closely on the AAAS program, and as
Ms. McNerney said, we use them quite frequently. They have 20
percent of our AAAS fellows in their program. And we do use
intern programs to the fullest extent. We usually, particularly
during the summer, as we are beginning the summer right now, we
will have over a thousand interns in Washington and in our
embassies overseas, again, trying to encourage people to be
interested in and look to some of the career occupations that
we have at the Department so that we can start interesting them
in a career at the Department. So we have a very robust program
that we are working on.
We have also created some additional programs. We have
Jefferson Science Fellows who we bring in for a year from the
academic. We usually have five to ten a year. They come in,
they work in various bureaus, providing and lending support to
those bureaus on various scientific, technical areas. When
their year is completed, they go back to their universities,
and they remain a consultant to the Department for the next 4
to 5 years. So we are looking strongly at creating that
interest in the community.
We also have in our embassies overseas what we call
environmental, scientific, and technical technology officers.
These are people who have very specific interests in the area,
and they work very closely with the people in the T Bureaus as
well as in OES on these kinds of issues. They develop their
expertise through the Foreign Service Institute and their
experiences overseas, and we do attempt to rotate them back to
Washington into bureaus like ISN, VCI, and PM.
Ms. McNerney. Mr. Chairman, just following on that, I think
if we really were--there are a lot of people who kind of keep
looking back to 2005, and obviously any reorganization has
turmoil to it. I think if we are really looking at what we have
now, I think we have got the right structure, but people are
really at the heart of how we can do our jobs. We have some
terrific top-level managers that are reaching retirement age.
In 5, 6 years, they are gone. How are we building a workforce
that can go beyond? And one of the ways that we are doing it at
the bottom levels is obviously the Presidential Management
Fellowships. These are the entry-level talented officers, many
of them Master's programs, some Ph.D.s One of my colleagues
behind me is PMF, and she is about to go off to Lawrence
Livermore Lab for 2 months and really develop some of that kind
of expertise.
We have some of our PMFs out to embassies in Abu Dhabi, for
example, where you really have the question of transshipment of
proliferation-related items to Iran, and so really
understanding what is going on, how they can interact.
We have sent some of our officers--one of our officers
right now is doing a rotation at the National Security Council,
developing really kind of that leadership expertise at the mid-
level, but she was a PMF who spent time in Beijing. So there is
this requirement to really give opportunities and an expansive
kind of look.
Then there is the mid-career--there are just less of them
because there was that period where there was less hiring. But
one thing we have done is I have worked with Pat Kennedy to
approve creation of a position at our UN mission to the IAEA
and try to build up a rotation there where we can develop the
safeguards capabilities because that is such an essential piece
of what we do in terms of applying safeguards to programs like
Iran, like North Korea, and so building up those kinds of
rotations where they see the IAEA and how it works on the
ground. But we have got to be recruiting good people.
We recently opened a position in our bureau for a PMF, and
20 percent of all PMFs applied for that one single position. So
we are getting the best and the brightest, and I could not
believe the resumes. I mean, just every one of them quite
talented. So it is very competitive, obviously, and that is a
good thing. And we are recruiting some of the best, but we need
to do more. And we obviously do it within the limitations of
our budgets and our personnel ceilings.
Senator Akaka. Thank you.
Ms. Taglialatela, one of the significant barriers to
Federal service for many scientists or other professionals is
the student loan debt and comparatively low salary in the
Federal Government compared to the private sector. Agencies
have been authorized to pay back student loans for an employee
up to $10,000 per year and $60,000 aggregate. In fiscal year
2006, the State Department provided loan repayments to 869
employees totaling more than $4 million.
How much do you see debt from student loans as a factor in
the State Department's recruitment of scientists and
professionals?
Ms. Taglialatela. Mr. Chairman, thank you for that
question. Student loan repayment is a significant issue with
the younger generation. What we have found is that with the
rising costs of education throughout the country, it is very
difficult for young people to enter into the Federal Government
at the salaries which we are able to offer without student loan
repayment.
What we are proud of at the State Department is that we are
one of the top agencies and we are a best practice across the
Federal Government for student loan repayment. We have one of
the most robust programs in the Federal Government. Based on
the amount of money we are able to put into the program, we are
able to offer individuals $4,600 or the maximum amount of their
loan, because some are nearing the end of their loan, to people
to pay towards their student loan repayment. It is an
incredible incentive for young people.
Senator Akaka. Can you tell me or provide for the record
the number of staff in the ISN Bureau who have attended the
Leadership and Management School, how many have participated or
are participating in the SES candidate development program, the
Council for Excellence in Government Fellow program, the Civil
Service Mentoring program, the Situational Mentoring program,
and the Civil Service Mid-Level Rotational program?
Ms. Taglialatela. Unfortunately, sir, I do not have that
information handy, but I would be more than happy to provide it
for the record, sir.
INFORMATION PROVIDED FOR THE RECORD
As of March 2008, 67 out of 130 eligible employees at the GS-13,
GS-14, and GS-15 levels from the International Security and
Nonproliferation (ISN) Bureau have completed leadership training at the
Foreign Service Institute (FSI).
One ISN employee was selected for the Department of Homeland
Security's Career Development Program (an SES training program)
beginning in 2007 and running into 2008. He remains an ISN employee,
and the Department funded his training costs, totaling around $40,000.
The ISN Bureau has four mentees and four mentors in the 2008 Civil
Service mentoring program, as well as five mentors who have volunteered
as situational mentors. The ISN Bureau also has one participant in the
current Civil Service Mid-Level Rotational program.
No employees from the ISN Bureau have participated in the Council
for Excellence in Government program since the bureau's creation in
2006, due in part to the high cost of the program.
Ms. McNerney. I might just add on that, I know we have
certainly encouraged participation in many programs, but we as
a bureau and as the Department have--unlike some of our
agencies, we have very limited funding for things like the SES
training program, which I think costs some $15,000, $20,000 for
an officer to do. When we encourage training, we encourage them
to go to the Foreign Service Institute where everything is free
for us as a bureau, and so that is really the mechanism by
which we encourage most of our training.
There have been a couple instances where there might be
some sort of fellowship training. One officer with Harvard
negotiated so that he only had to pay a small amount, and they
picked up a lot of it. And it is that kind of thing where if we
can even get a little seed money and get our officers out, we
certainly encourage that. But these things cost money. The
State Department has budget constraints, and so there are
limits on the kinds of things one can encourage.
Senator Akaka. Ms. McNerney, I have heard recommendations
from previous witnesses about the need for a career path that
develops scientific skills within the ISN Bureau. Do you agree
with this assessment? If so, where is the ISN Bureau falling
short in its current training and career paths for civil
servant scientists? And what do you envision the career path to
include that is different?
Ms. McNerney. Well, I would just sort of reiterate that a
lot of the scientific training comes before an officer arrives,
so we try to recruit those with a scientific background. Some
of the ways that we try to encourage sort of on-the-job
training is through these kinds of rotations to our labs. This
position we have created at the IAEA to try to increase the
understanding of safeguards and how they are applied through
training opportunities at the Foreign Service Institute,
through the recruitment of these AAAS fellows where you bring
in those with some science background that can basically be on
the staff, and it is a resource for other officers who may not
have quite that same background. And sometimes someone with the
real hard-core science background does not necessarily know how
to integrate it into the policy discussions. And so that can be
a resource where you have people who understand the policy
ramifications more that can tap into some of that scientific
expertise.
We also work closely with the Department of Energy, the
Department of Defense, others that--they obviously bring--as
well as our intelligence community many times to augment a
delegation to support U.S. interests. We will look to some of
those experts around the government. We do not limit ourselves
simply to what is on the State Department manifest. And so
there are really a range of ways, but, again, I would get to
the point of recruitment and some of these younger officers,
getting them in. Our current front office structure at the
senior levels, we have one officer with a Ph.D., one with a
M.D,, another with a Master's, and myself with a law degree. So
we have kind of covered the range of alphabet soup of degrees
out there, and I think having that blend and that mix is really
part of the effort as well.
Senator Akaka. Ms. McNerney, what positions at the
ambassadorial level are reserved for Civil Service substantive
experts?
Ms. McNerney. That is one of the areas, I think, where
there is--obviously within the Foreign Service they guard
closely their ability to maintain the ambassadorial rank
positions. And so we are somewhat limited, really, in having
those. We do have the Ambassador to the Conference on
Disarmament who reports to our bureau. We also have the
Ambassador to the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical
Weapons (OPCW). Again, that is a direct report to our bureau.
And we have on staff now--both have retired this year,
actually. They have kind of tapped out, but Ambassador Don
Mahley and Ambassador Mike Guhin, what we have done is retained
them and their expertise through contract to continue doing
work for us even as they have retired. And that is an important
aspect of maintaining some of the expertise we have spent so
many years developing as well.
Senator Akaka. Ms. McNerney, I notice that few of your
senior leaders--that is, office director and above--are female
career civil servants or Foreign Service officers. What is your
plan to develop women and minorities for senior leadership
roles in the ISN Bureau?
Ms. McNerney. Well, actually, things have changed a bit.
People are kind of joking that I am turning it into an all-
female staff. But in our front office, myself and Mary Alice
Hayward are two of the senior officers. We have additionally
two male officers, one of them who is Acting Deputy Assistant
Secretary, also of minority descent--Asian American. And when
you look down to our office directors, we now have Ambassador
Rita Ragsdale, who is one of the Ambassadors, one of the office
directors, as well as an additional Foreign Service officer who
heads our Export Control Office, as well as another female
officer who runs our missile technology regime.
Then if you look down another layer, the women really--a
number of them are deputies, and a number of officers as well
that we are really kind of bringing up the ranks.
So, some of this is generational as kind of the development
process happens. But I certainly think if you look really
across the bureau at both the leadership, the emerging
leadership of women, and the sort of mid-level as well as the
entry level, you see a lot of very capable women, strong women,
and I think also we try to--obviously want to attract across
the board not only from the female standpoint but all
minorities, and try to really attract and have a talented but
diverse workforce. And I think we are succeeding there.
Senator Akaka. Now that you have used the word
``minorities,'' let me ask you, what are your plans to develop,
bringing in what we call a diverse group of personnel, into
your Department and to diversify the personnel there?
Ms. McNerney. Obviously, we do all our hiring through the
legal processes that are put before us. But, I think, all
things considered, we are doing a pretty good job of attracting
a pretty diverse workforce. The Department traditionally was
sort of the white man's group, and I think Secretary Rice likes
to look back at the last 12 years, and it certainly has been a
different face at the top, which also sends a very strong
message for recruitment as well. And I think certainly one of
the things I have tried to look at not only looking at those
with the top credentials, but seeing if there are some talented
young officers that maybe did not have the opportunities for
schooling or for education, but they look like they are bright
and they want to work hard, look at ways we can really help
them integrate into our workforce and to ensure through legal
methods that we have the kind of workforce that one would
expect at the State Department.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Taglialatela, would you care to make
comments on this question that I just asked?
Ms. Taglialatela. It has been the policy of the Department
and our goal to have a diverse workforce. Particularly when you
look at what our role is, we want to be the face of America, in
our embassies overseas, and here in Washington as well. And
this is where we have relied very heavily on the Presidential
Management Fellows. We have a very engaged career entry program
for recent college graduates, and we also rely very heavily on
our internship program to attract a diverse population.
The State Department has 17 diplomats in residence who are
all career Foreign Service officers, many of whom have served
as Ambassadors, located at universities throughout the United
States. While they are assigned to a particular university,
they actually cover regions, and they deal with particularly
diverse populations where they seek out and try to make young
people aware of what the State Department is, what we do, what
are the opportunities there for you, and encourage them to
consider the State Department as an internship.
We find that many young people who have no idea what the
State Department is or truly what we do, once they come to an
internship for a summer as a sophomore or a junior, many get
hooked on what we do and start to think about it as a career
for the future. So we really rely very heavily on our diplomats
in residence and other individuals who travel around the United
States to encourage young people to consider it as an
occupation.
Senator Akaka. I will have two more questions for both of
you. In previous testimony, it was suggested that the Foreign
Service creates few incentives for Foreign Service officers to
obtain the knowledge for leadership positions in
nonproliferation and arms control. How would you develop a
career path for FSOs in these areas?
Ms. McNerney. Well, one of the challenges we really do have
as a bureau is attracting Foreign Service officers. And I think
that the reason for that is in terms of if you are looking at a
career track as a Foreign Service officer, spending a couple
years at a bureau, a functional bureau, really does not build
the kind of relationships out to the embassies, because the
regional bureaus control the hiring out at those embassies. And
so it has been a perennial challenge for us to really attract
good officers. And those that work the issues out in a post, we
work with very closely. There is usually a political-military
officer who does the range of nonproliferation and security
issues out at an embassy, and that individual builds those
relationships with us back here, but when they come back to
Washington, tend to want to go to the regional bureaus. And the
best and the brightest--the ones you want to attract,
obviously--are obviously going to be looking at their career
and their future and trying to build that.
So it really has been a challenge for us to be able to get
the top Foreign Service officers. In fact, many of our postings
for vacancies just go unfilled. And so what we do instead is
try to convert those for short-term hiring and at least get an
ability to bring in some talented people to do the work that is
required, because we do need to be meeting our requirements
regardless of whether we can attract the Foreign Service.
I have talked to the Director General about this, and I
just have really encouraged him to think about how he can
seriously take a look at attracting good Foreign Service
officers through incentives. And if there isn't a mechanism or
if it is decided that they would like to keep the status quo,
then we need to seriously consider switching those to Civil
Service positions, because certainly the workload is not going
away just because a Foreign Service officer does not bid on a
post. But, I think certainly, if we are talking about building
the expertise of the Foreign Service in these areas--and these
are great challenges of the day, obviously--a tour in one of
our bureaus certainly would be an ideal way to develop that
kind of capability.
Senator Akaka. Would you care to make a comment on that,
Ms. Taglialatela?
Ms. Taglialatela. Yes. The Director General is fully aware
of the problems we have recruiting people to the non-
traditional Foreign Service bureaus, the functional bureaus in
particular. And I think we are always encouraging officers to
do a tour in a bureau that is not traditional to his or her
occupational series or career track.
What we have done for the Foreign Service officers is
create a career development plan that says before you can move
from the Foreign Service into the Senior Foreign Service, you
have to have done a number of things. And based on the
individual cones, we encourage officers to serve out of their
particular career track. We encourage them to serve in bureaus
other than regional bureaus. But along with that, we encourage
them to learn more than one language, serve in several
different bureaus in several different regions when they are
overseas. We are attempting to stimulate them to become true
generalists, have broader backgrounds, and hopefully this way
we will encourage them to look at these opportunities.
Right now, because of the demands on Iraq, Afghanistan,
Pakistan, China, India, and the fact that we have not gotten
additional Foreign Service officers, unfortunately we have a
shortage of Foreign Service officers, particularly at the mid-
levels, to fill positions. We have asked in our 2009 budget for
additional resources. We are working with Congress as they look
at our 2009 budget to see if, in fact, we can get additional
resources. But as long as there are more jobs than there are
people, obviously they are going to pick the jobs that they
find to be more career enhancing in their perspective.
Senator Akaka. Do you have any recommendations for
improving the organizational structure and staffing for the T
Bureau? If so, what are your top three?
Ms. McNerney. Well, I guess I have read the transcripts
from the last hearing. The one thing I would recommend highly
that we do not try to do is re-create a separate agency. I
would bet some money that if you went around and polled the
employees and asked them, ``Do you want to work at the State
Department or a separate agency?'' you would hear
overwhelmingly that these officers are proud to be working at
the State Department. They feel they are integrated into the
policy structure, and that is where they certainly would like
to stay.
I think an area for encouragement, sort of my second point,
would be if you are going to continue to encourage officers to
stay with it, move up the chain, you have got to have
incentives for movement up to the SES level. There has been a
reduction across the government, I believe--Linda can get into
that--in the number of SES slots. And so there is limited sort
of ceilings for people as they are moving up the chain. And so
looking at whether you cannot create a few more of these kinds
of incentives to young officers that see a career path that is
not going to stop at a GS-14 or GS-15 is obviously essential to
continuing that kind of movement.
And then I think the third recommendation might be to look
at whether there isn't a way to hire a little bit uniquely for
some of this expertise that we need to attract. The hiring
processes are cumbersome, and you have requirements about how
you go about attracting good people. We, as I say, do it by the
book, but it is pretty difficult to find someone with some of
the background and capability using sort of the typical
processes unless you are going to start sort of young, as I
discussed, and kind of train them and groom them. And then, of
course, any officer for any sorts of reasons can decide they
want to move to another agency, move to another bureau within
the Department, quit government and move somewhere else, take a
break from working for a period of time. All those things
through all of it, nothing is sort of fail-safe as you develop
these kinds of incentives. But I think to the degree that we
sort of see long-term ability to move up the chain and to have
some of the rank and position, that is a great incentive for
Civil Service officers.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Taglialatela.
Ms. Taglialatela. Thank you, sir. One of the things we did
2 years ago was we created our Civil Service Mid-Level Rotation
program. This program allows a number of Civil Service
employees to apply, and once selected, swap jobs so that there
is no vacant job, but they all move to a different bureau. Most
of them have analytical reporting, writing, advocacy kinds of
training backgrounds so that at the GS-12/GS-13, they are
actually learning to use their skills in a different
substantive area.
Sometimes it is more difficult to do it in highly technical
areas such as the T Bureau family, but one of the things we
could consider to give them greater experience is to allow
them--or set up something within just the T family where they
rotate amongst the bureaus there and develop different
perspectives of the same sort of subject matter.
As far as the SES program goes, the State Department has
implemented a SES candidate program. We are in the process of
selecting the candidates. We have 98 candidates applying for
five to six candidate positions. We will be interviewing
candidates in the next month. There are highly qualified
candidates from throughout the Department, but including the T
family.
Another thing we probably need to look at in greater detail
is opportunities for either training or developmental
assignments for individuals. I think one of the things that is
very frustrating across the State Department is the fact that
we do run two personnel systems. Civil Service employees tend
to get in a position and stay in them for a very long time,
very traditional to all the other Federal agencies.
Unfortunately, we have Foreign Service officers who rotate
every 2 to 3 years in Washington and overseas, and I think
people get the lust to move on, do different things, have
greater experiences because they see their colleagues who are
sitting right next to them doing just that.
So it has presented a problem to the Department which we
are looking at, such as through the Civil Service Mid-Level
program and other kinds of training programs and developmental
assignments to help the Civil Service get greater flexibility
in being able to move around the Department.
Senator Akaka. I would like to thank both of you for your
testimony and your responses. However, I am concerned that the
arms control, counterproliferation, and nonproliferation
bureaucracy has been crippled by the 2005 bureau reorganization
as well as by the ACDA merger with the State Department in
1999. I am not convinced this bureaucracy in its current state
has the human capital and organizational structures in place to
respond to future challenges. This Subcommittee will continue
to focus on reforms to critical aspects of our national
security. Over the next few months, we will examine the foreign
assistance and public diplomacy bureaucracies and processes.
I will also be looking at transition planning. There will
be a new President next January and new leadership at the State
Department. We must take every step to ensure continuity in key
positions at the Department, especially in light of the high
rate of retirements within the Foreign and Civil Service ranks.
Before we adjourn, I want to acknowledge a large group of
students from California who I understand are in this audience.
Is that correct? Yes. Well, welcome. I am glad you are here,
and I want to express the hope that you have paid attention to
the opportunities for public service in the State Department.
And I hope you would look with interest in taking up some of
those opportunities. And I want to welcome you from California
to this hearing.
The hearing record will be open for one week for additional
statements or questions other Members may have.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:38 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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