The Blog of Legal Times has been tracking the news on lobbying disclosures concerning former Ambassador Robin Raphel who is a member of the team of Richard Holbrooke, the Special Representative to the Af/Pak region. Ambassador Raphel is currently Senior Coordinator for Economic and Development Assistance.
From last week:
January 07, 2010 | State Department Official Lobbied by Former Employer
Robin Raphel, the State Department's nonmilitary aid coordinator for Pakistan and a former lobbyist for Pakistan, attended meetings to help that country craft lobbying strategy until shortly before her new position was announced last summer. Now, new lobbying disclosure reports show her former firm contacted her regarding Pakistan within a month after the announcement.
A filing submitted to the Justice Department this month by lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates reports that the firm, which has a $700,000-a-year contract to represent Pakistan, e-mailed Raphel on Sept. 2 regarding "ROZ legislation" - economic development legislation giving the president authority to establish “Reconstruction Opportunity Zones” (ROZs) in Pakistan’s frontier area with Afghanistan.
November 06, 2009 | State Department Official Worked on Behalf of Pakistan Immediately Before Taking Job
Newly filed lobbying disclosure documents show that Robin Raphel, the State Department's nonmilitary aid coordinator for Pakistan, attended meetings to help Pakistan craft lobbying strategy less than a week before her government appointment was publicly announced.
Raphel worked for lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates until July 31; her State Department job was announced Aug. 5. Cassidy has represented Pakistan since May. Cassidy’s latest disclosure filings, submitted to the Justice Department Oct. 30, show Raphel attended more than 40 meetings on Pakistan’s behalf in the two months before she left at places including the State Department, and Capitol Hill, though it doesn't specify who she met with.
Robin L. Raphel is a career diplomat who served as Ambassador to Tunisia (1997-2000). In August 1993, during the Clinton Administration she was named the first Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs (1993-1997). Her Wikipedia entry says she retired from the State Department in 2005 after 30 years of service.
NDS at Calling a Spade a Spade has an excellent post on selecting a cone or career track in the Foreign Service.
The most significant change to the recruitment process in recent times is the requirement that you choose a career track at the time you take the Foreign Service exam. And until I worked a recent recruitment trip, I didn't realize how big a deal this has become. The problem, of course, is that very few prospective FSOs have any clue about what work in each of those tracks entails.[…]My contention is that your choice of career track should depend primarily upon your personality type. Let me explain. In many parts of the world, if you do political or economic reporting, you may write some bang-up cables and does great liaison work. But at the end of the day, you send out your cable, and only God knows whether anyone ever reads it, especially if you work in Carjackistan or Tsunamia.
I think briefly in the 90’s, the State Department did experiment with taking in entry level officers without preselecting their career tracks.I can’t remember now how long that lasted, or if an in-depth study of its impact was ever conducted.I knew of a couple of folks who wanted to be in the political cone and who were really unhappy when they ended up assigned to the consular and management cones.But I’ve lost track of them so I can’t say if they got out or were able to reconcile themselves to their bureaucratic fates.
I do think that the selection of career tracks ought to be driven by personality type but also strengths.Strengths with its three ingredients as Marcus Buckingham put it: talents (things you’re born with), skills (things you can learn) and knowledge (facts and lessons learned, including self-awareness).But State doesn’t necessarily recruit for specific skills or talents and only test job applicants on general knowledge. Its recruitment drive is to find well-rounded individuals that the organization can mold grow into successful representatives of the government.But the notion of a well-rounded individual is a myth.The most successful people in the world are not conformist or cookie cutter-images of each other but unique individuals with edges and sharpness uniquely their own… Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Richard Branson.Of course, in diplomacy, there is Richard Holbrooke, the larger than life character who is currently SRAP to the most turbulent part of the world. He is probably best known for the Dayton Peace Accords, but also widely known for his aggressiveness and short temper. Which made this British Ambassador mused“I have often wondered why precisely we Europeans cannot produce anyone like Holbrooke to lead our diplomatic effort with bravura and amusing confidence, plus ruthless bullying/intimidation.”
As an aside -- Holbrooke joined the Foreign Service during the Vietnam War. I doubt if it surprised anyone that he did not stay put in the Foreign Service in order to climb the ladder of career ambassadorship.
In any case, perhaps the reason why Europeans cannot produce anyone like Richard Holbrooke is because there are things inherent in all of us that cannot be “produced.” Things that when absent, we cannot compensate by skilling-up or by training.
I once knew a public diplomacy officer, before it was called that, who was promoted up to become the chief of a branch post.He was a nice guy with a deep technical background but had no feel for connecting with the public and was under skilled in managing his small crew. He did his best – he gained experience, learned his lessons and he went to trainings. But no amount of experience or training could hide the fact that at most, he was a mediocre representative of the United States government in the field.
There is, too, former Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Say what you will about Secretary Powell’s speech to the UN in the lead up to the war in Iraq, but the fact is Colin Powell’s speeches are always delivered in near perfect pitch, always. And the Toast Masters had nothing to do with it.(If you missed his leadership lecture at the State Department, btw, check it out here).The US Army did not start with a blank slate with Colin Luther Powell in 1958.It honed what was already there.
This contrarian believes that all the things we are – are not learnable.
The self-improvement market in the US worth $11.06 Billion in 2008 would disagree.And so would the State Department’s Human Resource Bureau.This is, of course, contrary to what we’ve been taught most of our lives – that we can be anything we want to be. That we can put in what was left out. And that turning square-peg people into well-rounded ones in perfectly round holes is a real possibility especially in a bureaucracy.
All the things we are – are not learnable. That's not my excuse, just pragmatism. So thanks, but no thanks. I like my square peg edges.
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has just released a statement on the Announcement of First Round Results of that contentious Afghan presidential elections:
The United States welcomes today’s announcement of certified results in the first round of the Afghan Presidential elections. We congratulate all candidates in this historic race, and applaud the vigorous campaigns run by President Karzai and Dr. Abdullah, garnering support across the country and ethnic lines. As neither of the top two candidates received more than fifty percent of the vote, the Constitution calls for the holding of a run-off. We welcome President Karzai’s statesmanlike acceptance of this result and his agreement to a second round of voting.The United States commends the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) for fulfilling their mandates, working in coordination with one another to ensure that the electoral and adjudication processes were carried out under Afghanistan’s Electoral Law and according to international standards.Read the whole thing and view the photos here.
Looks like our man of the hour in Afghanistan is no other than Senator John Kerry of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Photos below from the US Embassy Kabul's Facebook page.
That's Amb Eikenberry, the ECC official, Senator Kerry,UNAMA's Kai Eide and President Hamid Karzai
Senator Kerry with Abdullah Abdullah and Ambassador Eikenberry
Senator Kerry with President Karzai
Makes one wonder where in the world is the Special AfPak Rep, Richard Holbrooke?
Peter Bergen has put together a guide to the most critical readings on Afghanistan and Pakistan. He writes that this is an amalgamation of syllabi from classes he has taught at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The list includes books and articles that he says he found particularly insightful on the topic from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to al Qaeda's media strategy.
Bergen is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington D.C. where he co-directs the Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative; a research fellow at New York University's Center on Law and Security and CNN's national security analyst. He is also the editor of Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel.
Check out his Ultimate AfPak Reading List. The list also is available for download in Word document here. I have appended a second list to the downloadable material -- George Packer's AfPak list that came along with his piece on Richard Holbrooke in the New Yorker.
Download: Ultimate AfPak Reading List (Word docx format).
This Pakistani woman is using a sewing machinethat was provided by USAIDPhoto USAID/Pakistan
Ken Dilanian of USA TODAY (October 12, 2009) has a piece on possibly the first, and certainly the first publicly reported dissent on the USAID program in Pakistan.He writes:
“Special representative Richard Holbrooke's bid to rapidly shift U.S. aid from American contractors to local Pakistani organizations will "seriously compromise" the effort to stabilize Pakistan, a U.S. diplomat says in a "dissent channel" message to senior State Department officials.”
Pakistan's government also has complained about the use of U.S. companies to run aid programs, and USA TODAY reported Oct. 2 that Holbrooke has been moving to overhaul the aid regime so that more of the money goes to the Pakistani government and local organizations.
The problem — according to the memo by C. Stuart Callison, an economist with the U.S. Agency for International Development — is that Holbrooke is canceling successful programs run by U.S. contractors and preparing to bypass them by giving large sums to local organizations with shaky financial track records.
Dr. C. Stuart Callison is a Sr. Development Economist in USAID’s Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade, Office of Economic Growth.
"We've got to think about giving out cookies[…] Kids, countries -- they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement."
Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration (Ret.)Special Envoy to SudanU.S. Envoy's Outreach to Sudan Is Criticized as NaiveWashington Post Foreign Service | Tuesday, September 29, 2009
“The smartest man in the room is not always right.” That was one of the lessons of Vietnam. Holbrooke described his method to me as “a form of democratic centralism, where you want an open airing of views and opinions and suggestions upward, but once the policy’s decided you want rigorous, disciplined implementation of it. And very often in the government the exact opposite happens. People sit in a room, they don’t air their real differences, a false and sloppy consensus papers over those underlying differences, and they go back to their offices and continue to work at cross-purposes, even actively undermining each other.”
Richard Holbrooke, quoted inThe Last Mission: Richard Holbrooke’s plan to avoid the mistakes of Vietnam in Afghanistan | George Packer | New Yorker | September 28, 2009 (p.47)Read the full article online here.
for a civilian uplift in Afghanistan?US Embassy Kabul Photovia Flickr
Nancy A. Youssef and Warren P. Strobel of the McClatchy Newspapers are reporting that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal will ask the Obama administration to double the number of U.S. government civilian workers who are in Afghanistan.This is in addition to requesting some 45,000 additional U.S. troops in the country.
“The proposed civilian "surge" is the fourth leg of Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal's emerging strategy to rebuild Afghanistan's economy and government, along with more American troops, vastly expanded Afghan security forces and closer cooperation between U.S. and Afghan troops, including posting troops from both countries at the same bases.”
A State Department official was quoted in the report as saying there were 560 to 570 U.S. government civilian employees in Afghanistan at the end of last year, and that by the end of this year there'll be about 1,000.The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has reportedly alerted the State Department that hundreds more civilians beyond the total of 1,000 now planned probably will be needed in 2010 and 2011, officials said. The total could end up reaching 1,350, with about 800 in Kabul and about 550 outside the capital.
Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan was quoted in the report dismissing criticism that the civilian buildup has been insufficient so far."We have a very sustained plan. This is not like taking an existing military unit out of Fort Bragg and training them and then sending them out," Holbrooke said at a briefing last month. "We have hundreds of people in the pipeline."
The United States has listed Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism since 1993. Countries determined by the Secretary of State to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism are designated pursuant to three laws: section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act, section 40 of the Arms Export Control Act, and section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act. Taken together, the four main categories of sanctions resulting from designation under these authorities include restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance; a ban on defense exports and sales; certain controls over exports of dual use items; and miscellaneous financial and other restrictions.
Last week, the Special Envoy Scott Gration went before the SFRC to talk about Sudan. Video of PJ Crowley’s DPB the following day is here.PJ and the press chased each other around the room over what General Gration said the day before; that took almost half the 32-minute press briefing.Selected excerpts below:
* * *
QUESTION: Yesterday, on the Hill, the special envoy for Sudan said that there was no evidence to support the designation of Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, said that sanctions were hurting his ability to do his job and they weren’t effective. And I’m wondering, since the building didn’t have a reaction to this yesterday, I’m wondering what the reaction is today.
MR. CROWLEY: There is a comprehensive policy review that is going on regarding Sudan. Obviously, there are a number of issues attached to that. Obviously, the situation in Darfur is critically important, as is implementation of the Comprehensive North-South Peace Agreement, the resolution of which will fundamentally affect the future of Sudan. We have a number of bilateral issues with Sudan – obviously, terrorism being a crucial one. We have received improved counterterrorism cooperation with Sudan in recent years. So that process is ongoing, and I would expect it to be completed in the coming weeks.
QUESTION: Okay. Thinking back on your answer, I’m not sure you answered my question.
MR. CROWLEY: You made a detailed rundown of --
QUESTION: Well, here’s the – let me rephrase it then. Does the Administration agree with General Gration’s assessment?
MR. CROWLEY: Assessment?
QUESTION: Of – that the sanctions – that Sudan is not – that there’s no evidence that Sudan is a state sponsor of terrorism, as it is designated; that the sanctions are hurting his ability – his --
{snip}
QUESTION: No, no, no. Can we – I need to stay on this. I’m sorry. I still am looking for an answer to my – is there any daylight between General Gration’s comments and the Administration’s thinking?
MR. CROWLEY: General Gration is the special envoy for Sudan.
QUESTION: Is he speaking for the Administration, or is he speaking on his own?
MR. CROWLEY: General Gration is a member in good standing with the Administration.
QUESTION: And he, in those comments yesterday, reflected the Administration’s current thinking on the situation in Sudan?
MR. CROWLEY: Well, again, and my caveat, Matt, is that there is a – General Gration spoke about issues that are a subject of the policy review, a review that is ongoing. So --
QUESTION: But the Administration’s current thinking is at odds with what he said.
MR. CROWLEY: Well, I would say that --
QUESTION: Is that correct?
{snip} {snip} {sni} {sn} {ssss}
MR. CROWLEY: -- it is safe to say on an issue as large and complex as Sudan, you may infer that different agencies, different individuals may agree broadly on many things, and may have differences of view on certain elements. In the Obama Administration, there is a very healthy interagency process. There are genuine debates that go on all the time within the Administration about very difficult and very challenging information.
The President has created an atmosphere that encourages debate. And in debate about complex issues, it is not unusual that different individuals and different agencies may come at an issue with different perspectives. That all is part of a valid and effective review process. Sudan is no different. I think you’ll have – you’ve reported similar issues when it comes to North Korea, Iran, other things.
There is a policy review going on. I’m sure within that policy review, certain elements of that are being debated, and it may well be that different individuals have different perspectives. But the policy review is ongoing. The President has not yet made final decisions on what we’re going to do with respect to Sudan. General Gration has been traveling extensively in the region, has had extensive consultations with the Government of Sudan and other governments that are focused on Sudan as well, and brings that perspective back to Washington, and that perspective informs what he says on the Hill and what he says to the President and what he says to the Secretary of State.
QUESTION: Okay. So in other words, what you’ve just said is that he is not speaking for the Administration. This is his own personal view.
MR. CROWLEY: Well, no, what I’m saying is General Gration is the special envoy for the Administration for Sudan, and he brings an important perspective to the ongoing debate about –
QUESTION: But he was talking about --
MR. CROWLEY: -- what we should do in the future with and about Sudan.
QUESTION: So his testimony then was his own perspective and not Administration policy?
MR. CROWLEY: I’ll try it again, which is there is an ongoing review. General Gration is part of that review. I think what you heard on the Hill was his current perspective on the current situation.
QUESTION: All right.
MR. CROWLEY: Whether that may or may not end up being exactly what the President and Secretary of State decide in terms of our policy approach to Sudan.
QUESTION: Okay.
QUESTION: What --
QUESTION: It’s crystal clear now. (Laughter.)
* * *It's hard to imagine that the Special Envoy would be freelancing on this. Was this a trial ballon? After all, Congress would have a direct role in the removal of Sudan from the terrorism list, since the executive branch must notify Congress before actual removal. Congress also has the option to initiate legislation to block removal. If this was not a trial balloon, was he just genuinely blunt? "It's a political decision," Gration said of the terror designation; a designation ordered under his current boss' husband's watch in 1993.During the Secretary’s press event with the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister, Radio Sawa put the question to 67:
Madame Secretary, are you considering lifting Sudan – removing Sudan from the list of state that supports terrorism?
SECRETARY CLINTON: With respect to your question, Samir, we have made no decision to lift the listing on the terrorist list of Sudan. As you know, there is a very intensive review going on within the Administration concerning our policy towards Sudan, but no decisions have been made.
Above is an official White House photo taken by Pete Souza. It shows President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, right, and Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, in the Oval Office during a briefing prior to meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on May 6, 2009.
Update (revised post): A blog friend cautions against reading too much into this picture. Without knowing what happened there, we can assume too much and read more tea leaves into this scene than necessary, including Hillary's absence. It is also true that this is only one instant, a moment in time when the three were caught together in Pete Souza's viewfinder. I did look back at the SoS appointment that day. That morning, she had bilateral meetings with Hamid Karzai then Pakistan's Asif Ali Zardari. Afterwards she led the US-Afghanistan-Pakistan Trilateral Consultations II, in the Benjamin Franklin Room.
During his testimony at the HFAC on May 5, Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke said that “Our assistance should support Pakistani efforts to “hold and build” in western Pakistan as part of its counterinsurgency efforts so extremists do not return to fill the vacuum once military operations have ended. We must also do our part to enhance bilateral and regional trade possibilities by implementing Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZs) and encouraging foreign investment in vital sectors, such as energy. The Administration supports Congressional passage of ROZ legislation as a key way to boost private investment and sustainable economic development in targeted areas of Afghanistan and border areas of Pakistan."
He repeated the same thing at his testimony at the SFRC yesterday.Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Reconstruction Opportunity Zones. What’s next - a diplomatic surge for Pakistan?
Today, Wednesday, April 29,This has been moved to Tuesday, May 05, 2009, 12:00 PM. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke will be at the Rayburn House answering questions from the full House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) members.HFAC chairman, Howard L. Berman (D-CA) is holding an open hearing on the Pak side of Af/Pak -- From Strategy to Implementation: The Future of the U.S.-Pakistan Relationship.
Tomorrow, April 30, Ambassador Holbrooke will be at the Dirksen Senate Building to testify at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC). Senator John Kerry is also holding a hearing on the Pak part of Af/Pak -- US Strategy Toward Pakistan. (Update 4/29 @ 8:50 pm: It seems only a matter of time; this one has also been postponed. Will update when this is rescheduled).
You know CSPAN will be covering it as well as a few more media outlets because like Strobe Talbott says, he’s “the diplomatic equivalent of a hydrogen bomb,” okay?And speaking of Holbrooke -- In the Loop’s Al Kamen has written earlier this week about Holbrooke’s Growing Orbit.
I will not repeat the joke that has migrated from the Balkans to Foggy Bottom , but Holbrooke is reported to “have announced to a meeting of career Foreign Service folks in the South and Central Asia bureau (SCA) that they were now working for him, something that stunned more than a few of them.”
If true, boy oh boy -- does that mean the incoming Assistant Secretary for SCA, Ambassador Robert Blake, also works for him?Hmmn….hmmnnn..
Ambassador Blake has just been announced as the Assistant Secretary nominee for the SCA bureau.If you look at this map, you’ll see that Af/Pak runs right at the center of the South Central Asian region, and some have pointed out that without Afghanistan and Pakistan, the SCA bureau has a shrunken domain. Even then, I thought, well, at least SCA still has India and Kazakhstan, two of the largest countries in the region with their own sets of challenges. But now … one wonders.
It would be interesting to hear how Ambassador Blake sees his role in the big picture; after all he’ll be the one facing a confirmation hearing, not the special envoy.Blake’s nomination has been sent to the Senate and is currently pending at the SFRC (15 nominations in the queue ahead of him at the moment).
I did say back in February that I could not imagine the org boxes to stay the same with Ambassador Holbrooke on the scene.I’m sure there will be more on this later…
The administration's supplemental funding bill submitted to Congress last week requested $80 million to pay for transferring some State Department employees from other postings, recruiting volunteers from other government agencies such as the Agriculture and Justice departments, and hiring others in newly established "fulltime, temporary" government positions.
But while those efforts are proceeding, "there has been widespread, legitimate concern that AID [the U.S. Agency for International Development] and other civilian agencies would not be able to put enough people there fast enough," said Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. […] The State Department, officials said, wants the reservists to dress in civilian clothes and to report up a civilian chain of command reaching to an overall civilian coordinator who would supervise all nonmilitary U.S. programs in Afghanistan. Clinton plans to name Foreign Service officer Earl Anthony Wayne, currently U.S. ambassador to Argentina, to the post.
We’ll be using all authorities, temporary appointments if necessary, curtailing assignments of individuals if necessary to fill these positions. We plan to fill all the civilian positions on schedule. We will be working closely with other government agencies, including the military, to make sure we have the right mix of both civilian and military staffing.
But at this point, I don’t have any further details to give you other than we are working very hard right now to establish those numbers and fulfill the requirements. QUESTION: You said that you intend to fill all these positions on time. What does that mean? MR. WOOD: On schedule. QUESTION: What’s on schedule? MR. WOOD: Well -- QUESTION: What’s the schedule? MR. WOOD: I don’t have the schedule for you, but -- QUESTION: Well, if you don’t have the schedule, how do you know that you’re – how can you say that you’re -- MR. WOOD: I’m just saying – I’m saying I don’t have the schedule in front of me, but certainly, the people who are responsible for putting together our staffing have an understanding of what a particular timeline –
Secretary Clinton has appointed Ambassador Richard L. Morningstar as Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy (S/EEE).
The Statement from the Office of the Spokesman states that “Ambassador Morningstar and his staff will support the United States’ energy goals in the Eurasian region. He will work on key energy issues relating to Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Central Asia and the Caucasus. He will provide the Secretary with strategic advice on policy issues relating to development, transit, and distribution of energy resources in Eurasia.”
In 1998, Ambassador Morningstar had been Special Advisor to the President and the Secretary of State for Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy. He was responsible for assuring maximum coordination within the Executive Branch of U.S. policy and programs relating to the development of oil and gas resources in the Caspian Basin. Development of the Caspian and open commercial access to its energy resources are key priorities of the Administration.
In April 1995, Ambassador Morningstar was appointed as Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State on Assistance to the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union, and on June 11, 1996, the Senate confirmed him with the rank of Ambassador. He oversaw all bilateral assistance and the trade and investment activities of the 16 U.S. government agencies engaged in technical assistance, trade and investment, exchange, weapons dismantlement, and other programs in the NIS.
Ambassador Morningstar graduated from Harvard College with high honors and received a law degree from Stanford Law School.
After his stint at USEU, he became Senior Director at Stonebridge International LLC, and Senior Counsel at Nixon Peabody since 2004.He was a Visiting Scholar and Diplomat in Residence, Stanford Institute of International Studies (2002), the Herman Phleger Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, 2002 and has been an Adjunct Lecturer at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government (2003—Present).
Deputy Chiefs of Mission (DCM) are not as often in the news as ambassadors.In most cases, the top two embassy officials have the outside/inside arrangement, with the ambassador dealing with outside matters (bilateral relations) and the DCM dealing with the inside matters of running the diplomatic mission.
But this past week we have three of them in the news!
In Africa:
U.S. Embassy Khartoum Charge d’Affaires Alberto M. Fernandez and USAID officials traveled to El Fasher, North Darfur, including a visit to Zam Zam Internally Displaced Person (IDP) Camp, and reported that “the arrival of more than 36,000 IDPs fleeing recent fighting in the past two months between armed opposition groups and the Sudanese government in South Darfur has severely strained Zam Zam camp's limited resources.”
In Central and South Asia:
India’s Business Standard reports that despite the presence of Steven J. White, regarded by many as a competent deputy chief of mission of the US embassy in New Delhi, reports indicate that Ambassador A. Peter Burleigh, isgoing to “temporarily” fill in as ambassador to India.I could not find an official statement from the State Department but PTI has quoted the Acting Spokesman:
"Ambassador A Peter Burleigh's temporary appointment as Charge d'Affaires reflects the strong emphasis the US places on highest-level representation and continuity in US-Indian relations," Gordon Duguid, Acting Deputy Spokesman of the State Department, told PTI.
In Foggy Bottom:
Spencer Ackerman reports on Holbrooke’s Bureaucratic Switches at Foggy Bottom, concerning Paul W. Jones, the former deputy chief of mission in the Philippines.Jones has reportedly been installed about two weeks ago as deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia (SCA) and will be “dual-hatted, still reporting to Holbrooke, but also to Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher.”If true, a couple of folks have not received the memo: in the US Embassy Manila website, Jones is still listed as the deputy chief of mission; the SCA Bureau does not have any Jones listed -- yet.
On March 18, President Obama announces Major General Scott Gration as U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan:
Today, I am pleased to join Secretary Clinton in announcing the appointment of Major General J. Scott Gration (USAF, retired) as the U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan. General Gration’s personal and professional background, and his service to the country as both a military leader and a humanitarian, give him the insights and experience necessary for this assignment.
Sudan is a priority for this Administration, particularly at a time when it cries out for peace and for justice. The worsening humanitarian crisis there makes our task all the more urgent.
I have made clear my intention to work with the international community to end the suffering. That means supporting the full, unobstructed deployment of the joint African Union/United Nations peacekeeping force and the negotiation of a political solution that will give the people of Darfur a meaningful voice in the decisions that affect their future. The Government of Sudan’s disastrous decision to expel humanitarian relief organizations leaves a void that will be filled by deprivation and despair and they will be held accountable for the lives lost.
As we work to bring peace to Darfur, we will continue to work with both parties to Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement to ensure its full and complete implementation. All parties must see this through if Sudan and the surrounding region are to enjoy lasting stability.
I have worked closely and directly with General Gration for several years, and have traveled with him to refugee camps in Chad filled with those who were displaced by the genocide in Darfur. He is a valued personal friend and I am pleased he has accepted this assignment. He knows the region, has broad experience, and has my complete confidence. Standing alongside Secretary Clinton and Ambassador Rice, his appointment is a strong signal of my Administration’s commitment to support the people of Sudan while seeking a lasting settlement to the violence that has claimed so many innocent lives.
Without the need for Senate confirmation, this special envoy like Holbrooke, Mitchell, Fried, and Stern, should be off and running or flying shortly, right?
I guess can’t really say “officially in” since he is a career diplomat and is already in.The State Department announced today the appointment of Ambassador Daniel Fried.Statement in full below:
In order to carry out President Obama’s commitment to close the detention facility at Guantanamo within one year, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has determined we need to intensify our efforts to facilitate the transfer of detainees. Secretary Clinton therefore has asked Ambassador Daniel Fried, a seasoned diplomat with a strong record of accomplishment, to lead a dedicated team to address this issue full-time. Ambassador Fried’s extensive experience will be an invaluable asset as we seek the assistance of foreign governments in moving toward closure of the detention facility.
Over the last several years, the task of negotiating transfers of detainees from Guantanamo has fallen to the Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues and his staff, whose primary function historically has been war crimes matters – a full-time job. This shift provides the benefit of also ensuring that the Ambassador at Large and his team can devote their full attention to war crime matters, which are of critical importance to this Administration.
I’m not sure what his official title is, the announcement did not actually give that, but he will reportedly be working with officials from the Pentagon and Justice Department as well as foreign governments on the specifics of closing the camp. He also will work with the State Department's ambassador-at-large for war crimes, Clint Williamson, who has been leading negotiations on detainee transfers, the officials said.
Until this appointment, Ambassador Fried has been the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs (05/05/2005 to 03/12/2009). Before taking the helm of the EUR Bureau, Ambassador Fried served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council since January 22, 2001. He was Principal Deputy Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for the New Independent States from May 2000 until January 2001. He was Ambassador to Poland from November 1997 until May 2000.
Daniel Fried, of Washington, DC, began his career with the Foreign Service in 1977. He served in the Economic Bureau of the State Department from 1977 to 1979; at the U.S. Consulate General in then-Leningrad from 1980 to 1981; as Political Officer in the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade from 1982 to 1985; and in the Office of Soviet Affairs at the State Department from 1985 to 1987. Ambassador Fried was Polish Desk Officer at the State Department from 1987 to 1989 as democracy returned to Poland and Central Europe. He served as Political Counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw from 1990 to 1993.
Okay, Secretary Clinton is off to East Asia this week, but the week before she sat with Jodi Kantor of NYT for a brief interview. In case you've missed this one, I am excerpting the relevant portion about Richard Holbrooke's role in AfPak from the Secretary herself.
QUESTION: Okay. Yeah, well, let’s do a couple of sort of fact-checky type things. These are things that I’ve been reporting that I would love your read on. Can you explain a little bit how control of the embassies in Islamabad and Kabul will work? I mean, does – essentially, does he have direct control over those embassies? Or will they work through the regular State Department machinery?
SECRETARY CLINTON:Oh, you know, they’ll work through the regular State Department machinery, but in collaboration. You know, we have many Foreign Service and Civil Service professionals, you know, at State and in the countries, who have been and will continue to be, fully engaged on Afghanistan and Pakistan. You know, they are among the best we have. There are a lot of people of deep experience and expertise. They’ve been dedicated, often at great peril and personal sacrifice, and they’re going to be the underpinning of everything that our government does to achieve peace and stability in the region.
Obviously, I expect everyone to work together. And you know, we’re going to be, you know, looking to, you know, Richard to provide, you know, leadership. But we also will be, you know, seeking out the advice and opinions of others who have roles that are important in helping us determine our way forward.
Jodi Kantor published this weekend (NYT, February 7, 2009), Back on World Stage, a Larger-Than-Life Holbrooke.A must read if you’re in the short-list as ambassador to Afghanistan and Pakistan, or an officer heading that way.BAGnewsNotes dissects the photo that accompanied the Kantor article and is reminded of John Wayne.But that squint is unmistakably Clint Eastwoody; can’t you imagine him saying – go ahead, make my day?
Kantor has quite a collection of quotable quotes:
From Christopher Hill:
“You have a problem that is larger than life,” said Christopher R. Hill, a longtime colleague expected to be named as the new ambassador to Iraq. “To deal with it you need someone who’s larger than life.”
From Strobe Talbott:
“Richard C. Holbrooke is the diplomatic equivalent of a hydrogen bomb,” said Strobe Talbott, a former deputy secretary of state and a friend.
From General Wesley Clark:
“Richard Holbrooke sees power the way an artist sees color,” General Clark said.
From his new boss:
“Asked about Mr. Holbrooke’s sometimes overbearing qualities, Mrs. Clinton replied with mock innocence. “Gee, I’d never heard that he could be any of those things before,” she said. Then she turned serious. “Occasionally he has to be, you know, brought down to earth and reined in.”
From his wife:
"Ms. Marton, in defending her hard-driving husband, said, “Richard is all about outcome.”
Ms. Kantor writes that “And even friends acknowledge that Mr. Holbrooke is intently focused on his own legend. (Many people have personal trainers; Mr. Holbrooke has a personal archivist.)”
It’s no wonder that his return to Foggy Bottom has “caused tremors.”Ms. Kantor explains that “His arrival at the State Department has rattled colleagues who remember him as someone who cultivates the powerful and tramples those with less to offer. Others worry about his assiduous courtship of the news media.”
He may have been gone for eight years but I’ve seen that style imitated by some up and comers at Foggy Bottom.But what’s he really like in a negotiating environment?Here is a view from the other side of the pond.
Ambassador Charles Crawford, an FCO diplomat who later became British Ambassador to Sarajevo, Belgrade and Warsaw, recollects a meeting attended by Richard Holbrooke during the Contact Group meeting in Moscow prior to the Dayton Peace Conference negotiations in November 1995:
The amazing thing was that the Americans looked twice as big as the Europeans! The US military team of course were bulked up by camouflage jackets, but they looked pretty damn big to start with. Plus Holbrooke is a larger than life character in all senses. So when everyone sat down in the tiny room I had a feeling that already the Americans had an advantage of some hard to define but real sort.
Soon the European side of the table started to make its elegant, firm and reasoned case for starting Dayton rather later.
Dick Holbrooke looked across the table in a friendly way and said something to the effect of, "Well, I've talked to the President. Our dates are in his diary. If you are there for the start, that will be fine. And if you're not, that will be fine too."
That salvo effectively ended the battle, the 'European' position flicked off the table like a wearying crumb.
In another post, Ambassador Crawford writes about a later meeting in 1999:
I attended a meeting with him at the FCO in 1999 to discuss Balkan issues. Some of his US colleagues sitting next to him were literally twitching with anxiety, lest he turn on them for some mistake and flick them into professional oblivion.
His negotiating style is uniquely aggressive, but with deft and penetrating psychological thrusts. […] At the London meeting he started to open his briefcase, then rudely took a mobile phone call ("sorry, that was President Obasanjo") to put us in our place.
Continuing with the briefcase he laboriously started to pull out some papers, then began in a deeply phoney woeful tone :
"I'm disappointed. I'm very disappointed. Really. I am. You people are not helping us here. We thought you'd be with us, and you're not..."
You needed nerves of steel to hit back hard and well against this sort of thing, which (it must be said) most UK diplomats did and do not possess. […] I have often wondered why precisely we Europeans cannot produce anyone like Holbrooke to lead our diplomatic effort with bravura and amusing confidence, plus ruthless bullying/intimidation. […] Anyway, two people to pity are the US Ambassadors in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Methinks that the tricky part is how the reporting lines and authority will be redrawn with Holbrooke’s inclusion into the picture. Sure, everybody reports to Secretary Clinton, but there are regional bureaus and functional bureaus.There are assistant secretaries of every stripe.Then there are the American Embassies in Afghanistan and Pakistan - will they be under Ambassador Holbrooke’s control?If so, how will that impact the role of the Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs (SCA) and others?If not – well, frankly I can’t imagine that the org boxes will stay the same with him on the scene.
It’ll probably be hazy for awhile and there probably will be bruised egos along the way… but my sense is that redrawing the org chart must be done now rather than later. That would help assuage uncertainties, minimize anxieties among the career employees within that impact circle and help everyone adapt to a new reality.
I don’t work for the Secretary or any of these folks, so I don’t have a dog in this fight.But from an organizational effectiveness perspective, redrawing the org chart and making sure folks are aware of the changes would make the operation function better and perhaps more importantly, help avoid the unnecessary turf battles that are bound to erupt. Our folks may be all talented and alpha this or that, but they are only human.And human behavior in organizations can take some strange turns.
The sooner this process of adaptation starts, the sooner folks can start concentrating on playing for the American team instead of working in their own silos. And they can't start that process until they know where they sit in the white space on the organizational chart.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_t1nVL50Y-lWddnNW3HObcDffDEdYDKt5qVKPt8YrAhyq0_fC6qkCXsSHJlFRqcoc7xK8N7oKvdaRBRluUxht16bXDv7blfaNxYE2o-s2r2TNJnRguuPXOREN0-VbI8CqAv6pDwEgbFKACrDtchnm26=s0-d)
