…only the CIA and the U.S. Armed Forces are at war.
state department to be featured on milk cartons
By streiff Posted in War — Comments (14) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
So declared retired General Barry McCaffrey nearly two years ago in a letter to colleagues at the US Military Academy.
The State Department actually cannot direct assignment of their officers to serve in Iraq. State frequently cannot staff essential assignments such as the new PRTs which have the potential to produce such huge impact in Iraq. The bottom line is that only the CIA and the U.S. Armed Forces are at war. This situation cries out for remedy.
Nothing has changed.
Read on.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Congress yesterday that more than 40 percent of nearly 300 State Department positions to be added in Iraq as part of President Bush's new strategy will have to be filled by military personnel.
"Frankly, the agencies of the U.S. government cannot fill that many posts" as quickly as necessary, Rice said at a hearing of the House Foreign Relations Committee yesterday morning. "And so our agreement with the Department of Defense was that for a period of time . . . we would actually use reservists to fill those positions."
The State Department has asked the Pentagon for 129 people to fill slots in "business development, agribusiness, medicine, city management" and other areas for 10 new provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs), according to David Satterfield, Rice's coordinator for Iraq, who spoke to reporters in an afternoon briefing.
The only downside to using someone else’s people to do your job is that such an agreement with Defense may not exist.
In a Senate hearing Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said that he shares the concerns raised by senior military officers over a Rice memo detailing the request. Their reaction, Gates said, "was mild compared to my reaction when I saw it."
This type of unmitigated crap makes primal scream therapy seem reasonable.
Let there be no doubt, Provincial Reconstruction Teams are how the Long War will be won. There should be no higher priority for any agency than staffing them. But going on six years after 9/11 and four years after the invasion of Iraq the State Department is still sitting on it’s rather plump and ample butt and refusing to participate in the most important diplomatic undertaking that benighted department has confronted in a couple of decades.
For a brief moment last August it appeared that State might actually decide it is part of the war effort. There was talk of foreign service officers actually being dynamited out of Europe and Foggy Bottom and sent to where they are desperately needed. But apparently no deal. The word from State is “we don’t do uncomfortable.”
That the president and two successive secretaries of state have allowed this critical mass of entitlement mentality to mope along comfortably, handing off the heaving lifting to dragooned military personnel and contractors, just beggars the imagination.
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…only the CIA and the U.S. Armed Forces are at war. 14 Comments (0 topical, 14 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
or have a lot of regard for tpm in general bear with me.
1. I couldn't have made a stronger case, myself. Some may want to defend a personnel policy that leaves PRTs unstaffed so nearly 200 positions can be filled in Pretoria. I am not one of them.
2. Actually I don't ask about incentives. I talk about dereliction of duty.
3. Gee, what happens to the military guys?
4. Strawman. The State department is woefully deficient in language skills. Not only are the skills absent, but assignments do not necessarily reflect language proficiency. In fact, there is really no evidence that Swahili speakers are regularly assigned to East Africa. Read my linked story on reform at State and how assignments are managed.
5. Tough poop, if you can't handle the potential angst then go sell stocks on Wall Street otherwise sack up and do your job.
It was the only thing I could find that tried to give a coherent explanation of State's staffing problems. I too find their arguments to be rather uncompelling.
is that State is run to further the career interests of foreign service officers not the interests of the United States. There is nothing unusual or villainous about this, this is the way organizations operate unless there is incredible vigilance on the part of whoever is running it.
FSOs can't be assigned involuntarily and assignments are bid on a seniority basis. So what happens is that you have the younger, least experienced FSOs in high impact places like Dushanbe, Yerevan, Tblisi... and Baghdad. You find the most experienced in London, Berlin, Rome, Paris... and Foggy Bottom.
The military has its own careerist problems but a prohibition on involuntary assignments is not one of them.
more adventurous, but I worked with some experienced career FSO's who volunteered for non-garden spots like Sarajevo (when it first reopened), Indonesia and some of the rougher corners in Africa. The political appointees, however, tend to be drawn to the cognac circuit. State should have some capability to re-assign staff, not everyone needs to be a ARLIN to serve in the middle east.
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"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison
4. Strawman. The State department is woefully deficient in language skills. Not only are the skills absent, but assignments do not necessarily reflect language proficiency. In fact, there is really no evidence that Swahili speakers are regularly assigned to East Africa. Read my linked story on reform at State and how assignments are managed.
About two years ago, I was in a training session with a State Department linguist and we talked a bit about the differences between State and Military Linguists (I'm a Russian Linguist for the AF). What struck me the most was how he described that State had a tendency to hire folks with a degree in one language, then send them to crash courses in other languages before sending them to serve in places they were woefully unprepared for. By failing to target specific language areas at hiring time, they set themselves up for failure.
This is one symptom of a government-wide problem in how we handle foreign language issues, but that drifts away from the topic at hand.
When all else fails, simply revel in the absurdity of it all.
The bottom line is that Rice can't force people to go. She can get people to go to Baghdad with incentives, but we're talking Outside the Green Zone stuff here, with the PRT's.
This is John Paul Vann stuff. The people who came up with the PRT's got it out of John Paul Vann's playbook. This is the same kind of resistance she's getting from the people who don't want to move from Paris to Djakarta.
One of the commenters at TPM indicated that it's the younger guys who will get up and go, the guys who want adventure and promotion. Mid-level people with experience don't want to go out into the sticks and risk being beheaded in the middle of Anbar. It's as simple as that.
I couldn't help my puckish self and told the assembled libs that Condi would end up hiring Blackwater Guys in lizard hats, black t-shirts, Oakley sunglasses, and the AK with the folding paratrooper stock under the seat if she had to.
Condi wants to help out, but her institution sees the Theater as a career killer. Literally. Plus, they are marking time until Hillary comes. Wouldn't it be sad if a President Giuliani remembered who volunteered, and who didn't?
Let's face one last fact: DOD was not exactly a fountain of cooperation and invitational effort during the early days after the Invasion. Basically, State was told to go pound sand. There's a lot of institutional resentment going on.
"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it"-Winston Churchill
Replaced by Blackwater contractors is a good idea.
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
Senior Writer
Oops, forgot for a moment that only the Ivy League educated and Oh-So-Social need apply at State.
In Vino Veritas
would we even want them to be involved? There has probably been too much State Dept interference in the war already, and thats a large part of why we are where we are.
placed under Gates. Or whoever heads the Dept of Agriculture these days.
I'm shocked more former State Dept employees aren't running for US Senate. They've got the initial qualifications down pat, they are sniveling crapweasels.
___________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
Senior Writer
Yeah, an acquaintance of mine, fluent Portuguese speaker, with graduate degree in same. Perfect for Portugal, Brazil, Angola, etc., right? So what did State do, sent him for a crash course in Korean and posted him to Seoul.....
who served in the consulate in Berlin, FRG, were fluent Spanish speakers. One came to Berlin from a tour in Nigeria. Neither had been assigned to a Spanish speaking country.
State's always been a day late and a dollar short. I've been reading Scott Bowden's "Guests of the Ayatollah" about the Iranian takeover of our embassy. Back then, only a handful of the embassy staff had a working knowledge of Farsi and only one or two had fluency. According to Bowden, the infamous "spy nest" at the Embassy didn't have much more of a clue about what was going on in Iran than anyone back home who read the newspapers. The CIA's main interest in-country was re-starting the listening posts set up to keep an eye on the Soviets.
FWIW, for those "stability" mavens (Jim Baker, call your office) out there, in another poignant snapshot from Bowden's book, Carter flew into Tehran in 1977 to toast the Shah and fulsomely praise the regime there for the "stability" it brought to the region. Well, we all know how that turned out. I'm sure Carter's statements reflected the conventional views of State and the national security organs. Here we are thirty years later and the American government is still fumbling around in developing a coherent diplomatic response to Islamic extremism, save pretending that Musharraf, the House of Saud, et al., are our "allies."
via http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002496.php (sorry, I don't know how to embed links)
"There are a number of reasons why State folks are not chomping at the bit for those jobs.
1. 350 positions is A LOT. To put into perspective, some HR stats on State Department authorized total numbers at various embassies (these are just State Dept. staffing):
Emb. Cairo: 183
Emb. New Delhi: 203
Emb. Beijing: 249
Emb. Mexico City: 199
Emb. Moscow: 203
Emb. Pretoria: 124
Those are the authorized numbers. The actual staffing at those Embassies appears to be 10-15% less. And I've just given you the largest embassies in these regions -- the smaller ones would be even more severly impacted by officers moving out to go to Baghdad. And though the upper brass may disagree, I think that a lot of State folks realize that there are other important diplomatic priorities in addition to Iraq.
2. You ask about incentives. Sure, there are some. But at this point it seems that there's a strong sense that the benefit of serving in Iraq is being watered down. By benefit, I mean promotion, recognition, etc. State folks aren't in it for the money -- and that's the largest benefit of serving in Iraq. State is trying all kinds of other carrots in regards to future assignments & whatnot, but with so many folks serving or having served already, the likelihood of the benefits actually sticking? Seem slim.
3. Of course, there is the fact that State officers are political pragmatists as well. What happens when the administration changes? It may be that even the actual, promised benefits disappear.
4. Why would a seasoned Africa hand with fluent Swahili want to serve in Baghdad? Seems like a funny question, but given the stress context and regional knowhow is given in diplomacy, its important.
5. We all remember this moment. There may be some of us who don't want to be there if it happens again."
I cannot believe that we can't find the people to do the things that need doing in Iraq. Streiff is absolutely correct in saying that this situation is not being treated with the seriousness it deserves.