WhirledView

Let USAID be USAID – Not Let Confusion Reign

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Whatever happened to the U.S. Agency for International Development? Wasn’t it supposed to play a key role in the Obama administration’s accent on diplomacy as a major tool of US foreign policy? Didn’t Hillary Clinton emphasize development as a crucial part of diplomacy – in fact, as important as traditional diplomacy and defense – in dealing with the world? Didn’t Robert Gates support this enthusiastically? Or am I missing something.

After learning last week from an NPR broadcast entitled Diplomacy Under Fire that new State Department Foreign Service Officers should be agronomists, counter-terrorism experts, civilian development, anti-narcotics and democratization specialists rather than masters at traditional State Department skills like political and economic reporting and analysis, negotiation or even running embassies or consulates and dealing with host governments, I wonder what the development officers at USAID are supposed to do. Or, for that matter, if anyone’s home there?

Who is supposed to do traditional diplomatic work?

And if the State Department Foreign Service Officers don’t do the traditional work of running Embassies and Consulates and interacting with host governments and peoples – who is supposed to do it?

I guess this might be one way to eliminate the need for those unsightly fortresses that have sprung up like mushrooms after the rain beginning in 1984.

Just fire – or pension off - the political, economic, administrative, consular and public diplomacy officers who currently staff them or alternatively turn these people into USAID officers who set up shop in remote corners of a country. Then send in demolition squads in a kind of “cash for clunkers embassy” program. This would not only provide work for those proficient in the use of dynamite and nothing better to do with their dubious skills. It might also change America’s face abroad. Who knows, this might just be for the better.

What happens to Consular Services and Public Diplomacy?

That doesn’t address, however, the ongoing need to issue (or not) visas, passports and look after Americans abroad in trouble. This, by the way, is a full time occupation of State Department Consular Officers.

Or, heaven help us, what about those few FSOs who still engage in public diplomacy, e.g. interact with foreign media on a regular basis (and those few American correspondents still abroad), administer educational and other exchange programs, English teaching programs, run the few libraries and cultural centers that still exist and support and enhance visits by American cultural figures? This all used to be done by the US Information Agency before those tasks and staff were slurped up by State and shrink-wrapped and diluted big time.

But back to the USAID crisis and it is a big one.

The problem begins with the lack of leadership. No, I should write LACK OF LEADERSHIP – all caps.

A Needless American Horror Story: The Double-edged Sword of International Youth Exchange

By Patricia H. Kushlis

There’s a horrific story – a train-wreck not averted – that was reported by AP and CNN yesterday. It details a litany of horrors that beset 12 students from around the world who came to the US last year to attend American high schools and live with American families in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, these charges – some even criminal – may be the tip of the iceberg of a program allowed to run-amok through official US government negligence.

When international youth exchange is done right, it is - in my experience - the single most effective way possible to create long standing good will abroad for this country, our people and our society. Youth exchange is, in fact, my very favorite kind of international exchange program and I administered any number of different ones at home and abroad over the 27 plus years I worked for the United States Information Agency.

Furthermore, because of bedrock community and public school involvement and support, international youth exchange is also the least costly of any of the international exchange programs involving the U.S. government – and the State Department in particular. When done right, it is a shining example of an outstanding symbiotic public-private sector partnership in the very best sense of the term.

When not, the results are horrific: as we’re just now learning through reports of the sordid happenings in Scranton this past school year.

What happened in Pennsylvania – due to the unspeakably shoddy work of Aspect, the private San Francisco-based exchange organization that is responsible for the problematic student home-stay placements – can be traced directly back to three factors: 1) lack of oversight and monitoring of the particular exchange organization (and youth exchange organizations in general) by the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department; 2) the inelasticity of the American family home-stay network itself and 3) corporate greed and overstretch even though the organization in question is apparently non-profit.

The US government had two control mechanisms that it failed to enforce:

Passport Fraud Problems - Why?

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Here we go again. When will Walter Pincus, The Washington Post’s senior staff writer get the details right? As a commenter on his April 16 article “State Dept. is Making Changes in Wake of Passport Probe” pointed out, Pincus wrote in paragraph one that a GAO undercover investigator obtained two US passports based on fraudulent information while in paragraph three the number of passports obtained this way mysteriously doubled.

Who’s a person to believe – and this from a major reporter at The Washington Post?

The right answer is four. The April 13, 2009 GAO report upon which Pincus’ story is based stated on page 3 “Our undercover investigator was easily able to obtain four genuine U.S. passports using counterfeit or fraudulently obtained documents. In the most egregious case, our undercover investigator obtained a U.S. passport using counterfeit documents and the Social Security Number (SSN) of a man who died in 1965. . .” Check the report out yourself – its only nine pages long.

The GAO report is indeed disturbing and well worth reading but it only touches part of the picture. And be sure to read the footnotes – that’s where some of the most interesting data is located.

There are follow-on issues and additional questions that the Obama administration and Congress need to address that are not covered in the report or in Pincus’ article.

Here are a few that I would like to see raised – and answered - that were not.

• Why can’t one department of the US government coordinate with another especially in matters of national security?

US Passport Application Problems - Ouch, Not Again? April 1 Update

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Update April 1

It’s past March 28 (National Passport Day) and we’ve been getting an increasing number of hits on our passport information posts over the past month. More than we’ve seen in the past 18 months at any one time.

Can’t Get through to the NPIC? Here are parts of the problem.

We understand that the Consular Affairs Bureau at the State Department changed contractors earlier this year and that AT&T lost the contract for the National Passport Information Center (NPIC) which has caused this efficient facility in New Hampshire to close. The new contractor, Peckham, has apparently subcontracted much of the work to an outfit called Vangent which is opening a new facility in Arizona.

This is one reason the call-in information lines at the NPIC are responding with the “we can’t take your call right now” – or are just ringing off the hook. The Consular Affairs Section webpage is advising callers to call the NPIC before or after normal business hours but no explanation is given.

There are other reasons too: most significantly a problem with the webpage's application locator number function which as of today is still not operating. When this problem will be resolved is anyone’s guess but we are assured it is a high priority and should be back in service soon. Once it is this should relieve at least some of the increased call-in volume and make it easier for callers to talk to a live person.

Meanwhile, if you can wait 72 hours for your application locator information we suggest you use the e-mail address listed on the webpage as opposed to the NPIC call-in line. That's the turn-around time, the Consular Affairs Bureau has pledged for an e-mail response. Chances are good there is not a problem with the processing itself - a vast majority of all applications are processed within four weeks but there is a small backlog that should be resolved within the next couple of weeks.

If, however, you are within seven days of departure you do need to call in - so stay on the line and/or call in after hours (and stay on the line until it is answered). If that doesn't work, call (don't e-mail) your member of Congress or one of your Senators during regular business hours. Their constituency representatives can be life-savers in emergencies.

We would like to know how well the phone line and e-mail turn around time are working for those of you who have tried calling or e-mailing the NPIC recently. Do the NPIC lines work satisfactorily outside business hours? When are the best times to call? Have you received the information you needed once you got through? How is the e-mail function operating?

Application waiting times have increased so give yourself plenty of time

The time from application to passport in hand of applicant is currently four - six weeks for a non-expedited application. About 85% of applicants are receiving their passports within four weeks. But be aware: This is the busiest application season (February 1 - mid-July) so allow yourself plenty of time from start to finish: and plan for the unexpected delay.

We have been advised that the processing time should be back to normal by April 11 and that the Western Hemisphere Initiative is expected to go ahead on June 1 as scheduled.

Comments section now open

We have opened the comments section on this post and would like to hear from you regarding your recent experiences.

Those RFID passport chips are secure? Really? Think again

By Patricia H. Kushlis

I guess it’s that time again for another post on the continuing saga of US passports, e-passports and the proliferation of the ubiquitously insecure RFID chips embedded in both American documents required for US citizens to travel abroad and then return home.

The problem is that despite the sound and the flurry last spring when Washington Times reporter Bill Gwertz reported on the personal security breaches that the embedding of RFID chips into American travel documents creates, the US government ignored the warnings. Instead, it's gone full-speed ahead with the controversial technology acquired from a controversial company based in the Netherlands with production facilities in Thailand.

Now the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs in bed with Homeland Security’s Border and Customs Control folks are seeing to it that these wonderful little mechanisms designed to control supermarket inventories are also in the new e-passports for frequent border crossers. From what I discovered last year and reported here on WhirledView, one has to ask why the rush. Why was the latest decision taken in January – just days before the new administration came to power? That alone, it seems to me, needs an answer. There’s a lot here that doesn’t meet the eye. Or at least mine.

According to an AP story on February 27 carried in Physorg.com, the new RFID technology at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego, this country’s busiest crossing, “can read chip-enabled travel documents up to 30 feet from an inspection booth.” Paul Miller on Engadget.com stated a little earlier that the private information contained on those tiny chips can only be read from a distance of 20 feet.

Ah, well. So that makes them secure?

Whichever distance of insecurity, 30 feet or 20 feet - both make me squeamish. And what about keeping one’s e-passport in an aluminum storage sleeve until use the mode the US government decided to employ as the fix? I suppose better something than nothing – but, hello there – how about when the e-passport is in use? Or what if someone forgets the sleeve – or forgets to put the e-passport in the sleeve? Hmm? Then who’s negligible?

Back to San Ysidro

San Ysidro is, according to AP, the “13th land crossing to get the technology . . . and US Customs and Border Protection plans to have it in place at the 39 busiest crossings with Mexico and Canada by June., reports AP.

Yes, speed in this Internet age has its advantages: the e-passport with its RFID chip reportedly reduces wait times by 6-8 seconds per car at the US border.

But slow down. All that long distance scanning is not as it seems. Besides I have to wonder: does it really matter since the Mexicans don’t use it on their side? So, apparently, the wait times in Mexico can be up to three hours on a busy day. If Mexican border officials – slowed by the lack of questionable technology at their fingertips - only allow x number of cars to cross to the US in a given minute, wouldn’t that likely determine the time for US border crossings to be completed anyway?

Here’s the problem for you and me.

The RFID technology was not, I’m assured by John Oram West Coast Reporter for ITEXAMINER.com who follows these matters closely, designed to be secure. If you think it is, take a look at this video which was filmed in San Francisco earlier this year. Then, think again.

Hillary?

By Patricia H. Kushlis

That’s right. Hillary’s nomination for Secretary of State raises a huge question mark in my mind. It’s unclear to me why Obama offered her the appointment or why she accepted it. I would have much preferred to see her on the Supreme Court where she could have been counted on to weigh in on issues for which her expertise is well suited, and where she could and would make a major difference on issues near to her and my heart.

But Secretary of State?

Does she realize how shrunken the State Department has become and will she be willing to spend the capital to turn the situation around? Does she understand how demoralized its professional staff is?

How does she plan to handle that new category of employees created by the Bush administration called Schedule B – created to place W loyalists in positions they can hold onto for life – unless the individual position itself is abolished in its entirety? Talk about W’s Trojan Horses and the expansion of the political spoils system, once again, at the expense of professionalism.

Does Hillary understand how the post Cold War “reforms” that destroyed the US Information Agency and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and emaciated USAID happened during her husband’s watch and that to wrest many of their former functions and budget back from the free wheeling Pentagon where they now reside under W’s hyper-militarized foreign policy may not be easy?

With heavy-weight national security experts Bob Gates staying on as Secretary of Defense and General Jim Jones becoming the new NSC Advisor, will Hillary really have the foreign affairs acumen and managerial skills needed to lead this country’s oldest and most prestigious bureaucracy? Or will she be marginalized – or marginalize herself - and read out of decision-making particularly related to the warzones?

Or will her strong political connections on the Hill and elsewhere allow her to re-inject at least some of State’s power and influence back into the US foreign policy decision-making process. And will she do so?

A future Hillary fiefdom – I doubt it.

I disagree with Peggy Noonan and others on the right of America’s political equation who argue that Hillary is likely to turn State into a Hillary fiefdom accountable unto herself.

What does concern me, however, is the fact that the civilian foreign affairs bureaucracy – and State as its lead agency – have been decimated and politicized under the W regime – and to demilitarize US foreign policy these bureaucracies will need major renovation and reinvention.

Administrative vision and implementation required

This means not just strong diplomatic smarts and excellent contacts but also strong – almost Herculean - administrative skills and vision. I wonder if Hillary and the new team will have them. If not, there will be little she can do to promote US foreign policy abroad effectively in the long run. Obama’s charisma and Hillary’s personal acquaintance with a whole host of foreign leaders from her time as First Lady and Senator will only last so long and take them and this country so far. Above all there needs to be a coordinated public diplomacy effort: State has conclusively demonstrated over the years that it cannot deliver.

A Message for the New President: Getting Diplomacy Right

By Patricia H. Kushlis

It’s painfully clear that whoever becomes this country’s new president in January, the US cannot continue to conduct its foreign policy along the business-as-usual lines of the Bush administration. Leading with the military, sending in the tanks, calling in the short and long-range bombers, refusing to negotiate with adversaries – or even perceived adversaries – is a costly and counter-productive way to deal with the world.

This guns-and-steel-first approach by which America has been engaging - or more accurately disengaging - the world throughout the past eight years has boomeranged. It has increased – not decreased – support for those who truly hate America. It has resulted in budget busting defense spending. It has created an overstretched and weary professional military unable to accomplish the Herculean tasks assigned it. And it is an unsung piece of the current financial crisis. This lethal concoction has weakened the country abroad and sapped our ability to meet our citizens’ needs at home.

Leading with Diplomacy: The Single Realistic Foreign Policy Option Left

The next president will, in reality, have only one foreign policy option. This is the imperative to rely far more on traditional diplomacy, public diplomacy and foreign aid delivered through civilian means to begin to repair America’s face and effectively conduct its business abroad. The military first “solution” has proven to be no solution. Fighting elusive militant terrorists ensconced in ungovernable areas is not akin to rolling back the Axis Powers in 1944 or facing off the Red Army and the Warsaw Pact over the Fulda Gap during the Cold War.

The only other alternative to a military-first doctrine besides diplomacy is isolationism. Isolationism failed miserably in the 1920s. The 1990s neo-isolationism of the late Jesse Helms only helped to weaken this country’s position and destroy its foreign affairs capabilities in both the short and long run. This is indeed a globalized world: isolationism – like Communism – belongs in history’s dust bin.

But before a new administration can emphasize diplomatic solutions or peaceful management of complex international problems, it has to understand that the civilian foreign affairs agencies that throughout the Cold War provided the know-how and wherewithal to deal with difficult foreign affairs issues are now hollow shells. They are shadows of their former selves. Reacquiring the requisite expertise that they once housed will not come cheap. Seasoned diplomats do not suddenly spring up out of nowhere.

To quote a recent observation by The New York Times columnist David Brooks, "The more I follow politicians, the more I think experience matters, the ability to have a template of things in your mind that you can refer to on the spot, because believe me, once in office there's no time to think or make decisions."

Right on. Experience matters. Just substitute the word “diplomats for “politicians.”

A major problem at State

Most of the “talent” that turns a green recruit into an effective diplomat, public diplomat or practiced foreign aid officer comes from practical, on-the-ground experience that is learned-by-doing under the tutelage and watchful eyes of more seasoned colleagues. This on-the-job training needs to be combined with extensive and specific foreign language and cultural study that make it possible for US government representatives abroad to communicate effectively with the people in the countries to which they are assigned.

“No time to think or make decisions”

In short, an effective diplomat knows – almost by instinct – what needs to be done and how to accomplish it in whatever country to which he, or she, is assigned. Events happen so rapidly there often is, as Brooks correctly states, “no time to think or make decisions.”

The up-or-out, dog-eat-dog, two tiered, intensely hierarchical Foreign Service personnel structure has, for years, forced out far too many expensively trained and skilled officers at the peak of their careers – just when they should have been the most valuable to the U.S.

Think about the taxpayers for a moment: Intensive training in difficult languages costs thousands of dollars per diplomat. Continuing this now entrenched counterproductive policy is simply not cost effective.

The Hollowed Out Shell

Instead of taking advantage of the considerable skills learned on the job and in language and cultural training at the State Department’s own institute, hundreds – perhaps thousands - of America’s highly educated and trained diplomatic staff have been put out to pasture since the current system was implemented nearly 30 years ago. This enabled the downsizing rash of the 1990s of an already tiny group of people and the making way for younger, less experienced officers, with all that less experience too often brings to the job.

This system did function more or less adequately – albeit not to the taxpayers’ advantage because of the costly skills lost that need constant replenishment – during the years of shrinking government under the Clinton administration and an isolationist Republican Congress.

Under Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Department’s workforce was, in fact, increased, but during the past four years of Condoleezza Rice, the size of the Foreign Service has remained static. The hemorrhaging continues unabated thanks, in large part, to a rigid and antiquated personnel system. More junior and mid-level officers are leaving in disgust far short of retirement as Carnegie’s Joshua Kurlantzik pointed out recently -- many due to personnel’s gross mishandling of the Iraq assignments process.

Meanwhile, the tasks assigned to State Department staff have become more difficult and wide ranging at home and abroad.

Various studies over the past year indicate that the State Department’s staffing shortfall ranges from between 1,000 and 2,000 officers depending upon who’s counting. The American Academy of Diplomacy tells us that a new administration will require more than 4,700 additional Foreign Service Officers including those in USAID over the next five years to fulfill the expanding roll civilian government officials with foreign affairs skills will be asked to play in the future. But where will it find them and how will it treat them?

A first priority for the new president is to replace State’s broken, archaic, opaque and crony-riddled personnel system and send its current enforcers packing – without golden parachutes.

Ironically, the one person in the Bush administration who seems to recognize the depths of the budget and some of the personnel problems facing the State Department is Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Sure, Iraq and Afghanistan are being filled – by hook and by crook – but at what cost?

Public Diplomacy under the State Department has been, and continues to be, a bad joke. Between 20 and 30 percent of the public diplomacy positions overseas are vacant. Too many of the ones that are filled are staffed by people who spend most of their time handling administrative chores or “managing” Ambassadors – whatever that means - as opposed to what they should be doing – interacting with foreign publics.

Just in the past two years, the Consular Affairs Bureau has been wracked by a chain of highly visible embarrassments and fiascos: last year’s passport issuance delay problems need not have happened, for instance, with better planning and management.

Visa applicants are too often faced with lengthy waits, costly nonrefundable applicant fees if their applications are rejected and surly and demeaning interviews by nasty – and probably overtaxed - Consular Officers. DHS’ German shepherd-like greeting at the border – providing the foreign visitor gets that far – is another story. This too needs fixing. True, this deficiency does not fall under the State Department’s control but it forms yet another piece of the “why they hate us” story.

The Department does not even have enough qualified people to fill all Ambassadorial appointments – or at least I don’t think so or why would it have called out of retirement two former career Ambassadors I know to fill in – and not just to cover a summer or unexpected assignments gap.

Managing Human Capital - Not

In short, the State Department as it now operates seems singularly incapable of managing its most precious resource: its human capital. This is nothing new, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Here are some deficiencies that a new administration needs to deal with immediately:

• The up-or-out policy needs redressing and the two tier system needs to be abolished if the Department is ever going to fill the need for many more experienced diplomatic hands. There are other means available to handle people who are truly no longer fit to be in the Foreign Service. In reality, the Department has always been able to use them.

• The promotion and assignments systems are singularly opaque. There is no transparency and no accountability in their implementation. This is particularly worrisome when it concerns assignments to Iraq and Afghanistan which are widely viewed as unfairly administered. The "teacher's pets" don't have to go to the war zones, but far too often those without powerful friends do. Further, promises are made – but not always kept.

Head’s Up! More US Visa Problems Loom on the Horizon

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Last year the problem was passports. Looks like, if the June 23, 2008 Wall Street Journal story “Security Changes Are Likely to Create Visa Backlog” is right, visas – at least for citizens from as many as 27 countries - could be next.

This story which I found in the WSJ print edition is based on a May 22, 2008 General Accountability Office (GAO) report to Congress entitled “State Department Should Plan for Potentially Significant Staffing and Facilities Shortfalls Caused by Changes in the Visa Waiver Program.”

Where have all the plans and planners gone?

The bottom line is that State hasn’t done the planning - because the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t yet produced the plans upon which State’s planning should be based. So how can State begin to gear up for an increased work load in posts abroad when it doesn’t know what to gear up for? Yet if GAO can come up with estimates for a worst case scenario, State should be able to do so too. And if the worst case scenario turns out to be the ticket, expect a huge visa backlog at US Consulates in Western Europe, New Zealand and Australia as well as three Asian countries beginning as soon as January 12, 2009.

The Worst Case Scenario

Actually, according to the GAO, if the Visa Waiver Program were eliminated (the bureaucratic worst case scenario), State Department staff would need to be increased by about 540 new Foreign Service Officers ($185-201 million annually) and 1,350 local Foreign Service national staff ($168 million to $190 million annually) as well as additional management and support positions ($447 million to $486 million annually). Now State is already 1,000-2,000 Foreign Service positions short and I have to question how it would increase and train staff all that quickly. So much - by the way - for Condi’s transformational diplomacy because all of these new positions would be in wealthy countries.

The good news is that visa fees should off-set these additional staffing costs. The bad news is that State says it would need about 45 new facilities which the GAO estimates would cost approximately $3.8 billion to $5.7 billion. Given the cookie-cutter fortress Embassy design now in vogue, I have to wonder where these facilities would be built and how the average would-be tourist could even access them for a visa interview – but that’s another question for another post.

I’m not going to go into more of the details now, but if you’re among the curious here’s the link to the 58 page GAO report on the potential impact of ESTA (the Electronic System for Travel Authorization) that is making this potential mess possible. The travelers from countries most likely to be hit the worst are those that are already part of the Visa Waiver Program: much of Western Europe, Japan, Brunei and Singapore. Needless to say this is all part of increased border control laws enacted in the wake of 9/11 and the terrorist bombings in Europe.

Most likely scenario

But what if DHS comes up with something in between elimination of the Visa Waiver Program and the system that exists now? DHS can and does, after all, refuse people admittance at the border – and presumably would continue to do so. Yet the most likely scenario is to allow people from VWP countries to apply for visas voluntarily at US Consulates abroad. This includes electronic screening from a US data base of suspects - and we know how reliable that is). Otherwise, intending visitors take their chances with a potentially unpleasant DHS experience at the border. How many intending visitors would choose that option is an open question.

According to GAO, however, neither State nor DHS has “attempted to estimate demand” and State has not “attempted to estimate additional resources that would be needed to manage demand, and what additional visa fees would be received.”

Hmmm, and all of this is supposed to go into effect January 12, 2009? Although DHS – with its inimitable lack of foresight and planning - plans to jump the gun and “launch the program in August.” Whatever that means. (Registration, according to the WSJ, however, will be mandatory in January.)

Even with the weak dollar, one has to wonder whether tourist travel to the US is really worth it. One doesn’t have to wonder, however, why America’s reputation abroad is at an all time low.