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“FOREIGN AFFAIRS COUNCIL TASK FORCE REPORT” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the in the Senate section section on pages S12037-S12038 on Dec. 8, 2004.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
FOREIGN AFFAIRS COUNCIL TASK FORCE REPORT
Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I commend to my colleagues the November 2004 Task Force Report of the Foreign Affairs Council entitled
``Secretary Colin Powell's State Department: An Independent Assessment.''
This nonpartisan report prepared under of the sponsorship of the Council and on behalf of the 11 organizations that comprise the Council represents the work of some of the most distinguished leaders in our Nation's foreign policy establishment.
The report chronicles the impressive achievements of Secretary Powell and Deputy Secretary Armitage and their team over the last 4 years.
One of Secretary Powell's greatest achievements was his effort to reform the leadership culture of the State Department. Through an increased focus on the management, training and empowerment of the Department's Foreign Service officers and civil servants, the Secretary strengthened the team of individuals who execute our Nation's foreign policy. Secretary Powell complemented these management changes with key steps to raise morale and foster team spirit.
The Secretary has been personally committed to working with interested Members of Congress to strengthen the Department over the past 4 years. He most notably worked to improve diplomatic readiness including: the hiring of new officers, a commitment to long-term training, especially language training; and significant improvements in information technology infrastructure. He addressed staff shortages stemming from budget cuts in the Nineties by recruiting and hiring more Foreign Service officers, consular officers, and diplomatic security personnel. In the area of information technology, Secretary Powell provided desktop access to the Internet for all State Department employees worldwide and developed a state-of-the-art messaging system to replace the current World War II telegram system. Most recently, he decided to strengthen the Department's capacity to play a major role in planning, organizing and leading the civilian component of stabilization and reconstruction operations.
Secretary Powell worked to overcome a crisis in embassy construction and security in which only one new safe and functional embassy was being built each year. The State Department is currently managing $4 billion in construction projects in comparison to the $700 million when Secretary Powell took office. Committed to improvements in embassy security, the Secretary has overseen the construction of 13 embassies in 2-year period--completing these projects on time and under budget. Twenty-six additional embassy projects are currently underway. With Congressional support for full funding, this building program can be completed and all our departments and agencies operating overseas will enjoy safer and more functional work environments as soon as possible.
The foreign policy achievements of Secretary Powell are many. Soon after assuming his post, the Secretary adeptly managed the crisis over the shoot down of an American P-3 aircraft over China. He has worked tirelessly to achieve United States objectives in the war on terrorism. He has sought to strengthen important relationships with Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and has provided critical support for further expansion of NATO. The Secretary has exhibited distinguished leadership promoting United States interests around the globe. He has represented our country honorably and ably overseas and is widely known and admired on every continent.
Secretary Powell has also worked to strengthen relations on the domestic front. Upon assuming his position, the Secretary committed to improving relations between the State Department and the Congress. I think many who have worked with the Secretary during his tenure would attest to the achievement of this goal.
I ask my colleagues to join me in commending Secretary Powell on his success and in wishing him well in any future endeavor he undertakes.
I ask unanimous consent that the executive summary of this report be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Secretary Colin Powell's State Department: An Independent Assessment--
November 2004
executive summary
In the summer of 2000 some 1,400 Foreign Service personnel, a quarter of the officer corps, attached their names to an Internet protest of their working conditions. In early 2004 the State Department had 200 Civil and Foreign Service volunteers, more than it could handle, for the 146 positions it was opening in Baghdad. The difference was Colin Powell and the gifted team of senior managers he assembled at the State Department.
Secretary Powell arrived at the State Department determined to fix a broken institution. He launched a two-pronged strategy. First, change the leadership culture so that managers at all levels focus on training, empowering and taking care of their people. Second, remedy critical management deficiencies: (1) restore diplomatic readiness by rebuilding State's staff; (2) give State modern information technology (IT); (3) focus on security of the nation (visas and passports), of information and of Americans abroad, including U.S. government employees (also involves holding overseas staffs to the minimum necessary--right-sizing); (4) assure safe, healthy and secure facilities, especially overseas buildings; and (5) relate budgets to agreed strategies, policies and priorities. Visa and passport security required reshaping consular affairs to deal with the post-9/11 world. Secretary Powell also had to address two other major management issues: improving State's congressional relations and overhauling public diplomacy following the 1999 merger of USIA into State.
The accomplishments are extraordinary:
Employees at all levels, Foreign Service and Civil Service alike, feel empowered and respected. Morale is robust. ``One Mission, One Team'' has taken root as a value.
Leadership and management training are now mandatory for all mid-level and senior officers. Career candidates for Ambassador or Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) appointments have the inside track if they have demonstrated leadership qualities. The Foreign Service employee representative, the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), wants to write this practice into the permanent rulebook.
Congress has given State virtually all of the resources Secretary Powell requested. Congress understands that the increases for diplomatic readiness, information technology, overseas buildings and diplomatic security are permanent parts of the budget, not one-time catch-up costs.
State has achieved most of its Diplomatic Readiness Initiative (DRI) staffing goals. With its new, first-rate recruitment and marketing program, State has redressed in three years almost the entire personnel deficit of the 1990s
(some 2,000 employees hired above attrition) and increased the diversity and quality of Foreign Service officers and specialists.
All the hardware for modern IT is now installed and on a four-year replacement cycle. All desks are finally linked worldwide. Information security is greatly enhanced. A new, robust, state-of-the-art message and archiving system (SMART) is being tested to do away with yesteryear's inadequate telegrams and their risky distribution and storage.
The new Overseas Buildings Office (OBO) has completed 13 safe, secure, functional buildings in two years and under budget. Twenty-six more are on the way. This contrasts with the pre-2002 rate of about one building per year. Congress and OMB have praised OBO effusively. Security upgrades have thwarted terrorist attacks at several posts.
The Deputy Secretary personally chairs the senior reviews of the Bureaus' Performance Plans (BPPs--policy-related budgets) and the bureaus in turn hold ambassadors accountable for their Mission Performance Plans (MPPs).
The senior reviews include USAID. There is a first-ever five-year Joint State-USAID Strategic Plan. And the new State-USAID Joint Management Councils, one for policy and one for management operations, are running effectively.
There are experiments with ``virtual posts'' which aid
``right-sizing'' and public diplomacy (15 of them as of October 2004--see p. 6).
Administrative operations at six embassies have qualified for ISO 9000 certification (p. 12), a point of pride, efficiency and service. The goal is to certify for ISO 9000 all administrative functions at all posts, meaning that all administrative functions at all posts meet ISO (International Organization for Standardization) criteria for certification for administrative excellence.
Visa operations use new IT systems and rigorously carry out post-9/11 security requirements--sometimes to the detriment of other U.S. programs and interests, despite energetic leadership efforts to maintain ``open doors'' along with
``secure borders.''
Many of the management improvements are institutionally well-rooted, partly because the new Foreign Service cohorts will demand that they stay. But many are vulnerable in a budget crisis, and others require more work. Key tasks:
1. State must maintain its partnership with Congress. Secretary Powell has been the critical actor in this regard, but he also has enabled his senior and mid-level subordinates to carry much of the load. This practice must continue.
2. Integration of public diplomacy into the policy process is still deficient. Experimentation on multiple fronts is needed to make the public diplomacy function more effective. Ideas include training, expansion of the ways public diplomacy officers relate to the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, and aggressive action to make public diplomacy a part of all policy development.
3. State's public affairs efforts need to go beyond explaining current policies to the public. They need to engage the public on a sustained basis regarding what the Department of State is and what its people do, especially overseas, as a way to build public confidence in the institution and confidence in the policies it is explaining and carrying out.
4. Diplomatic readiness is incomplete, budget outlooks are grim, and there are new needs: positions to replace those reprogrammed from diplomatic readiness to cover Iraq and Afghanistan; positions to provide surge capacity for crises; and positions to staff the new, congressionally-proposed Coordinator for Stabilization and Reconstruction. State should develop a ready reserve of active-duty personnel who have strong secondary skills in critical fields, plus a select cadre of recallable retirees with like skills (see Appendix A). Continuous attention to the recruitment system is needed to remain competitive. And State must protect its training resources, including those for hard language and leadership/management training, from raids to cover operational emergencies. Sending people abroad without the requisite training is like deploying soldiers without weapons.
5. State must update its overseas consular staffing model to account for post-9/11 changes in workloads and procedures, so that the U.S. can truly have both ``safe borders and open doors''.
6. State has to find a way to staff hardship posts adequately, using directed assignments if necessary in order to assure Service discipline.
7. State has some distance to go before it reaps the full benefit of its new IT systems. The SMART system is almost a year behind schedule, albeit for good reasons. More formal training of users is needed and a cadre of IT coaches
(today's secretaries?) should be developed to help overseas users. A common computerized accounting and control application is still being developed: the Joint [State-USAID] Financial Management System (JFMS). It is overdue.
8. ``Right-sizing''--aligning the U.S. government presence abroad to reflect our national priorities and to attain policy objectives as efficiently as possible--has barely begun. It should be pursued in multiple venues: interagency capital cost-sharing for overseas buildings; wider use of
``virtual posts'' (see p. 6); conscious use of MPPs and, with White House support, the BPP senior reviews to manage the overseas presence of all U.S. agencies; completion of State's regional support center program; and ISO 9000 certification for all overseas administrative operations that have
``critical mass.''
9. Future Secretaries, Deputy Secretaries, Under Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries must engage fully in management and leadership processes as well as in congressional relations.
10. Finally, Congress and the executive branch have a series of management issues they need to examine together, including: the long-term relationship between State, USAID and other U.S. assistance vehicles (e.g., Millennium Challenge, U.S. Global AIDS program), and where in the budget and the appropriations structure it is most appropriate to fund State and USAID (perhaps merged under a separate
``national security account'').
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