By PHK
It’s clear to me that last week’s threat from the State Department to cut 10 percent of middle grade generalist Foreign Service positions in the Department and at overseas posts other than Iraq or Afghanistan has all to do with the final 2008 budget negotiations with Congress. I realize this may not come through as baldly in Karen De Young' s Washington Post story on the subject, but reading between the lines that's sure what it looks like to me.
Usually such State Department - congressional budget wrangling doesn’t even make the back page of The Hill, but because of the recent media spotlight on the paucity of civilian foreign affairs funding thanks to Secretary of Defense Bob Gates this story appeared in The Post – albeit on page A-26 but, as I indicated above, cast somewhat differently than I do here.
I agree with Gates that the U.S. desperately needs to increase its emphasis on the non-military side of US foreign policy. As a consequence a major and sustained increase in funding for the State Department and other civilian agencies that carryout – or attempt to carryout US foreign policy overseas is crucial regardless of administration. I find it difficult to agree, however, with the State Department’s apparent attempt to shift the blame for the current funding deficit onto Congress - as seems to be happening now.
Let’s face it, the Department – with the notable exception of four years under Colin Powell – has never played the Congressional game well. Neither did my Agency – the defunct USIA. That’s one reason it’s defunct: our Congressional relations office was notoriously, and under Joe Duffy, our last director, intentionally weak.
Powell knew how to play the Congressional game, Condi does not
But back to State’s traditional weakness in dealing with Congress: only under Powell did the Department establish a governmental operations office on Capitol Hill – and then only on the House side. Had Powell stayed for another four years, I’ll bet the Senate would have had one too. Powell knew how to play the budgetary game.
Condi, however, seems not yet to have figured out that it is crucial for the State Department and the non-military side of the US presence abroad to open – and adequately staff - that second office with people who can operate on Capitol Hill. This should not be rocket science. It's how the funding game is successfully played.
It is also crucial, as I’ve said before, for US Embassies to welcome and treat visiting Congressional delegations well. The added burden may be a pain for understaffed Embassies, but all this country needs is a return to the no-nothing, provincial isolationism of the Helms era to make matters even worse than they are now.
The only time funding and staffing increased for the Department after years of neglect under both Republicans and Democrats was under Powell who, as a result of his lengthy high-level military experience, understood how to approach the Hill for the benefit of whichever part of the Executive Branch he worked for at the time. Frankly, I can’t believe that the Republican Congresses during Condi's first two years as Secretary of State would have rejected a concerted push from a Republican White House for additional State Department budget increases. After all, Powell had gotten them four years running from the same party in control of the Hill – and the increased needs certainly could have been easily demonstrated by Condi as well.
Come on. The same Republican Congress rolled-over and played “scratch my tummy” every time W asked for anything he wanted. One problem, as I see it, is that the administration and Congress continued to give priority to funding every expensive weapons system known to man – and others which were still twinkles in the eyes of various defense contractors - whether the military had asked for them or not.
Congress is not Uncle Scrooge
In contrast, Condi’s State Department just didn’t make its case. Somehow she and Henrietta Fore, who was recently rewarded the dual-hatted position of Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance and USAID Administrator for her ineptitude as Under Secretary for Management, and others at Foggy Bottom failed to play the Congressional game.
Sorry, guys and gals, I don’t buy State’s fingering Congress as Uncle Scrooge. Yes, the Department, what’s left of USAID and other parts of the civilian side of US foreign policy apparatus desperately require numerous blood transfusions before they expire on the operating table from years of neglect.
But let’s get it straight. The State Department under Ms. Rice and Ms. Fore's leadership has ignored the Congressional side of the budgetary process for the past three years. A more appropriate response would be their apologies for political ineptness, submission of resignations for incompetence – or the euphemistic "family reasons" - and enrollment of their successors in American government 101. Maybe then State would catch on that the making and implementation of US foreign policy has a crucial domestic element as well. It's known as divided government and the power of the purse.