Global and inter-agency communication

Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), along with a panel of foreign policy and communications experts, spoke at the Heritage Foundation about creating a new organization to facilitate international communication and diplomacy.

Thornberry said that today's post-Sept. 11 national security issues require government agencies to work together for solutions. In addition, he said that this communication is important for international diplomacy to solve global issues. Thornberry proposed the creation of a private organization much like the United States Information Agency (USIA) which was dissolved in 1999, to reach this goal.

Dr. Michael Doran, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Support to Public Diplomacy, said that learning about the motivations and traditions of other cultures is extremely important for understanding policy positions and decisions in other nations. He also said that this understanding could only be facilitated through greater communication between nations.

James Dickmeyer, director of Foreign Press Centers at the State Department suggested that advanced communication would be easily established by working with international embassies and ambassadors, as these establishments best represent the interests of our nation abroad.

Military going soft

Panelists discussed “Humanity as a Weapon of War,” a new report on the military's role in humanitarian assistance written by Reuben Brigerty, at the Center of American Progress. Brigerty, Director of the Sustainable Security Program at CAP, said decisions being made at the Pentagon suggest the military is realizing that force alone is not an effective strategy in warfare.

Brigerty said his paper outlines the US military’s shift from a direct line of approach in times of conflict, a “kill or capture” technique, to a softer approach that recognizes the causes of insurgencies and works to alleviate them. He said the Department of Defense is beginning to see that humanitarian efforts are not only moral undertakings, but also national security operations. According to Brigerty, the US military benefits from humanitarian ventures by showing American goodwill to skeptical populations and by planting people in the field that can observe local sentiment. He also said the US public must realize, despite written evidence, that US security interests rely on diplomacy and the military equally.

Elisabeth Kvitashvili, deputy assistant administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, expressed discomfort with the military’s role in humanitarian efforts. She said USAID has called upon the military in the past to assist in a supportive role and added that civilian agencies like USAID and the Department of State should continue to lead development efforts. Kvitashvili said workers at the DoS and USAID have been trained development methods and that large-scale military participation in humanitarian assistance may cause recipients of aid to doubt the neutrality of non-military organizations.

Department of State “indirectly contributed to and has allowed corruption" in Iraq

In the Democratic Policy Committee hearing “Have Bush Administration Reconstruction and Anti-Corruption Failures Undermined the U.S. Mission in Iraq?” Chairman Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) said the U.S. government had contributed to the culture of corruption in Iraq, and that corruption involved both Iraqi and American money. This was the fourteenth in a series of oversight hearings to examine contracting fraud, waste, and abuse in Iraq.

Dorgan described the testimony provided in March to the Senate Appropriations Committee by Judge Radhi al Radhi, who had been the head of the Commission of Public Integrity (CPI), which Dorgan said is an anti-corruption committee established after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He said Radhi estimated that corruption resulted in the loss of $18 billion in government funds, most of which had been U.S. taxpayer dollars.

Judge Arthur Brennan, former State Department Official who had served in Iraq in 2007 as the Director of the Office of Accountability and Transparency (OAT) at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, said that the OAT team discovered that the Department of State “indirectly contributed to and has allowed corruption to fester at the highest levels of the Iraqi Government.” He also said that “In a sense, the Department of State has contributed to the killing and maiming of U.S. soldiers; the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians; the bolstering of illegal militias, insurgents and al-Qaida, and the enrichment and empowerment of the thieves controlling some of the Iraqi ministries.”

Brennan said the State Department never responded to an OAT report on the level of corruption in the 31 Iraqi ministries, and that to his knowledge, the State Department has never seen an audit of any Iraqi agency or ministry. He said “many of the ministries are controlled by criminals and guarded by armed thugs,” creating a dangerous situation for investigators.

James Mattil, who had been Chief of Staff for the Office of Accountability and Transparency, said OAT was under-staffed and had no operating budget, and that “there was no transparency even with the office of transparency.” He said “corruption and its consequences are the fuel that sustains the insurgency, providing the money, the people and the motivation to fight Americans in Iraq.” He respectfully disagreed with Ambassador Crocker’s conclusion that “Iraq’s leaders have the will to tackle the country’s pressing problems.” He said Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki is fighting Iraq’s anti-corruption agencies, not corruption, and provided an example where a new CPI commissioner was appointed who three weeks earlier had been arrested and jailed on corruption charges.

House Committee hearing on U.S. Response to Iraqi Refugee Crisis

At the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on "Neglected Responsibilities: The U.S. Response to the Iraqi Refugee Crisis," Chairman Gary L. Ackerman, (D-NY) said Congress increased to 5000 the number of Special Immigrant Visas available to Iraqis who worked for the United States. However, in terms of refugees, only 1,608 were resettled during Fiscal Year 2007. In order to reach the goal of 12,000 refugees resettled during this Fiscal Year, he said, the Administration would have to triple the number of refugees processed each month. A year later, and we have yet to "seize the moment" in terms of rehabilitating the image of the United States in the Middle East.

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said that is it not the job of the United States to subsidize refugees in Jordan or anywhere else, if they are able to go home. We should do our best, he said, in our ability to help assist them in Iraq.

Congressman William Delahunt (D-MA) said the reality of Iraqis living outside of Iraq is they cannot return because conditions do not exist for their return. They cannot go home, he said, or they'd be killed. Our response should also work to prevent further erosion of how we are viewed in the Middle East. If we are concerned about terrorism, he said, it's in our national interest to "step up." If the vast numbers of refugees are not treated with respect, it will be the new "breeding ground" for terrorists.

James B. Foley, Senior Coordinator of Iraqi Refugee Issues, U.S. Department of State, said third country resettlement is for the desperate people that cannot go home even if they want to. However, he said, we can begin "in country" processing, thanks to a more secure Iraq. About one hundred Iraqis are being processed in Baghdad currently. A second reason we can begin processing is that Syria has recognized that humanitarian goals need to be reached. We are doing everything we can, he said, and we are committed to processing refugees right where they are located in Iraq. On a large scale it is daunting in regards to logistical steps and security, he said, but they will move as fast as possible.

2009 Fiscal Year Department of State Budget totals $39.5 billion

The 2009 Fiscal Year budget released today by the White House sets aside $39.5 billion for the Department of State (DoS) and other international programs.

$400 million of the budget will be allocated to U.S. personnel executing various functions in Iraq. Palestinians will receive $75 million to support the Fatah faction there while Lebanon will receive $142 million to support the western-backed Saniora government whose authority is being challenged by powerful opposition. The DoS says that Pakistan will receive $830 million “to achieve stability, development, and democracy goals…”

Israel will receive $2.55 billion in the first installment of a ten year plan to deliver $30 billion there. Israel will be by far the largest receiver of funds in the 2009 FY DoS Budget.

In Latin America, the DoS is setting aside $550 million to support the Merida Initiative which they say is aimed to address security concerns such as drug trafficking.

The DoS also announced plans to introduce 1,076 new positions within the department to provide staff with more education and training. 300 of these positions will be reserved for language instructors specifically to train personnel in “hard languages” such as Arabic, Farsi, and Chinese.

This year’s budget sees a $3.3 billion increase from the 2008 FY DoS budget which totaled $36.2 billion.