re: "State Department: America’s Increasingly Irrelevant Concierge"

Peter Van Buren at We Meant Well ("How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People") leveled a criticism of the Department of State (which reminds me of Amb. Bolton's joke about the UN*).

Money quote(s):

"A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released July 16 shows that overall more than one fourth of all State Department Foreign Service positions are either unfilled or are filled with below-grade employees. What should be staggering news pointing out a crisis in government is in fact barely worth a media mention in that State’s lack of personnel is silently tracking its increasing irrelevance to the United States, sliding into the role of America’s Concierge abroad."

&

"At the senior levels, the alleged leaders of America’s diplomacy, the number is 36 percent vacant or filled with “stretch” assignments, people of lower rank and experience pressed into service. At the crucial midranks, the number is 26 percent. Entry level jobs are at 28 percent, though it is unclear how some of those can be filled with stretch assignments since they are already at the bottom."

CAA had always assumed that the midranks (or midgrades) were where the shortages were the worst, and that the Senior Foreign Service was relatively flush.

I stand corrected.

"In fact though, it is much worse. Within State’s Foreign Service ranks, there exists the Consular Bureau and everyone else. Consular stands quite separate from the other Foreign Service Officers in that Consular employees have very specific worker bee jobs processing passports and visas and are not involved in the “traditional” diplomatic tasks we know and love such as maintaining inter-government relations, writing reports, negotiating treaties, rebuilding Afghanistan and all that. Many of these jobs are filled because they have to be, cash cow that issuing visas is for increasingly foreign tourism dependent third world America. That means broken down by function, it is likely that there are even larger gaps in vacancies in traditional diplomatic roles than even the sad percentages suggest."

The Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) is unusual within the Department of State for several reasons.

First, CA is the only functional bureau with effective control of the assignments of an entire "cone" (or "career track" in current parlance) within the Foreign Service.

(A quick primer: The Foreign Service comprises FS generalist officers who are commissioned officers of the U.S. Foreign Service as well as a number of cadres of Foreign Service Specialists who have specific skill sets such as couriers, diplomatic security special agents, physicians, nurses, engineers, office managers, &tc. Within the generalist corps, there are five "cones" or "career tracks" by which each FSO is designated: Political, Economic, Management, Public Diplomacy, and Consular.)

So CA controls which FSOs get those FS jobs, domestic and overseas, which are designated as being Consular. Most of those will go to FSO whose "cone" is Consular, but some will go to FSOs seeking to work outside their own "cone" for whatever reason. Since every FSO spends at least a year (usually more like 2-3) doing consular work during their first two overseas assignments, it's not like they're coming to it cold even if it's not their official career track.

There isn't any other bureau within State which manages to do this for any of the remaining four career tracks, no matter what that bureau's name or responsibilities would suggest.

Second, is money. Mr. Van Buren's suggestion that consular work is a "cash cow" is not without merit. Some years ago a deal was struck whereby much of the money collected in consular fees (such as passport and visa fees) would stay with the Department of State rather than going directly to the Treasury Department's general revenue coffers.

By law, visa and other consular fees are adjusted on a regular basis to reflect the actual costs of providing those services, to the best of State's ability to account for them. But that includes a lot of salaries and other costs that would otherwise have to be included in budget requests and congressional appropriations. Maintaining the Department's ability to keep bringing in those dollars is not an insignificant issue.

"GAO says in its report that “Although the State Department is attempting to compensate by hiring retirees and placing current civil service employees in Foreign Service jobs, it ‘lacks a strategy to fill those gaps.’”

(State has 10,490 Civil Service employees and was only able to convert four employees to the Foreign Service. That’s a 0.03813 percent conversion rate to help bridge the gap, so much for that idea. Want another perspective? Here’s why some Civil Servants might pass on the chance to become FSOs.)."

Linking to The Skeptical Bureaucrat is always a good idea. More web logs should follow suit.

"State’s somnolent response to what should be a crisis call (anyone wish to speculate on what the response might be to a report that the military is understaffed by 36 percent at the senior levels?) tells the tale. It really doesn’t matter, and even State itself knows.

What vibrant it-really-matters institution could persist with staffing gaps over time as gaping as State’s? Seriously friends, if your organization can continue to mumble along with over one out of four slots un/underfilled, that kinda shows that you don’t matter much."

To put this into a more longterm perspective, staffing gaps this significant, if not larger, have existed since at least the end of the Cold War and the Clinton Administration, which bade us all to do more with less. The "Peace Dividend" as it was called.

As I heard K.T. McFarland say on the radio one morning, "you don't do more with less, you do less with less."

State had to come up with the staffing for all those new embassies within the Newly Independent States (NIS) of the Former Soviet Union (FSU). And they had to do it without adding a single new position.

State not only didn't add a single new position, for some years it failed to even hire enough new FSOs to make up for attrition.

So it attrited.

In some years, the Department didn't even administer the Foreign Service Written Examination (FSWE) since it had so many qualified candidates already sitting on their Register, waiting for "The Call."

That started to turn around when Colin Powell was secstate and he got Congress to provide funding for the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative (DRI). The DRI was supposed to hire above attrition, to make up for the years of not-particularly-benign neglect.

It was also intended to establish sufficient numbers of FSO above the number of positions needed to be filled that FSOs would be able to complete necessary training (like learning foreign languages) to do their jobs when they got there, without leaving the job positions vacant for too long.

This is known as a "training float."

Of course, 9/11 and the personnel staffing needs of wartime wiped out all that progress, and of the Diplomacy 2.0 follow-on to the DRI.

We're now in "Diplomacy 3.o" and there's no sign that we're all that closer to solving the problem.

"The most obvious sign of State’s irrelevance is the militarization of foreign policy. There really are more military band members than State Department Foreign Service Officers. The whole of the Foreign Service is smaller than the complement aboard one aircraft carrier. Despite the role that foreign affairs has always played in America’s drunken intercourse abroad, the State Department remains a very small part of the pageant. The Transportation Security Administration has about 58,000 employees; the State Department has about 22,000. The Department of Defense (DOD) has nearly 450,000 employees stationed overseas, with 2.5 million more in the US.

At the same time, Congress continues to hack away at State’s budget. The most recent round of bloodletting saw State lose some $8 billion while DOD gained another $5 billion. The found fiver at DOD will hardly be noticed in their overall budget of $671 billion. The $8 billion loss from State’s total of $47 billion will further cripple the organization. The pattern is familiar and has dogged State-DOD throughout the war of terror years. No more taxi vouchers and office supplies for you! What you do get for your money is the militarization of foreign policy." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

&

"(T)he combatant commands are already the putative epicenters for security, diplomatic, humanitarian and commercial affairs in their regions. Local leaders receive them as powerful heads of state, with motorcades, honor guards and ceremonial feats. Their radiance obscures everything in its midst, including the authority of US ambassadors."

Combatant commanders (who used to be called "commanders-in-chief" until a stop was put to it; there can be only one CINC, after all) have a lot more money, people, and other resources than any single U.S. ambassador is likely, ever, to have on tap.

That matters.

Officially, a U.S. ambassador is the personal representative of the president and, in the country to which he (or she) is accredited ranks as the equivalent of a four-star general (or admiral).

Of course, the combatant commanders, who are four-star generals (and admirals) have that rank no matter where they may go.

"The increasing role of the military in America’s foreign relations sidelines State. The most likely American for a foreigner to encounter in most parts of the world now, for better or worse, carries a weapon and drives a tank."

That's why he's called the "strategic corporal."

"Lop off a quarter or so of the Foreign Service for Consular work, which hums by more or less independent of the rest of the State Department.

That leaves for the understaffed Department of State pretty much only the role of concierge. America’s VIPs and wanna be VIPs need their hands held, their security arranged, their motorcades organized and their Congressional visits’ hotels and receptions handled, all tasks that falls squarely on the Department of State and its embassies abroad. “Supporting” CODELS (Congressional Delegations’ visits to foreign lands) is a right of passage for State Department employees, and every Foreign Service Officer has his/her war stories to tell."

Consular work is one of the State Department's core missions, looking after the interests of our U.S. citizens abroad. So it's not something one needs to be apologizing after.

And CAA could tell you about the gang of drunken congressmen who poured off of their VIP flight..... but he won't.

_____

* Amb. Bolton's joke: "The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference"

7/18

re: "Mission"

CAA (that's me!) continued his response to Jeff Emanuel's post at RedState:, responding to Adjoran's comment of Wednesday, February 8th at 11:27 PM EST
(link).

Adjoran said:

"but it doesn’t have to be more than a Secretary and a couple dozen support staff. There is no need for embassies anymore, only consulates to serve Americans abroad (but those getting the services should be paying for them). They don’t conduct any “diplomacy” besides throwing parties for corrupt despots and their pals, and haven’t for decades.

Most of the State Department deserves the description they earned long, long ago: “a nest of traitors.”"

Response:

"The U.S. diplomatic mission in Iraq (including activities in places like Basra, Mosul, &tc.) are doing what the elected government in Washington sent them there to do.

You raise a debatable point about the need for embassies in today’s modern world, one that gets hashed over every few years when somebody notices that it’s easy to make a long-distance call to a foreign capital and decides we don’t need embassies and should just have a web site instead.

So the point gets debated, all sides are heard from, and eventually the decision makers realize they weren’t aware of what those embassies had been doing all along and maybe we should shutter them just yet.

State has virtually no domestic political constituency, because the work force is do diffuse (from all over) that the votes don’t impact any one congress member, because the money gets spent overseas mostly, and because visiting members of congress searching for facts abroad get the red carpet rolled out for them so they have no idea what day-to-day life is like in that embassy.

(It’s really not four star hotels and restaurants all the time; those are for when congress members visit.)"


2/9

re: " Senate Ethics Committee Forced to Clarify Travel Cash Rules"

Tom Fitton at Big Government looked at Judicial Watch's investigation of Congressional ethics.

Money quote(s):

"According to Senate rules Members of the U.S. Senate can neither simply “keep the change” and pocket the unused portions of their travel per diems nor use them to buy gifts for campaign donors. That seems like common sense to me. These per diems, after all, are paid for by the taxpayers."

Just about every FSO has worked with, as a "control officer," a CONDEL (congressional delegation) or a STAFDEL (congressional staff delegation) at some point or another in their careers.

Part of preparation for being "control officer" for a CODEL or STAFDEL is picking up (and signing for), from the embassy cashier, a set of cash envelopes for each of the CODEL's members. Said cash being the estimated per diem costs for their individual lodging and M&IE (meals and incidental expenses) allowances for stays in that particular foreign country and/or city.

These are considered to be a "cash advance" of the CODEL members' travel expenses.

Most government (including State Dept.) travelers are limited to getting only 75% of their per diem expenses as a cash advance; they are reimbursed the difference, if eligible, sometime after they file their expense reports at the completion of their travel.

IIRC, CODEL travelers get a cash advance of 100% of their estimated lodging and M&IE costs.

(Someone please correct me if I'm mis-remembering that or if it's changed.)

"With regard to how Members of Congress may have misappropriated the funds, according to the article: “Sometimes they give it away; sometimes they pocket it. Many lawmakers said they didn’t know the rules for repayment.”

Former Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), The Wall Street Journal notes, admitted that it’s “fairly standard” policy for lawmakers to use the leftover money “for shopping or to buy souvenirs to bring back to constituents.”

Personally I find ridiculous the notion that Members of Congress simply did not realize pocketing per diems is a no-no. First off, it’s basic commons sense. And secondly, this behavior is in violation of explicit House and Senate rules governing the reimbursement of travel expenses."

Control officers have each CODEL member sign for their cash envelopes shortly after their arrivals (most will be expecting it, being familiar with the drill) so that the control officer is no longer responsible/accountable for the relatively large sums of cash involved.

("large," in this instance, is defined as: 'more than CAA usually has in his wallet when he's not in either Las Vegas or Atlantic City')

CODEL members are presumed to follow Congress' rules regarding the filing of expense reports.

"(W)what a sad story that United States Senators need to be reminded that they can’t keep taxpayer cash for their own personal use.

And regarding the obvious per diem abuses by Members of the U.S. Senate, we believe a more thorough investigation is warranted. The Senate Ethics Committee shouldn’t give a pass to Members to misappropriated taxpayer funds, whether they are merely “confused” or purposely ignoring the policy for their own personal gain."

For most of us peons, the lodging costs are going to match, just about exactly, what the hotel or other lodging charges us. After all, the lodging per diem rates are published and the (smart) hotels charge exactly that as their "government rate."

(The really smart hotels throw in a lot of little, and not-so-little, extras for government travelers in order to attract their business.)

Just about anyone who's been a control officer can probably tell you a funny story about a CODEL they worked one time or another, perhaps even regarding how a CODEL member or two misunderstood how their travel advances were to be handled.

(But FSOs are a fairly discrete bunch, even the ones who blog, so those stories are saved for each other.)

6/29

re: "Anatomy of Congressional Narcissism"

Victor Davis Hanson at Private Papers ("He flits across the stage a transient and embarrassed phantom.") takes congressional egos to task.

Money quote(s):

"Neronian overseas junkets are redundant — we already pay billions for State Department and military officials to be the government’s frontline eyes and ears abroad."

Yes, we do. And said officials send lots of facts back to Washington, D.C., where members of Congress can find them much more easily.

re: "Overseas Pay"

Smallbits at, er, Small bits ("the bits and pieces that I am okay sharing with the world at large") weighs in from one of the border posts.

Money quote(s):

"Much is being said in FS circles about overseas pay for Foreign Service officers. I have said my piece in several places but I guess I should repeat it here. We are happy to take the 16% overseas pay cut if it is part of true reform and true change. We love our country and we want it to be solvent for our 4 kids. If that means my husband takes a pay cut, he takes a pay cut. And we will make the adjustments necessary. However, in exchange, I want real solutions."

In terms of the overall budget, it's chump change. Still, every little bit helps. And if every other federal employee had their pay reduced by a quarter, that'd amount to quite a bit of change.

Still, it'd also mean I go bankrupt and/or lose my house.

"I want my reps to tackle to big problems facing us: social security, medicare, etc. No window dressing. If they are looking at cutting overseas FSO pay, fine. Cut away. However, what other excesses are they looking at cutting? Are they cutting their own pay? Are they going after the budget items that cost the most? Are they going to cut things Defense asks for even if it affects their own voters?"

This looks suspiciously like one of those "rhetorical questions" that implies its own answer. But that's just my suspicious nature talking; Small bits seems more trusting and nice than I am.

"FSOs are middle class on the pay scale but we do get benefits overseas. Housing is paid, some utilities are paid, school allowances are paid for the kids. (However, kids in the US have free school too. My husband and I pay property taxes and state income taxes that support schools our kids will never use. Also, overseas schools vary widely in quality). In some cases at larger posts, there is a health unit at post. Sometimes not. A lot just depends on where you are. It might be a garden post with great travel opportunities. Or it might be pretty rough like here. You go where you are needed and do the job regardless of where it is. I think FSOs are compensated enough to live fine if we are frugal. There are lots of unseen costs though. For example, we have always driven older cars and driven them for a long time. Our next post will not allow either of our cars and so we have to buy a new one that is less than 3 years old from the manufacture date not the model year. Not something we usually do and completely out of our control. We can make the choice to go carless of course and we might do that."

I love how she drills this down to the personal level to make it less abstract and more like something a reader can relate to.

Personally, my own experience with "garden posts" and "pretty rough" has been that the "garden posts" are way too expensive for a junior officer to take much advantage of, and the "pretty rough" ones can be divided into those where the gunfire is directed at you and those where it's more-0r-less random and/or unaimed (i.e., "happy fire" or "celebratory gunfire").

"The next thing I want is for my reps to realize that the FS is not a walk in the park. As I said, some posts are pretty nice. A lot of posts aren't though. It comes across as insulting to say that FSOs always have these posh wonderful lives. Yeah, it is a really cool life and I am so glad we are here. It comes at a cost sometimes though. Numerous FS bloggers have discussed this. It is not a shock and awe measure. It is simply filling the need to educate Americans, including Congress, about what the FS is and what things happen. For every FSO touring Paris, there is another FSO riding things out in Iraq, in Libya, or on the border. Again, I am so happy that my husband is here doing what he is doing but it isn't free.

The last thing I want from my reps? I want CODELs to mean something. I think any time a politician goes to a place overseas, they should submit a report of how much it really cost (including to State and to the military) and what they accomplished. As a voter and a tax payer, I think this should be public record. I want to know what my reps are accomplishing with these trips. I think they can be very valuable. I don't think anyone can understand the border without spending some time here, on the Mexican side too. I don't think anyone can grasp what a huge job "securing our borders" is without driving along the river here and driving through the wide open ranch land. I would love to have my state reps come here and to give them a personal tour of life around here. My state is heavily affected by immigration and I would love for my reps to see things more first hand. So I think good CODELs are valuable. But they need to be well planned and accounted for. I think there are good Senators and House Representatives who are trying to use CODELs to understand the world better so that they can make better laws."

Codels. A lot of "fact finding" goes on around the world. I've seen congressmen visiting wounded troops whip out their cell phone so a bed-bound soldier or airman could call their family.

(It should be mentioned that the cell phone in question actually belonged to the State Dept. and was provided to the codel by the FSO control officer for that visit. So the taxpayer got the bill. But I still cant' fault their impulse.)

I've also seen codels stumble off their VIP air force jet dead drunk and wanting to have the base rental car opened up in the middle of the night.

What's funny is that both events I mentioned involved the exact same congressmen on the exact same trip.

Conclusion: Our congressmen are human beings, just like regular folks, only with a bit more pull in getting what they want when they want it.

(And no, we talked them out of renting any cars.)

re: "Current Events (Or Why We Deserve This Pay Cut)"

Donna at Email From The Embassy ("After three years in Beijing, we're headed to Amman, Jordan. For family and friends who want to follow our adventures, this is it...") has a great summation and some alarming ideas.

Money quote(s):

"In a nutshell: our pay is on the line. Life After Jerusalem and several other bloggers covered the details, which amount to this: Foreign Service officers currently have to take a steep pay cut when they move from DC to their overseas posts, due to something called "locality pay." Several years ago, when the powers-that-be were convinced this was a problem (why should I move to Yemen, or Libya, or Beijing, or really anywhere, if I'm going to make 25 cents on the dollar more to stay in DC?), they moved to phase in overseas locality pay so that this disparity would disappear over time. But now, led by Mr. Reed, some of our politicians have decided to call this an "automatic pay raise," and they want to do away with it. Only for State Department employees, mind you: other agencies overseas get this locality pay, and no one's talking about touching it."

Great summary. Covers all the bases. Well, doesn't mention that the pay gap doesn't apply to members of the Senior Foreign Service; for some reason they never lost out on this.

Who are the SFS? They're the Foreign Service equivalent to the Civil Service's Senior Executive Service (SES); in other words, State's flag officers (i.e., the equivalent of generals and admirals). It is from this group that principal officers (when they are not political appointees) such as ambassadors and consuls general are chosen.

"all you FSOs out there, are you ready for this? Here's what I think: This is all your fault.

Seriously. Your. Fault.

And here's why.

Whenever Mr. or Ms. Important Politician decides to come to post, you all leap to help out. I've seen this happen at every single post where I've lived. You get a cable that Congressperson So-And-So is coming next week. It's probably a national holiday. Or a weekend. But they're coming. They're flying in business class, and when they arrive, you scramble to meet them. With a motorcade. You take them to meetings with other important people at your post. You sit at their fancy dinners at the Foreign Minister's palace so you can take notes. After you drop them off for the night at their fancy hotels downtown, you slog back to the Embassy to write your cables before making the long trek back to your home in the suburbs somewhere. You kiss your sleeping kids, argue with your spouse about why you couldn't come with her to her doctor's appointment (she doesn't speak the language well, but you do). Then you go to bed.

You wake up before dawn so you can get back to the Embassy and pull cables for the congressperson, who needs to be up on the news as she breakfasts in her hotel. And then you set off for another day in motorcades, running from meetings to lunches to parties to concerts, ignoring the calls from your kids' school, because you know your spouse has that covered and you don't even have time to eat.

While you're doing this, someone else at the Embassy is taking the congressperson's spouse shopping for pearls, and then maybe to a fancy lunch at a local hotspot. It could be the CLO; it could be your wife. But someone is out sightseeing with the congressperson's hangers-on. Maybe a quick visit to the Great Wall, or Petra, or the pyramids. This could be a weekday, or it could be a weekend. Either way, whoever is taking these folks out has cobbled together extra childcare and cancelled that dentist appointment in order to be available.

The visit is over, and the motorcade races to the airport, where Important Person waits in the VIP lounge. Even after Important Person takes that business class ticket and boards the plane, you still sit, and wait. You wait until wheels-up, because that's what you do."

Because it just wouldn't do for there to be a mechanical problem and the plane towed back to the gate and unloaded and an entire congressional delegation stranded at the airport with no local cellphone anymore. Actually describing this gave me a chill, and not in a good, Chris Matthews sort of, way.

I've often maintained that we do ourselves a serious disservice by building and maintaining this sort of artificial bubble for our VIP visitors such as congressmen and STAFDELs. It only creates an unrealistic appreciation on their part for our roles, conditions, and capabilities abroad.

Donna gets this.

"Meanwhile, Important Politician stretches out in his business class seat and listens to his wife talk about the pearls! And the silk scarves! And the amazing food! And IP thinks back to that Foreign Service Officer he just met. And he thinks: what a great life that guy has! He goes to parties at the President's mansion. He drinks fancy wine. He drives around in air conditioned motorcades, with people saluting him as he walks into government buildings. He goes hiking - in the middle of a work day, even! - on the Great Wall. What a cushy life he leads, thinks Important Politician.

So you see, all you Foreign Service Officers out there, it's your fault all of these congresspeople think you deserve a pay cut. They have no idea what work you put into that recent visit. They don't know what you just gave up in order to make sure their visit was a success. They don't understand that your life isn't all cocktail parties interspersed with awesome trips to exotic locations. They don't know that you live in a place where your every move is recorded. Or maybe you live in a place where the locals want you dead. Or you live in a place where your baby has nightmares from the malaria medication. Or your spouse isn't allowed to work because the host government forbids it. Or maybe you're black, and the locals don't like black people. Or maybe you're gay, and that's a punishable offense in your host country. Or you're a woman, so you have to cover up when you walk outside. Or the signs are all in Arabic, so every time you leave the house, you're lost, and you can't ask for directions. Or maybe you went permanently deaf in one ear while you were serving in a country without proper medical care. Important Politician didn't see any of this from the window of the Prime Minister's residence."

&

"(T)hey don't get it, these Important People. They don't know just how hard you work for them, and for your country, because when they show up at your post for a long weekend in December, you work your asses off and not a one of you ever tells them you need to go to your daughter's Christmas pageant, or you need to help your spouse find wrapping paper, or you need to get your sick kid to the doctor. You don't even point out that you're working weekends for these people. You just do the work you're supposed to do, regardless of the weather, the date, the personal sacrifice.

And so they don't know, even when they should, and they just see an easy way to cut some money from the budget that won't impact their constituents. When they make these financial calculations, they don't even see your faces."