Get Ready for the RiceHadley Strategy Group

Image via Wikipedia

Zachary Roth of TPMmuckraker had some great news on Condi Rice and Stephen Hadley, Rice And Hadley Look Set To Launch Consulting Firm | November 11, 2009, 3:18PM:

"Two top Bush administration officials whose reputations for strategic acumen were badly damaged by the disasters of the Bush years may be about to market their expertise to private-sector clients.

In September, the RiceHadley Group LLC was registered as a business in California, under a San Francisco address. According to a source, the venture is to be a "strategic consulting" firm, headed by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, and will be launched imminently."

Possible company slogans and other advice also offered for free at TPM comments!

In a statement to TPMmuckraker, Rice's chief of staff, Colby Cooper, said:

"Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, along with Anja Manuel, have recently founded a small strategic advisory firm focused on helping U.S. companies doing business abroad -- especially in key emerging markets like China, India, Brazil, the Middle East and others. In addition, Dr. Rice remains on the faculty of Stanford University and the Hoover Institution."

Anja Manuel was a former aide to former “P”, Nick Burns and currently counsel in WilmerHale's Litigation/Controversy Department.

Al Kamen of WaPo points out that RiceHadley is just “the latest big-time entrants in the endless battle of the groups -- as in the Kissinger Group, the Scowcroft Group, the Chertoff Group (with former CIA director Mike Hayden) and so many other strategery outfits.” (links added)

He forgot to mention the Albright Stonebridge Group of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Security Advisor Samuel Berger that merged this past July. Um what? Are you complaining that we have too many of these folks around? Excuse me - but can you imagine just how boring Washington would be without the strategerist ...

Related articles by Zemanta

• Condi & Hadley Determined to Strike in U.S. (firedoglake.com)
• Worst. Idea. Ever. (crooksandliars.com)

State’s “T” Bureau: Where Restructuring Was “Easy” as Pie...

And Condi’s transformational diplomacy went kaplunk

Well, I guess the marching order was to “restructure” so they did. Nobody said it had to be coherent or needed an end state. “Just do it!” Like the ad campaign says. 400 employees were reportedly impacted – but heck -- you don’t have to agree with it, just move wherever they want you to move your desk, right? There were complaints that staff decisions were politically motivated – aw -- I mean, really!

Here is the 2005 on-the-record briefing on the Reorganization of the Bureaus to Better Address the Threat From Weapons and Mass Destruction and to Promote Democracy: “It had to be done right because it is absolutely essential, as part of what the Secretary calls transformational diplomacy, that we readjust the structure of the State Department bureaus in order to be able to best contribute to the national security agenda that has been set by the President.”

Sigh ;> A funny thing happened on the inkway to the history books.  The GAO
just came out with  its assessment of the restructuring of the Nonproliferation,
Arms Control, and Verification and Compliance bureaus in 2005.  Below is a
summary of its finding:

State cannot demonstrate that the 2005-2006 restructuring of its Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and Verification and Compliance bureaus achieved all of its objectives because it did not clearly define the objectives and lacked metrics to assess them. State’s objectives were to enable it to better focus on post -September 11 challenges; reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies and top-heavy management; and eliminate overlap. State sought to achieve its first objective by creating new offices and roles to address terrorism and counterproliferation issues.

To meet its second objective, State merged three bureaus having 30 offices and functions into two bureaus having 26 offices and functions and freed up staff slots for these new roles, but problems with workload mismatches persisted after the reorganization as State employees noted it left some offices overworked and some offices underworked. State cannot demonstrate that it met its third objective, reducing top-heavy management, as its goals were undefined. Although it reduced the number of senior executives from 27 to 20 and reduced office directorships, the overall number of higher-ranking employees increased from 91 to 100 and executive office staff increased from 44 to 50.

Moreover, concerns about mission overlap persist, in part because bureau roles remain undefined in the FAM. State’s reorganization addressed few of the key practices for organizational mergers and transformations that GAO developed in 2002. These practices are found to be at the center of successful mergers and transformations. As illustrated below, State generally addressed one key practice, partially addressed two, and did not address the remaining five. For example, State did not address establishing coherent mission and strategic goals because it did not define an end state with measurable goals, nor did it devise a means to gauge progress toward such goals or assess the results of actions taken. As a result, State lacks reasonable assurance that the reorganization achieved its objectives or that it can identify any lessons learned.

The GAO’s damning assessment of the reorganization process includes the following on State’s unsystematic approach and its contribution to staff and employee group concerns:

Instead of using the above [GAO identified] practices to plan, implement, and assess the results of the restructuring, State reorganized the bureaus unsystematically, contributing to staff and employee group criticisms of the process and suspicions that some staff decisions had been politically motivated. State officials told us that they spent most of their time in the months before September 2005 developing the organizational structure for the new bureau and little time planning to implement the reorganization. In the wake of the reorganization, some ISN staff stated they perceived morale within their bureau to be lower. According to State data, attrition rates rose to levels higher than the average for State’s civil service as a whole.

To implement the reorganization, the T human resource office furnished an informal implementation guide to the SMP at the panel’s request. This paper envisioned a reorganization directed by the Bureau of Human Resources and the T bureaus’ human resource office, while the SMP would serve as an advisory body that would recommend specific actions, such as decisions on acting directors, staffing levels, and other details for the new ISN offices. Instead, according to a senior T official, the SMP made its own implementing decisions and reduced HR’s and the T bureaus’ human resource office’s roles to ensuring that State followed all applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

State officials and employees expressed concerns about the SMP’s direction and conduct of the reorganization even before the panel made its first public announcement about the reorganization on September 28, 2005. While the Office of the Legal Advisor and HR stated that the SMP could direct the reorganization, some officials in HR and the T bureaus’ human resource office disagreed with this decision.38 According to T bureau officials, they were concerned that the panel’s members were not sufficiently knowledgeable about change and personnel management principles. On September 29, 2005—the day after the SMP sent out its summary of the reorganization procedures—a senior T bureaus’ official with human resource responsibilities sent an e-mail to the SMP stating that it was not following sound personnel management principles.39 The email also stated that the SMP had ignored or misinterpreted her office’s recommendations, advice, and suggestions to the extent that the office had been unable to contribute meaningfully to the reorganization process.

Some ISN employees and AFSA officials also criticized the SMP’s decisions after it publicly announced its reorganization procedures and named acting office directors in September 2005. Eleven ISN employees wrote a memorandum to the Undersecretary for Management and the Director General of the Foreign Service in October 2005, stating that morale was poor within the new ISN bureau. ⁴⁰ Moreover, these employees stated that the SMP’s selections for acting office directors (which resulted in passing over several experienced officials for these positions) reinforced their doubts about the impartiality of the process, as did the lack of career officials or representatives from the T bureaus’ human resource office, HR, and the Office of the Legal Advisor. They also expressed concern about other aspects of the process, such as the requirement to express workforce preferences without first having concrete position and office mission descriptions, position grades, or the names of permanent office directors or deputies. The employees asked the Undersecretary for Management and the Director General of the Foreign Service to suspend the reorganization until a comprehensive staffing plan had been developed and add career civil service or FSOs and HR staff to the SMP, among other actions. AFSA expressed similar concerns in a November 2005 letter to the Secretary of State and noted that the reorganization could result in the potential downgrade or elimination of Foreign Service-designated positions. It also requested, among other things, that State form an independent panel to review all proposed reorganization decisions related to Equal Employment Opportunity concerns and allegations of prohibited personnel practices. In response to these concerns, State named a career official to the SMP, and included representatives of the HR bureau and the Office of the Legal Advisor in the SMP’s discussions, and agreed to have HR review the position descriptions of the acting office directors and prepare new position descriptions where necessary.

The lack of confidence in the reorganization may have adversely affected staff morale and may have contributed to increased ISN civil service attrition rates that immediately followed the reorganization, according to current and former State officials and documents. Twelve percent of ISN’s full-time civil service employees retired or otherwise left the bureau in fiscal 2006, the highest level for the bureau and its predecessors from fiscal year 2004 to fiscal year 2008. In contrast, State’s overall civil service attrition rate during the same period averaged about 8 percent.

Wouldn’t you want to know who former Secretary of State Rice appointed to that Senior Management Panel (SMP) tasked with restructuring these bureaus? I think the GAO should start naming names; it is, after all, an agency tasked with providing accountability reports.

Back in 2006, Dean Rust, a 35-year veteran of Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and State (who was acting deputy director of the office that dealt with nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency matters) did write about this one in Reorganization Run Amok, a must read if you want an excellent background on this restructuring effort.

My jaded brain assumes that exceptionally talented individuals must now be sharing their restructuring and reorganization talents from some corner offices earning VPs or directorship salaries. Fabulous, really! And no consequences for the mess left behind.

Still, considering that Gonzo did manage to find a job after leaving a higgledy-piggledy DOJ, I am convinced now more than ever that if there is ever a place where second chances can be a lucrative gig (and it might as well be in the bill of rights) -- that is the United States of America. [According to Texas Tech Provost Bob Smith, Gonzales' $100,000 paycheck is on-par with the amount paid to other university employees who are high performers with significant experience or expertise. Someone with a national presence and a long list of accomplishments would be hired at the full professor level," Smith said.]

This is when I get fire ants in my pants -- because really -- where else but in the USA can radioactive blokes “re-invent” themselves time after time, counting on the public’s short memory and apathy, and rise again to wreck havoc once every few years -- all in the name of serving the public like you and me? PS: No offense to the real public servants who gets restructured and realigned and reinvented and rightsized under whatever ice cream flavor is hot.

Related Items:

• GAO-09-738: STATE DEPARTMENT Key Transformation Practices Could Have Helped in Restructuring Arms Control and Nonproliferation Bureaus | July 2009 | PDF
  
  
  
  


• On-the-Record Briefing: Reorganization of the Bureaus to Better Address the Threat from Weapons and Mass Destruction and to Promote Democracy | 2005 | PDF

Grading Condi: Is this a C+ or a D ?

The Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) is a nonpartisan umbrella group of 11 organizations concerned about U.S. diplomatic readiness (www.facouncil.org). It has just released its Task Force Report “Managing Secretary Rice’s State Department: An Independent Assessment, May 2009.”

Only the FAC analyses Secretaries as institutional managers. Its report says that their objective is to focus Secretaries of State on resource and management issues by analyzing achievements as well as problems in this dimension of their responsibilities.

Some excerpts below from the report. Read the whole thing here.

As this report documents, Secretary Rice’s performance was central to the failure in achieving adequate resources. On the other hand, she played a key role in successful efforts to better coordinate economic development and start to build a reconstruction and stabilization surge capacity.
[…]
[D]espite dramatic increases in staffing needs worldwide during her tenure in office, Secretary Rice managed to secure only eight new positions for the Foreign Service in her first three annual budget requests (excluding positions funded from special sources for consular and security personnel). During these three years Secretary Rice did not commit her personal efforts in the struggles with OMB and Congress. Instead, as noted above, it was only in the Bush Administration's final budget request that she sought a significant number of new positions.

Secretary Rice does not, of course, bear full responsibility for the current personnel gaps. Secretary James Baker decided that embassies in the 13 new states emerging from the collapse of the Soviet Union would be staffed within existing resources. During Secretary Warren Christopher’s tenure the intake of junior officers was all but suspended for several years. Secretary Albright did little to increase resources when Yugoslavia disintegrated into seven new countries and public diplomacy and USAID lost significant human and financial resources as the “peace dividend” was cashed. Only Secretary Colin Powell fought the good fight with OMB and the Congress and gained about 1,200 new positions in his “Diplomatic Readiness Initiative.” Unfortunately, these new positions were quickly absorbed by the civilian surges in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
[…]
In summary, Secretary Rice’s initial three years of virtual inaction on the staffing front left our foreign affairs agencies hobbled by a human capital crisis. Despite her clear responsibility to lead and manage the foreign affairs agencies under the 150 account of the national budget, Secretary Rice fell short when it came to properly maintaining the platform upon which diplomacy and development assistance are conducted.

Condi Rice: In Her Own Words

“No dear, you’re wrong … we did not torture anyone”

Did she really? Did the former National Security Adviser and the 66^th Secretary of State really said all those things that are ricochetting around the blogosphere? Let’s see …

Um …that did not go down outstandingly well, did it? It spawned sparks around the net, here, here , here and here. Even former Nixon White House counsel John Dean waded in.

On Sunday, May 3^rd at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue, Dr. Rice was back on the public sphere, at the podium this time for the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Lecture (h/t to CQ for the transcript, read it here).

In the Q&A after the lecture, she talked a bit about her professorial skills on that video taken by Stanford student, Reyna Garcia:

Dr. Rice:

“This is really hard, right? This is a very hard issue. And I think the debate about it is appropriate and I don’t have any problem debating it. I was asked this by a Stanford student, famously now, on YouTube. And I thought two things: I thought you know, good, we should be talking about this. I also thought I need to work on my professorial skills a little bit – I think I’ve been in Washington a little too long in the way that I talked to the student.”

Yes, she did say, “We were as deaf and dumb and blind on September 10^th as you could possibly be.”

Dr. Rice:

“But I do think that it is important to do this in a context of remembering the times and in giving people the benefit of the doubt that these were people of good will – and I mean everybody who was doing this – who had the hardest possible dilemmas and choices before them. There were second-wave attacks planned. We knew virtually nothing about how al Qaeda operated. We were as deaf and dumb and blind on September 10^th as you could possibly be.

Now, the president in that context – in that circumstance – said what more can we do to protect the country? But he was very clear every time I talked to him – every time he talked to any of us – but it has to be within our legal obligations – both our international obligations and our domestic obligations. That is why we saw an opinion from the Justice Department and ultimately, from the attorney general himself, about what our obligations were and what the agency was proposing and how – whether or not this was legal.”

And what she said earlier, this was what she meant, “This was not a Nixon/Frost moment.”

Dr. Rice:

“Now, there’s been another confusing statement – I said at one point that it was, therefore, a given that the president – if the president authorized it, it was legal. This was not a Nixon/Frost moment. What I intended to say or what I meant to say about this is, the president said I won’t authorize anything that is illegal. It’s not that because he authorized it, it was legal. No, that’s a tautology. It was that he said, I won’t authorize anything that’s illegal.

Dong ma?

There’s really not much to add except to say … ya know … the Chinese has a popular saying that goes like this, "More talk more mistakes, less talk less mistakes, no talk no mistake."

Um … read the whole thing here (pdf), then sit back and wait for the next installment in this series. I’ll go watch Josh Whedon’s Dollhouse.

Do You Like Senate Holds and Jams?

Do you like senate holds and jams?
I do not like them,
Sam-I-am.
I do not like senate holds and jams.

If you don't like senate holds and jams
Go Email Sam, email Sam, stop the logjams!

That goes rather well, doesn’t it? Thank you, thank you, my rhyming dictionary is not so useless after all :-). I’ve recently written about the Hill nomination here and here and elsewhere. Why? It bugs me silly that a career public servant has to go through this crap for doing his job.

Anyway, today in the National Journal’s Lost in Transition section, Kirk Victor reports that Brownback Promises Battle On Iraq Nominee. Asked what he intends to do when Christopher Hill's nomination to be ambassador to Iraq reaches the Senate floor, Senator Brownback gave the following response:

Brownback: "We are going to fight hard against Chris. I met with him [on March 18] in my office and he did not allay any of my concerns. When he was conducting six-party talks, I asked him to involve the special envoy for human rights. He didn't want to do it. So I held up an ambassadorial nominee to South Korea. The State Department really wanted that ambassadorial nominee.

Finally [former Virginia GOP Senator] John Warner brokered a deal in the Armed Services Committee where Chris Hill was testifying and Warner had me ask questions. One of them was, "Will you invite the special envoy for human rights to the six-party talks?" He said yes, he would. That didn't happen. On his word of doing that, in front of open committee, I lifted my hold on the South Korea ambassador. So he misled me."

That’s the Special Envoy on North Korean Human Rights (huh?) by the way, who was publicly rebuked by then Secretary of State Rice in January 2008 for criticizing international negotiations aimed at persuading North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons program. “Rice said that Jay Lefkowitz, President Bush's special envoy on North Korean human rights, "doesn't know what's going on in the six-party talks, and he certainly has no say on what American policy will be in the six-party talks." Read more here.

Here's an idea -- maybe the good senators would like a conference call with Dr. Rice? She’s currently over at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, phone number (650) 725-7293. She probably will confirmed to them that Hill did not go “rogue” on her and that he did exactly what she told him to do. Because that’s what career diplomats do -- they follow orders or they get fired or they quit (yes, that, too). Since he did not quit and was not fired, he most probably certainly followed orders. Seriously? Diplomats get to pick their own ties, but they are not freelancers; they do not negotiate on their own without instructions from the mother ship. Oh, damn! But he did negotiate, didn’t he? Ewww -- qué barbaridad!

Meanwhile, Laura Rozen reports what the U.S. military's chief spokesman, Geoff Morrell, told The Cable Thursday: “Generals Odierno and Petraeus have come out very publicly and very forcefully in support of Ambassador Hill’s nomination. I know they support it. “With regards to [Senate] members who have issue with him, I would say this," Morrell added. “We appreciate their steadfast support of the Iraq mission. But you can’t be bullish in support of that mission and not send an ambassador in a timely fashion.”

As good old Mal would say, “Holy testicle Tuesday!” More later...

Related Item:
Is This the Hill Sam Brownback Wants to Die On?

Related Posts:

• Senator Brownback: Baghdad is Waiting
• Tempest on the Hill Over Christopher Hill’s Nomination?

In Praise of Our Greatness

Yes We Did!
Photo from The White House

Most folks have no idea how much we like awards. Linda Ingalls, an Office Management Specialist at our Embassy in Pretoria writes in the recent issue of the Foreign Service Journal │January 2009:

"The list of performance-pay recipients (announced in 08 State 110778) has swollen to over 270 members of the Senior Foreign Service. These bonuses total an estimated $3million […]

There was probably a time when performance pay meant something special, a time when the list was shorter and could almost be justified. Today, however, when embassies worldwide must identify painful cuts and freeze real jobs — threatening our ability to meet mission goals — ladling out millions of dollars in bonuses to our highest paid employees feels irresponsible and, frankly, grotesque."

So we give bonuses despite the budget cuts, eh? That's what I'd call the C+ Street bailout. Yay! As you may have seen from a previous post, there are also awards for foreign policy achievements, despite whatever. Except wait -- one FSO got a well-deserved medal and the CINC was the receiver (of two awards), not the giver of the achievement awards. I'm kinda dizzy here -- shouldn't the CINC be the one giving out awards instead of receiving awards? Whose management brainchild is this inverse reward pyramid, anyway?

For some reason this reminds me of the 1990's when there were hundreds of unfilled positions worldwide. Folks kept harping about it, so finally, somebody up decided to eliminate all the unfilled positions down. And voilà! No more unfilled problems, see? So I actually did not fell off my chair when I saw that big ceremony at the Ben Franklin Room. As one seasoned diplomat once counseled a younger charge, "Never be the one who says that an idea is bad." Not bad advice, just a very pragmatic one if you don't want to be banished from the upper floors.

But poor Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, of course he had no idea – and actually wondered if a “a prankster had hacked his way into the White House e-mail system” (Friday, January 16, 2009; Page A03) when he saw this advisory from the White House Office of Presidential Advance.

"Ceremony to Commemorate Foreign Policy Achievements"

He thought, “Two wars, the brink of global depression, and violence from Mumbai to Gaza? Par-tee!” Here is an excerpt of Milbank's biting account of people celebrating people:

With fanfare, they walked into the gilded Benjamin Franklin Room of the State Department yesterday: President Bush, the first lady, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Rice's deputy, John Negroponte. They had come to praise great people. Namely, themselves.

Rice presented Laura Bush with a framed "Certificate of Appreciation." Then she presented Bush with a "commemorative plaque." And another commemorative plaque, which, like the first, was sheathed in a gold curtain. Finally, she had an honor guard present her boss with five flags in nifty triangular boxes.

"Mr. President, we've been through a lot together," Rice told Bush.

"We've been through a lot together," Bush told Rice.

"Mr. President, history's judgment is rarely the same as today's headlines," Rice assured Bush.

"History will say that Condi Rice was one of the great secretaries of state our country has ever had," Bush assured Rice.

Dana Milbank also reports that Bush has released two legacy-burnishing booklets, the 40-page "100 Things Americans May Not Know About the Bush Administration Record" and the 50-page "Highlights of Accomplishments and Results of the Administration of George W. Bush." I have to add that there is a third tome – a 134-page document called A Charge Kept: The Record of the Bush Presidency 2001-2009. Milbank admitted that however laudatory these may be, “pamphlets can't touch the grandeur of a ceremony at the State Department -- and Rice put on a show for her boss yesterday with all the fixings: the crystal light fixtures, the presentation of the colors, the framed medals and flags. With a flourish, the military aide pulled back curtain No. 1 to reveal the first plaque, and curtain No. 2 to reveal the second plaque. "This one shows what you have done to expand the circle of human freedom in the world," Rice announced.”

Bush had no awards for Rice, but he did come with praise for her ("She's like my sister") and for himself. "In short, we've made our alliances stronger, we've made our nation safer, and we have made the world freer," he said.

Hmmn.... hmmn...


In December 2004, President Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to L. Paul Bremer III, Tommy R. Franks, and George J. Tenet at the White House.


How come no medals for “Ponte” and Condi? The West Wing will turn into a ghost town at 9 p.m. today. We don’t award medals on weekends, do we?

Ambassador Crocker Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom

Photo from The White House

There was a big do at the State Department yesterday. Secretary Rice led the ceremony to commemorate the outgoing administration's Foreign Policy Achievements (2001-2009) in the Benjamin Franklin Room and gave a nice speech. I find it interesting that Secretary Powell was not invited to participate in the ceremony considering that he "owned" the first half of what was commemorated at the event.

Mrs. Bush got a State Department's Certificate of Recognition and President Bush got a couple of commemorative plaques with shiny things on them. Click here to view a 35-minute video of the ceremony. But I must warn you -- the video clip contains explicit articulation from members of a mutual appreciation club. We don't want to give anyone a heart attack. Also, if you want to know what nickname President Bush has assigned to Secretary Negroponte, this is a "must-see" video.

At the later part of the same event, Ambassador Ryan Crocker received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian award. President Bush gave a brief speech prior to bestowing the award (starts at 26:00 in the video). Brief excerpt below:

As President, I have entrusted the Foreign Service with our nation's most critical diplomatic missions. I have relied on your expertise, your advice, and your good judgment. I will always be grateful for your valor and your professionalism.

Members of the Foreign Service bring this valor and professionalism to their work every single day. And there is one man who embodies these qualities above all: Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Over the years, Ryan has earned many honors, including the Presidential Meritorious Service Award and the rank of Career Ambassador. Today I have the privilege of honoring Ambassador Crocker with the highest civil award I can bestow -- the Presidential Medal of Freedom. (Applause.) It has not been bestowed yet. (Laughter.)

The son of an Air Force officer, Ryan Crocker has never been your typical diplomat. For social engagements, he likes to tell guests, "no socks required." (Laughter.) For language training, he once spent time herding sheep with a desert tribe in Jordan. For sport, he has jogged through war zones, and run marathons on four continents. And for assignments, his preference has always been anywhere but Washington. (Laughter.)

During his nearly four decades in the Foreign Service, Ryan Crocker has become known as America's Lawrence of Arabia. His career has taken him to every corner of the Middle East. His understanding of the region is unmatched. His exploits are legendary. He has served as ambassador to five countries. He has repeatedly taken on the most challenging assignments.

The man has never run from danger. As a young officer during the late 1970s, Ryan catalogued Saddam Hussein's murderous rise to power. In 1983, he survived the terrorist attack on the American embassy in Lebanon. In 1998, as the Ambassador to Syria, he witnessed an angry mob plunder his residence.

After any one of these brushes with danger, most people would have lost their appetite for adventure -- not Ryan Crocker. In the years since September the 11th, 2001, I have asked Ryan to hold numerous posts on the front lines of the war on terror, and he has stepped forward enthusiastically every time.

When the American embassy in Kabul reopened in the beginning of 2002, Ryan Crocker was our first envoy. When we liberated Iraq and removed the thug Saddam Hussein from power in 2003, I sent Ryan to help lead the reconstruction efforts. When the American embassy in Pakistan needed new leadership, Ryan Crocker was put in charge. In 2007, I asked Ryan to return for a final mission to Iraq as America's ambassador.

Two years later, Iraq is becoming a rising democracy, an ally in the war on terror, an inspiring model of freedom for people across the Middle East. When the story of this transformation is written, historians will note the extraordinary partnership between two exceptional men: General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. As the General carried out a surge of military forces to improve security, the Ambassador led a civilian surge to improve everyday life. In December, after months of intense negotiations, the world saw the culmination of Ambassador Crocker's masterful diplomacy -- two historic agreements for long-term cooperation between the United States and Iraq.

This is not the first time that Ambassador Crocker has executed a brilliant diplomatic maneuver in Baghdad. During a rotation at the American embassy nearly 30 years ago, he persuaded a young Foreign Service Officer named Christine Barnes to be his wife. (Laughter.) They have traveled the world together, and as Ryan prepares to retire from the Foreign Service, we wish the two of them many years of happiness. (Applause.)

General Petraeus recently said this about his retiring colleague: "It was a great honor for me to be his military wingman." And today it is my great honor to present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to one of the finest Foreign Service Officers in American history -- Ryan Clark Crocker. And now the military aide will read the citation. (Applause.)

MILITARY AIDE: Ryan C. Crocker. For nearly four decades, Ryan Crocker has advanced our nation's interests and ideals around the world. Embodying the highest principles of the United States Foreign Service, he has cultivated and enhanced our relations with pivotal nations. Following the attacks of September 11th, 2001, he worked to build a worldwide coalition to combat terrorism and help millions of oppressed people travel the path to liberty and democracy.

The United States honors Ryan C. Crocker for his courage, his integrity, and his unwavering commitment to strengthening our nation and building a freer and more peaceful world.

(The medal is presented.) (Applause.)

I think the speech writers forgot something here. Insert somewhere in paragraph #7: In 2002, Ryan Crocker co-wrote a secret memo examining the risks associated with a U.S. invasion of Iraq. The six-page memo, titled "The Perfect Storm", stated that toppling Saddam Hussein could unleash long-repressed sectarian and ethnic tensions, that the Sunni minority would not easily relinquish power, and that powerful neighbors such as Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia would try to move in to influence events. It also cautioned that the United States would have to start from scratch building a political and economic system because Iraq's infrastructure was in tatters. The secret memo was deep-sixed and he did the best he could in dealing with the aftermath.

Related Post:
In Defense of Ryan Crocker

Related Item:
Ryan Crocker’s Truth Telling

Ehud’s Foot in Mouth Exhibit

Photo from The White House

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel was widely reported as saying that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been forced to abstain from a UN resolution on Gaza that she helped draft, after he placed a phone call to President Bush.

“I said, ‘Get me President Bush on the phone,’ ” Mr. Olmert said in a speech in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, according to The Associated Press. “They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care: ‘I need to talk to him now,’ ” Mr. Olmert continued. “He got off the podium and spoke to me.”

Gee, I hope 43 did not interrupt his speech and get off the podium for some phone-talk, but on January 8, the same day when 14 of the 15 United Nations Security Council’s members voted in favor of the resolution (with only the US abstaining), President Bush was indeed giving a speech -- on the No Child Left Behind Act at the General Kearny School. In Philadelphia.

That's not giving me a very warm feeling here, you understand. The tenor of that story as reported does not even suggest a partnership but an unequal relationship with one party having enough influence to summon the other to get off the podium to talk. Then I saw this picture above and I thought - oh. my! Golly!


At the Daily Press Brief the following day, our Mr. McCormack had his hands full:

QUESTION: Yeah. Given Prime Minister Olmert’s comments yesterday, why should – why should anyone still – or why should anyone not believe that Israel is controlling U.S. foreign policy as it relates to the Middle East?

MR. MCCORMACK: I did see the reports of his comments, and let me just start off by saying I don’t know the context of the comments. I don’t know if they are reported accurately. I don’t know if the Israeli Government would say, yes, that is an accurate quote.

What I can tell you is that the quotes as reported are wholly inaccurate as to describing the situation – just 100 percent, totally, completely not true. And I can – you know, I can vouch for that, having been up there at the United Nations the entire time, witnessed Secretary Rice’s deliberations with her advisors. I knew about the phone calls that she was doing and I can tell you a couple things.

One, very early on in the process, as far back as Wednesday, the Secretary decided that we were – we, the United States, weren’t going to be put in a position of vetoing a resolution, made the decision to support going forward with a resolution. At that point, there was a debate whether or not we were going to try to get a presidential statement or a resolution. We decided that point – at that point that we were going to go for a resolution and we weren’t going to be – if we could get one that was agreeable to all the members of the Security Council, we weren’t going to be in a position to veto it.

Second, that afternoon, all that afternoon, Thursday afternoon, Secretary Rice’s recommendation and inclination the entire time was to abstain, for the reasons that she described both during the Security Council session and subsequently in interviews. So I can tell you with 100 percent assurance that her intention was 100 percent to recommend abstention. She, of course, consulted with Steve Hadley at the White House as well as with the President. I’ll let the White House describe any interactions between the President and Prime Minister Olmert. But – so this idea that somehow she was turned around on this issue is 100 percent, completely untrue.

That, of course, was not enough to feed the fish. So here’s more:

QUESTION: How could the prime minister of Israel get such a – you know, how – he certainly is under the impression that he singlehandedly prevented the United States from voting for this resolution.
[…]
QUESTION: Have you asked for clarification from the Israelis about these comments?
[…]
QUESTION: Well, this is the elected leader of – under – indicted – albeit, you know, one with corruption charges pending against him – of your – the elected leader of your closest ally in the Middle East. And I find it surprising that you’re not – that you’re not trying to get a clarification on these comments.
[…]
MR. MCCORMACK: Perhaps – you know, perhaps we will, Matt. I – you know, I can only speak to what we’ve done. But – and again, all I can offer is – are the facts. I can’t vouch that Prime Minister Olmert was quoted correctly in the story or the context of the remarks at all. You’ll have to talk to the Israeli Government about that.

Talk. Talk. Talk. On U.S. power and sovereignty in the Arctic, Gazprom, North Korea, Egyptian negotiations, and then back to the Ehud dish that Matt was just not willing to let go:

QUESTION: – I think the diplomacy is – it’s over my head, at least. Why would the Secretary work so hard for three days on something that she planned not to vote for (inaudible)?

MR. MCCORMACK: Matt, you are – no, that’s not what I said. I said that we were –

QUESTION: Is this (inaudible).

MR. MCCORMACK: On Wednesday, she decided we’re not going to be put in the position of vetoing a resolution, so it excludes that possibility. So you have two possibilities left: voting for it or abstaining […]

QUESTION: Well, how could voting for it have hindered –

MR. MCCORMACK: Matt, you’ve – we’ve gone over this how many different times round and round?

QUESTION: Yeah, but --

MR. MCCORMACK: You’re venturing into flagellum equus mortuus territory. Look, I tried to explain it as best I can.

QUESTION: Tell the entire world that this is beating a dead horse. It’s not.

MR. MCCORMACK: No, I’m not – no, Matt, look, I’ve answered – I’m only trying to point out I have answered this question, or tried to answer this question, many times.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) resolution to begin with. You wanted a presidential statement. Then when the Arab foreign ministers said that they would not leave without there being a resolution, you decided – is this correct – you decided that, yes, you would work and –

MR. MCCORMACK: Any – Matt –

QUESTION: – work toward a resolution. At that point, you had already decided that you wouldn’t vote for it?

MR. MCCORMACK: That’s not what I said, Matt.

QUESTION: That’s why I’m asking.

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, I tried to explain it the best I can. You can go back in the transcript and read it.

Ok, plus points for Matt for the quick catch/return fire on Sean’s Pig Latin. Minus points for Sean for showing off with Pig Latin instead of classical Latin. And for that “go back and read it” comment; sounds churlish and all - the other guy (“diplomacy is – it’s over my head”) was hungry for -- clarity, is the word I think. It’s like saying “I already feed you, go back and eat your food again.”

In any case, on January 14, Secretary Rice responded to Olmert’s take, as quoted by Haaretz Service: "And I was quite aware of the President’s call to Prime Minister Olmert. Of course, Prime Minister Olmert is not at all aware of what the President said to me. And I repeat, his rendering of this is fiction if, in fact, that was his rendering of it. And I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it's not exactly what he said."

We may have to wait for one or the other's book for the true rendering of who said what to whom on this thing. Might merit more than half a page. Or not. I think I’ll pass.

Update:
In her interview with the WaPo Editorial Board on January 12, Secretary Rice was asked about Israel's influence:

QUESTION: Well, what about the fundamental question (inaudible), which is --

SECRETARY RICE: Yes. Israel --

QUESTION: (inaudible) when the United States comes up against Israel’s strong political will, America accedes.

SECRETARY RICE: That’s simply not true. The fact is that – have we defended Israel’s right to defend itself? Yes. Do we believe that there is a – that the only answer here is the two-state solution? Yes. Did we work with our Israeli friends, who are our friends, to find a way to get the Israeli body politic more solidly behind a two-state solution through the Roadmap and through work with Ariel Sharon? Yes. Do we believe that the terrorists, Hamas and Hezbollah, are of the same ilk because they kill innocents wantonly, as any other terrorists? Yes. I admit those aren’t popular positions in quarters in the Arab world. But we don’t take them because they’re Israeli positions. We take them because they are American positions. I don’t think any Secretary has actually been more outspoken about the settlement issue. And I’ve been very outspoken about it and I think we’ve been very clear that Israel ought to stop its settlement activity, which is provocative.

But it’s simply not the case that if Israel wants it, the United States does it. There are very often times when American and Israeli views of interest are congruent. There are also times when they are not. And when they are not, we act (inaudible).

On the Olmert flap, this is what she said:

SECRETARY RICE: You know that the President and I have the kind of relationship in which we go back and forth and come to a decision.

QUESTION: We have – I had heard that you had actually recommended voting for the resolution and that Prime Minister Olmert spoke to the President and was quite hot under the collar about that, and that was where the abstention decision came from.

SECRETARY RICE: The abstention was an option that the President and I discussed, and I’m not going to talk about anything more than that but to say that I think you know my relationship with the President. And the President and I have a relationship in which we can discuss these things and come to the best option, which is what we did.

You think folks would let this story die on the vine now?

ProPublica on The Foreign Service's 'Half-Baked' Fiasco

Alexandra Andrews of ProPublica (January 13, 2009 4:20 pm EST) on The Foreign Service’s ‘Half-Baked’ Fiasco:

As Hillary Clinton inches closer [1] to a new role as secretary of state, she’s set to inherit a troubled Foreign Service program initiated by her predecessor. The current issue of Foreign Service Journal takes a look at the initiative, a key component of Sec. Condoleezza Rice's Transformational Democracy initiative, and concludes that its track record falls somewhere short of transformational [2] (PDF).

The Global Repositioning Program, started in 2005, was devised in order to address the disparity between the Foreign Service’s presence in developed and developing nations: Before the program was initiated, there was one Foreign Service officer in Germany for every 200,000 people, compared with one for every 25 million in India, and every 40 million in China.

The program planned to transfer hundreds of Foreign Service jobs to emerging nations, mostly from positions in Washington, D.C., and Europe. Experts widely agree that a greater Foreign Service presence in emerging nations is crucial, but the State Department’s decision not to request additional funds to realize that goal was a "critical flaw," reports the Journal.

Instead, a secretive group of ten senior staff members implemented a net-zero approach to repositioning existing resources: Eliminate a position here, create one there. But a simple-sounding process turned out to be anything but that. For one thing, the new positions were costlier, often requiring the elimination of two or three positions in the U.S. In addition, Foreign Service offices receiving new employees were given little warning or resources for extra office space, housing, vehicles, administration staff, etc. to support the new officer. Meanwhile, the offices losing staff saw no equivalent reduction in their workload.

Another key part of the plan – one-person posts in areas outside national capitals – hit a snag when they were designated as consulates, a term that carries a host of complicated legal issues. Only two of these positions have actually been put in place. A separate plan for virtual posts, monitored mainly through online communication, was dismissed by one officer as, "A joke. A Web site, nothing more."

What the Journal describes as the "half-baked" program has sapped resources at a Foreign Service already hobbled by a cash crunch: The president of the American Foreign Service Association told Congress in July: "Unfunded mandates include 324 positions in Iraq, 150 in Afghanistan, 40 in the office to coordinate reconstruction efforts, [and] 100+ training positions to increase the number of Arabic speakers." Contrast that with the $1 billion the U.S. has doled out for State Department security contractors [3] in Iraq.

It remains to be seen what the incoming secretary of state will do with the program, but its critics don’t expect it to last. They’ve called it "just the latest bumper sticker in a slogan-rich political environment, doomed to pass into oblivion once the administration ends."

We’ll soon find out.

~ ~ ~


Here are some of my prior posts related to transformational diplomacy:

• 2009: Putting the Diplomacy House in Order
• Global Repositioning Review – A Shocker!
• The People Factor and the C Street Bailout
• On Keeping Friends Close, and Enemies Closer
• Transformational Diplomacy: Headache in the Details
• The Challenge of Transforming Organizations

101 Ways to Become Secretary of State

My New Year’s resolution is not complete without a peek at my career plan for the next 30 years. If you’re like me, you would be reviewing that plan, too; can’t hurt in this day and age when companies are digesting jobs like the Venus flytraps and no longer even bother to burp out recycled, lower paying jobs.

Career planning is simply a vehicle we get to ride on. The journey might be interesting or not, might be an adventure or not, but it is the destination that truly grips our attention. Is success waiting for us at the end of the rainbow?

Richard St. John hints at some of the real secrets of success: passion, persistence, and apparently pushy mothers help, too -- but that’s for another post. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also has something to say about passion and the road to success (Women’s Conference 2008 Remarks, October, Long Beach, California):

“Look, the first thing that I try to do is to explain to everyone that I try to mentor or that I’m trying to give advice – there isn’t really any particular road to success. You have to find the road that works for you. And so my conversations go something like this: A young student or maybe, now, a young Foreign Service officer will come in and then they’ll say, well, how do I get to do what you do? And what they mean is, how do I get to, one day, be Secretary of State? And I say, well, you start out as a failed piano major and you go on from there. […] And so the most important piece of advice that I can give is, don’t let somebody else define what you ought to be and what you want to be. When they look at you, they say, oh, you’ll want to do this because you look a certain way or you come from a certain background. I’m a perfect example of someone with no Russian blood who decided to study a culture that I had never seen, a place that I had never been, and it’s worked out for me. And so my advice is: Do what you love and forget the rest of it.”

That’s wonderful advice and all, and I hate sounding cantankerous but I should point out -- perhaps her speechwriters did not realize this -- a young Foreign Service Officer (FSO) can perhaps dream of becoming U.S. Ambassador one day but to get, to be Secretary of State, one day?

I think the Italians have a beautiful peachy word for this -- “nonsenso.”

In the long history of the United States Secretary of State as the highest ranking cabinet secretary in both the line of succession and precedence, from Thomas Jefferson (SoS #1) in September 26, 1789 to Condoleezza Rice (SoS #66) appointed on January 26, 2005 -- we had one career diplomat, one who went on to encumber this position.


The only FSO to ever become Secretary of State was a guy nicknamed “the Burg,” or more formally, Lawrence Eagleburger, the 62^nd Secretary of State. Do you know how long he was in office? From December 8, 1992 – January 20, 1993. That’s right - exactly 43 days and some hours, give and take some minutes.

So -- if I were a young person with fire in the belly and burning ambition of becoming Secretary of State one day, I’d skip the Foreign Service Officer’s Test (FSOT). You don’t have to but I would. Why? Because as a career diplomat, and given our history, the chance of rising up to the top position as Secretary of State is exactly 1.5%.

As an aside -- if you simply want to be ambassador one day, please go ahead take the Foreign Service Exam. Um, unless you’re sitting on a large trust fund because as one political ambassador says, "in 90 days, you can become a diplomat," (the type of diplomat you’d be after three months would be debatable but quick translation - why spend your life in cubicles with some hell-holes thrown in for adventure when there’s an easier way). Here’s a list of 50 who had the “smarts” and did it the easier way during the previous go round.

Anyway, if we go twenty appointments back just for fun - this should bring us to Cordell Hull, our 47^th Secretary of State and longest serving SoS. A quick run down from the last 75 years shows that we had five SoS who came out of the academe, five from the legal profession (AG, Deputy AG) and five who were politicians (representative, senators, governors-Senator Clinton makes six); three from the military profession, one from corporate America, and one career diplomat.

There are 101 ways to become Secretary of State. One is to start as a career diplomat but that route is a long obstacle course, kinda bumpy and the outcome is not at all certain. Frankly, when you get to be "P" that's probably as good as it gets in the career ladder. So take this route at your own risk.

The remaining 100 paths seem clear – crystal clear - kick-off that political campaign for town mayor, city council, school board, or whatever – anything that gets you on a ballot. I mean, you do have to start somewhere even if it is a tinsy winsy town -- as long as it's in America. Start somewhere …or elsewhere … as a journalist once sang at a Gridiron dinner (with music from “When I Was A Lad” by Gilbert and Sullivan – h/t to John Brown):


When I was a Stanford professor,
I tutored a certain Texas governor.
I showed him the countries on a great big map,
And I never scolded him when he made a gaffe.

Okay, there are other ways, too -- but only those who knows the secret handshake are allowed to share. Speaking of songs, Lenore Skenazy has come out with The Year in Carols. The lead song is The Secretary of State Girl (to "The Little Drummer Boy"). A tad late news but when has the Secretary of State ever made it to the caroling collection?

Come, they told me, pa rum pum pum pum.
The prez-elect to see, pa rum pum pum pum.
He ran a perfect race, pa rum pum pum pum.

Democracy isn't so good if you vote the wrong way?

Norman H. Olsen served for 26 years as a member of the US Foreign Service, including four years working in the Gaza Strip and four years as counselor for political affairs at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv. He was most recently associate coordinator for counterterrorism at the Department of State. He and his son, Matthew N. Olsen (director of Explore Corps, a nascent NGO that uses outdoor education and youth programming to facilitate peace-building among young adults, with several current projects in the Gaza Strip) have a piece in the January 12 edition of the Christian Science Monitor entitled, An inside story of how the US magnified Palestinian suffering (The covert push to empower Fatah failed. And isolating Hamas just made things worse. But it's not too late to change course):

A million and a half Palestinians are learning the hard way that democracy isn't so good if you vote the wrong way. In 2006, they elected Hamas when the US and Israel wanted them to support the more-moderate Fatah. As a result, having long ago lost their homes and property, Gazans have endured three years of embargo, crippling shortages of food and basic necessities, and total economic collapse.

[…]

It didn't have to be this way. We could have talked instead of fought.

[…]

Hamas never called for the elections that put them in power. That was the brainstorm of Secretary Rice and her staff, who had apparently decided they could steer Palestinians into supporting the more-compliant Mahmoud Abbas (the current president of the Palestinian authority) and his Fatah Party through a marketing campaign that was to counter Hamas's growing popularity – all while ignoring continued Israeli settlement construction, land confiscation, and cantonization of the West Bank.

State Department staffers helped finance and supervise the Fatah campaign, down to the choice of backdrop color for the podium where Mr. Abbas was to proclaim victory. An adviser working for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) explained to incredulous staffers at the Embassy in Tel Aviv how he would finance and direct elements of the campaign, leaving no US fingerprints. USAID teams, meanwhile, struggled to implement projects for which Abbas could claim credit. Once the covert political program cemented Fatah in place, the militia Washington was building for Fatah warlord-wannabee Mohammed Dahlan would destroy Hamas militarily.

Their collective confidence was unbounded. But the Palestinians didn't get the memo. Rice was reportedly blindsided when she heard the news of Hamas's victory during her 5 a.m. treadmill workout. But that did not prevent a swift response.

You can read the whole thing here.

I wonder how do you spin this to fit the happy talk into the ongoing legacy project? I don't know about you folks but I am terribly exhausted. Is it a new day yet?

Remember This? A Year Ago Today

I have a knack for remembering things like this one:

“This kind of survey is imprecise and misleading.”

“It is a snapshot of a self-selecting group, and should not be understood to reflect the views of the nearly 12,000 members of the Foreign Service.”

“She stands in the great tradition of George Marshall, George Shultz and Colin Powell as a Secretary committed to the State Department as an institution, the Foreign Service as an organization, and Foreign Service Officers as individuals.”

“Finally, she has made the State Department the center of our foreign policy process. For those who care about the Foreign Service, nothing could be more important. None of us joined the Foreign Service because of salary, benefits, or locality pay. We joined because we want to serve our country and make a difference in the world. Under Secretary Rice's leadership, we are again at the helm. In the Western Hemisphere, the results are palpable and positive. I am proud to serve under such a fine person and a great Secretary of State.”

Thomas Shannon
Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs
January 9, 2008 DipNote post on the AFSA Survey
(Read his full blog entry here)

map from cdc.gov

My heart is broken every time I read this, really - what helm was he looking at? DOD IS AT THE REAL HELM, how do you copy over? Sigh! … Brooking's Partnership for the America's Commission has recently released a report noting the need for a new hemispheric partnership to address key transnational challenges:

Today, several changes in the region have made a hemispheric partnership both possible and necessary. The key challenges faced by the United States and the hemisphere’s other countries—such as securing sustainable energy supplies, combating and adapting to climate change, and combating organized crime and drug trafficking—have become so complex and deeply transnational that they cannot be managed or overcome by any single country. At the same time, the LAC countries are diversifying their international economic and political relations, making them less reliant on the United States. Finally, the LAC countries are better positioned than before to act as reliable partners.

These guys at Brookings are real funny! Sounds like they did not know who's been doing "palpable and positive" over at the Western Hemisphere these last four years.

2009: Putting the Diplomacy House in Order

(Or Why Diplomacy Needs More Than a Penny)

The trials and tribulations of 2009 will be mainly on the home front. My Chinese crystal ball says that the new year of the Ox is a good time to settle domestic affairs and put our house in order. I think Ambassador Holmes' piece in Foreign Affairs is a step in the right direction; can’t go forward unless we dare to look back.

In the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador J. Anthony Holmes, the Cyrus Vance Fellow in Diplomatic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations who was previously President of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) and U.S. Ambassador to Burkina Faso pens Where Are the Civilians? How to Rebuild the U.S. Foreign Service.

The title begs the follow up questions of “Who broke it?” And “Why was it broken?” Ambassador Holmes points out that DOD's 2008 budget was over 24 times as large as the combined budgets of the State Department and USAID ($750 billion compared with $31 billion). And here is something that I did not know: The number of lawyers at the DOD is larger than the entire U.S. diplomatic corps.

Holy goat!

He catalogs “Condi’s False Hope” from transformational diplomacy to the creation and staffing of the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization which was created in 2004 and “had fewer than ten employees in mid-2008 to accomplish what Rice described as a vital component of her vision of a new diplomacy.”

He talks about "Green Zone Blues" and the politicization of the Foreign Service. Here’s the nugget that made me throw my new pair of Manolo Blahnik at my sullen, multi-system tee-vee:

"In fact, the Bush administration had effectively engineered the dispute in an effort to publicly embarrass the diplomatic corps. By demanding that FSOs take on the unprecedented, open-ended, and fundamentally impossible challenge of nation building under fire without adequate training or funding, the White House was continuing a myopic tradition of shortchanging the civilian institutions of foreign policy while lavishing resources on the military. Furthermore, the Bush administration's general efforts to stifle dissent and to reward those serving in Iraq with promotions and choice assignments has led to the unmistakable politicization of the Foreign Service."

Ah well, it’s not a pretty picture (unless you were politicized up) but deserves a good reading by FS professionals; most especially by the incoming administration who has the opportunity to apply the appropriate remedy not just Band-Aid solution to this problem. It’s the year of the Ox; it’s a good time to put this house in order.

Related Item:

Where Are the Civilians? How to Rebuild the U.S. Foreign Service
From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2009