[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS, AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2010
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS, AND RELATED PROGRAMS
NITA M. LOWEY, New York, Chairwoman
JESSE L. JACKSON, Jr., Illinois
ADAM SCHIFF, California
STEVE ISRAEL, New York
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey
BARBARA LEE, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota KAY GRANGER, Texas
MARK STEVEN KIRK, Illinois
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida
DENNIS R. REHBERG, Montana
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Obey, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mr. Lewis, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
Nisha Desai, Craig Higgins, Steve Marchese, Michele Sumilas, and
Clelia Alvarado,
Staff Assistants
________
PART 5
Page
United States Department of State................................ 1
U.S. Agency for International Development........................ 57
Supplemental Request for FY09.................................... 163
Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator............................ 231
Millennium Challenge Corporation................................. 285
The Merida Initiative............................................ 339
Africa: Great Lakes, Sudan, and the Horn......................... 463
The Role of Civilian and Military Agencies in the Advancement of
America's Diplomatic and Development Objective.................... 521
Building a 21st Century Workforce................................ 613
________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
PART 5--STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS, AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS
FOR 2010
?
STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS, AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2010
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS, AND RELATED PROGRAMS
NITA M. LOWEY, New York, Chairwoman
JESSE L. JACKSON, Jr., Illinois KAY GRANGER, Texas
ADAM SCHIFF, California MARK STEVEN KIRK, Illinois
STEVE ISRAEL, New York ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky DENNIS R. REHBERG, Montana
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey
BARBARA LEE, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Obey, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mr. Lewis, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
Nisha Desai, Craig Higgins, Steve Marchese, Michele Sumilas, and
Clelia Alvarado,
Staff Assistants
________
PART 5
Page
United States Department of State................................ 1
U.S. Agency for International Development........................ 57
Supplemental Request for FY09.................................... 163
Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator............................ 231
Millennium Challenge Corporation................................. 285
The Merida Initiative............................................ 339
Africa: Great Lakes, Sudan, and the Horn......................... 463
The Role of Civilian and Military Agencies in the Advancement of
America's Diplomatic and Development Objective.................... 521
Building a 21st Century Workforce................................ 613
________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
55-951 WASHINGTON : 2010
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin, Chairman
NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington JERRY LEWIS, California
ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia
NITA M. LOWEY, New York JACK KINGSTON, Georgia
JOSE E. SERRANO, New York RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New
ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut Jersey
JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia TODD TIAHRT, Kansas
JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts ZACH WAMP, Tennessee
ED PASTOR, Arizona TOM LATHAM, Iowa
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
CHET EDWARDS, Texas JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island KAY GRANGER, Texas
MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas
SAM FARR, California MARK STEVEN KIRK, Illinois
JESSE L. JACKSON, Jr., Illinois ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida
CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan DENNIS R. REHBERG, Montana
ALLEN BOYD, Florida JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey KEN CALVERT, California
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia JO BONNER, Alabama
MARION BERRY, Arkansas STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
BARBARA LEE, California TOM COLE, Oklahoma
ADAM SCHIFF, California
MICHAEL HONDA, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
STEVE ISRAEL, New York
TIM RYAN, Ohio
C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
Maryland
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas
LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee
JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado
------ ------
Beverly Pheto, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS, AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2010
---------- --
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Thursday, April 23, 2009.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
WITNESS
HON. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE
Opening Statement of Chairwoman Lowey
Mrs. Lowey. The Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations,
and Related Programs will come to order.
I would like to welcome all guests to this hearing room.
And I respect your right to be here and respect your views. But
I would ask that you respect this very important hearing.
You may certainly engage in a silent protest, but I ask
that you be seated and not disrupt these proceedings.
Thank you.
Madam Secretary, I welcome you, my former Senator, my
constituent, my friend, to your first hearing before the House
Appropriations Committee as Secretary of State. We look forward
to hearing the policy objectives and assumptions supporting
your request for $7.1 billion in supplemental funds for State
Department operations and foreign assistance.
Failed fiscal policies have left our economy in shambles
and the world on the precipice of a global financial crisis.
The security challenges we face abroad demand our urgent and
focused attention.
You and the President and all of us have inherited a world
in peril. A dangerous and power hungry Iran is aggressively
pursuing nuclear energy and hegemonic ambitions. The insecurity
and instability of Afghanistan and Pakistan have intensified,
and the Taliban and al Qaeda have gained ground.
From North Korea to Nangahar, from Somalia to Sri Lanka, to
the Swat Valley, instability threatens the security of the
United States and its allies. In Pakistan, policy decisions
focused on short-term security interests, which neglected the
long-term needs to build civil society, empower and educate
women and girls, and develop democratic institutions, have
advanced neither security nor stability.
Today the escalating terrorist violence in Pakistan and
that government's inability and unwillingness to confront the
extremist threat undermine any progress we have made in
Afghanistan and complicates future efforts there. I fear that
we are losing the window of international consensus and
commitment to help the region gain a strong foothold on its
long climb out of conflict. After 8 years and billions of
dollars, we are no closer to improving security, solving the
poppy problem, empowering credible partners to eliminate
corruption and stabilize the government, or enabling a more
tolerant society that respects the rights of women.
Recent actions by North Korea, including its missile
launch, reflect flagrant defiance and lack of interest in
engaging responsibly with the rest of the world. Given these
developments, I hope that you will detail how your supplemental
request for resources for continuation of Six-Party Talks for a
yet-to-be-negotiated Phase 3 of an Action for Action plan are
expected to improve the situation.
And in the Middle East, where I met last week with Israeli,
Palestinian, and Egyptian leaders, President Obama's election
and your leadership have generated new optimism and hope that
our country can pursue a new direction to address the global
challenges that threaten national and international security.
But as you know, optimism and hope must be accompanied by smart
strategies and tough diplomacy.
In meetings in the region and discussions yesterday with
King Abdullah of Jordan, concern over Iran dominated our
conversations. While there continues to be a wide gulf between
Israelis and Palestinians on further progress on the Roadmap,
and questions remain on the state of the so-called unity talks
hosted by Egypt, I am convinced that there is still a strong
commitment among Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, and the
Jordanians to create the conditions required for peace and
security to take root and a determination to deal with the
destabilizing role of Iran and its proxies, Hamas and
Hezbollah.
Israelis and Palestinians stressed the importance of the
economic and the security assistance that you have pledged to
the Palestinians and were unanimous in their praise of General
Dayton's security initiative. In-depth discussions with UNRWA
provided some assurances of their commitment to transparency
and accountability in the humanitarian assistance that they
manage, but the State Department must continue to ensure that
UNRWA lives up to its commitments.
It is clear that Hamas will not accept the conditions
defined in the Palestinian Antiterrorism Act or in the fiscal
year 2009 State and Foreign Operations bill. Yet, you have
requested language that I understand would provide a limited
amount of flexibility for the President to support a PA
government that might include individuals associated with Hamas
if all the ministers in such a government accepted the
conditions of PATA.
Now, while I have great confidence in you, Senator
Mitchell, and President Obama, concerns remain about this
language. And I hope that you can clarify what type of
government the administration would support and why.
I also hope to get a better sense from you on the
implications for the State Department of our plans to draw down
U.S. military presence in Iraq by the end of 2010.
And finally, let me express concern about new authorities
for the Defense Department in the supplemental request. While I
understand the need to train and equip the Pakistani military
for counterinsurgency capability, such assistance should not be
provided through Defense appropriations. We will continue to
ensure appropriate coordination mechanisms and implementation
agreements so that DOD can implement these programs effectively
and efficiently. However, the overall policy responsibility
rests with you, and so should the funds for the Pakistani
Counterinsurgency Capability Fund.
Similarly, this committee has appropriated $700 million for
the Merida program to date, and frankly, I am baffled that an
additional $350 million has been requested under the Defense
appropriations.
Madam Secretary, the United States is facing major
challenges, and I look forward to your testimony.
But first let me turn to the ranking member, Representative
Kay Granger, for any comments she may make. And I should alert
you to the fact that this is the only committee in Congress
where there are two women in charge.
And so I am delighted to turn to my ranking member, Kay
Granger.
Opening Remarks of Ranking Member Granger
Ms. Granger. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And I also want to thank and welcome Secretary of State
Clinton to her first hearing before this subcommittee.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts about the
administration's $7.1 billion fiscal year 2009 supplemental
request.
At a time when our citizens are tightening their belts, the
Congress must be certain that we are funding only the most
essential and the most effective and the carefully examined
foreign policy priorities.
Let me begin by saying, there are several areas I applaud
the administration's commitment. The Chair and I of this
subcommittee just returned from a trip to the Middle East,
where we traveled to Israel, the West Bank, and Egypt, and we
welcome this administration's renewed focus on brokering peace
and security for the countries in that region. I look forward
to hearing your thoughts about how items in the supplemental
request will support those efforts.
I am also pleased with the attention given to Mexico and
the problems there and the $66 million requested for
procurement of helicopters. I hope that we can work together to
make sure that the assets that Mexico needs in their fight get
there as soon as possible.
I am also reassured by the President's demonstration that
continuing the global fight to stop terrorism in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Pakistan is a continued top priority. I
believe additional oversight is especially needed in the
military presence as it expands and foreign assistance programs
are increased to make sure that we are using those funds
effectively in that fight.
I have concerns about the administration's efforts to blunt
the effect of the global financial crisis in developing
countries. It may have merit, but the request lacks adequate
country specificity, economic justification, and explanation of
the impact of such assistance.
I look forward to your presentation and asking some
questions as we go along.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
I would like to turn to Mr. Obey for any comments he may
have.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Obey
Mr. Obey. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Madam Secretary, you have a terrifically tough job. We all
know that. And I am sure we all wish you well.
But you have inherited some incredible messes. And
Americans can be funny people. I mean, it seems to be in our
nature that we think there is a solution for everything, for
every problem. Sometimes we have got solutions for problems
that do not even exist. But we also run into some problems
that, at best, can simply be managed, not solved. And I think
you have got more than your fair share of those.
I, frankly, do not know what I am going to do on your
supplemental request because I am very concerned that it is
going to wind up with us stuck in a problem that nobody knows
how to get out of. And here is my concern. We have been at war
almost eight years in Iraq. It is a measure of how wild things
have been in the past that we count it a great achievement that
there are only about 100 attacks a week in Iraq. Over 52 weeks,
that is a lot of attacks. You can imagine what would be
happening in this country if we were experiencing the same
thing.
We are told that the situation in Afghanistan has gotten
worse. And we are told that it is unlikely that we are going to
be able to resolve that problem to our satisfaction unless we
deal with the reality of Pakistan as well.
And we are told that the administration has gone through an
extensive review in order to try to focus its policy much more
discretely and narrowly. And I think you have done that. I
mean, I understand that the goal, rather than having some
grandiose set of goals, the goal in Afghanistan is simply to
demolish al Qaeda so they do not provide a threat to us. And I
do not question your goals, and I do not question the rationale
behind any of the decisions that underlie the policy that the
administration intends to pursue.
What I question is whether we in fact have the tools and
the capacity to actually get anywhere near those goals. And I
say that because, I have been around this place 40 years. My
experience with Pakistan during all that time is that it has
always been Pakistan, which means it is a country of
dealmakers, but they do not keep the deals. And so, as a
result, we have factions playing for their own interests, not
focused on the real threats to that state.
You have the insistence of the Pak Government that they
continue to focus on India rather than focusing on the real
threat. You have the central government give away a region of
the country to the Taliban and accept the fact that the sharia
is going to be the rule of the day there. And then you see
calls to apply that across the entire country.
I have absolutely no confidence in the ability of the
existing Pakistani Government to do one blessed thing. And
without a functioning government focused on the right issues in
Pakistan, we cannot, we cannot achieve our goals in that
region, in my view.
And so what I would like to know, the Chairwoman has
referred to the sense of optimism that has accompanied
President Obama's election. And I share that optimism. I think
the whole world does.
But we also cannot approach problems as though we are
permanent presidents of the Optimists' Club. We have got to
look at realities. And I am concerned that when I see the so-
called realists in this town, such as Jackson Diehl, who is a
perfectly fine reporter, but when he says, as so many others
say, that this effort in Afghanistan is going to require the
entire eight-year attention of this administration, to me that
means we are stuck with a sixteen-year effort in that region.
And I do not want to see all of the other goals of the
administration, both foreign and domestic, in the end devoured
by this insoluble problem.
While it is nice to have goals, and it is nice to be
optimistic, what I want to know, is whether or not the
administration will have in its own head a defined timeline by
which, if Pakistan does not perform, if that government does
not get their act together, if they do not quit playing it
every which way, if the intelligence service in Pakistan does
not stop double-dealing, that they need to know that we are not
going to be stuck there backing them up forever.
No matter what you do, you are going to be criticized. No
matter what you do, it is going to be the wrong decision in a
lot of people's eyes. In my view, no matter what you do and no
matter what you try to do, the likelihood of a successful
outcome is extremely dim because of the nature of the
territory.
I am not convinced, let me put it this way, I am convinced
that this is one of those problems that we cannot solve; we can
at best manage. And I want to know that we have a strategy for
managing it if we face the fact that we just do not have the
tools in that area in order to achieve the goals that we are
talking about now.
And my other problem, since people are also talking about
the possibility of an IMF replenishment, during the years I
chaired this subcommittee, I put a lot of IMF money through the
Congress, but I have to tell you, I have great reluctance to do
so given the fact that the Western European governments,
especially Germany, are declining to provide the kind of
economic stimulus that the world seems to expect of us but
which they do not seem to be willing to deliver themselves.
And if they do not pull their fair share of the load in the
wagon on that score, we are going to have a prolonged worldwide
recession, and the United States is not going to be exempt from
that.
So those are my thoughts. And I hope that you can reassure
me on those points today. But frankly, I doubt it. Not because
of any lack of ability on your part, but because I just am
concerned that virtually every initiative this administration
wants to pursue domestically and internationally in the end can
be devoured by this problem if we are not incredibly,
incredibly careful and thoughtful about it.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Lewis, do you have an opening statement?
Opening Remarks of Mr. Lewis
Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Only to say that I am
very anxious to hear the Secretary's statement.
I welcome Secretary of State Clinton, and we appreciate
your hard work. I am very anxious to ask questions. I hope we
have time to get to them.
Secretary Clinton. Yes.
Mrs. Lowey. Madam Secretary, we will be happy to place your
full statement in the record if you would care to summarize,
but proceed as you wish.
Thank you.
Opening Statement of Secretary Clinton
Secretary Clinton. Thank you very much. Is this on?
I want to get to your questions. I think it might help to
do a quick overview of what we do have in the supplemental and
the reasons behind it. We know that we are asking for a
significant sum, but it represents only a fraction of what we
spend each year on national security. And we think that
diplomacy and development are ever more important to
safeguarding the security and prosperity of our people and our
Nation, because after all, if we are successful in either
managing or solving problems, we save the money and the lives
that would otherwise have to be spent in dealing with conflict.
You know very well on this committee the range of difficult
problems we have inherited and that we are attempting to cope
with. We have launched a new diplomacy that we believe is
powered by partnership and pragmatism and principle. And I am
very proud of the men and women of the State Department and
USAID who literally work around the clock and around the world.
We have requested, with respect to Iraq, $482 million in
the supplemental budget for civilian efforts to partner with
our military efforts as the withdrawal continues. Already the
Iraqi Government is exceeding our spending for reconstruction
and in many areas matching or exceeding our efforts on
individual projects. We want to help manage that transition.
And this money will enable our civilian American employees and
their local counterparts to help create an environment in which
we assist the Iraqi Government to take more and more
responsibility.
Obviously, security is our paramount concern in
Afghanistan. The supplemental request of $980 million for
Afghanistan is targeted to specific areas essential for
security and stability.
As a result of our strategic review, we are not trying to
be all things to all people. We are focusing on making
government institutions more accountable and effective,
promoting the rule of law, stimulating licit economic activity,
especially in agriculture. Afghanistan used to be self-
sufficient in agriculture and even was an exporter beyond its
borders.
We are also going to be working with local communities at
the provincial level and below to help stabilize the security
situation through job creation. What we have determined through
our analysis is that many in the Taliban are there not because
of ideological commitment but, frankly, because they are paid
better than you could be paid in the Afghan police force. So we
are trying to unlock this puzzle about how to attract young men
in particular into legitimate employment. Our commitment to
train up the Afghan National Army and the police force will go
hand in hand with that effort. And we are also focused on
continuing to support women and girls. We think that is an
essential part of our foreign policy.
But progress in Afghanistan, we believe, depends upon
progress in Pakistan. And we do seek supplemental funding of
$497 million. I take very seriously Chairman Obey's comments
and cautions.
And Mr. Chairman, my view on this is that in order to
manage, we have to make these commitments. We have to keep our
pledge at the Tokyo Donors Conference. Other nations see
Pakistan as we now do and therefore came forward with $5.5
billion in commitments. We have to try to strengthen civilian
law enforcement, particularly in the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas and the Northwest Frontier Province.
And there are humanitarian needs that we think serve our
national security interests, which we have, in my view, never
sufficiently built on. Following the earthquake in Pakistan,
Pakistani public opinion toward America improved dramatically
because we were there with both military and civilian assets to
help the people who had been stricken by the earthquake.
We never followed through. We never had a strategy to say,
we have made some progress in these areas, what more do we need
to do to consolidate that?
Key to our new strategy for both Afghanistan and Pakistan
is to hold ourselves and our partners accountable. And we are
committed to doing that. We obviously are going to set
performance measures. I remember very well for six years on the
Armed Services Committee trying to get accountability measures
for both Iraq and Afghanistan, trying to get what we then
called benchmarks. We never got them.
We are going to prepare them. We are going to share them
with you. We are going to work with you to try to figure out
what are the ways we can tell whether we are successfully
managing and/or solving our challenges.
We also are focused on the Middle East, as Chairwoman Lowey
mentioned. Both she and Ranking Member Granger emphasized the
importance of this region to our country. If we are genuinely
interested in achieving a comprehensive and secure peace
between Israel and its Arab neighbors, we have to remain
steadfast in our commitment to Israel's security.
At the same time, we believe we should continue to help the
parties find a path to a two-state solution and support efforts
initiated by the Palestinian Authority under the leadership of
Prime Minister Fayad to end corruption, promote security, and
build infrastructure to demonstrate tangible benefits of peace
to the people of the West Bank. And we think, as part of that
strategy, we have to address the humanitarian needs in Gaza by
working directly with carefully vetted partners.
We have made it clear we will only work a Palestinian
Authority Government that unambiguously and explicitly accepts
the Quartet's principles: a commitment to nonviolence;
recognition of Israel; and acceptance of previous agreements
and obligations, including the Roadmap.
In the event of any Hamas participation of any sort in this
coalition, this would apply if the government, representing all
of its agencies and instrumentalities, accepts these
principles. At Sharm el Sheikh last month, I announced a U.S.
Government pledge of $900 million that includes humanitarian,
economic, and security assistance for the Palestinian people,
both Gaza and West Bank.
And Madam Chairwoman, our supplemental request of $840
million is included in that pledge. It is not in addition to
it.
And it will be implemented under the most stringent
requirements we have ever put on aid going into that area. From
the first days of this administration, we have also signaled
our determination to create partnerships, partnerships with
other governments, the private sector, nongovernmental
organizations and institutions. This is not a moral or
altruistic imperative. We believe that extreme poverty poses a
grave threat to global security and certainly to prosperity.
Development experts have predicted that 50 million more
people could end up living in poverty this year. A sharp
increase in global poverty has the potential to spark
humanitarian crises, erode gains from a wide range of U.S.
taxpayer investments in development, reverse progress toward
achieving the Millennium Development goals, and destabilize
countries that are partners and ours.
Many responsible countries cannot raise funds to restore
safety nets, restore financial markets, and serve the poor. And
I care particularly about children and women, who are the most
marginalized to begin with. And we think this is an important
action that our government should take in our interests as well
as to further our values.
The $448 million requested for assistance to developing
countries hardest hit by the global financial crisis is
designed to provide a temporary safety net.
And I appreciate Congresswoman Granger's question. At this
moment, we are evaluating which ones of these countries will
need our help and how best to deliver that.
I think the United States has to remain a world leader in
providing food aid and life-sustaining support for refugees and
other victims of conflict. And these efforts will be
complemented by investments in the supplemental budget for
emergency food aid.
The food security problem is especially acute, and I am
pleased that the President has asked the State Department and
USAID to lead our government's efforts in addressing this
across the agency.
We had the first meeting, Madam Chairman, ever held in our
government to bring everybody together. So we are trying to
rationalize, streamline and make more effective our efforts
across the board.
We also think it is important that we lead by our example
when it comes to shared responsibility. That is why we have
included $836 million for United Nations operations, some of
which will be used to cover assessments in which we are already
in arrears.
Now, we are well aware that the United Nations needs reform
and greater accountability. But I think it is fair to
acknowledge that in many areas U.N. peacekeeping missions save
lives and, frankly, expense for us. I was just in Haiti, where
the U.N. blue helmets cost 75 percent less than if we had to
send troops to Haiti, as we did, you know, 12 years or so ago.
And when I was in Haiti, where we support those U.N.
peacekeepers, I concluded, listening to the Brazilian general
who led them, that they have made significant gains in security
and stability that are still fragile. Our continuing support
for peacekeeping missions like this I strongly believe are a
low-cost way for us to achieve our own goals.
We are asking for small investments targeted to specific
concerns, international peacekeeping operations and
stabilization in Africa; humanitarian needs in Burma; the
dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear program, assuming they
come back to the Six-Party Talks; assistance for Georgia that
the prior administration promised that we believe we should
fulfill; support for the Lebanese Government, which is facing
serious challenges; funding for critical air mobility support
in Mexico as part of the Merida Initiative.
Let me end with one final point. In order for us to pursue
an ambitious foreign policy to both solve and manage problems,
to address our interests and advance our values, we have to
reform both State and USAID. And to do so, we have to create a
department and an agency that are funded the right way, where
the people doing this work have the tools and authorities that
they need.
This is particularly important in dangerous regions like
Iraq and Afghanistan. I want to just end with one statistic. I
asked for a review about the dangers facing aid workers. In
Afghanistan, the casualty rate for USAID employees, contract
employees, locally engaged employees and other international
aid workers, is 1 in 10 have been killed in the last 8 years.
Our comparable percentage for military casualties in
Afghanistan is 1 in 57.
What we are asking people to do, which we believe is
absolutely essential to our country's security, is assume
responsibilities so that we can make diplomacy and development
on a par with the military and defense functions of our foreign
policy.
But I want to underscore to this committee, which knows
this very well, this is not easy. It is not safe, and it is
extremely difficult to get right. But I pledge to you that we
are going to do everything we can as we move forward, advancing
President Obama's and our Nation's vital interests, to make
sure that diplomacy and development are well prepared to take
our place at the head of our Nation's foreign policy
objectives.
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Mrs. Lowey. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
I will be calling on members based upon the seniority of
those members that were present when the hearing was called to
order. And I ask that each member please keep their questions
to within 5 minutes per round. And I will alternate between
majority and minority.
Madam Secretary, I thank you again for your testimony. I
know that there are many questions. Our time is limited. I
would like to begin by repeating three concerns that I raised
in my opening remarks and that you also addressed.
Number one, I am concerned that the Pakistani Government is
cutting deals with extremists without getting anything in
return, as evidenced by the recent agreement in the Swat
Valley. And certainly we know about the news today. As we now
know, that agreement has only emboldened the Taliban to surge
into the Buner district just an hour outside Islamabad. How do
we succeed in Pakistan if the Pakistanis themselves are either
unwilling or incapable of making the tough choices and taking
the tough action needed to confront the insurgency?
Two, as I noted, I know that we are all in agreement on a
policy that prohibits any funding for Hamas or any Hamas-
controlled entity until Hamas is willing to agree to the
Quartet principles. In my opinion, I must say, that day will
never come. However, Madam Secretary, you have asked for the
ability to engage with a power-sharing government if that
government meets these principles. I would like you to
elaborate on why you need this language. What type of
government would you support?
And when you say that the power-sharing government would
have to meet the three principles, I believe it is not enough
for Abu Mazen and Salaam Fayad to accept the principles; it
must be all the ministers, including any minister appointed by
Hamas, that comply with these principles. And I would like to
know if you agree with that.
And lastly, I would like you to elaborate on the
administration's policy on Iran. While I support the
President's policy of engagement, I do not think we should be
taking any options off the table. In fact, I believe that any
diplomatic initiatives have to be coupled with a tightening, a
real tightening of the sanctions regime. I would like to know
if you agree with that.
I think we need to ensure that our European allies, the
Russians, the Indians, and others are also enforcing these
sanctions. As good as Stuart Levy is, I hope you can share your
thoughts on this.
Secretary Clinton. Thank you so much, my Congresswoman.
Let me start with Pakistan. As I said yesterday, appearing
before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I and our
administration are deeply concerned by the increasing
insurgency that is destabilizing Pakistan. We have made those
concerns abundantly clear to the Pakistani Government, both the
civilian and the military leadership, and we have had a series
of meetings with both the Pakistanis and the Afghans, going in
depth about how to get the Pakistani Government to change their
focus, as Chairman Obey referenced, from what they viewed as
their existential threat, namely India, to what we view as
their existential threat, namely this extremist insurgency.
Changing paradigms and mind-sets is not easy. But I do
believe that there is an increasing awareness on the part of
not just the Pakistani Government but the Pakistani people that
this insurgency, coming closer and closer to major cities, does
pose such a threat.
I was heartened to hear that leaders of opposing political
parties, even Islamic-based political parties, have begun to
express their concerns about the deal in Swat. Parliamentarians
are beginning to speak out.
Yesterday I called for the Pakistani diaspora to also speak
out. And we believe that there is a growing awareness on the
part of the Pakistani Government that their strategy, which
historically, as you know, was to leave those areas basically
alone. The British left them alone. The Pakistani Government
from its very inception left them alone, and the mind-set was,
well, that does not really affect us in Islamabad, Lahore,
Karachi. And now they are seeing that indeed it could.
So I believe, Congresswoman, that there is a significant
opportunity here for us, working in collaboration with the
Pakistani Government, to help them get the support they need to
make that mind-set change and act more vigorously against this
threat.
Now, there are no promises. They have to do it. I mean, we
can support them. We can encourage them. The leadership of
Pakistan will be coming for our second trilateral meeting in
about two weeks here to Washington. Our Special Representative,
Richard Holbrooke, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral
Mullen, have been spending countless hours in really painful,
specific conversations, because I want to underscore the
feeling we get, which is that if you have been locked in a
mortal contest with someone you think is your principal, in
fact only, real enemy, and all of a sudden circumstances
change, but they do not change so much that you are still not
worried about that other enemy, it just takes some time. And I
think that there is a growing understanding of that within the
Pakistani leadership.
Secondly, with respect to Hamas, as I said yesterday, again
before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, we will not deal
with a Palestinian Authority unity government that includes
Hamas, that does not meet the criteria of recognizing Israel,
renouncing violence, and agreeing to all of the agreements that
have already been entered into by the Palestinian Liberation
Organization and then the Palestinian Authority.
And I want to just, you know, reiterate that no aid will
flow to Hamas or any entity controlled by Hamas. Under our
supplemental provision, the unity government would have to be
certified by the President as meeting the requirements that we
have set forth. And the reason for this request is that, number
one, the Palestinian Authority itself has not agreed to any
such unity government. The discussions have focused on so-
called technocrats, people who might go into a unity government
of some sort to fulfill certain specific functions.
But this is a critically important time in the Middle East.
And we do not know what will come from these ongoing talks in
Cairo. But if what emerges from these talks is a unity
government that abides by the Quartet principles, we do want to
have the authority to deal with that government in the peace
process or negotiations that might possibly develop.
Before providing any such waiver, the Administration would
consider all the relevant facts, including who these people
were, what their role in the government was, to make sure this
meets our standards and our national interests. And we would
expect any unity government to meet the standards of
transparency and accountability that have been set forth by
Prime Minister Fayad.
We doubt there will be such a unity agreement. There does
not seem to be one in store. But we do not want to bind our
hands in the event that such an agreement is reached and the
government that they are part of agrees to our principles.
Finally, with respect to Iran, as I also said yesterday, we
have been working closely with our friends and partners and
interested nations with respect to engaging with Iran. Just
like you found when you traveled in the region, we hear about
Iran from everyone. This unites Israel and the Arab neighbors
in the region. Everyone is concerned, as we are, about Iran's
activities. We are concerned both about their pursuit of
nuclear weapons and about their interference in the internal
affairs of their neighbors and their support for terrorism and
organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.
But we have tried the policy of total isolation for eight
years, and it did not deter Iran one bit. The nuclear program
has continued unabated. They were not supporting Hamas before;
they are supporting Hamas now.
So our view is we have to proceed on two tracks
simultaneously and completely linked. As the President has
said, we have said to the Iranians, we are willing to discuss
with you a range of matters. We have sent our representative to
the P-5-Plus-1 to be a full participant because we think we
need a better approach to try to deter and prevent them from
acquiring nuclear weapons, and we continue to work on
sanctions, which we intend to have available. We believe that
pursuing this two-track approach, letting the world know we are
willing to engage--we do not know whether they want to engage
with us; there is no basis yet for concluding they do--will
give us a stronger hand in getting leverage on them when it
comes to tough, crippling sanctions.
Mrs. Lowey. I am over our time.
I just wanted to clarify one point. When you talked about
the government that you intend for us to support if in fact
there is a government, in my judgment, all the ministers should
comply with the Quartet principles and the principles in PATA.
Would you agree with that?
Secretary Clinton. Our belief is that if the government
complies with it, that is what we are looking for. And again, I
mean, we are talking in such hypotheticals. We have no
intention of dealing with Hamas unless they do what the PLO
did. I mean, I was in Gaza when the PLO voted to recognize
Israel, renounce violence.
I was deeply involved in the peace process in Northern
Ireland. Not everyone in Sinn Fein and not everyone in the IRA
initially agreed to the principles. But the leadership of the
government that was dealt with in both instances did. That is
what we are looking for. And we think that is sufficient, given
the assurances that we will be looking for to provide you.
Mrs. Lowey. Ms. Granger.
Ms. Granger. Thank you.
In press reports this week, it appears that the new Israeli
Government is not likely to move forward on peace talks with
the Palestinians until it sees progress in stopping Iran's
suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons and limiting the
increasing influence of Iran on the region. I would like to
know how this emerging position of the Netanyahu government
affects the prospects for peace as we are moving forward, and
is our government encouraging Arab states to take any specific
actions against Iran? How are we doing that? And what countries
do you believe can be most helpful to us?
Secretary Clinton. Well, Congresswoman, we are not going to
prejudge the Israeli position until we have had face-to-face
talks.
You know, Senator Mitchell was just in the region, had
intensive talks with the Prime Minister and members of his
government. The Prime Minister will be coming to Washington in
May. And we think that it is important not to prejudge what
their view is and how that can best be approached.
And let me just give you an example of what I mean. As I
said, Israel is in lockstep with their Arab neighbors vis-a-vis
their concern about Iran. We could argue, and many Arab
countries have, and I think some of you met with King Abdullah
in the past several days, and he has made public statements to
this effect; that for Israel to get the kind of strong support
it is looking for vis-a-vis Iran, it cannot stay on the
sidelines with respect to the Palestinians and the peace
efforts, that they go hand in hand.
And if we can work out such an approach, and this is
obviously, you know, up to the Israeli Government, they have to
make these decisions, but if there is such an approach, then a
lot of the Arab countries are saying to us there will be a
sequencing of supporting that will strengthen the region's
response to Iran.
But as I said, we have not had those in-depth conversations
yet that we are looking forward to having with the Israeli
Government.
Ms. Granger. Have you had those conversations with Arab
states specifically? And what kind of expectations do you have
from them and which ones will be most helpful?
Secretary Clinton. I must say we have had ongoing
conversations with Arab states, literally across North Africa,
Israel's immediate neighbors, and into the Gulf. The Arab Peace
Initiative, which by the way has the same principles as the
Quartet principles, which people, you know, should really give
the Arab League, most particularly Saudi Arabia, credit for;
every country with whom I have personally met, and that is most
of them by now, wants very much to support the strongest
possible posture toward Iran. They believe that Israel's
willingness to reenter into discussions with the Palestinian
Authority strengthens them in being able to deal with Iran. So
I really believe that that is their strongly held view. And we
have to sort of get everybody together in one place, which has
not yet happened, to figure out how that can proceed.
Ms. Granger. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Obey.
Mr. Obey. Madam Secretary, two questions.
There is a lot of talk about benchmarks with respect to
Afghanistan and Pakistan. My problem with benchmarks is that I
have always felt it is difficult, virtually impossible, to try
to run a war from Capitol Hill. Sometimes if you have
incredible obstreperousness on the part of the executive
branch, that is your only choice, to try, but I do not have
much faith in our ability to do so.
The problem with benchmarks as I see them, if they are
congressional benchmarks, is that if they are too tight, money
does not flow, and it messes up your ability to carry out the
policy. And if they are too loose, all they are is a cover-
your-fanny program for Congress. And what I would like is to
have something more real.
So I am not asking you now what they would be, but what I
want to know, within a reasonable period of time, is what will
the administration's own internal benchmarks be that they will
use to determine whether or not this policy is succeeding or
whether it is time to go in a different direction?
Second point is this: When I came to Congress, it was 1969,
middle of the war. I succeeded Mel Laird, who was then the
Secretary of Defense. And I was against the war. But Mel
convinced me that Nixon had inherited the war from Johnson and
that he deserved some time to try his policies. And so I said,
all right, I will keep my mouth shut for a year and see what
happens. And that is what I did. And I held out for a year
before I started voting for measures to try to shut that
operation down.
I do not want to try to shut down the administration's
ability to deal with a problem they inherited. But my question
is this: Would not a year be plenty of time for us to judge
whether or not the Paks are really willing to do what is
necessary to deal with this problem? Should not we be able to
determine within a year whether they are serious, whether they
are focusing on the right problems, whether they actually have
control of their intelligence operations so that we do not have
a deep suspicion that they are actually financing some of the
actions taken by our enemies in Afghanistan?
Secretary Clinton. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think your two
questions are related.
I agree with you completely that we need the internal
benchmarks, measurements of performance that we are currently
working to present. We would prefer they not be embodied in
congressional legislation for the very reasons you just
described, but we do think we owe you a set of measurements
that we are going to try to judge whether we are making
progress or not, and that you should be able to judge as well.
So what we intend to do is to present these approaches that
we are working on. And it is across the government. The
intelligence community will have certain measurements; the
Defense Department will; we will look as well. But we would
prefer that they be how you hold us accountable without, you
know, paralyzing our efforts to move forward. So I agree with
that.
But when we work those through and present them to you--
some of them will be classified; most of them will not be--they
will give us the indicators that I think you are seeking as to
whether we are making any progress in Pakistan.
You know, on a simple measure, is the Pakistani military
still amassing hundreds of thousands of troops on the Indian
border, or have they begun to move those toward these insurgent
areas? What kind of kinetic action are they taking? How much?
Is there an increasing uptempo or not? Is it sporadic, so they
start in and then they move back?
Now, if someone representing the Pakistani military were
here with me today, I am sure he would say, we have lost 6,000
people in these efforts in the last I think two, three years.
And that is a measurement. It is a tragic measurement. But if
you lose soldiers trying to retake part of your own country, it
seems to me that is the army's mission, you know, to see how
they can get back the governing capacity.
So we think that we will have an ability to lay out these
markers. We welcome your advice about others that you think
would be useful. And then we are going to measure it.
Now, is it a year, 18 months? I am not prepared to say
that. I do not know. But, obviously, we want to see progress on
these measurements. And we want to see the progress, you know,
beginning and continuing and not stopping and starting. And
that is what we are going to look for.
Mr. Obey. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Lewis.
Mr. Lewis. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Secretary Clinton, you come to this job at a very, very
critical time in this shrinking and volatile world. And the
focus upon Pakistan and Afghanistan is very much appropriate.
But it seems to me that that which we experienced, the world
experienced, in Mumbai has changed the level of intensity of
these challenges like one cannot hardly imagine. Indeed, I want
to support a progressive policy to help strengthen Pakistan. I
am very concerned about the changes that have taken place just
in these last few days. I do understand, on the other hand, why
Pakistan has so many troops on the Indian border. If indeed
just a little more militancy causes a spark that causes India
to react, if something were to happen in Kashmir, we could have
an explosion that involves two nuclear powers faced off against
one another.
General Petraeus was before us yesterday in the Defense
Subcommittee, and in this discussion, the fact that the
Pakistani military is totally incapable of dealing with the
military of India, the comparison just is night and day; that
reality could lead to the exercise of nuclear arms. I hope that
the Defense Department, the agencies in other words, and your
people are intensely involved in looking at this. Could you
give me some commentary about your concerns about India versus
Pakistan?
Secretary Clinton. It is a very profound question,
Congressman Lewis, because there have to be efforts to enhance
confidence between India and Pakistan.
Those are not likely to be undertaken until the Indian
elections are over. And as you know, the Indian elections take
a long time because they are the biggest democracy in the
world, and they do a pretty good job, frankly, running their
elections. But we are not going to have a government for weeks.
There have been a number of high level discussions by members
of our administration, including between the President and the
Prime Minister on the sidelines of the G20 summit in London,
raising the issue of how India can do more to tamp down any
reaction on any front like Mumbai could have provoked.
We worked very hard, and as did the prior administration,
to prevent India from reacting. But we know that the
insurgents, and al Qaeda, and their syndicate partners are
pretty smart. They are not going to cease their attacks inside
India because they are looking for exactly the kind of reaction
that we all hope to prevent.
So we do have a lot of work to do with the Indian
Government to make sure that they continue to exercise the kind
of restraint they showed after Mumbai, which was remarkable,
especially given the fact it was the political season.
We are also encouraging the Pakistani Government to reach
out to the Indian Government and to continue some of those
confidence-building measures that they were doing, like opening
the bus routes in Kashmir and other things that did have some
positive effects.
So you have put your finger on the dilemma that I was
answering Chairman Obey about. If Kashmir blows up, and
insurgents come over that line of control every day or at least
every week, then all bets are off. But if the Pakistani Army
stays on the line of control and on the Indian border and
doesn't turn their attention to dealing with the insurgents, we
got a mess on our hands.
Secretary Clinton. So, we do have to navigate through this.
Now, that is part of what the highest levels of our
Administration are doing from--Director Panetta has been in
both New Delhi and Islamabad. Our military, we are in this
funny situation because CENTCOM stops at Pakistan and PACOM
stops at India, but there is a lot of coordination going on to
kind of keep that relationship strong. It is very complex.
And one final thing I would say is why are we so concerned
about this? One of the reasons is nuclear weapons, we spend a
lot of time worrying about Iran; Pakistan already has them. And
they are widely dispersed in the country. There is not a
central location, as you know. They have adopted a policy of
dispersing their nuclear weapons and facilities. So it is
imperative that we do everything we can to keep India and
Pakistan on a good basis so that when something pops up and
they make an accusation and they fall back on what are just
natural impulses to blame the other, it doesn't escalate.
Mr. Lewis. Thank you very much, Madam Secretary.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Schiff.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Schiff
Mr. Schiff. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Secretary, it is
wonderful to see you, and I am so proud that my daughter can
have a chance to watch some of your talent and capability to
testify today. I want to make a couple of quick points and
invite you to respond to as many as you can within my 5
minutes.
First, I want to follow up on the comments of our Chair of
the full committee. I share the concern he has raised over
Afghanistan and Pakistan and the magnitude of the mission, the
doability of what we are trying to accomplish. In 2 years, we
will be approaching the tenth year anniversary of military
involvement in Afghanistan. We will have been there for a
decade. And I think probably beyond any contemplation, we will
be there in 2 years, so it will be a decade we have been in
Afghanistan. And the questions the country has will intensify
as they should. Where are we headed? Will we be in Afghanistan
for a second decade? Do we have a military role here other than
counterterrorism?
And one of the flashpoints for me is we have provided a
phenomenal amount of military support for Pakistan. They
haven't changed the paradigm, as you have pointed out, and more
pernicious there are elements within the Pakistani intelligence
services that ISS director asked that they be working across
purposes with us. I don't know how we can possibly be funding
the Pakistani military if elements of the military or
intelligence services are actually working against us and have
the effect of killing our troops next door.
So I wonder how can we structure or military support to
Pakistan in a way that ensures they make the paradigm shift,
which they have been telling us now for years they recognize,
this is their work, Pakistani Prime Minister says, but have not
acted yet like it is their war. So how do we structure our
military support to force the paradigm shift and to ensure that
the ISS not working at cross purposes.
To follow up on our subcommittee Chair's question on the
Palestinian authority, I am concerned, and I think your
testimony leaves this open that you can have a situation where
Hamas is permitted to appoint ministers to a unity government,
provided those ministers agree to quartet principles even
though Hamas does not. And it seems to me unworkable to have
Hamas organizing terrorist attacks against Israel at the same
time it has the power to appoint ministers to a collation
government. And I wonder if your testimony is leaving open that
possibility and how that could be workable, because I do not
see how that could be workable.
The final question I would like to ask is about Somalia,
and to a lesser degree, perhaps Yemen, I am concerned
particularly with Somalia that it may become the next
Afghanistan, and that we have been adrift in terms of our
policies in Somalia for 2 decades. And I don't want to see us
forced to embark on an another decade-long military campaign in
Somalia or Yemen. So what can we do now to prevent that from
happening? Thank you, Madam Secretary.
Secretary Clinton. You know, I think that each of your
questions really poses a central challenge to our foreign
policy and our security. We have had troops in Korea for 50
years, we have had troops in Europe for 50 years. We have made
long-term commitments that were in the beginning motivated by
the threat of the Soviet Union and the potential of a nuclear
war. And it was a very clear threat, you know, everybody could
look on a map and you could see the Soviet Union and you could
hear their leader say they were going to bury us, and you could
see the crisis along the way with Khruschev banging his shoe,
and President Kennedy dealing with the Cuban missile crisis and
the rest of it.
There was a framework in which we could really understand
and deal with what was ironically a conventional threat, you
know. And we deterred it and we basically contained it and we
waited for the Soviet Union to collapse under its own weight.
We face, in my view, a very serious threat, but it is of such a
different nature that we are still trying to figure out the
best way to contend with it. And so a lot of what we are
talking about, your questions, my answers, our strategic
reviews, you know, we are struggling with how on earth do we
deal with people who are scattered around the world,
concentrated in a few places, finding havens, using and
perverting religion to motivate their followers, using modern
tools like the Internet to wreak havoc. This is a very
different challenge. And I think that we are still finding our
way and so are the people we are working with who are trying to
figure this out.
Specifically Congressman, with respect to your question on
Pakistan's military. The Pakistani military has actually used
F-16s in the tribal areas. We have agreed to a mid-life upgrade
because without that mid-life upgrade, they can not fly at
night, which is a pretty good time to fly if you are going
after insurgents. And so we are saying yes, we want to see a
shift toward the enemies that we think are posing this threat
to Pakistan, and by the way, posing a threat to us.
We also have a history of kind of moving in and out of
Pakistan. Let's remember here the people we are fighting today
we funded 20 years ago. And we did it because we were locked in
this struggle with the Soviet Union. They invaded Afghanistan
and we did not want to see them control central Asia and we
went to work. It was President Reagan in partnership with the
Congress, lead by Democrats, who said, you know, it sounds like
a pretty good idea, let's deal with the ISI and the Pakistani
military, and let's go recruit these Mujahideen and let's get
some to come from Saudi Arabia and other places, importing
their Wahhabi brand of Islam so that we can go beat the Soviet
Union. And guess what? They retreated, they lost billions of
dollars and it led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
So there is a very strong argument, which is it wasn't a
bad investment to end the Soviet Union, but let's be careful
what we sow, because we will harvest.
So we then left Pakistan. We said, okay, fine, you deal
with the stingers that we left all over your country. You deal
with the mines that are along the border. And by the way, we
don't want to have anything to do with you, in fact we are
sanctioning you. So we stopped dealing with the Pakistani
military and with ISI and we now are making up for a lot of lot
of time.
So this is an incredibly difficult set of issues that are
all interconnected. But we can point fingers at the Pakistanis
which is--I did some yesterday quite frankly. And it is
merited, because we are wondering why they don't just get out
there and deal with these people. But the problems we face now
to some extent we have to take responsibility for having
contributed to.
We are developing what we think to be very positive
relationships with the civilian, the military and the ISI
leadership. But I think any analyst will tell you that we can
actually talk to and relate to the top leadership, but we have
not had a continuing dialogue or training or contact with a lot
of the middle leadership who have been influenced by the trends
of increasing Islamitization that have swept the Muslim world.
So I put that out there because I think we have to think of
the context in which we are dealing here. And just quickly on
Hamas, look, I understand the sensitivity about this. I believe
that we have a proposed policy in the supplemental that is an
important way of our being able to encourage a unity government
that does accept the quartet principles. And I would just
underscore what I said about northern Ireland. There were a lot
of people who weren't enthusiastic about joining in peace talks
and did so because they were pushed, but when they sat at the
table they had to be part of an entity that said they were in
favor of a peace. And not continuing the bombings in the UK and
northern Ireland.
And finally, I could not agree with you more on Somalia. We
left Somalia for good reason. We said what are we doing in
Somalia, you know? President Bush, the first President Bush had
us go in on a humanitarian mission, we were never adequately
resourced for that mission. We didn't have sufficient forces
there. You all know what happened. We withdrew, we said fine.
It has been basically a failed state and al Qaeda and their
allies love failed states. They just love them because they can
set up shop and nobody is there to do anything to them. So we
are looking at not only the piracy challenge, but how do we
support this new federal transitional government of Sheikh
Sharif, who at least has said a lot of the right things about
how he wants to deal with al-Shabab and the insurgency. But I
totally respect these three questions because they illustrate
the challenges that we are confronting.
Mr. Schiff. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Mr. Kirk.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Kirk
Mr. Kirk. Thank you, Madam Secretary. I am the only member
of this subcommittee I think that served in the State
Department and the Defense Department and the World Bank, so it
is with great admiration I have for your career team. And I
have a note of bipartisanship. You made tough--two tough calls
on foreign policy recently. One when China confronted the USNS
Impeccable in international waters you could have surrendered
that ocean. Instead the following week you put a U.S. destroyer
next to her and I think sending the correct message.
You, also in the face of Vice President Biden, saying that
we should not authorize the Afghan surge, you said that we
should, and the President ended up agreeing with you and
against the Vice President. And I think that was exactly the
right call in Afghanistan and applaud you and the President for
making that decision. We here have your wartime supplemental
up. I would say it is not an $83 billion bill. I understand we
just got a request for $100 billion for the IMF, and so I hope
that Secretary Geithner will appear before our subcommittee as
well since we are going to double the cost of this bill given
the letter that was just arrived from the Speaker's Office last
week.
One question I have for you is this committee has now
approved $5.2 billion for Palestinian programs since 1992. That
is more money than we provided to treat and cure cancer last
year for the United States. It looks like much of that money
was wasted and now we have got a request for $815 million more
just in 1 year. Much of this money obviously borrowed from
China to give to the Palestinians and I worry about the wisdom
of that. There is a lot of authorization language that was
attached and I don't know how we will work this out, whether
the appropriators will write the authorization language or
whether Chairman Berman will.
But one key provision does appear that it would provide
taxpayer subsidies to a coalition Hamas government. And you
know that we have at least 26 American citizens that have been
murdered by Hamas, including Tahilla Nathanson of New York, 3
years old; Malka Roth of New York, Mordechai Reinitz of New
York, Yitzhak Reinitz of New York, Leah Stern of New York,
Goldie Taubenfeld of New York, Shmuel Taubenfeld of New York,
also 3 years old, murdered by Hamas. The list is the people
killed directly on Hamas' orders is clear.
Now, the language I have it here for you to make it easy.
This is the language provided that the chairman wrote, and I
think this is very good language that prohibits assistance
until Hamas has accepted and complies with the principals. This
is actually an authorization of assistance to the government if
the predecessor advises in writing or committees on
appropriations that such government has accepted. Meaning that
if we have 1 FATA president and 20 Hamas ministers, you would
have the right to authorize taxpayer subsidies of this
government.
I am worried that I met with King Abdullah yesterday who
said that Hamas ministers all directly follow the orders of
Tehran. And so it is a worry that we would provide taxpayer
subsidies to a government with Hamas ministers. That is sort of
like saying we will provide taxpayer subsidies to a collusion
government, it only has a few Nazis in it, but it is okay.
And I worry that the law that this committee drafted by the
chairman is exactly correct. And I don't think that this
language should prevail. I would offer an amendment restoring
the Chairman's language if it comes up this way, because I
frankly think this dog will not hunt and it jeopardizes the
entire bill. But I leave it up to you to comment.
Secretary Clinton. Let me totally agree with the comments
you made about Hamas and the terrorism and violence that they
have wreaked, primarily on the Palestinian people, but then
causing the deaths and injuries of Israelis and even Americans.
I cannot stress strongly enough our Administration's rejection
of dealing with them, or in any way, supporting them or those
who espouse their rejectionist violent attitudes.
But you know, Congressman, we are currently funding the
Lebanese government which has Hezbollah in it. And we are doing
that because we think on balance, it is in the interest of the
United States to support a government that is working hard to
prevent the further encouragement of extremism.
Mr. Kirk. If I could interrupt. King Abdullah told us
yesterday he is concerned that Hezbollah will coup that
government in July.
Secretary Clinton. We are all concerned about it, which is
one of the reasons why it is important that the elections that
are going to be held in Lebanon try to reinforce the leadership
of the existing government, which has been standing in the way.
Mr. Kirk. I would just urge that you are picking up some
pretty strong bipartisan concern here, which means that an
amendment is coming, I would urge to you beat a strategic
retreat at this point. And use the Congress as the bad guy,
saying look, I am not going to be able to get taxpayer subsidy
for a Hamas government in which King Abdullah publicly is
telling people on Capitol Hill that all these ministers
directly receive orders from the MOIS Iranian intelligence
service in Iran. And so you are just going to have to either go
into coalition without our money, which isn't going to happen
or--and use us as the bad guys.
Secretary Clinton. Well, I appreciate that advice. I mean,
obviously we see it in a slightly more complex set of
circumstances. In fact, we think there is some divisions
between the Hamas leadership in Gaza and in Damascus. There is
no doubt that those in Damascus takes orders directly from
Tehran, there is no doubt about that. But we do believe that
there has been some efforts to try to get more authority and
opportunity on the part of those in Gaza. But nevertheless
Congressman, I take your point. I take it and I understand
exactly the point you are making.
Let me just----
Mr. Kirk. Can I just end and applaud you again for the
tough call in Afghanistan. You made the right call in
Afghanistan. And as a Senator from New York and now as our
Secretary of State, failure was not an option in this state. I
really applaud you, because it was a hard one.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Israel.
Secretary Clinton. Let me just quickly add to the
Congressman's point about the IMF. The EU and Germany as part
of the EU will contribute to the IMF. I know that Chairman Obey
had expressed some concern about what these countries that
weren't doing stimulus would do vis-a-vis the IMF
replenishment, and there is a commitment they will be part of
the IMF replenishment.
Mr. Kirk. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Israel.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Israel
Mr. Israel. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Secretary,
welcome, it is great to see you again. I have to apologize
earlier, I had to step out to give a speech to a group of
people who are interested in legislation that I proposed called
Cash For Clunkers. And I explained to them that I couldn't stay
very long because I had to rush back to the hearing where I
said Senator Clinton was testifying. And someone in the
audience said, no, she is Secretary Clinton. I said, I just
can't let go.
Secretary Clinton. Oh, Thank you.
Mr. Israel. Madam Secretary, I am interested in having a
conversation with you in the next several weeks about an idea
that I have proposed called Solar Villages Initiative, and that
is something I am anxious to engage you.
Let me, in the next several minutes, focus on Afghanistan
and the National Solidarity Program. Any history of Afghanistan
proves that an attempt to impose order from top to bottom from
external forces internally is doomed to failure. Alexander
tried it, Genghis Khan tried it, the Brits tried it in the
great game, the Soviets tried it, and now in many respects, I
think we are trying it.
There is one program that is homegrown, called the National
Solidarity Program in Afghanistan that creates local solutions
to local problems. It is managed by the Ministry of Rural
Rehabilitation and Development, it is in 26,000 villages, 15\1/
2\ million Afghans have benefited by it, it has helped 500,000
families, it has provided clean drinking water, built schools,
led to the empowerment of women. In order to be eligible for an
NSP project, you have to have a local governing council, and
that local governing council must elect a woman as part of the
women's empowerment initiative. And because it is entirely
under local control and owned and operated by Afghans, the
Taliban doesn't view it as an effective target. They would
rather target ISAF projects than Afghan projects.
The problem is that it appears that there is at least $140
million shortfall in NSP for this year. There are 20,000
village projects that, to coin a phrase, are shovel ready but
can't get the funding. And it doesn't mention anything about
the National Solidarity Program. So I am hoping that we can
work together on a program that is one of the few examples of
proven and demonstrable success, if not in the supplemental,
then as we go forward. And I would appreciate your perspective
on that.
Secretary Clinton. Congressman, I agree with you
completely. It is my information that in this supplemental, we
are requesting 85 million in additional funding for the Afghan
reconstruction trust fund, which, as you may know, is the
vehicle through which we fund the National Solidarity Program.
I think that we do agree with you that this has been very
successful, it has gotten in to villages, it is actually
producing results on the ground. And we don't fund it directly,
because we don't want it to be seen as a tool of our policy
because it is not, it is a policy of the Afghan government. So
there is money going into the trust fund for replenishment of
the solidarity plan. Is that right everybody behind me? Okay.
Mr. Israel. Thank you.
Secretary Clinton. That was so easy, Congressman, that was
easy.
Mrs. Lowey. And since your green light is still on, I just
want to agree with you, in every meeting we have had, there is
a focus on the National Solidarity Program and it is hard to
even believe that it is in 26,000 villages, but I have heard
continuous corroboration on that, and I really appreciate your
bringing it up.
Mr. Israel. And since my green light is still on.
Mrs. Lowey. Oh.
Mr. Israel. I would just take the opportunity, I am
heartened about the 85 million. I will need to focus a little
bit on that. The Afghan finance minister is due in and we are
going to have a conversation about that soon. But still we need
to keep in mind it is--at least $140 million shortfall this
year, at least 140 million. If you ask some they say quite
higher, and I am hopeful that that long-term deficiency can be
addressed as we go forward.
Mrs. Lowey. And since there is universal agreement we can
work together----
Mr. Kirk. Yes.
Mrs. Lowey [continuing]. With the Secretary to see if we
can find some more funding for that very successful program.
Mr. Kirk. Will the gentleman yield? Especially the
shortfall where U.S. troops are deployed. I think we can come
to the idea that fully funding NSP in U.S. AORs would have huge
support from this subcommittee.
Secretary Clinton. What we are doing in total is providing
145 million in fiscal year 2008, 2009 funds for the NSP. So I
don't know if that takes into account the shortfall or not. We
will find out----
Mr. Israel. We will figure it out.
Secretary Clinton [continuing]. Specifically for you and
get back to you Congressman.
Mr. Israel. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Mr. Crenshaw.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Crenshaw
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for
being here today. You know, if anybody is listening to what
goes on here, I think they would come to the conclusion that
your plate is pretty full. We have touched on just about every
hot spot in the world and so we appreciate the job that you are
doing and the difficulties that you face. Since we talk about
so many different things I want to just bring up U.S./Russia
relations, because I think they are lurking in the background,
particularly in terms of the Middle East. I think a week or two
ago I read where the Vice President said we ought to punch the
reset button with Russia. And it probably isn't that easy. We
still have some underlying differences, but I would guess that
the reason he said that is because in the last couple of
decades the U.S.-Russian relations are pretty well with the war
in Georgia reached a new low ebb and maybe the only way to go
is up in that sense. But with Russia all the growth that took
place with oil revenues and then the difficulties we faced, it
had new parameters and yet now things have changed again.
So maybe to start with, what do you think about that in
terms of, can you really punch or a reset button, their
relationship with Iran, things like that? Where do you think we
are in that sense?
Secretary Clinton. That is a great question. We have had a
series of quite constructive meetings. I have met with their
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and we teed up some decisions
for our President's meeting in London. And the meeting between
President Obama and President Medvedev were quite positive. I
think there are areas where we can cooperate and rebuild a
constructive relationship. We are going to engage in
negotiations leading up to new start agreement by the end of
this year because the current one expires. We are cooperating
on North Korea, the North Korea as well as the Chinese
supported a very strong statement, making clear that North
Korea contravened the Security Council's resolution about their
missile launch.
We are also beginning to cooperate in the Arctic Council
about the Arctic, which I think I will highlight for you. I
think it going to be a big issue in the years to come as we
have more and more navigable water and Russia is the dominant
presence in the Arctic.
We are really looking for many areas where we can narrow
the disagreements we have without sacrificing our principles.
We are continuing our work with Georgia and Ukraine on an
accession plan to NATO. We continue to press the Russians not
to support Iran, which we think poses a greater threat to them
than it does to us personally. So there is lot that we are
working on and we have actually put together a work plan, an
organized approach to going through all of the these issues
between us. Secretary Lavrov will be here in Washington in
early May.
Having said that, we have to do a better job of
understanding how we can interact with the Russians so that
they don't engage in aggressive and threatening behavior to
their neighbors. Their domination of energy in Europe is
extremely intimidating. And I have appointed a special envoy
for European, EuroAsian energy, because we have to get more
pipeline roots and we have to help support countries to figure
out how they can get our sources of energy besides depending
upon Russia. So there is a lot that we are looking at and I
think your question is really important because while we are
dealing with all these hot spots we have long-term challenges.
We have just decided in NATO to restart the NATO Russia
council, which I supported. I thought that was the right
decision. But it is complicated. You look at a map, there is
such a huge land mass. They border all of these difficult areas
that we are dealing with and we want to see whether we can
partner with them to try to manage and solve some problems.
Mr. Crenshaw. I can't see the light, if it is not on I just
want to ask you about the encounter with the Czech Republic and
Poland, that is a source of tension, can you comment on where
we are?
Secretary Clinton. Well, the proposed missile defense
system in Poland and the Czech Republic is designed to address
a threat from Iran. It is not designed to overwhelm the Russian
arsenal. Even after a new start agreement, you are going to
have a lot of nuclear weapons left. It never was intended to
deter the Soviet Union for the Russians, we obviously don't
think that that is in the cards at all. But that is what we
have been telling the Russians over and over again, this is
about Iran. We think Iran is a threat to Europe and to you.
We have also offered to the Russians to do research
together on missile defense and to share information to try to
provide an umbrella of security for Europe and Russia against a
system that Iran might acquire, which is why we think it is
important they don't supply Iran with a defense system to guard
against incoming missiles. So we have made this clear. I think
the historic sensitivity of the Russians to their own borders,
their effort to have a sphere of influence which we totally
reject makes it a hard case, but I think that they are going to
understand what we are trying to say and we will see what comes
of it.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you very much. Mr. Rothman.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you, Mr. Chandler is back.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Chandler
Mr. Chandler. Madam Chair, thank you.
Madam Secretary, first of all thank you for all of your
hard work throughout your long public career. I think you are
going to make a terrific Secretary of State and I am awfully
glad you are there.
I have several things that I am interested in, most or a
lot of things about Pakistan and the Middle East I know have
already been asked, but I would like to get your ideas about
the support--continued support for the ongoing counternarcotics
effort in Afghanistan. You know, there are some observers who
are concerned that this program to date has only managed to
alienate Afghan villagers from their government and from our
forces. They argue that perhaps counternarcotic programs should
be put off until the war is won. I would like to hear your
views on that.
I would also be curious to hear what you think about what I
am afraid is a developing very difficult situation in Sudan
between the north and the south in particular. We hear an
enormous amount about Darfur. Darfur is extremely important to
everybody, but Darfur may actually, if you can believe it, be a
minor problem in comparison to where Sudan may be headed in the
future. I am concerned about the volatility of the whole
region, the viability of Sudan as a state. Can it maintain
itself as a complete entity or will it break up and can that be
tolerated by states in the region, the volatility of that
situation?
And also if you have time your views on the future of NATO
generally. Is NATO a viable organization and what can it
appropriately be used for in the future. Thank you.
Secretary Clinton. Thank you very much, Congressman. To
your point on counternarcotics in Afghanistan, we are certainly
continuing with our counternarcotics efforts, but we are intent
upon increasing the funding and support for alternative
development programs.
I was surprised when I learned some years ago that
Afghanistan was called the garden of central Asia. It was
filled with fruit trees and orchards and I have seen pictures
from 40, 50 years ago and it is just unrecognizable. Anybody
who has flown over Afghanistan now and seen the erosion and the
dust and the lack of arable land, it was a surprising contrast.
There are so many ways that we could support agriculture in
Afghanistan and we intend upon doing that. That is one of our
highest priorities. At the same time we understand the threat
that counternarcotics or narcotic trafficking poses. It is not
the main source of funding for the Taliban and al Qaeda but it
is a source of funding. So we are going to emphasize
agricultural and we are going to emphasize trying to expand
programs to bring back the trees and the soil.
When I was a Senator from New York I had a program between
Cornell and one of our State universities to provide seedlings
to Afghanistan. It was done on a small scale. I could never get
the prior administration to really focus on it. And of course
it does pose a conflict, because if you are going to aerial
spray poppies, you will also kill fruit trees so it is
complicated. So I think creating this alternative agricultural
approach and then creating markets I will just end with this on
this point because it is fascinating to me, you know
pomegranates have now been proven, pomegranate juice to lower
cholesterol. Afghanistan used to be and still is one of the
principal growers of the pomegranates. And I think there is a
lot we can do here, we need to be smart about.
I also agree with you about your caution concerning the
north, south conflict in Sudan. We are very focused on Darfur
for obvious humanitarian reasons and the continuing harassment
by the Khartoum government and their militias, but we have got
to keep our eye on the north, south. The comprehensive peace
agreement that was reached, if that blows up again it brings in
the other neighboring countries. So we have a special envoy for
the Sudan, a retired two-star Air Force general and part of his
mission is not just to focus on Darfur but to focus on the
Sudanese challenge overall.
Mr. Chandler. NATO.
Secretary Clinton. I am over my time. I took a gentle hint
when they turned the time----
Mr. Crenshaw. I think that was for me.
Secretary Clinton [continuing]. Clock my way so I figured I
was supposed to follow it.
NATO obviously we have to focus on the future for NATO. We
are in the midst of a strategic planning effort. I think NATO
still has a very important purpose and I am a strong supporter
of NATO but we have to rethink how we structure it, reform its
management and its administrative functioning and figure out
what its missions are going to be.
Mr. Chandler. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Rehberg.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Rehberg
Mr. Rehberg. Thank you, Madam Chair. And welcome, I can't
think of anybody more highly qualified for this position than
you. And thank you for taking the job having been First Lady
and a Senator and now a cabinet official. By the end of this 4
years, you might qualify to run for the House of
Representatives.
Secretary Clinton. John Quincy Adams did, remember.
Mr. Rehberg. Just in a different district. Do take on Nita,
we like her as well.
I have a parochial issue, I will not waste time, I will
like for the record if I could get unanimous consent to ask to
submit some questions specifically about the directorate of
defense trade controls and it is a defense issue where
exporters of defense items are being charged a fee because they
wanted to be 75 percent self funded and you have kind of
wrapped up some of my small gun barrel exporters in Montana, it
doesn't make any sense to have them up against defense
contractors when it comes to a fee. So I have some specific
questions that I am not getting answers from the State
Department, and I would like to submit those for the record if
I might please.
Mrs. Lowey. I would be happy to enter it into the record.
Mr. Rehberg. And then if I could ask two questions
specifically. I want to get back to our role as appropriators
and that is the Merida Initiative and the 400--and I believe it
is 65 million that we appropriated in July 2008. Some of it is
very slow in getting out, we had Assistant Secretary Johnson in
talking about the various dates, but unfortunately some of
those dates are being missed. I would like you to specifically
speak about that. And it plays into Montana surprisingly
because we have a huge meth problem. And Mr. Sebol out there
has a Montana meth project sweeping the country. He is helping
to finance a public private partnership, but a lot of that is
coming from Mexico and other places. I would like you to speak
to the additional money you are requesting in relation to how
it is not going out as timely as it could.
And my final question is the Millennium Challenge. I happen
to be a large supporter. I didn't see anything specifically in
your testimony about the Millennium Challenge. You do talk
about 448 million for assistance to developing countries is
that Millennium which wouldn't go very far based upon the
financial obligations? I just want to hear from you a little
bit about your philosophy and the direction you kind of intend
to take under the Obama administration as far as Millennium,
and not doing what we did in Somalia walking away, Pakistan and
some of the other countries, because it plays right into it,
promises made and then promises not kept.
Secretary Clinton. Thank you very much, Congressman. And I
do understand your concern about the DDTC program, and we
described the current policy in a letter that we sent back to
you on April 17, but I will also look into this and have our
staff follow up with you. Obviously the goal is not to put
anybody, any small business out of business, I mean that is not
the goal here. It is to try to deal with the cost of running
this program, which is obviously a facilitating program for
American business.
On the Merida Initiative, I share your frustration in how
slow it has been getting the money out. Now, some of that
reason I am sure David Johnson talked to you about this is we
have to be sure we have in place the safeguard so the money
goes where we intend it to go. But that doesn't explain it, it
is just too slow. When I was in Mexico, that is what I heard
from both the President and the foreign Secretary saying, look,
you say this is urgent and a big deal, but we are not getting
the help we need even after the money gets appropriated. And I
would like to work with this committee, and in general,
Chairman Obey, the entire Appropriations Committee, but
obviously I have a parochial interest here in my appropriating
partners here. We have to figure out why this takes so long.
Now if we don't want to do it let's just say we don't want
to do it, but if it is wending its way through the bureaucracy
and it needs 900 sign-offs before a dollar is spent, we are
just wasting time and losing ground. And because we aren't as
agile as we need to be in a lot of these circumstances, I am
seeing other countries, primarily China fill that gap.
An article today about Jamaica right here in our own
hemisphere facing a financial shortfall because of the G-20, it
goes to Congresswoman Granger's question, came to the United
States, we said well, we don't have the money and we are not
prepared to be able to help you. They want to China and they
just signed a memorandum of understanding with China giving
them what would be not very much money, I don't remember
exactly, maybe 150 million or something. And now they have a
government to government relationship with China.
So Mexico needs our help, we should deliver the help. In
the supplemental we are providing funding for 3 Black Hawk
helicopters for their public security secretariat to provide
them urgently needed air transport. I went down and visited
their new police academy, they are trying hard to end the
corruption, build morale. They told me they asked for the
helicopters because they had budgeted to use the money on some
other thing they needed in the fight against the drug cartels,
and just haven't gotten it and it has taken years.
So let's try to get to the bottom of this, because you all
do your work and you get it appropriated. I go around talking
about what we need to do, and it is kind of hollow. And we are
losing ground and we are seeing particularly China come in
right behind us because countries get tired of talking to our
bureaucracy and decide they are going to cut deals with
somebody else.
Millennium Challenge grants are a very important part of
our foreign policy. It is a new approach and it is an approach
that we think deserves support. We have to make sure that just
like anything else, it is part of our overall review of foreign
aid, how it is working and how it can be better. But I think it
has had a positive effect in a number of settings where it has
encouraged people to make changes that we wanted them to make.
So we are going to be looking closely at how to make it even
better.
Mrs. Lowey. Before I turn to Mr. Rothman, I just want to
thank you for your comments. This committee was in Mexico not
too long ago. And we were so impressed with the President and
the urgency of our assistance was repeated everywhere and yet
it is just so slow. So we look forward to working with you and
addressing that issue. Thank you.
Mr. Rothman.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Rothman
Mr. Rothman. Thank you Madam Chair and Madam Secretary. It
is a great delight and honor to have you before us and to
reiterate what my colleagues have said, what a great privilege
and moment in U.S. American history to have such a qualified,
intelligent, experienced person such as yourself with such an
extraordinary grasp of these issues as our Secretary of State
and we are delighted you took the job. We are very proud to
have you in that position.
We just came back from a trip to the Middle East with our
chairwoman Mrs. Lowey and our ranking member, Ms. Granger, and
I think it is fair to say as you indicated in your remarks that
there appears to be a window of opportunity now for an
agreement, a peace agreement between Israel and her neighbors
that perhaps did not exist in the last several years. That
opportunity is present and we want to make the most of it.
The worst actors in the region all have one thing in
common, they are connected with Iran, their Iranian proxies,
whether it be Hezbollah or Hamas. And while we would very much
enjoy a new relationship or a new beginning with the Iranian
people given their present regime and its offensive policies
and disruptive activity in the region, that is not going to
happen soon.
Here is my question: How do we balance the need to begin
the engagement in terms of negotiations and discussions with
Iran that I think are an important departure from the past and
necessary to see if there is a chance to peacefully resolve our
issues of conflict with Iran? How do we balance that need to
want to talk with the need for greater sanctions? What is the
order of priority? Do we proceed with sanctions before we
proceed with the discussions? How are you going to handle or
juggle that, number 1. I have to get any questions in quickly.
The other is with regards to the funds that you requested
for Gaza. I know of your commitment that none of this money
according to U.S. law it cannot, but that your commitment that
none of the money will go to Hamas, or any of the terrorist
groups, what kind of new mechanisms do you plan to--do you and
your magnificent staff intend to put into place to make certain
that no Hamas member gets any of that humanitarian aid that we
want to provide to the people of Gaza.
And finally, Egypt, the border between Egypt and Gaza, we
had a wonderful meeting with the authorities in Egypt and I
believe not only Egypt, but most of the Arab world in the gulf,
Jordan, Egypt and other places or the Saudis are committed to a
new day with regards to living together in peace with Israel,
resolving the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The number one
sticking point, Iran. They are making trouble, they are
destabilizing the region, and their efforts to take over the
region are very, very serious. So how are you going to balance
the discussions and sanctions, make sure Hamas doesn't get any
piece of that humanitarian aid that we are giving in Gaza and
how are we doing for helping the Egyptians secure that border
with Gaza to prevent the rearming of Hamas with long range
rockets?
Secretary Clinton. Well, these are such important questions
Congressman. We have sanctions and we continue those sanctions
on Iran. We don't yet have any real engagement so we don't know
how to gauge the seriousness of any effort the Iranians may
agree to be a part of. The sanctions are a tool both for us to
leverage pressure on the Iranian regime to change behaviors
that we obviously consider serious threats. And so we are
talking with our partners about additional sanctions as part of
incentives, disincentives kind of approach to Iran. It is a
delicate balancing act. It is hard to predict because so much
of it depends in any negotiation whether you are getting
something or not. You know one of the proposals that has been
put forth by a number of people is the so-called freeze for
freeze. We would freeze our sanctions and they would freeze
their nuclear----
Mr. Rothman. They have been known, the Iranians, to slow
walk the negotiations. They did that with the EU, how do we
prevent----
Secretary Clinton. We know that, we know that. Right now we
are testing their willingness to have any kind of engagement,
there is no engagement. So we have to plan all of this, think
it through. Ambassador Dennis Ross, who is handling our
southwest Asia policy including Iran is, I am sure you know
him, he is extremely thoughtful and smart about how to sequence
this. So there is no easy answer to your question right now. We
know what our objectives are and we know that if we are not
successful in moving toward those objectives that we have to
impose even tougher sanctions, so it is a back-and-forth kind
of assessment.
I would reiterate what we intend to do about any aid that
went to the Palestinian authority assuming that it complied
with the quartet principles. By saying that we intend to hold
any entity that receives American aid to a very high standard
we have made it clear to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and
Work Agency that we intend to carefully track any aid that they
receive. They have taken additional steps, partly at our urging
to make their process more transparent, consistent with both
United Nations commitments and U.S. legislation.
They conduct background checks on employees, they share
staff lists with us and with Israel. They prohibit staff
participation in political activities. They launch
investigations upon receiving information from Israel, us or
anyone else about any staff member engaging in inappropriate or
illicit activities. They are actually investigating staff
members right now who were elected in internal elections within
Gaza. And we have pressed them very hard because they have to
earn our confidence in this.
We are also vetting any NGOs. We have been very clear that
any group that is a vehicle for us to give money for
humanitarian relief in Gaza will be held to the same standards.
We have a set of requirements on the Palestinian authority that
they have to pay certain bills like utility companies and
others because we want the cash transfers to be trackable. So
we are putting in place a lot of safeguards.
In addition, and finally on Egypt, Egypt has been very
cooperative and helpful. They are doing more on the tunnels. I
think that the plot that they uncovered involved Hezbollah was
a real wake up call in some ways. And they understand the
increasing alliance between Hezbollah and Hamas and their
connection to groups within Egypt that are aiming to
destabilize the government. So I am seeing a greater level of
understanding and cooperation Congressman.
Mr. Rothman. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Ms. Lee.
Opening Remarks of Ms. Lee
Ms. Lee. Thank you. Madam Secretary, first let me just say
you truly have the weight of world on your shoulders, but it is
not weighing you down one bit. You are doing a wonderful job.
And I am convinced, I really believe the world is going to be a
safer place because of your leadership so thank you very much.
Regarding the supplemental, I have quite naturally a
serious concern that the military request is 75 billion and the
diplomacy and diplomatic and development request is about 7
billion. And many believe that there is no military solution in
Afghanistan, but the supplemental in terms of its balance
certainly doesn't reflect that reality. I was concerned when
Congress authorized the use of force in Afghanistan in 2001
that we were given a blank check that provided for an open-
ended military presence and the use of force in Afghanistan.
And I couldn't support that and I still see this happening. I
am not sure where this all ends. Having said that, let me ask
you a couple questions, just first with regard to the status of
forces agreement. I know when you were in the Senate and
Senator Obama was in the Senate, you offered status of forces
agreement. I have a bill here very similar. What is the status
of this now, now that the Administration is looking at this, I
believe under the previous status of forces agreement, does
that still hold?
Secretary Clinton. Are you referencing Iraq or Afghanistan?
Ms. Lee. Iraq.
Secretary Clinton. Iraq?
Ms. Lee. Iraq. And then do you intend to look at one as it
relates to Afghanistan, or have you really thought about that?
Secretary Clinton. Congresswoman, the Status of Forces
Agreement in Iraq has been agreed to by the Obama
Administration. There is a definite deadline, as you know, for
the removal of combat troops. That is under way. There is not a
comparable agreement vis-a-vis Afghanistan.
Ms. Lee. And you are not contemplating one?
Secretary Clinton. That has not been part of any
discussion.
Ms. Lee. Okay.
With regard to the global HIV/AIDS efforts, the Global
Fund, as you know, and some of the numbers are really
significant in terms of the results: We put over 2 million
people on AIDS treatment; 5 million have been treated for TB;
and 70 million bed nets distributed to prevent malaria. And I
believe this year the anticipated contribution is about $900
million. But I think it would have to be significantly
increased if we expect to fully fund the anticipated grants and
really meet the dramatic increase in anticipated demand.
So I am not sure about the level of commitment that we
can--or requests from the administration on this, and should it
be or will you see a dramatic need to increase it for 2010?
Finally, let me just mention this issue that, Congresswoman
Lowey, I believe we were in Morocco, Ghana, Liberia, Kenya, and
Uganda last year. During this trip, we went from location to
location, and I pointed out then, and I am still concerned
about this, the lack of minority personnel and minority
contractors providing contractual work, services as it relates
to USAID. And so I am still looking for some answers.
Again, this goes back prior to this administration as to
the policies with regard to the utilization of minority- and
women-owned businesses. In my prior life, I actually was a
business person, and I tried over and over and over again,
probably for 11 years, to do business with the State
Department, never could break through USAID as an AID
contractor. So I am wondering, have you had a chance to look at
that and diversity in the workforce and all of the issues
around diversity?
And again, thank you so much for your leadership.
Secretary Clinton. Well, you are welcome. Let me just say
on PEPFAR and the Global AIDS, Malaria, and TB Fund, our budget
will come up, and I look forward to discussing the reasons
behind our request. We believe that what we are asking for will
be adequate given what is in the pipeline. And it kind of goes
back to this problem of getting the money out and getting it
where it needs.
I mean, we just have to streamline this. We are really not
doing ourselves or our taxpayers a service when we spend all
this time, you know, working on our proposals to you, and then
you spend so much time reviewing them and coming up with what
the congressional response is, and then it just sits there. So
we have got to kind of get on top of this.
I take our commitment to diversity very, very seriously.
And I will continue to emphasize the importance of us
reflecting the country that we proudly represent. We have made
some progress over the last several years. There is a wonderful
program that is named for my friend Charlie Rangel that places
young people in internships in the State Department.
But, you know, we still have work to do. The whole
contracting issue about USAID is one that we have got to
explore together. I mean, it is estimated that $0.50 on the
dollar never gets even into the program because it goes into
contracting-related costs. And some have said, and I repeated
it at my confirmation hearing, USAID has been turned into a
contracting agency. So I would like to bring more of the
services and the expertise inside USAID.
But in any event, I will certainly assure you of my and the
Department's, and of USAID's commitment to diversity in hiring
and contracting find the very best people we can.
Ms. Lee. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Madam Secretary, as you can see, there is strong bipartisan
support for your leadership. You have a huge plate. There are
enormous challenges. But I know this committee is honored and
privileged to have the opportunity to work with you to address
these challenges.
Ms. Lee mentioned HIV/AIDS. If Earl Blumenauer were here,
he would be talking about water. If someone else were here,
they would be talking about micro enterprise. So we know the
tremendous challenges, and we know that you are addressing
them.
I just want to close with one issue which I addressed in my
opening statement, and that is the Pakistan counterinsurgency
fund. I will be having conversations with our distinguished
Committee Chairman, Mr. Obey, and Mr. Murtha. I think this
decision to place those funds within the Department of Defense
is a tremendous error. I think it undermines your authority.
You are the person who has the authority to carry out our
foreign policy agenda. And I do not say this lightly. We have
been talking about this as soon as it was brought to our
attention.
So I urge you, because of the position you have as
Secretary of State, to continue to work with us to make it
clear that it is you and the Department of State that has the
authority to set policy. And we will be keeping in touch on
this issue. And I look forward to a positive resolution.
So let me again say thank you. I am glad that we have been
able to close in a timely manner, because there is a
commemoration of the Holocaust which is beginning as we speak.
And again, I look forward to working closely with you.
Thank you very much.
Secretary Clinton. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. This concludes today's hearing on the fiscal
year 2009 supplemental appropriations request. The Subcommittee
on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs stands
adjourned.
I just did not say, Madam Secretary, if members have
additional questions, including myself, they will submit them
for the record. Thank you so much.
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009.
U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
WITNESS
ALONZO L. FULGHAM, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
Opening Statement of Chairwoman Lowey
Mrs. Lowey. The Subcommittee on State and Foreign
Operations and Related Programs will come to order. Today we
are delighted to welcome Alonzo Fulgham as at the Administrator
of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Thank you for
joining us today. While we really do appreciate your efforts to
move the agency forward during this transition, we are
anxiously awaiting, as I am sure you are, the appointment of a
USAID administrator who can work closely with the Secretary of
State and articulate the importance of long-term development
within the administration.
As I noted last week, the President's fiscal year 2010
budget calls for a dramatic increase in USAID operating
expenses and provides for a significant boost in humanitarian
and development assistance. It totals $1.438 billion for
operating expenses, a $384 million increase over the fiscal
year 2009 level, including the funding requested in the fiscal
year 2009 supplemental.
This request would support an additional 350 foreign
service officers to keep us on track to double the USAID
foreign service workforce by 2012. In addition, it includes
$245 million for additional spaces in embassies and missions
around the world to accommodate increased personnel.
I hope that you can provide insight into how USAID is
ensuring that the new hires have technical skills that reflect
the program priorities, including climate change, agriculture,
gender sensitivity and basic education, what training programs
are being put in place to ensure that the new foreign service
officers are oriented toward local engagement with
nongovernmental organizations and developing country
governments with a focus on building local capacity and
providing smaller grants with more targeted goals and outcomes.
Finally, how is USAID coordinating its projected growth
with the State Department, and do you have a joint operations
plan that takes into account security, space needs of the new
employees requested in both the USAID and state budgets. Among
significant increases in critical development areas, I was
pleased that $1 billion was requested for basic education. that
is pretty amazing. As you know, providing an education opens
doors for young men and women and benefits the individual,
their community and the world.
I look forward to working with the administration to ensure
that U.S. government resources support quality education and
that USAID supported schools serve as an anchor of stability
and support in communities. Just last month I spoke with Queen
Ranya of Jordan about the need to establish a new, multilateral
global fund for education.
During development of the 2010 budget request, did the
administration consider the merits of such a fund? Can you
provide me insight into those discussions? The $1.2 billion
request for climate change initiatives includes $579 million
for adaptations and clean energy programs, a $309 million
increase over the fiscal year 2009 level. Mr. Israel's ears
perked up with that.
Clearly, the administration has structured its request to
address the climate change crisis the world is facing, but
USAID does not currently have extensive expertise in this area
and the current staffing plan calls for only 21 new officers in
the field. How, then, does USAID intend to provide proper
oversight management of this new initiative? How will USAID
programs be coordinated with efforts made through multilateral
funds and with the State Department? Who is taking the lead on
the post-Kyoto negotiations?
As you know, I believe that successful programs have
maximum impact when efforts are well-coordinated. The budget
includes $1.3 billion for food security and agriculture. How
will USAID coordinate with other efforts funded by private
foundations, such as the Alliance for a Green Revolution and a
multilateral organization such as the International Fund for
Agriculture and the World Food Program? How will USAID programs
build upon the agriculture investments made by the Millennium
Challenge Corporation?
I am also concerned that gender considerations must be
factored into all aspects of development assistance, especially
agriculture programs where women often make up a majority of
laborers but receive little outside technical assistance. What
steps are you taking to ensure that gender is taken into
consideration during every phase of USAID's assistance
programs? I noted last week my concern that health funding is
not keeping pace with need.
While I understand the President has announced his
intention to provide $63 billion over six years, I am
disappointed in the nominal increase for core maternal and
child health, as well as family planning. I am looking forward
to our discussion today and to working with you. Before we move
to your testimony, let me turn to Ms. Granger, the Ranking
Member, for her opening statement.
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Granger
Ms. Granger. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am glad to join you
as we continue the hearings on the administration's fiscal year
2010 budget request. I am pleased that Mr. Alonzo Fulgham is
here and understand just recently that you had a common career
interest in my hometown of Ft. Worth, Texas, and was glad to
meet and talk to you about that. The administration's request
for the state and foreign operations bill totals $52 billion,
as you said, a large increase, 42 percent increase, over the
fiscal year 2009 regular appropriations excluding emergency
appropriation.
Such a large increase in foreign assistance comes at a time
when USAID is still working to hire the staff it needs to
manage its existing workload. This Subcommittee appropriated
the resources USAID is using toward this hiring effort begun by
the previous administration. I look forward to an update on the
progress made thus far to hire, to train and to deploy these
new officers overseas. The administration's budget has been
called a smart power budget. I have long supported the concept
of smart power as a national security strategy, and I
understand that USAID will play a key role. Thank you for being
here with us today. I look forward to your testimony.
Mrs. Lowey. Acting Administrator Fulgham, please proceed.
Your entire statement will be placed in the record.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Fulgham
Mr. Fulgham. Madam Chair, Ranking Member Granger, and
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to
appear before the Committee today in support of the President's
Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 Foreign Operations Budget Request and to
discuss the important role the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) will play in advancing our
nation's foreign assistance priorities.
I would like to begin my testimony by thanking you for the
help and support you have given USAID during the past few
years. Your support has been critical to our Agency's efforts
to begin to rebuild and regain development leadership in the
global arena.
I am a career public servant, and a senior foreign service
officer with over 20 years of experience serving my country at
home and abroad. I am honored and humbled to testify in support
of the President's fiscal year 2010 foreign operations budget
request. I look forward to discussing the important role the
United States Agency for International Development will play in
undertaking critical missions and sustainable development
programs in support of our nation's foreign policy and national
security interests.
As the acting Administrator, I proudly represent more than
7,000 USAID employees who serve the Agency with honor, often
under very trying circumstances, throughout the developing
world. I also want to take this opportunity to recognize
Secretary Clinton and her leadership team for their engagement
with and dedication to development issues and USAID.
Since her second day on the job, when she came to USAID
headquarters to address our staff, Secretary Clinton had made
clear her commitment to see development properly established as
the third pillar of U.S. foreign policy alongside diplomacy and
defense, a commitment that is reflected in the budget request
before you. The President's fiscal year 2010 budget request for
USAID-managed accounts equals $36.7 billion, including food
aid.
This funding will put the U.S. government on the path to
double U.S. foreign assistance by 2015 and to double the number
of USAID foreign service officers over the next several years.
Thanks to the critical support that we have received from the
Congress, and from your Subcommittee in particular, USAID has
already begun the process of rebuilding and regaining
development leadership in the global arena.
With fiscal year 2009 resources, USAID will add an
additional 300 foreign service officers to its total workforce
under the Development Leadership Initiative. In addition, the
President's fiscal year 2010 request also includes funding for
350 new foreign service officers. As members of this committee
well understand, diversity is central to the strength of any
organization and is a high priority for USAID.
I am proud to report that minorities represent 32 percent
of the first five classes of our DLI.
Madam Chair, let me assure you that you will begin to see
positive change at USAID. We will improve our business
processes--performing more functions in-house and using
contracted technical services more appropriately. Overseas,
USAID officers will spend more time with their projects in
schools, and health clinics and small businesses in poor
communities.
A centerpiece of the fiscal year 2010 budget request is a
significant increase in funding for civilian assistance
programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan. USAID is staffing up to
serve these critical missions and participating fully in the
whole of government approach to achieving positive results.
It is USAID's work to address the many complex threats
confronting the world we live in: global poverty, food
insecurity, pandemic disease, climate change, post-conflict
instability and both man-made and natural disasters.
As such, USAID will take the lead in implementing a number
of Presidential priorities. First, basic education. The
President's request, a 60 percent increase over the fiscal year
2009 request, will ensure that the United States remains in the
forefront of programs for all girls and boys in developing
countries to increase access to basic education.
Next, global health. The fiscal year 2010 request is $7.6
billion, part of a total effort of $63 billion over six years,
to undertake a new integrated approach to global health. The
President's Global Health Initiative will build upon ongoing
success in reducing deaths from HIV/AIDS, malaria, and
tuberculosis. It will increase investment in safe motherhood
and reduce infant mortality. The initiative will target for
elimination certain tropical diseases afflicting millions and
support improved healthcare services delivery.
Moving to food security, President Obama announced at the
recent G-20 summit his intention to request a doubling of U.S.
funding for agriculture development in developing countries.
USAID will support poverty reduction by boosting poor farmers'
access to seed, fertilizer, credit, linking small producers to
markets, strengthening farmers' cooperatives, working with U.S.
land grant universities and encouraging private investment in
agribusiness.
Another key priority will be climate change. The fiscal
year 2010 budget requests $581 million for this critical issue.
USAID programs will help those developing countries most
vulnerable to the impact of climate change become more adaptive
and resilient. Finally, I would like to mention the Rapid
Response Fund, a $76 million initiative that will provide our
government with the flexibility to respond quickly to
unforeseen opportunities and to help shore up fragile
democracies.
This fund will enhance our ability to respond to unbudgeted
but critical windows of opportunity and demonstrate meaningful
peace dividends to local populations. Madam Chair, with that I
will conclude. Again, I thank you for your support to USAID and
for this opportunity to brief the committee. I welcome your
questions.
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Mrs. Lowey. Thank you, and thank you again for your
leadership. We will proceed with questions, five minutes each
of us, and we will go side to side depending upon the order in
which we can do it in.
USAID STAFFING
In a recent hearing, Secretary Clinton lamented that lack
of USAID capacity and adequate staffing has turned USAID into a
``manufactured agency''. Her statement reflects the concerns
that we have heard from nongovernmental organizations that
USAID is moving away from indirect grants to large directed
grants due to the lack of adequate staff to be innovative and
creative in programming.
In the past few years, as you know, the committee has
worked with USAID to increase staffing, and as of today,
Congress has provided funding to support the hiring of an
additional 420 officers, and the fiscal year 2010 request will
bring it to a total of 770 new foreign service officers. These
young officers will all be sent to the field where they will be
able to address some of the concerns raised by Secretary
Clinton and the NGO community.
A couple of questions following-up. What has USAID done to
ensure that the expertise of the new officers reflects the
priorities of the administration as outlined in the fiscal year
2010 budget? Where will these new employees be assigned? I
understand that USAID has worked with the State Department to
develop a construction and rehabilitation plan to ensure that
these new employees have office space. Are you satisfied with
the outcome of these discussions? Will these facilities be
completed prior to the deployment of the new officers?
Lastly, if additional staff is onboard in the field, how do
you envision this impacting the operating model for USAID
programs? Do you expect that USAID will begin to award smaller
grants to local nongovernment organizations?
Mr. Fulgham. Madam Chair, thank you. I think that through
your leadership and this committee's leadership USAID has
clearly recognized that the situation that we are in did not
just happen overnight. It has been an erosion of our abilities
over the last 15 years. Thanks to the generous support of this
committee we have started to rebuild this agency.
The key for us right now is people. We need to get back to
basics. Working side by side with communities, as I stated in
my opening statement, providing assistance at the grass roots
level and identifying ways to find more contracting
opportunities that allow for smaller contracts or grants. What
we are doing as an agency is hiring about 170 new project
development officers, and 111 contracting officers.
We have a significant number of compliance and development
officers who will be able to manage these smaller grants and
also implement those grants. That is going to be the key. We
have got to get the workforce up to a level where we can get
away from these large omnibus contracts. Those contracts were
put in place because of a necessity, lack of management talent,
so you had to bundle them. So now we are in the process of
changing a lot of those processes and creating opportunities at
the smaller level.
The key to being able to do smaller contracts is getting
more officers in the field, such as compliance officers,
contracting officers and lawyers. With respect to space
overseas, we have been working very closely with the Department
of State.
Last week Deputy Secretary Lew issued an ALDAC, which is a
cable worldwide to all U.S. missions, asking them to prepare
for major staffing increases, and the doubling of USAID over
the next three years. There is a task force that has been put
together with USAID and State Department colleagues who are
working through these issues to ensure that there are enough
desks and training opportunities once these new officers arrive
in the field.
Mrs. Lowey. Yellow light. Okay. I will ask just one other
quick question that I have been concerned about. I am puzzled
by the presence of two separate requests for flexible funding,
$76 million for a rapid response fund through the USAID's
Office of Transition Initiatives, and $40 million for a
Stabilization Bridge Fund to support the deployment of civilian
stabilization initiative staff. These mandates seem very
similar. I am not sure why they are both needed. How are they
distinct from the existing OTI mandate that has been
successful?
Mr. Fulgham. Our staffs have been working very closely to
try and refine this process, but I think it is very clear, and
you have been a strong voice in the argument that we need to
get the military out of doing these quick or CERP type
projects. This fund will allow for us on the ground when we are
in crisis to be able to address issues in the short-term until
we can request funding for these programs in the regular budget
process.
The OTI fund is a much smaller fund similar to what we used
in Serbia, particularly in southern Serbia, to address conflict
and instability in local communities. We had small grants that
were put into those communities to try to bridge differences
and bring those communities back together. What we are looking
at with this Rapid Response Fund is a much larger capacity to
be able to address critical needs on the democracy side, on the
health side and on the economic growth side.
Mrs. Lowey. To be continued.
Mr. Fulgham. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. Lowey. Ms. Granger.
Ms. Granger. Thank you. I am going to continue because on
the rapid response fund I do not see a clear purpose or plan,
so I want to go back to that and ask you very specifically why
cannot the administration not used its existing programming
authorities to meet these emerging needs? What criteria will be
used to determine which countries qualify for the rapid
response assistance? Give me a country or regional example of
where such a fund would be needed.
Mr. Fulgham. A case in point would be, let us say, Kenya.
We are already in the 2009 budget cycle. Things spiral out of
control, and a new government comes into place. Our current
programs might not address some of the issues that the new
government may need to put into place. Maybe they are having a
significant amount of problems on the health side or economic
growth side. How could we immediately put in place programs
until the regular budget cycle could catch up in order to fund
those programs? It is an emergency bridge to help countries
that are in need.
It is flexible. I know that that term ``flexible'' makes
folks a little nervous, but in the world that we live in and
the fact that we are trying to create space and help
governments who are trying to move forward, we have to have the
flexibility and the money available to help these countries in
need on an emergency basis. The key here is that it is on an
emergency basis and with the advice and consent of Congress.
This fund will not be used every year. It is a set aside in
case of emergencies.
You have seen over the last few months the number of
emergencies that we have been dealing with. Having access to a
fund like this will allow us to have bridge funding until the
regular budget appropriations can catch up. It also will help
alleviate the need for additional supplementals.
Ms. Granger. All right. I am going to come back to that in
a few minutes but the other thing I want to ask you about, the
Congress appropriated $245 million to support microenterprise
and microfinance efforts. The administration's requesting $167
million for 2010. That is a $77 million decrease. In my
experience, those funds have been very successful financing
successful businesses and developing economies.
Just like we have to educate people, we also have to give
them a chance in those countries. You highlighted microfinance
in your testimony but could you explain why the administration
cut funds for the microenterprise by $77 million from its
fiscal year 2009 level?
Mr. Fulgham. In FY 2009, the previous Administration
requested $103 million in funding for microenterprise. The FY
2010 request of $167 million represents a substantial increase
over the previous request and reflects missions' estimates of
the programming needs in the field.
Some of our most successful programs have now spun off into
banks. What we are trying to do is refine, improve the product
and change some of the implementation mechanisms in some of the
countries that we are working in, and at this point, we felt as
though the pipeline that we had for 2010 was adequate to get us
through that cycle. It may spike again in 2011 and go back up
again, but the administration felt at this point in time that
we have sufficient funding.
Ms. Granger. Okay. Can you get me more information and keep
me involved in that?
Mr. Fulgham. I would love to brief you again.
Ms. Granger. I am going to go back to what we were talking
about before with the rapid response fund. I have many of the
same questions about the Civilian Stabilization Initiative. It
has been billed as the civilian counterpart to military
response, as you were talking about, but the details are pretty
sketchy. Is there an adequate consultation between state and
USAID on the development of CSI? When will the committee
receive a joint spending plan that is required for the fiscal
year 2009 fund? What part of the fiscal year 2010 request will
USAID implement? Can you give us some more details on that?
Mr. Fulgham. Yes. As you know, we have been trying to put
together a civilian response corps for the U.S. government to
respond to reconstruction and stabilization crises over the
last four years. There has been significant consultation under
CSI. The State Department, and I cannot speak for their portion
completely, is set up as a unit that is the belly button for
the civilian government so that the Defense Department will
have someone to relate to when there is a crisis related to
reconstruction and stabilization. They are responsible for
coordinating the rest of the interagency.
The fund that they have set up is basically used for
deployment only when they deploy their forces, whereas with
ours, it is set up specifically for operational purposes. So I
see the State Department as the policy and coordination unit
and then USAID as the implementation arm of our civilian
response corps. As for the joint spend plan, thank you, it is
currently with OMB and they are going through the numbers right
now. We hope to have that in the next week or so.
Ms. Granger. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Ms. Lee.
Opening Statement of Ms. Lee
Ms. Lee. Thank you very much, and good morning. Let me ask
you just a couple of things. You talked a little bit about the
debundling of the larger contracts. I asked this question and
the former administrator, Fore was it? Fore?
Mr. Fulgham. Henrietta Fore.
Ms. Lee. Fore. I asked about this issue when it came to
minority contracting and minority hiring and one of the
responses that I received was that due to the particular nature
of USAID's operation in developing countries, most small firms
did not have specialized and technical experience to compete
for USAID grants or contracts. That was the response, you know,
as a result of my inquiry.
What I wanted to find out is do you all have goals and
targets for minority and women-owned businesses? If you do,
what are they? How does this debungling now of contracts fit
into--I understand the small business piece, but in addition,
you know, we have the AID eight program and all of the other
minority business requirements.
Mr. Fulgham. Ms. Lee, very good question. I have to admit,
in the past our numbers have been woeful. Last year, after Ms.
Fore had her meeting with you, we hired a true professional who
really understands small business and minority businesses and
what effect they could have on our business. In one year we
went from 2.6 percent up to 4.8 percent. The goal for SBA is
five percent, so we missed it last year by .2 percentage
points.
Ms. Lee. Is this for minority, small, or what?
Mr. Fulgham. Yes. That is minority, small, disadvantaged
businesses.
Ms. Lee. Total.
Mr. Fulgham. Total. The goal is five percent. So we came
pretty close to meeting that. I am not proud of that. I think
we could do much better. One of the things that we are doing
now is providing more workshops on a quarterly basis for new
contractors to come in and get a better understanding of how
USAID works and how you get a contract with USAID. I think also
one of the keys that we have been able to do is to start
identifying any contract over $100,000 that is here in the
Washington area that can actually go to a small business and
get away from these larger contract contingencies.
Ms. Lee. But you know what, there is a difference, though,
between small businesses and then small and economically
disadvantaged businesses.
Mr. Fulgham. That is correct. Yes.
Ms. Lee. And so the 4.8 percent, is that small, minority,
women-owned?
Mr. Fulgham. That is small and minority-owned disadvantaged
businesses.
Ms. Lee. Okay.
Mr. Fulgham. That is the SBA definition.
Ms. Lee. Okay.
Mr. Fulgham. So, as I said, we have moved significantly
further, we have got more work to do, but it is something that
has gone on for a long period of time and we are slowly but
surely making progress. I think that your senior staffer met
with Mauricio Verra who has really moved the agency forward in
this regard.
To get back to my point, we are now putting rules and
regulations in place that provide a level playing field, and
that is the key, to provide a level playing field that will
allow for small and disadvantaged businesses to compete
adequately at the levels that they can compete at. I am very
proud of what we have been able to do over the last year in
that regard.
Ms. Lee. Are you providing any technical expertise or any
type of support for companies to really get into this?
Mr. Fulgham. Yes, ma'am. There is a maintenance program
that we have set up. In fact, we would like to invite you. I am
going to publicly embarrass you a little bit and ask you to
come on August 6 for a monthly vendor outreach session to give
a keynote address for our small and disadvantaged partnering
program that we are putting together. There are a lot of things
being put in place right now that are going to allow us to do a
better job.
Ms. Lee. Thank you very much. Madam Chair, I think it is
really important because remember when we were in Ghana on a
CODEL and we saw many U.S. companies, part of the Millennium
Challenge Account compact efforts, other USAID project
personnel, and many Americans there, but we saw very few
minority companies and minority Americans.
Mr. Fulgham. One of the numbers I am really proud of is
that of our task orders, which is our request for business
opportunities. Out of $95 million in task orders awarded by
USAID's Chief Information Office, 93 percent, or $88 million,
went to small businesses.
Ms. Lee. Good.
Mr. Fulgham. We are also doing very well on the global
health side. Anything over $100,000, we are trying to find
opportunities for minorities and small and disadvantaged
businesses.
Ms. Lee. Okay, and if it is appropriate, if you could give
us a list of the minority-owned companies that you do business
with, I would like to see that list, and the type of contracts
that they are doing.
Mr. Fulgham. We would be pleased to do so.
Ms. Lee. Okay. And then the other piece that I am hearing,
rumor, is this the reorganization of the EEO office. What is
going on?
Mr. Fulgham. I want to be very clear on this. We are an
agency that is growing by 100 percent over the next three
years. We have the same infrastructure in place that we had 30,
40 years ago. To me, from a logical perspective, anything we
can do to provide better support to our employees, we should be
doing. By expanding and creating an Office of Civil Rights
similar to what the State Department has, we are not decreasing
our ability to help our employees, we are increasing our
ability to help them.
So the change has come about because we recognize that we
have this tremendous growth spurt and we have got to be able to
better support our employees. Right now we have a diversity
council, we have an EOP office. They are all spread out in
different places. I decided to bring them all together and
create an Office of Civil Rights. It is similar to the State
Department. We are trying to do more for our employees versus
less.
Ms. Lee. Thank you very much. Good to meet you. Thank you,
Madam Chair, very much.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. I think you raised this point and we
had some in-depth discussions about it, and when you are
talking about contracting, you are not just talking about
contracting here, you are talking about abroad.
Ms. Lee. Abroad.
Mrs. Lowey. Because that is where it was very evident.
Ms. Lee. Right.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Mr. Rehberg.
Mr. Rehberg. Thank you, Madam Chair, and welcome.
Mr. Fulgham. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Rehberg. For local and regional food purchase purposes,
is there a difference between rapid response and emergency when
it comes to your either pilot project or your $300 million
request for emergency assistance?
Mr. Fulgham. Sir, the rapid response program is a program
that has been put together after the last couple of years. We
have been dealing with so many different emergencies. We
recognize there are two things that have to happen when you
have an emergency. You have got to respond quickly, and you
have to look at the cost. Purchasing goods reasonably provides
for the rapid deployment of the food to the people who are most
desperately in need.
Mr. Rehberg. So are you suggesting there is no difference
between your definition of an emergency and the rapid response?
Mr. Fulgham. No, there is a difference.
Mr. Rehberg. There is a difference.
Mr. Fulgham. There is a difference.
Mr. Rehberg. In looking at the list of where regional and
local purchases have occurred I see countries like Somalia,
Ethiopia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Tajikistan, Kyrzykstan, Nepal and
Pakistan. How many of those countries have had more than one
year of emergency food purchases at the local or the regional
level?
Mr. Rehberg. Would you, please.
Mr. Fulgham. Over the past five years, none of the
emergency USAID local and regional procurements, food vouchers
or cash transfers for food has extended for a period of more
than one year.
Mr. Rehberg. My point is I am looking at the justification
of your budget and your budget increases and I am starting to
see a trend of moving away from the definition of emergency or
rapid response. For all intents and purposes, to one of a
decision to purchase locally in an attempt to perhaps, from my
perspective, I have to justify to my taxpayers why we are
taking money out of a farmer's pocket in Montana paying taxes
to send over to USAID to purchase food products from somebody
other than America and it is not a buy America. I have to have
a justification.
I can understand the flexibility, and I can understand an
emergency, but if we start seeing a developing trend towards
purchasing overseas, then we are going to put the red flag up.
It is not just local agricultural producers; the unions are
particularly upset from the maritime industries because all of
a sudden they are not seeing their ships going overseas
delivering the food in the areas, and so we are starting to get
nervous about a trend developing.
Mr. Fulgham. Congressman, as a loyal American, the last
thing I want to do is put our farmers out of business. I think
when you look at this program, it really is for rapid response
in regards to real emergencies where people could potentially
die if we use the standard approach in responding to their
crisis. When you look at the amount that we are requesting, I
believe it is $300 million; it is a comparatively small amount.
Mr. Rehberg. Well, it is quite an increase over the past
budget bill and so it throws up a red flag as to why are we--
and again, do not get me wrong. I am not suggesting we want to
put any individual at risk when it comes to starvation, hunger,
famine and such. What I am going to be looking particularly
closely at is are we seeing that Somalia shows up one, two,
three, four years in a row for emergency aid for local
purchases when with a little planning on USAID's part, or the
Department of Agriculture's, we just know it is going to occur
and we get it in the pipeline and we do not use as an excuse
rapid response or emergency.
Mr. Fulgham. Point well taken, Congressman.
Mr. Rehberg. Could you tell me the coordination between the
Department of Agriculture and USAID? In the farm bill there was
an additional authorization. I still have not gotten an answer,
and I did ask this question earlier from the State Department,
just exactly, is the authorization a $300 million authorization
for the life of the farm bill and how you are going to
coordinate or is it anticipated it is going to be a $300
million per year authorization?
Mr. Fulgham. The new Farm Bill authorizes the Secretary of
Agriculture to implement a Local and Regional Procurement (LRP)
Pilot program (including a study and final evaluation) over
five years at a total cost of $60 million. As part of our
regular coordination with the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA), USAID shared and discussed the program criteria and
implementation guidelines we developed for LRP this year.
Moreover, USAID communicates regularly with USDA when providing
assistance in the same country or region (e.g., Pakistan).
The $300 million you are referring to is found in the
Administration's FY 2010 budget request for State and Foreign
Operations. As you know, International Disaster Assistance has
typically been used to fund non-food emergency assistance, and
provides the flexibility required to cover the local and
regional procurement of food as well as the implementation of
voucher programs when food is available, but not affordable for
the vulnerable, at a community level.
On the coordination between USAID, the State Department and
USDA, it has never been better. I think we have a real team
effort, especially looking at food security issues throughout
the world. We have been working very close on a task force to
deal with some of the issues regarding food security in some of
the most troubled nations in the world right now.
Mr. Rehberg. I appreciate that. If you could get back to me
with the countries. Going back five fiscal years.
Mr. Fulgham. That is a fair request, sir. I would be happy
to get back to you.
Mr. Rehberg. Do you also have the data on other
humanitarian food assistance by other countries? We cannot be
the only ones shipping food. Or vouchers to Somalia, Ethiopia?
Mr. Fulgham. I could not agree more but that is a
discussion with the Secretary at the diplomatic level on what
we are doing to try to encourage our donor colleagues to be
more supportive of some of these crises that we continue to
address, sometimes on our own.
Mr. Rehberg. You just do not have that information?
Mr. Fulgham. No, sir. I do not have it right now.
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Mr. Rehberg. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Mr. Israel.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Israel
Mr. Israel. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Fulgham, welcome.
You have heard the Subcommittee's concern and interest in
microfinance. I believe that there is a special nexus between
microfinance and renewable energy programs throughout the
world. There are sustainable business models where microfinance
is assisting in the deployment of solar lanterns, solar
flashlights, solar cookers and other renewable technology. Can
you give me a sense of exactly what USAID is doing, the extent
to which USAID is supporting microfinance programs on renewable
energy?
Mr. Fulgham. I think you are absolutely correct. In looking
at our climate change strategy we are going to have to use
innovation similar to this to get countries, especially where
we have large economic issues, and with forestation, and
farming and things of that nature, we have got to be able to
bring the countryside into the game and get them to better
understand why this is important for the longevity of their
country.
The overall climate change strategy is going to try to get
at some of those things as we work closely with countries to
come up with a strategy on adaptation and implementation of
these programs. We have not been as creative as we could be.
As you know, the Obama Administration is placing renewed
emphasis on climate change, so now we have got to reconfigure
and regear our operations to better address those issues. As we
start to put together the strategies for the country, this will
be an integral part of bringing especially the countryside into
play and addressing this issue.
As for the work we are undertaking in this area, USAID
funds a number of programs linking microfinance and renewable
energy. The Agency has given a $196,000 grant to ACCION
International in Uganda to expand solar home lighting. USAID
has also provided $205,000 to FINCA, a microfinance
institution, to assess the market in Uganda and Afghanistan for
renewable energy services, particularly in low-density rural
areas that lack access to the national electrical grid. In
November 2008, the Agency hosted a workshop on microfinance
programs on renewable energy, which involved Grameen Bank and
other PVOs. USAID has also funded the ``Energy Links PodCast''
series, an online resource containing interviews and
information from industry leaders.
The Agency is currently supporting two activities that
focus on small and medium enterprises and microfinance
institutions in the renewable energy sector. USAID is
developing a toolkit and distance learning program to enable
clean energy entrepreneurs to acquire business planning and
technical knowledge to help them to develop bankable business
plans. This program will support training classes in Senegal
and Tanzania. In addition to the $600,000 contribution from
USAID, USAID's implementing partner has raised investment funds
from a socially responsible investor. The primary technology
focus of this activity is improved cooking stoves.
USAID also plans to work with Global Village Energy
Partnership International to support rural and peri-urban clean
energy Small and Medium Enterprises in Kenya, Uganda, and
Tanzania. USAID anticipates spending $200,000 on this project,
which will also leverage funding from the Developing Energy
Enterprise Project in East Africa program. The primary focus of
this activity will be working with microfinance institutions to
increase lending to borrowers in the clean energy technologies
sector.
Mr. Israel. Well, that is pleasing to hear. I know that you
are seeking an increase of $309 million to fight global climate
change in developing countries. In your testimony you talk
about funding being used for deployment of tools for Earth
observation, geospacial information hubs and early warning
systems. I understand that. That is pretty sophisticated and
somewhat scientific. Let me share with you a more basic model
that I am hopeful that USAID will pursue. I have met with some
of your folks before on this.
This is a solar flashlight. You can buy one of these in the
gift shop in the visitor's center. This solar flashlight is
being deployed throughout the developing world. There is a
model that the Subcommittee has heard me talk about repeatedly,
and I will not torture them anymore by repeating it again, but
there is a model in the Sunderbans in India where you have a
small, sustainable microfinance program. Six women have a solar
panel. They are using that to charge solar lanterns, they are
renting the solar lanterns, they are lighting the village.
The Department of Defense would argue that to have
stability, and security and prosperity you need a $550 billion
defense budget. In the Sunderbans we are doing it for $35,000
with technologies like this. So I am very hopeful. This is my
number one priority on this Subcommittee is working with you
and other agencies to accelerate the deployment of simple
technologies like this which light an entire village.
I am hopeful that we can work together on that. I have not
had the opportunity to speak with you personally about it, but
at first blush at least, do you think that this is consistent
with USAID's mission, particularly with this ramp up in funding
for climate change activities?
Mr. Fulgham. As I said before, the status is evolving. We
are looking at innovative ways to address these issues. We are
clearly going to continue to look at the ecosystems and the
forest land usage within these countries and we have got to
look at appropriate technology as well, so it is a package. I
think that once the new political leadership is onboard, these
are going to be some of the things that we focus on as we look
to increase the climate change budget, I hope, in the future to
address a lot of these issues.
Mr. Israel. My last question, one of the frustrations that
I have, and I have shared this with Chairwoman Lowey, is USAID
has its mission, we also have a Department of Energy that has
an international assistance program that is meant to deploy
technologies like this. To what extent do you actually
coordinate with the Department of Energy to make sure that you
are not duplicating, in fact, coordinating efforts to deploy
technologies like this in the developing world?
Mr. Fulgham. As you know, there is an interagency working
group right now that is looking at these issues and there is
more of a whole of government approach; there is more
inclusion. As we begin to develop our new strategies and move
forward in these particular areas, we are ensuring that there
is not duplication in these areas. In these times of tight
budgets we have to be very careful not to duplicate what we are
doing with other agencies.
Mr. Israel. My time has expired. As the new, as you say,
political leadership shapes up, I look forward to working with
them to advance the goal. Thank you very much.
Mr. Fulgham. Look forward to working with you as well.
Mrs. Lowey. I just want to emphasize that I have had many
conversations with the Secretary about the issue of
coordination because wherever we go we call it stovepipes of
excellence. We are not complaining that people are not doing
excellent work, but very often, in fact, Ms. Lee mentioned
Ghana and we asked the Ambassador to bring together everybody,
whether it was the foundations, other countries, World Bank,
everybody who is doing work in that area, and they were
delighted because they had an opportunity to meet each other.
They really did not even know each other. So I know this is
a key priority of the Secretary----
Mr. Fulgham. And deputy Secreatry Lew.
Mrs. Lowey [continuing]. It has been a key priority of
mine, and the deputy for sure because it is essential,
especially at a time with tough resources and for more
effectiveness, that we coordinate the standard procedure. Mr.
Crenshaw. Thank you.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Crenshaw
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Welcome to you. I
want to ask you a couple of questions about human trafficking.
It is kind of a dirty little secret that goes on around the
world, it even happens in our own country as well, and people
do not talk about it very much because, frankly, it is pretty
disgusting. It is just hard to believe in the 21st Century that
people are being bought and sold for different activities.
People just find it outrageous, but I guess it is something
people do not want to talk about.
You see it on the TV, every now and then you read a report,
but then it goes back. As you know, I think it was in 2000 when
President Clinton was in office before I came to Congress they
passed a law to try to confront all this, and part of that law,
every year the Secretary of State has to file a report, the so-
called Tip Report, that looks at human trafficking as it goes
around the world, as well as our own country.
I understand the law allows us to sanction countries that
we provide assistance to when they are not complying with the
law. Do you know, what is being done at USAID to monitor that
each year when that Tip Report comes out? Do we ever withhold
assistance? Do we monitor that? Do we inform the countries that
they are not meeting the standards? It seems to me when we will
travel and I ask some leader, they will just say well, we are
working on it. Can you give me some of your views on that?
Mr. Fulgham. Yes. Sir, as the father of two daughters, this
is probably one of the most reprehensible things that is
happening in the world. I think that we recognize that this is
happening mostly to people from vulnerable populations. It is
all about political will. You have got to have countries and
leadership in those countries who are willing to take the tough
stance. I think our country has put in a tier process. If you
reach Tier 3 then you are put on the list of no go, that your
funding will stop, and that has happened to some countries.
I think we have been very vigilant with the TIP program and
with the State Department in ensuring that if a country is not
living up to the tier process that we are willing to intervene
and make a case that they should not receive any more funding
from the United States Government. Overall, you know, we are
continuing to increase and monitor these programs, we are doing
more outreach, we are providing housing, we are trying to do
more from a counseling and sheltering perspective, and also,
one of the things we have to do from a development perspective
is get at the root cause of the poverty in these communities.
The more you can educate girls, the better off they are in
understanding that there are economic opportunities out there
and there is a better way forward for them. I think those are
some of the basic things that we continue to do. We have worked
very closely with international programs, the MTV program,
which is a foundation, and doing lots of messaging, especially
in southeast Asia and some of the problematic areas from
transit to departure points. We are also trying to do a better
job of forcing governments to recognize that they should not be
involved in these processes.
When I was in Serbia, this was a major transit point and we
put a tremendous amount of pressure on the government to shut
down the transit point between Serbia and Montenegro. There
were some really good efforts done by the Serbian government,
but then we had trafficking in another way from Italy, so there
is always a constant pressure on these governments to try and
change their ways but you have to continue to be vigilant at
all times. It is not going to go away easily because it is such
a profitable industry.
Mr. Crenshaw. So you do monitor the progress they are
making and you actually sit down, and you do not necessarily
condition the aid but you----
Mr. Fulgham. If you go to Tier 3, your aid is cut off. Tier
2, you get a warning, you get a demarche, the USAID director in
the foreign minister's office saying that if you go to Tier 3,
then your aid will potentially be cut off.
Mr. Crenshaw. Great. Well, that is very encouraging
because, you know, if we have made this effort to really try to
confront that. It is really encouraging to hear that you are
making those kind of efforts. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Mr. Chandler.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Chandler
Mr. Chandler. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Mr. Fulgham, good
to see you. I apologize for having to step out of the room. I
missed some of the questions, and I hope I will not duplicate
some of the things that have been asked of you. First of all, I
want to applaud you and your fellows in the foreign service and
with USAID for everything that you do. It is utterly critical
to the future of our country, I believe. Of course, I think you
will get general agreement on this committee as to that notion.
Our national defense, in my view, absolutely depends on
what you all do. I am very pleased to see more emphasis placed
on this area, on the whole idea of development and smart power,
soft power, whatever you want to call it. I have a couple of
questions that I think maybe have not been asked. One, I am
curious about what USAID is doing in the way of developing
markets. The Chair led us on a trip earlier this year to
Central and South America and we were in Peru.
I think we were all very impressed by some activities in
rural Peru to of course work on finding alternatives for people
who had been producing coca in the past. One of the new
developments, I understood, was before we would just help them
with crops but nobody helped them find a market. There was not
any way to get monetary reward for the efforts that they had
made.
So if you could illuminate us a little bit on where that
effort is going, how you are expanding it and so forth. And
then the second question is a little bit different. USAID in
the past has had a significant focus on preserving forests.
This seems to have been broadened significantly in the fiscal
year 2010 budget to include new landscapes. Can you give us a
rationale behind the change in strategy there? Thank you.
Mr. Fulgham. Okay. On the first question, I am happy to say
that USAID has been involved in creating markets for the last
30, 35 years, especially on the agriculture side. I think your
question is more specific in Latin America and the coca region.
Mr. Chandler. There seems to be a little bit of an increase
in emphasis on it, it would seem to me.
Mr. Fulgham. Yes. I think that if we are going to address
unemployment and increase economic growth in these countries,
we have to do a better job of creating the foundation and the
infrastructure that is needed in order to promote economic
growth in these particular areas. That means you need a market-
based program that goes from soup to nuts basically.
You have from the time the crop goes into the ground, it
comes out of the ground, it is packaged, it is marketed and
then there is a market that it is going to in a particular
region. That takes infrastructure from the government; it takes
private sector involvement and it takes donor involvement, and
you need all three of those working together. That does not
come together in a year or two. As you notice, we have had
significant amounts of funding going into that region and we
are really just now starting to show fruit from those
investments.
Now, the government is now taking over some of these
activities and funding them themselves. That is when you know
the development is really working in those communities. We are
going to try to replicate that in Afghanistan, and in Africa,
and other continents and other parts of the world as well
because we see agriculture as the way to creating economic
growth and job opportunities in these rural communities.
In regards to your question on preserving forests and
broadening our efforts significantly, we recognize under
climate change that we have to look at all avenues to diversify
our programs to address the key issues that are affecting these
communities that we are working in. Forestry is a huge issue
for us. As you know, a lot of the countries we are working in,
they are slashing, and burning and cutting down a lot of their
forests, and so we are trying to provide additional advice and
assistance.
We are bringing in additional officers on the science side,
environmental officers. We are going to hire 40 over the next
three years. Also, one of the great things that we have right
now is that quite a few environmental officers who have gone
off to do other things, now want to come back to the
environment sector because there is additional funding. We are
just looking at expanding our horizons and our ability to
affect change in these communities, and we are going to bring
science and technology to a lot of the thinking that we are
doing in this regard.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Ms. McCollum.
Opening Remarks of Ms. McCollum
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. It is good to see you again.
Mr. Fulgham. Nice to see you again as well.
Ms. McCollum. I would like to take a second to thank all
the employees of USAID and recognize the bravery of those
Americans, those unarmed service men and women, who represent
our country so valiantly. You put yourself in harm's way to
perform your missions of mercy that are vital to our national
security. USAID employees take serious risks and all too often
have given their lives for their country with little attention
paid to the public sacrifice. So on behalf of myself, and I
know other members of this committee, we thank you for your
service.
Now, turning to the budget request here for fiscal year
2010, I applaud the administration for making a strong and long
overdue commitment to fight hunger around the world through
agricultural development. You, Mr. Rehberg, had a good
conversation about relief, but this is about development focus
that the President is working on. We know that agriculture is a
proven strategy to reduce hunger, it raises income and it
builds broad-based economic growth. It is development that
works.
America has tried fighting chronic hunger with emergency
assistance, as Mr. Rehberg was pointing out, and it is a flawed
strategy and it has fallen short, so new President, new
strategy. It is a smart investment, and I know it is going to
pay huge dividends. I have another question, but part of what I
would like you to talk about is how USAID plans to program the
significant increases requested in the budget, and how USAID is
going to fit in this whole role with the State Department on a
new strategy.
Then I have another issue I would like to bring up, and
this is an issue in the budget where I have to admit I am
frankly very disappointed, and that is the budget with this
administration, their request for the area of child survival. I
believe we are missing a tremendous opportunity. As we are all
aware, more than six million children under the age of five die
needlessly every year from preventable, treatable diseases.
Over nine million under five deaths per year. So, you know,
nine million children under age five per year.
During my eight years in Congress that would mean 50
million children have needlessly died from conditions like
diarrhea, measles and pneumonia, which USAID and other partners
have the experience, and you have the expertise to prevent it
today if we choose to do so, if we choose to give you the tools
you need to do that. Now, the impact of the global economic
crisis on developing countries is expected to result in an
additional--an additional--400,000 children in poor countries
dying this year.
Now, we can do something if we choose to do something about
it. The report released in April said the U.S. saved 1.2
million lives with PEPFAR since 2003 with billions of dollars.
I want to save 1.2 million children's lives every single year.
I know it is not in the President's budget, but I know he is
concerned about maternal child health, so I would like you to
tell us how we can work together to achieve this goal and start
making a smart investment in the opportunity that we are
missing in saving children's lives for literally, as the Chair
and members of this committee know, for pennies. Thank you.
Mr. Fulgham. Thank you. Those are two big questions.
Ms. McCollum. It is a big world.
Mr. Fulgham. Let me just try to tackle the food security
question. Right now we have a billion people living in poverty
and hunger in the world. This number continues to rise, and we
recognize that. I think the President's request to double the
amount of assistance for agriculture provides the lead in
trying to address that issue. When you look at agriculture as a
productivity issue we have got to provide more seeds, more
fertilizer and improved irrigation.
We have got to link the producers to the markets and
improve infrastructure in the rural areas, provide better
storage and removal of the trade barriers, as I discussed
previously. The other part of the strategy, which is equally
important, is that we are coordinating for the first time as a
government. There is a task force that is being led by Cheryl
Mills, counselor to the Secretary of State, where all the key
players in the interagency, USDA, USAID, the State Department,
are all coming together in order to plan out how to move
forward with our new strategy.
One of the things that we have left out are the land grant
institutions. We have got to get them back involved in this
process. They were part of the green revolution 15, 20 years
ago. We have got to get them back into the game. Also, it is
private investment that is going to make a huge difference. We
cannot solve this problem by government to government and
funding alone.
It is going to take involvement from the private and public
sectors in order for this to move forward and work. Then, I
agree, we have to continue to focus on nutrition for children
under two. I think by creating a larger agricultural base in
these countries we can get at that, but we have to work at that
from a regional perspective. Then, we need to focus greater
attention on the role of women. I could not agree more. We have
got to do more to support women and create opportunities for
them for finance and credit, and also a role in the
agricultural sector within the country.
On the child survival issue, I think the administration is
looking at this from a macro perspective. We want to get at a
lot of other things that are important to the overall sector.
We believe that the amount of money that has been requested by
the administration adequately allows us in fiscal year 2010 to
maintain the momentum that has been created over the last few
years.
I do not think one year makes a story. I would like to
really look at this again two years from now, or three years
from now and see where our numbers are. There is nobody in this
room more committed to this issue than the Chair, and we have
heard from her diligently about the fact that we want to see
those numbers up. I really look at this budget from a holistic
perspective. In the out years I think we will be able to
provide more, but right now there are a lot of things crowding
out some of these issues, and I think that in the out years we
will be able to make up for it.
Ms. McCollum. Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Madam Chair, if I could, if the gentleman
from Illinois will indulge me just for a second to talk to the
committee. I think we need to look, I have been a strong
supporter of PEPFAR, but I think we need to look at the outlays
and what is going on with PEPFAR and the billions of dollars
being spent versus the millions of dollars that could be spent
to save more lives and have more children being able to enter
school successful and healthy with all the school programs that
the administration is working on.
So I think that this committee should really take a look at
it. I know you are going to be driving for efficiencies, and I
think we will be able to do that. For the record, I would like
to enter a couple of pages from a report from Save the Children
talking about many of the things that the acting director spoke
to. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Mr. Jackson, we are delighted to
accept the report for the record.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Jackson
Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me first begin by
offering an apology to the Chair and to Members of the
Committee for my tardiness, and certainly to Mr. Fulgham. This
morning at my son's school was a unit of discovery where he had
to have his parents there to kind of share with his classmates
and with his parents a little bit about himself and I just
could not miss it.
I want to follow up very quickly on Ms. McCollum's question
about agriculture and be a little bit more poignant. Given the
President's ambitious agricultural agenda globally, does USAID
have the capacity and the agricultural experts to ramp up so
dramatically across so many regions in just one year? And I
wanted to hear your answer, Mr. Fulgham, to that question, and
I also want to raise the question, I think I am going to get
them out of the way at one time, about global health.
Last week the President announced his commitment that his
budget will provide a total of $63 billion between fiscal year
2009 and 2014 for global health programs. In the announcement
the fiscal year 2010 budget is highlighted as a down payment on
this commitment, yet the budget only requests an increase of
$406 million for global health and HIV and AIDS programs, and
only $106 million if the Committee approved $300 million is
ultimately approved. This represents only a 1.4 percent
increase over fiscal year '09.
A major obstacle to reducing maternal mortality is the
shortage of doctors, nurses, midwives, and mid-level health
workers who are skilled birth attendants. In Sub-Saharan Africa
and large parts of Asia, fewer than half of births are attended
by a skilled birth attendant. USAID's maternal and child health
strategy includes an increase of at least 100,000 in the number
of community health workers and volunteers. What is USAID's
strategy to reach this goal? And further, there is a broad
recognition that a volunteer model for community health workers
is unsustainable and leads to high levels of attrition. What
measures will USAID take to ensure that these 100,000 community
health workers are fairly compensated?
Mr. Fulgham. On your first question, Mr. Jackson, earlier I
talked about the rebuilding of the agency. We have depleted our
agricultural staff over the last 15 years and we are now in the
process of replenishing that staff. We are looking at hiring
about 93 agricultural officers over the next three years. We
have got about 20 in the system right now.
In our major programs we have adequate attention, but we
cannot expand rapidly in various parts of the world because of
our inability to get the officers in the right places at the
right time. I think clearly over the next couple years you will
see a significant ramp up in this area that will allow us to do
more on the agricultural side. We will continue, however, to
have contractors in place in countries that are in desperate
need of this technical support, but eventually moving those
contractors out with direct hire assistance.
Mr. Jackson. Global health.
Mr. Fulgham. On the global health issue, USAID will carry
out its strategy to reach the goal of 100,000 additional
community health workers across the 30 ``MCH Priority
Countries'' during 2009-2013. The initial approach will be to
work with the approximately 15 countries that have policies and
programs that include community workers as part of their
national health strategy. In these countries, USAID will help
upgrade and expand these community-based programs through the
in-service training of workers, improving supervision systems,
providing workers with educational and other technical
materials, and, in some cases, with commodities to distribute
to their communities. Senegal, Nepal, Bangladesh, Ethiopia,
Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda and the Democratic
Republic of Congo, for example, have recognized that extending
high-impact interventions to greater numbers of families will
require community-based service delivery.
Once this approach is underway in countries with existing
community-based programs, USAID will identify additional
countries among the MCH Priority Countries that do not have
such programs, but where need and readiness for them exists. In
these countries, USAID will help governments examine the
options and best practices for community-based programs, and
will provide assistance in the development and roll-out of the
programs, including the training of new community health
workers and the supervisory and logistic systems needed to
support them.
With respect to compensation USAID supports fair
compensation and incentives for Community Health Workers by
helping introduce and scale up successful experiences and
approaches for health worker compensation. Community Health
Workers receive compensation or other meaningful incentives
that result in sustainability of community-based programming in
a variety of ways. Ethiopia's Health Extension Workers, for
example, are directly paid by the government. In other
countries, these workers receive remuneration by being allowed
to keep a small mark-up on drugs and commodities they are
permitted to dispense. This is the case with workers who
provide community-based distribution of contraceptives in many
countries. In some cases, CHWs receive support or special
privileges from communities themselves. In other cases, non-
financial benefits, such as free health services for themselves
and family members, provide apparently adequate compensation.
Even pure volunteer models have been successful at scale in
some cases: For example, Nepal's Female Community Health
Volunteers--who are a key element of that country's success in
being on track to both Millennium Development Goals (MDG 4 and
MDG 5)--are not paid, but many have been in their positions for
a decade or longer. Their compensation comes from the
effectiveness of their actions and the regard they receive from
their communities, along with the strong commitment and
systematic support of the health system at all levels.
USAID systematically analyzes and documents these
approaches and their results, shares them with governments of
countries that might apply them in their own community-based
programs, and helps those countries to implement, evaluate and
assure success of their chosen approach.
Mr. Jackson. I appreciate that. Let me, I wanted to raise
one last question, I think I just have another minute or so.
The lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation has a
significant impact on the lives of millions of people every
day. Providing safe drinking water not only improves health
outcomes, but it also has an economic benefit for families and
communities.
Over the past few years Congress has requested that USAID
fund water programs in a sustainable way. Can you give us some
sense of what USAID's water strategy is? And in fiscal year
2010 the MCC has requested significant funding for water and
sanitation oriented compact with Jordan. Can you give us some
sense of the role in the water sector of Jordan and tell us how
the MCC compacts build on USAID's prior commitment in that
country?
Mr. Fulgham. Yes, actually I can give you a little bit on
that. I led the delegation to the World Water Conference in
Istanbul about six weeks ago. Clearly we recognize that water
is going to be one of the biggest issues we face over the next
ten years. There are going to be countries that will probably
run out of water before we run out of oil. And we are talking
about massive populations potentially having to move to try to
find that water.
I believe that there are over 260 water ways that more than
two countries share in the world. So clearly this is a huge
issue for us. We are ramping up our water program at USAID, and
Jordan as the example that you just gave is probably one of the
more exemplary programs, but we still have problems there. It
is about governance, it is about cost, it is about technology.
We have been working very closely with the Jordanians.
Right now out of their twelve aquifers, ten are in trouble.
We have been working with Jordan over the last 20 years on
water and conservation and costing. This new compact that
Jordan is putting together with the MCC will be built on USAID
programming.
We are maximizing our investment which will allow us to
create an environment where in Jordan they are doing the things
they need to do to make the critical decisions to ensure that
they have water in the future. But this is just not Jordan. We
have, as I said, significant problems in the continent of
Africa with water, and we have got to get back to basic
programs that are identifying ways for governments to plan and
strategize and come together with public-private partnerships.
Once again it is not going to be just development dollars that
make a difference in these countries, it is going to be the
public and private sector and also donors coming together to
come up with resources and strategies to affect the water in
these countries.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. And thank you for your time. This
concludes today's hearing on the U.S. Agency's International
Development Fiscal Year 2007 Budget Request. The Subcommittee
on State and Foreign Operations and Related Programs stands
adjourned.
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Wednesday, May 13, 2009.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
WITNESS
JACOB LEW, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE
Opening Statement of Chairwoman Lowey
Mrs. Lowey. The Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations
and Related Programs will come to order. Today's hearing will
examine the President's fiscal year 2010 budget request for
international affairs. And I am pleased to welcome Deputy
Secretary of State Jack Lew, who is well known to us from his
previous work as the Director of OMB during the Clinton
administration. And in light of the foreign policy challenges
facing our country, many of which require tremendous resources,
Secretary Clinton was quite wise in selecting you as one of her
deputies. And looking at the fiscal year 2010 request for the
150 account, I can see that you are already having a
significant impact. Because we recently had a hearing with
Secretary Clinton on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle
East, I would like to focus on the details of the 2010 budget
request for this hearing and take advantage of the expertise we
have in today's witness.
Mr. Secretary, the President's budget seeks an
unprecedented $53.9 billion for the 150 account, including $52
billion within this subcommittee's jurisdiction. And before
anyone complains about the size of the increase I want to make
it clear, let me note, that most of it simply is to regularize
the supplemental funding for Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the
West Bank, Gaza and humanitarian assistance. Total supplemental
funding combined with the fiscal year 2009 appropriations
reflect an increase in 2010 of about $4 billion or 8 percent
which is consistent with increases sought by former President
Bush.
President Obama, through honest and transparent budgeting,
has declared up front the true costs and importance of our
foreign policy. He is investing in diplomacy and development as
our first line of defense by providing resources to create a
21st century State Department and USAID instead of relying on
our overstretched military to run our foreign policy and
implementing foreign aid programs. Our investments today in
this approach will yield great dividends over time, and because
as we all know, diplomacy and development generally are less
expensive and more effective methods than military operations
to achieve sustainable peace and security. In fact, the major
increases in the international affairs budget are not for
program expenses, they are for what I would call people
expenses. With adjustments for supplemental funding, the
President's request seeks a 30 percent increase for both the
diplomatic and consular programs account and USAID operating
expenses--which funds the operations of the State Department,
including personnel, security and training at our embassies and
USAID development personnel and security costs.
I applaud you, Secretary Clinton and the President for
following through on your pledges to rebuild State and USAID.
However, we do need a comprehensive strategy for spending these
resources to achieve specific goals. I hope you can provide
insight on why the majority of the proposed new positions will
be domestic deployments instead of overseas given our
understanding that the greatest needs lie in our embassies and
missions abroad.
For example, how have you integrated the new hires for
which you seek funding into your global staffing plans, how
will you accommodate these new State Department and USAID
employees and already crowded embassies, and how long will it
take you to recruit, hire and train these new employees for
deployment? Are appropriate human resource policies in place to
ensure the best people for the job are hired? I am particularly
concerned that you are seeking significant and much needed
increases for USAID which does not have a management team in
place.
I fear that if nominations for USAID administrators and
assistant administrator positions are not forthcoming,
Congress' willingness and ability to provide the resources you
seek will be compromised. Additionally, the administration
needs to clarify the role of the civilian stabilization
initiative and how it will interface with the operations of the
rest of the State Department and USAID programs and personnel.
Do you envision any differences in the concept than what was
developed by the previous administration?
Mr. Secretary, turning to the assistance programs there are
relatively few major programmatic increases in the President's
budget. The key increases on development assistance are to
scale up basic education, expand agriculture and food security
assistance and grow climate change initiatives. I continue to
believe that access to a quality education is one of our most
important tools for channelling young people in conflict-prone
regions toward a more productive path. And I am very pleased
that Secretary Clinton has continued her commitment to basic
education. And I look forward to our continued partnership on
this issue. Additionally, in light of the economic crisis and
the impact on food security, I understand your emphasis on
agriculture. And while the grim news on global warming
certainly warrants a more focused approach to stem carbon
emissions and facilitate eco-friendly solutions to the world's
energy needs, I hope you can provide greater detail on the
mechanisms and modalities for programming these increased
resources.
I am particularly concerned that there seems to be no
budget detail on the $500 million requested for the Clean
Technology Fund. I would note to my colleagues that the
increases in the ESF account are largely to fund the programs
in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, West Bank, Gaza. There is also
a nominal increase in global health with the exception of
malaria programs which are increased by $200 million. And while
global HIV/AIDS funds have steadily increased over the past
decade when many other aspects of the international affairs
budget were cut or flat lined as we have seen with the H1N1
outbreak, health needs cannot be deferred.
Mr. Lew, you, the Secretary, your colleagues of the State
Department, face a daunting set of challenges. But you have
inherited a committed and skilled workforce, you have a
Secretary and a President that have inspired millions around
the world. You have my personal commitment and the commitment,
I hope of all of us in Congress, to help you succeed.
Mrs. Lowey. Before I turn to you for your remarks, I would
like to turn to Ms. Granger for any comments she may have. Ms.
Granger.
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Granger
Ms. Granger. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank Deputy
Secretary Lew for appearing today to explain the
administration's fiscal year 2010 priorities. The subcommittee
has only begun to receive the details of this budget request.
And I hope the Deputy Secretary and his staff will work quickly
to provide the full budget justification so that we can better
understand the items requested prior to us marking up the bill.
We received some high level descriptions of the request. We
note the accounts in the State foreign operations bill total
$52 billion, a 42 percent increase over the fiscal year 2009
regular appropriation, excluding emergency appropriations. This
large increase will bolster staffing, as the Chair has
mentioned, for the State Department and USAID, support
administration priorities like food security, climate change
and global health, and continue support for civilian efforts to
fight the war against terrorism, particularly in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Pakistan. The administration has described this
international affairs budget request as a smart power budget,
one that balances diplomacy, development and defense in the
advance of our national security objectives. I have long
supported the concept of smart power, and I hope the Deputy
Secretary will explain how the State Department and USAID plan
to implement the amounts requested to support the diplomatic
and development goals of this administration.
Maintaining an appropriate level of highly trained staff is
critical. It demonstrates smart power. And this committee has
supported hiring efforts begun by the previous administration.
I look forward to an update from the Deputy Secretary on the
progress that has been made thus far to hire and deploy new
foreign service officers. And I look forward to hearing about
the new hiring expected for fiscal year 2010 and beyond.
In closing, I should note that I am pleased the
administration is following through with support for the Merida
initiative. The $450 million request is an important investment
in Mexico's war against drug cartels on our southern border.
The Deputy Secretary and I spoke about how essential it is that
the funds are provided quickly to the Mexican government. I
thank him for the work he has done to expedite the funds
already appropriated. I look forward to working with you and
hearing from you. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Deputy Secretary Lew, your full written
statement will be placed in the record. Feel free to summarize
your oral statement so we can leave enough time to get
everyone's questions. Proceed as you wish.
Opening Statement of Mr. Lew
Mr. Lew. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, Ranking Member.
I appreciate the warm welcome and look forward to working with
you and the members of this committee both today and as we go
forward. It is my honor to be here to present President Obama's
international affairs budget request for 2010. And I will take
advantage of putting my statement in the record to summarize
the major principles and priorities in the budget so that we
can leave most of the time for questions. At a top line level
of $53.9 billion, the request represents a 9 percent increase
over the 2009 funding levels. This budget provides the detail
of what we mean when we talk about smart power, and it provides
the resources for the administration to pursue its foreign
policy goals. The United States faces diffuse and complex
threats, including terrorism, climate change, pandemic disease,
extreme poverty and global criminal networks.
Key to our security and prosperity is a stable and secure
world, and we cannot achieve that through military means alone.
It requires American leadership that promotes our values,
builds strong partnerships and improves the lives of others.
That is what President Obama and Secretary Clinton call smart
power; harnessing the tools of diplomacy development and
defense to help build a more peaceful and prosperous world. By
reducing the risk that global poverty and instability will
ultimately lead to conflict. Smart power will save us both
dollars and lives in the long-run. We understand the economic
conditions at home make this a very difficult moment to ask the
American people to support even a modest increase in spending
overseas. At the same time the American people understand that
our future security depends on resolving current conflicts and
avoiding future ones. When Secretaries Gates and Clinton
testified together recently, they made a powerful case that
investments in diplomacy and development, two of the pillars of
our smart power strategy, are as vital to our national security
as investments in defense, the third pillar. Smart power starts
with people. That is why our budget puts an emphasis on
increasing the size of the foreign service, ultimately
achieving a 25 percent increase in state foreign service
officers over the next four years.
But I want to address special attention to the urgent need
to rebuild the U.S. Agency for International Development. We
are looking to USAID to take on some of the most difficult
tasks in some of the world's most challenging environments. But
with its ranks thinned to just over 1,000 foreign service
officers worldwide, USAID does not have the manpower it needs,
which is why this budget includes a 45 percent increase in
USAID operations and puts USAID on a path to doubling its
foreign service officers by 2012. All of our goals; conflict
prevention, poverty reduction, food security, global health,
climate change, come back to having the right people with the
right training and the skills to get the job done.
This budget also provides the resources to pursue critical
missions in conflict areas that occupy much of our attention
these days; Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Our fiscal year
2010 request seeks $2.79 billion in nonmilitary assistance for
Afghanistan and $1.3 billion in nonmilitary assistance for
Pakistan, substantial resources that must be coordinated and
deployed effectively. Following the administration's strategic
review, State and USAID are implementing a comprehensive
civilian program which is fully coordinated with our military
and other key agencies, such as the Department of Agriculture
and the Department of Justice, to bolster both security and
development.
At the same time, it is important to step back from these
conflict areas to see clearly our broader objectives. We make
investments to promote long-term development and human security
both from the top down and bottom up strengthening the ability
of governments to meet the basic needs of their populations,
and at the same time, partnering with citizens and civic groups
to build human capacity and reduce extreme poverty. Children
need a basic education that provides skills to pursue
opportunities rather than hatred.
Parents need jobs to reject the appeal of extremists who
too often offer the only way to support a family, and for many
survival requires minimal access to basic health care. Overall
56 percent of our assistance request is targeted to development
programs with special emphasis on economic development, good
governance, global health, food security, education and global
climate change.
For example, our budget request includes $7.6 billion for a
global health initiative, which continues the fight against
HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis and expands it to address
maternal and child health, neglected diseases, family planning
and basic health infrastructure. It commits $3.4 billion to a
food security initiative aimed at addressing the root causes of
food shortages by more than doubling the resources devoted to
agricultural production and productivity.
And on the climate front it seeks $581 million to help
developing countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate
change adapt by becoming more climate resilient and developing
clean energy alternatives. Our budget also invests in the
strategic, bilateral and multilateral partnerships that are
critical to global security, stability and prosperity. We focus
on states that can or must be partners in regional peace and
prosperity. And tipping point states where the potential for
conflict and instability present regional and global threats.
And we leverage our multilateral partners who represent both a
force multiplier and a cost effective means for addressing
global challenges.
We are strengthening global security capabilities knowing
that when our allies and partners can defend their territory
and borders against external and internal threats we are more
secure. Our strategy seeks to forge partnerships among states
to help build global security and capacity in a number of
areas, including peacekeeping, police training,
counternarcotics, nonproliferation and combating nuclear
terrorism.
Finally, we provide the resources, over $4.1 billion to
respond to humanitarian needs. Our humanitarian assistance
programs that provide relief when we see human suffering are a
fundamental expression of our values. At the same time leading
with our values often strengthens our ties with other people.
Our humanitarian efforts in the aftermath of the earthquake in
Pakistan actually began to turn the sentiment amongst many
Pakistani citizens away from extremists and led them to see the
United States as a political force for good in their lives. At
this very moment we are taking steps to make sure that the
United States is in the forefront of efforts to address the
needs of people who are seeking safe haven as the government of
Pakistan takes military action against extremists. There is a
real possibility that in addition to the 500,000 already
internally displaced another 1 million persons could need
assistance.
The challenge, in part, is providing funding and we are
taking steps to make certain that we are able to help there.
But even more challenging will be gaining access. And our very
capable ambassador to Islamabad is coordinating with
international organizations, NGOs and the government of
Pakistan to determine how we can assist more effectively.
Securing the resources to promote our goals is an important
first step towards restoring American global leadership, but
resources alone are not enough. We know we have to be better
managers of our resources as well, especially in these
difficult economic times.
I hope my appearance before you today signals the
Secretary's seriousness and determination that the Department
be a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars. It is the first
time the position of Deputy Secretary of State for Management
and Resources has been filled, and in only a few short months,
our reform agenda is already robust. Even as we undertake the
reviews and seek the necessary input to define our new
approach, you have already seen signs of how we are going to
work differently. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, we are bringing
all agencies together under a shared set of objectives allowing
us to benefit from the range of expertise available across the
U.S. Government, maximizing resources through greater
coordination and integration and recruiting rapidly to meet a
critical and time sensitive mission.
In food security and global health, the State Department is
leading whole of government efforts creating inventories of
programs, identifying gaps in our current programming and
coordinating among agencies to develop a shared strategy. All
of these examples highlight the need to develop broader
mechanisms to manage by country and by function so that all
foreign assistance programs are coordinated and resources can
be allocated to achieve objectives most effectively and so that
programs can be operated most efficiently. Accountability for
results is another principle that will guide our reform
efforts. We are keenly aware that with increased resources
comes the obligation to demonstrate that we are making an
important difference.
Finally, we know that we need to be a more effective donor.
Our people in the field must have the means to leverage
opportunities, to build strong partnerships with responsible
governments, and to support development progress by empowering
partners to have more of a say in how aid resources are
targeted in their countries. We look forward to consulting
closely with you and other stakeholders as we consider these
questions and others in the coming weeks and months ahead. I
thank you for the opportunity to appear today and look forward
to answering your questions. The President and Secretary's
agenda is an ambitious one, yet with the right resources and
good counsel, we are confident that we can meet these
challenges. We look forward to working closely, and I welcome
the opportunity to answer your questions.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you very much.
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Mrs. Lowey. We appreciate your wisdom and we appreciate
your coming before this committee. And I will begin by asking
some questions and then I will proceed from side to side giving
each member 5 minutes. As you know, this subcommittee has
supported efforts to strengthen USAID's capacity over the past
2 years. In my judgment, USAID is the key agency with the
responsibility for implementing most of our foreign assistance
programs, and I agree with the Secretary's objective of
strengthening the agency. And I also agree wholeheartedly with,
and we have had many discussions about, her focus on
coordination, accountability. I have had this experience
wherever we have been that people from one program don't know
what the other is doing.
And so to go there and coordinate and to demand
coordination will really bring about greater effectiveness.
However, I find it difficult to comprehend that 5 months into
the administration we still do not have any political
leadership at USAID. There is no AID administrator, there are
no political appointments for any of the assistant
administrative positions. And as I noted, I think there is
really a danger that unless a management team is in place to
administer these resources, not that you are not very capable,
that Congress may be reluctant to provide such significant
resources. Can you tell us where the process is in terms of
appointing a USAID administrator and why this is taking so
long?
Mr. Lew. Madam Chairwoman, the process of selecting cabinet
and subcabinet level officials in the government is, as you
know, a very difficult one and a very time consuming one. The
administration began a bit ahead of other administrations. We
have now found ourselves in the same situation that other
administrations have found themselves in at this point. I don't
think we are particularly behind the past trends, but it is
frustrating that we are not able to have our full team on the
field. The process of selecting names, clearing names, bringing
them forward for confirmation, has been very time consuming. I
think the State Department is actually ahead of most other
agencies at this point. Unfortunately, we have not been
successful in moving as quickly on filling the key positions at
USAID. There are a number of very good names that are in the
process of review. And no one will be happier than the
Secretary and myself when we reach the point where names are
put forward for these positions.
But I don't want to leave the impression that in the
absence of leadership at the Agency itself that there has not
been a good deal of attention paid to USAID. I can say that I
personally have been putting an awful lot of my time and
attention into paying attention to the kinds of management
issues that when we have an USAID administrator I won't need to
pay as much attention to. The Secretary has been involved as
well. As we have planned for the Afghanistan effort USAID is at
the core of it, and we have drawn on USAID at every level to be
part of the strategic planning process and to implement
effectively. As we review the priority areas, like food
assistance and health care, USAID is at the center of it. So
USAID is very much a part of the administration's efforts. We
will all be happy when we have fully confirmed leadership in
place.
Mrs. Lowey. Well, I guess I expected that answer. However,
I think it is important to note for the record that we eagerly
await leadership at USAID because I know that your
responsibilities are widespread. And we both agree that having
that leadership in place will be very helpful.
Mr. Lew. I could not agree more.
Mrs. Lowey. And perhaps you can comment on the MCC. How
close are we to having a CEO at the MCC?
Mr. Lew. It is really largely the same answer. There are
very good names in the review process. But again, I want to
emphasize that Secretary Clinton is chairman of the MCC board
and is engaged actively with the MCC as the person responsible
for coordinating the foreign assistance programs. I have
engaged actively with the MCC. And I think that contrary to the
expectations that many had that we would not treat the MCC as a
core program, we have very much been treating it as a core
program and want very much to be able to help move it forward.
Mrs. Lowey. Good luck in that appointment as well. Lastly,
the fiscal year 2010 request includes funding to hire an
additional 350 foreign service officers at USAID, 1,181 foreign
service and civil service positions at the Department of State.
This is in addition to the substantial increases this committee
provided for staffing in the fiscal year 2008 emergency
supplemental and in the regular bill for fiscal year 2009. Of
the over 1,500 new positions in the fiscal year 2010 request,
how many do you project will be posted overseas, how many
domestically, can you explain the increased staffing,
particularly for security related positions.
Mr. Lew. Let me answer the question first in principle and
then with some numbers. Our goal is to assign as many foreign
service officers overseas as we can. There are domestic
postings that support the efforts of foreign service officers
overseas, so we will never be all overseas. There will be some
balance. In the initial year of appointment, there are language
training activities that have to be a domestic posting before
someone is assigned overseas. So looking ahead, we see that
there are roughly 180 positions that will be in hard language
and other training at the Foreign Service Institute. We have a
number of positions that are going to be coordinating with the
Department of Defense, so there are about 20 positions that are
detailed to DOD. And we have over 500 positions that are
intended to be overseas right away. So the mix of domestic and
overseas will be much more heavily weighted towards overseas as
we get deeper into the training and deployment process.
Mrs. Lowey. My red light is on. Ms. Granger.
Ms. Granger. I understand that the President's budget
proposes removing language prohibiting or restricting funds for
the Palestinians. These provisions are intended to prevent U.S.
dollars from falling into the hands of terrorists. In the
hearing with Secretary Clinton we had a great deal of
discussion about the prohibition on funds going to Hamas which
the administration included in its supplemental request. Now
the administration seems to be reversing course. Is there a
reason why the administration has requested that safeguards on
funds going to Palestinians should be removed in the fiscal
year 2010 bill.
Mr. Lew. I am not aware of any provision that reverses the
restrictions in this area. There has been some evolution of the
proposal, for the provision that was in the supplemental
appropriation amended something that was put on in the Omnibus,
and there may be something that is out of synchronization in
terms of time. But I am not aware of any policy difference. And
if there is something that hasn't caught up in time we will
work with you to reconcile that. Our position is very clear
that we want to be in a position to support a responsible
Palestinian Authority that is working to build stability, both
in financial and security areas. We want there to be room for a
government to form so that it can draw as broadly as possible
to create stronger support for moderate leadership and drive a
wedge in the support that extremists have. And we are very
comfortable with the resolution in the supplemental which we
frankly thought clarified the original intent.
Ms. Granger. Okay. We will follow up on that and see if
there is a conflict. I also want to ask you about Merida. We
have visited and we understand the problem with Mexico. I want
to make sure that we are on track to provide Mexico with the
helicopters funded in 2009 by the end of this calendar year.
Mr. Lew. We are on track. I actually just checked the other
day to make sure that we are on track. And in general, the
Merida money to Mexico has not moved as quickly as we would
like, and we have been paying quite a lot of attention to why
things are stuck in the pipeline. Some of the issues have to do
with the fact that Mexico had not previously been a recipient
of military assistance, and there was a fair amount of process
they had to go through. That is finished now. There are now
agreements in many areas to provide equipment where they are
locked into place with deadlines, including for the
helicopters.
Ms. Granger. Good. Let's make sure that happens also with
the Black Hawks that are coming up. And then your fiscal year
2010 request includes $450 million. We have not seen full
details on what is in that request. Can you explain a little
bit about the equipment and the programming that is being
requested?
Mr. Lew. The intention in the Merida funding was to
continue with the program. And frankly, the addition that we
made that stood out the most was adding the Black Hawk
helicopters back in. That was in the supplemental. But that was
the major addition. So I think that the approach on Merida is
to give the Mexican police and military the equipment they need
to mount an effective effort to stop the drug trafficking and
crime. We want to work with the government of Mexico as we go
along, and if their needs evolve, to work with them to evolve
with them. So the precise details for the equipment that will
be provided in the $450 million I would like to get back to you
on.
Ms. Granger. I understand. Thank you. Thank you Madam
Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. I just want to note that the President's
request does delete all the policy language, I believe, that is
carried in our bill, not just the one that you referenced. So
all of that language is in there. And I think we are in
agreement with the administration, as you mentioned, that the
additional language which we added, plus the other policy
language that we have included, does define our positions, our
mutual positions, very clearly.
Mr. Lew. Going back to my former life at OMB, if I recall
quickly, White House budgets always remove the language that is
added, and that doesn't represent a changed policy, but it is
an executive privilege issue. On the policy here, there has
been no change and we remain anxious to work with the committee
to make sure that there is no ambiguity about that.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Mr. Jackson.
Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Chairwoman Lowey. I want to begin
by welcoming Deputy Secretary Lew to our subcommittee and thank
him for his testimony. Deputy Secretary, I read with great
interest your testimony, at least the version I received last
night. The version I have been presented today is several pages
short.
Mr. Lew. I didn't think you would want me to read the whole
thing.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Jackson
Mr. Jackson. It is actually not even here. It stops on page
4, and I think there are more pages that should be added. But
during my tenure on the subcommittee, I have championed the
countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the larger African
Diaspora. I fought not only to provide these fragile countries
with emergency humanitarian assistance, but also with the
resources for long-term sustainable growth. I noticed and
appreciate the administration's effort in its fiscal year 2010
request for migration and refugee assistance in that account to
incorporate recent supplemental funding into the core budget
requests. Aside from funding a much more accurate reflection of
the ongoing needs of the program, I think this will help
mitigate the operational challenges that arise from relying on
supplementals to fund regular programming. However I noticed
that if the President's pending fiscal year 2009 supplemental
request for MRA is approved by Congress, the fiscal year 2010
request would be slightly below the fiscal year 2009
appropriations.
In view of the unmet humanitarian needs of many refugees
and internally displaced persons--our ongoing special
responsibility to displaced Iraqis and new humanitarian
concerns in places like Sri Lanka and Pakistan--I am wondering
how can the U.S. meet our current fiscal needs at the fiscal
year 2010 request level. I would like to hear your thoughts on
that.
And in the interest of time, let me state also my next
question. I noticed that our voluntary contributions to
peacekeeping operations were decreased by around 25 percent. I
know that the funds that were requested in fiscal year 2010
will support several missions in Sub-Saharan Africa, including
Somalia, South Sudan, the DRC and Liberia. Since most of these
missions have been ongoing for some time and will probably
continue, why do we reduce our voluntary contributions to
peacekeeping operations by 25 percent since we also decreased
our assessed contributions to peacekeeping? Are there any
missions that we might be neglecting? Thank you, Secretary Lew,
and thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Lew. Mr. Jackson, on the question of the funding level
for refugee assistance, we very much have tried to take a look
at the full year and include the resources that are likely to
be needed. I should make the point here as in other areas that
contingency planning is always subject to risk so you never
have full knowledge of what will actually occur. So we would
reserve the right if there are emergencies, even though we have
planned ahead, to come back and work with you. In terms of the
number that we put in here, there are several areas that in
2009 were quite intensive in terms of demands for resources in
Gaza and Georgia and Lebanon. And the change of the reduced
needs in those areas we think provides a sufficient cushion
that we are now funding at an historical level that will enable
us to meet the expected needs around the world. As the year
develops if that turns out to be an underestimate, we would
work with you on it.
But it is our best estimate that given the reduction in
needs in some parts of the world, there is a cushion to meet
the needs in other parts of the world. On the peacekeeping
numbers, an overview that I would like to give is that we both,
in the supplemental and this budget, have taken very seriously
the need for the United States to fully meet its commitments to
all peacekeeping accounts. The supplemental clears up arrears--
this budget keeps us current and even takes a first step
towards helping to deal with the problem that our fiscal year
doesn't match up with the fiscal year of international
institutions--and will synchronize our payments a little bit
more closely to the needs of the international institutions'
fiscal years.
In terms of the specific numbers that you asked about, we
are assuming that in the case of Somalia, that there will be a
switch at least for the logistical support to be handled
through assessed peacekeeping. We sent the notification to the
committee last week on that. We know there is a variety of
views on that issue and look forward to discussing that with
you. We also note that the Liberia mission is scheduled to be
completed and that will result in a lower level. So we think
that the numbers that we have put in the budget will cover both
the assessed and the voluntary requirements.
Mr. Jackson. Just a very quick follow-up if I might. The
Liberian operation, for example, is scheduled to be completed,
but the request from the Liberians themselves and the request
of neighboring countries and other countries that have
participated in the operations are also making the case that
they would like to expand the mission to keep the stability in
Liberia. And so it just appears, from my perspective, that
reducing the voluntary contribution and the assessed
contribution, that we are making some assumptions based upon
dates that we think are approaching, but they may not
necessarily be mission worthy or what the reality is on the
ground. I thank the Chair for yielding me the time.
Mr. Lew. Madam Chair, can I just add one further response.
The supplemental level was actually kind of a high water mark
level because we were kind of clearing out some arrearages. And
we would not need to maintain funding at the 2009 level,
including the supplemental level in order to maintain our
activities. So I think it may exaggerate the difference. And we
would be delighted to work with you, Mr. Jackson, to kind of go
through the numbers and make sure that we are fully
accommodating what is likely to be the requirement in Liberia.
Mr. Jackson. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Mr. Crenshaw.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you Madam Chair. Welcome. The Chair
mentioned MCC. I was encouraged to hear what you had to say. I
have been a big supporter of that. You talked about smart
power. I think it is smart aid where we require folks to talk
about economic freedom and human rights and things like that. I
was encouraged to see the request of $1.4 billion a sizable
increase from last year. But since there is no CEO yet, I am a
little concerned, and I think I heard you correctly say that
you are trying to make that happen. Because my question is, do
you see the MCC continuing to be an independent agency or right
now you mentioned the Secretary is overseeing things, and I
think that is good, but you don't plan to move toward, away
from the independent agency aspect and have it thrown in with
all the foreign assistance, do you?
Mr. Lew. I think that we view all of the different
assistance programs as having important attributes that make
them distinct from one another. But we also see there being a
critical need to coordinate amongst them in a way that,
frankly, they haven't been in the past. There are far too few
countries where all of the different streams of U.S. aid are
fully coordinated. And that leads to duplication of effort,
redundancy of capacity and not necessarily putting the U.S.
Government forward in the best possible light. So I think in
general, while we very much appreciate that there are
differences in MCC with its five-year compacts, its very clear
benchmarks, and its very unique characteristics. But on the
ground, MCC has to draw on USAID for much of the work that it
does, just as PEPFAR draws on USAID for much of the work that
it does. We would like for that collaboration to be much more
thoughtful and organic than it is.
Right now, we are in a situation where it could work in one
place, it might not work in another place. And when I ask for
examples of where everything is coordinated, I am pointed to
precious few countries where everything is coordinated. I don't
know that it requires a change in the law to accomplish what I
am talking about. But if you think about the role of the
ambassador and the DCM, if you think of them as a CEO with a
range of programs that they oversee, there ought to be full
knowledge by the ambassador and the DCM of all of the programs
going on.
And if one of the programs is undertaking an activity in an
area where another is already present, a flag ought to go up
and say let's do this together, let's not build two separate
facilities that do the same thing, let's not duplicate effort,
let's not send a confused message as to what the program of the
Government of the United States is.
I also think it is important that in all respects we think
of our foreign assistance programs as being part of our foreign
policy, an expression of our foreign policy. As we have gone
through the very difficult discussions regarding the MCC
compacts with certain countries where there are frankly
problems, it has been very important to coordinate what is done
through the MCC and what is done through our diplomatic
channels so that we are supporting each other as opposed to
working at cross-purposes. And I think that in that kind of
nuanced way of managing, one can respect that each program has
some very important characteristics that make them different
from one another, but that doesn't stop us from coordinating
them to run an effective cross-governmental program.
Mr. Crenshaw. But you don't see any changes in the way--I
mean, this is the fifth year they can have 5-year compacts. It
is a pivotal year.
Mr. Lew. I think that we do have some changes in mind. The
MCC has proposed that the single compact versus a multiple
compact issue is a serious concern that they have. And we
support the notion of having multiple compacts. I think the
whole question of 5-year funding is something that we need to
work with the Congress on. If somebody had asked me 10 years
ago would Congress lock up money for 5 years for a program like
MCC, I wouldn't have believed it possible. But in fact, the
commitment was made and there was the patience to stick with
MCC long enough to give the program a chance to get the
pipeline out into the field. I think we are now at the point
where we all together have to evaluate the results, we are very
pleased with the way MCC has been working and embrace the
mission of MCC wholeheartedly.
Mr. Crenshaw. One thing, the time is almost up, but it is
unique in the way the funding is planned out over several
years. Most of the foreign assistance gets appropriately spent.
And so the MCC money is always a target for folks to say, well,
I know that is committed, but it is really not spent so why
don't we take that money and put it somewhere else. Do you have
any ideas about how we can do a better job of making sure that
when we enter in a compact and say this is what we are going to
spend over a 3 to 5-year period that people don't grab the
money each year.
Mr. Lew. I think the risk of multi-year money is one that
is perennial. I think it is the right way to think about an
awful lot of issues and we would love to work on multi-year
programs and other areas as well. It is not always in the best
interest of achieving long-term objectives to have year-to-year
decisions. At the same time, I fully understand that the
appropriations process is an annual process. I think MCC has
survived through its kind of early years with the tolerance
that it takes time to get the pipeline fully flowing. I think
that the challenge will be for MCC to show results, and if it
can show results, we can work together on multi-year funding.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Mr. Schiff.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Schiff
Mr. Schiff. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Deputy, good to see
you. I know we did not reach a meeting of the minds last week
on the issue of coalition government. And I want to reiterate
my concerns about that. In the event there is a coalition
government that is formed, I think we will need to revisit many
of the issues that we discussed, and I am just going to leave
it at that. I do want to ask you about three countries this
morning: Egypt, Yemen and Somalia. Last week you may have seen
a pretty powerful editorial in the Washington Post taking issue
with unrestricted FMF, financing or other financial assistance
to Egypt without any discussion of the promotion of democracy
in Egypt.
And while I don't agree with the incompetent and
condescending way that the previous administration sought to
promote democracy in Egypt or elsewhere in the Arab world, the
failure to impose democracy by diktat should not lead to total
abandonment of a policy that seeks to bring more democratic
rule to hundreds of millions of people through a process of
candid engagement with current regimes, support for growth of
independent civil society in the Arab world, support for media
and unwillingness to continue turning a blind eye to gross
violations of human rights.
Poll after poll of Arabs taken in the last decade have
shown that American support for authoritarian regimes is often
at the heart of anti-American attitudes in the region. So my
question, with respect to Egypt, is what will we be doing to
promote democratic reforms in Egypt, notwithstanding the
statements of the Secretary of Defense. And with respect to
Somalia and Yemen over the weekend, General Petraeus told Chris
Wallace we see tentacles of al Qaeda that connect to al Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, the elements of al Shabaab
in Somalia, elements in North Central Africa, and that strive
to reach all the way, of course, into Europe and the U.S. My
principal concern is over Somalia and Yemen. And is there
anything in the State Department's budget or plans to try to
create institutions in Somalia in particular, but also in
Yemen, that will prevent either place from becoming the next
Afghanistan?
Mr. Lew. Thank you, Mr. Schiff. Let me start, if I could,
on your first observation because I actually think we may have
not reached agreement on words, but we have a meeting of the
minds. We agree with you wholeheartedly in the case of U.S.
support for the Palestinian Authority that we should not be
supporting organizations or individuals who have ties to
terrorist organizations. And we want to make sure that as we
implement any appropriation bill that is enacted that we make
sure that there is no ambiguity about that. Sometimes it is
hard to draft the words, but I think there is actually an
agreement on the principle.
On Egypt, the U.S. funding for Egypt has been a source of
some tension in the relationship with Egypt over the last few
years. And the combination of the reduced level coming down and
the earmark that went from $50 million to $20 million for
democracy was I don't think contributing to our ability to
actually move Egypt forward on a democracy agenda. That doesn't
mean that we don't want to support democracy activities. We do
very much remain committed to promoting democracy in Egypt, and
we understand the shortcomings that exist there. I think that
in the conversations that the Secretary had when she was in
Egypt, and the conversations that I have had with
representatives of the government of Egypt, there has been an
enormous appreciation that what we have said is we want to work
together on identifying funding objectives which meet with our
kind of bilateral approval.
It is kind of not saying--we are not saying we won't be
promoting democracy activities, we are saying we want to have a
conversation with them and engage with them in a somewhat
different way. Egypt is an important ally. They have important
challenges in this area. We know that we need to work with
them. I think that they know they need to work with us. And we
have tried to use the very small change in the way the aid is
structured to create a relationship where you can have more
influence and make more progress.
Mr. Schiff. If I can just say, if there is time for you to
respond on Yemen and Somalia, I agree with that approach, and I
think that we haven't been very effective in our democracy
assistance funding in Egypt, and that there may very well be
room for us to work with the Egyptians on supporting
organizations and democracy, promoting institutions that aren't
flash points in our relationship with Egypt. So I don't think
we have gone about it necessarily the best way. And I think
there is room to work with Egyptians on a better approach. But
I want to make sure we are not abandoning an approach, because
I think it is fundamental to the concern that many in the Arab
world have about the United States.
Mr. Lew. If I might briefly just address the question you
raised on Somalia and Yemen. In Somalia, we have a significant
effort in the peacekeeping area. And we have put some $28
million into economic support funds that can be used for
precisely the purposes that you inquired about: Reconciliation
efforts, training government civic leaders and supporting
initiatives that facilitate dialogue in civil society.
I don't think we disagree about the risk that is present in
Yemen or Somalia. And we are very attentive to the fact that we
have to keep our eye on areas of instability which could become
the next challenge. Yet Yemen requires our attention as well
and I'm happy to continue the conversation about Yemen.
Mr. Schiff. Thank you Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr, Kirk.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Kirk
Mr. Kirk. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I would note that
when you left OMB, our assistance to the West Bank totaled $211
million. And this year will be four times that at $865 million.
So I share my colleague from California's very deep concerns
about the direction you are going. And I want to ask a very
specific question. In November of 2007, the AID inspector
general released a report entitled the Audit and Adequacy of
USAID's Anti-Terrorism Vetting Procedures. The inspector
general concluded the following: AID's procedures, policies and
controls are not adequate to reasonably ensure against
providing assistance to terrorists. These policies or
procedures do not require the vetting of potential or current
AID partners.
Further, the sufficient management controls have not been
developed to reasonably prevent aid from being inadvertently
provided to terrorists. To decrease the risks of inadvertently
providing funding and material support to terrorist entities
AID should issue guidance on a worldwide anti-terrorist vetting
program. In June 2008, the inspector general released its own
report viewing the State Department's counterterrorism vetting
procedures. They concluded procedures for counterterrorism
vetting and whether vetting is conducted at all vary widely
through the department.
Different lists are consulted by different offices and few
offices have negotiated special arrangements to conduct vetting
at the terrorist screening center. The inefficiencies and
potential vulnerabilities in these arrangements have been
apparent both at the interagency and department level, but the
interagency efforts so far fail to establish governmentwide
sets of standards and procedures for counterterrorism vetting
prior to awarding government assistance.
In response to the 2007 report, AID developed a partner
vetting system. I personally visited that office in Crystal
City at the terrorist screening center. The final rule for the
partner vetting system was published January 2, but left
implementation to the new administration.
Mr. Kirk [continuing]. Given the conclusions and
recommendations reached by two IG reports and the very large
provision of assistance now proposed for Pakistan, Afghanistan,
Lebanon, Egypt, and especially the West Bank and Gaza, will you
commit to implementing the partner vetting system for the State
Department and USAID assistance.
Mr. Lew. Mr. Kirk, in terms of current practices on vetting
of NGOs, you know there is a vetting process in place where
NGOs are checked against multiple terrorist lists.
Mr. Kirk. Can I just tell you the current system is one
that the IGs decry? The new system that I am asking.
Mr. Lew. And I am going to answer your question. The rules
that you are asking about were presented for our review soon
after we arrived and we asked a number of questions about them.
Most prominently was why did it apply to NGOs exclusively, why
did it not apply to contractors. And frankly I couldn't be
satisfied that there was a good rationale for saying that there
was a difference that made a difference, and I asked USAID to
go back and redraft a regulation that would be applied across
the board.
That has been sent to OMB. It is in the rulemaking process
now, and it is on a template to become final.
Mr. Kirk. Good. I support that you are actually going to
expand----
Mr. Lew. I thought it was a mistake to issue a rule that
went halfway and create confusion, when in just a few weeks we
would be able to implement a rule that starts out in an even-
handed way.
Mr. Kirk. Great. I hope that there are no exceptions.
Mr. Lew. I am not aware of exceptions. There obviously are
many safeguards----
Mr. Kirk. The international NGO system hates this program,
and so I would hope that you would not provide any out, given
the very large increase and the fact that we may be, under
language proposed by the administration, providing a taxpayer
subsidy to Hamas-controlled ministries, the PA, this actually
will protect the administration more than if there were----
Mr. Lew. Since all of my interventions have been to expand,
not narrow the coverage, I know that it was broader than it was
in January because it covers contractors. I will go back and
check on that question as to whether any exceptions were in
there.
Mrs. Lowey. I just want say that I appreciate--you will get
an additional minute--but I just want to say I appreciate the
gentleman bringing up this issue because, as you said, it
certainly is applicable in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the
administration has been extremely cooperative and
understanding. We have to strengthen the requirements. There
are chances that someone could get through a hole, but I think
if we are all in agreement that this is critical, we can
certainly perfect the system. And I wanted to thank the
administration, and now you can go back.
Mr. Kirk. I take what you said as very good news.
We have not received the formal budget justification for
the Department. Our budgeting brief says that you will be
requesting $62 million for public diplomacy, including 20 new
positions. I am concerned that we haven't identified the
Chinese speakers in that list of where we will be going.
Also, last year we funded six new American presence posts
for public diplomacy in China that cost about $1.5 million each
in China. And Secretary Rice outlined a vision for 10 of these
posts throughout China in the largest cities where we don't
have a consulate.
In the budgeting brief we have no mention of American
presence posts. For example, here is a list of cities with no
American presence whatsoever: In Xinxiang, 8.5 million people;
Tianjin, 8.2; Chongqing, 7.5; Nanjing, 7; Dandong, 6.5;
Hengshui, 6.3. So these are all plus five million metropolitan
jurisdictions.
Are we going to fund the American presence posts plans of
the Department or are we going to let these cities go.
Mr. Lew. Well, first in terms of when the details are going
to be forthcoming, our plan is to get the detailed budget
justification up in about 2 weeks, which I am told is actually
ahead of past schedules, which given that it is a transition
year is something that we feel pretty good about. So I
apologize it is not here yet, but we are trying to get it to
you as soon as possible.
In terms of the American presence posts we are looking at
the issue, and, you know, understand that it will require some
engagement with the government of China to work through what
would be acceptable posts. We are aware that they have a desire
to have some additional offices in the United States and look
forward to engaging in a conversation with them where their
interests and our interests can all be worked through.
Mr. Kirk. I just say that these cities alone, which would
be six cities, is over 40 million people where there is no U.S.
Diplomatic presence.
Mr. Lew. I understand the issue, and I think that as we
work through these issues with the Chinese there will be some
places where presence is more likely to be possible than
others, and we will get back to you as we proceed.
Mr. Kirk. Thank you. I see. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. In terms of the resources I would
just say that your input is helpful, and if we could justify
positions in every place where we would like positions, I am
not sure where that would take us, Mr. Kirk. So I look forward
to working with you and certainly the State Department in
evaluating your requests and see what we can do to be helpful.
Ms. Lee.
Opening Remarks of Ms. Lee
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you very much, Mr.
Secretary. Thank you for being here and congratulations. We
certainly have a lot of work to do.
Mr. Lew. Yes, we do.
Ms. Lee. War, poverty, genocide, disease, climate change,
but I am very pleased to see that President Obama has pledged
to double foreign assistance by 2015. It really begins to put
us on the right track toward reaching some of our goals. So
congratulations to you for being in the position to make sure
that much of this happens.
Before I ask you a couple of questions on the budget, let
me just mention, and I mentioned this to the Secretary in terms
of an inquiry with regard to a constituent of mine, Tristan
Anderson, who was seriously injured when he was struck in the
head by a tear gas canister in Israel and by Israeli soldiers
while he was engaging in a nonviolent demonstration. So we will
be following up, writing a more detailed letter because I am
hoping the State Department is monitoring the full
investigation of this very, very terrible incident.
On the budget, let me ask about the Global Fund first of
all. It has always been a key component in our response to the
HIV/AIDS pandemic, TB and malaria, and in a very short period
of time we really achieved significant results putting over 2
million people on AIDS treatment, 5 million are being treated
for TB, and 70 million bed nets have been distributed to
prevent malaria, and of course we have been a generous donor to
the fund, but the anticipated contribution I think it is $900
million in the fiscal year 2009 budget. That will have to be
significantly increased if we expect to fully fund all of the
grants and meet the dramatically increased needs anticipated
for 2010.
And so I am not sure in terms of this budget, it looks like
we are flat lining our contribution to the Global Fund, and I
am wondering could you clarify that, especially given the need
to actually increase it.
Next, let me just congratulate you and our administration
for the new Global Health Initiative. I think that it is a
major step in the right direction in terms of looking at how we
address our smart power agenda. I am concerned, though, that
the $51 billion allocated to PEPFAR and malaria over the next 6
years could fall short, if I am reading this right, at the
funding pace which we authorized, and that was about $48
billion over the next 5 years.
So I would like to get some clarification on how we are
addressing the Global Fund and PEPFAR and I want to make sure
that we are not--or we shouldn't--anticipate a decline in
resources for these very important and productive and noble
efforts that we are engaged in.
Mr. Lew. Thank you for those questions. I think that by any
estimation you know PEPFAR and the Global Fund have just done
an enormous amount in a very short period of time to tackle a
terrible disease--three terrible diseases with extraordinary
impact. The President and the administration continue to
support very strongly the funding of those programs, and as you
noted, we have expanded the concept to have a broader global
health focus.
In terms of the Global Fund itself, we actually requested a
higher funding level than has been requested previously, and
overall we think we have funded both the U.S. and the Global
Fund programs so that they can meet the need. There is
obviously some interplay between the two, and we know that in
the past there has been back and forth between Congress and the
administration on this and we look forward to continuing that
conversation as we go through the year.
On the global health program more broadly, the focus on the
three diseases in PEPFAR, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria,
has been enormously valuable in terms of just tackling a
problem that 8 years ago had no solution and now giving 2
million people treatment that is life saving. You know, we need
to find the means to extend that kind of focus to a number of
other areas where we know very well how to improve health and
life extending outcomes, actually more easily and less
expensively than in those other areas.
Our focus is on basic health issues, things like maternal
and child health and the neglected tropical diseases, diarrheal
illness which takes the lives of so many children, things that
are very easy when you have a health presence to treat them and
can be done in a coordinated way.
In terms of the funding level overall, the President
committed to funding the PEPFAR program at $50 billion over 5
years. He has actually increased it to 51 in his budget and it
is over 6 years. We think that that is a funding level that
will enable us to keep pace. There are many issues about the
projected requirements to keep pace with the current program
and, as I think you know, there is a statutorily required
strategic review of the program which our new administrator,
who is going to be running the PEPFAR program when he is
confirmed, will take on as a first order of business.
Ms. Lee. Madam Chair, may I just quickly follow up? With
regard to PEPFAR, I want to make sure that we are talking about
a minimum of at least $4.8 billion a year for PEPFAR. The
numbers, I am not sure, I know you have $51 billion over the
next 6 years, which falls short for the funding pace for PEPFAR
alone.
And then secondly, yes, the administration has requested
more than previous administrations for the Global Fund, but
that is part of the reason we are behind and there are grants
now that are pending that won't be funded if, in fact, we don't
significantly increase that $900 million.
Mr. Lew. We believe the funding level that the
administration put in meets the needs of the program. If there
are shortfalls that you see, we would be happy to discuss those
with you.
Ms. Lee. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I would like to
follow up with you on that.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you, Ms. Lee, and I just want to thank
Mr. Lew as well for suggesting that there has been a
conversation and that there will continue to be a conversation.
As you know, in the supplemental we put an additional $100
million for the Global Fund, and as for the question of
balancing all the tremendous needs we have, certainly we want
to continue to see aggressive action with HIV/AIDS and the
Global Fund and PEPFAR, et cetera, and how that balances with
food security and agriculture and education. It is worthy of
additional conversation, as you said. So I thank you for your
input.
Mr. Rehberg.
Mr. Rehberg. Thank you, Madam Chair. Being new to the
subcommittee, I am trying to create a timeline on food security
and the definition of emergency purchases of local and regional
commodities. I notice in your presentation you have an
appropriation request of an additional $300 million. Could you
work through with me what you mean by famine prevention? Is
that an emergency in the minds of those within the State
Department? And the authority was originally granted in the
pilot project and in the farm bill of 2008, and I see a study
is going to be published after 4 years.
Work through with me a little bit, and the reason I come
from this direction is that I fear a little bit of a shifting
of intent or responsibility on the part of those of us from
agricultural States. I have to defend my votes on foreign
assistance, and let me make a statement then. You refute it if
you should or can or wish to, and that is we are taking
taxpayer dollars from agricultural producers in Montana to send
over to Africa to buy food product, commodities from the
European Union.
Mr. Lew. Congressman, the thrust of our Food Security
Initiative is to be able to develop in the long term
sustainable food production systems so that the need for
emergency assistance in the long run will be reduced. It is
ultimately not a solution to the problems in those poorest
countries of the world for us to either export commodities or
for them to be purchased locally. Ultimately, they need to
develop sustainable agricultural systems that can meet their
own needs.
Mr. Rehberg. And I clearly understand that, and you know,
there is no way I could justify as a fiscal conservative the
expense of the transportation of commodities from America over
to a famine area, except that it is the taxpayer dollar that is
being used to purchase the commodities in America to send to
the area as opposed to taking the taxpayers' dollar and sending
it over to a competitor to buy the product somewhere else to
give for the food security.
Mr. Lew. Over the past number of years there has been an
evolution of the commodity program from a U.S. Export program
to a mix of U.S. Exports and local purchases. It has actually
had beneficial effects in terms of being able to stabilize
markets around the world and provide the commodities that are
actually needed in the recipient countries.
When I was in my last tour of duty at the Office of
Management and Budget, there were more than a few circumstances
when commodity exports that we were proposing didn't meet the
needs of the country we were sending them to, and there was
food that they didn't eat and didn't know what to do with.
Mr. Rehberg. Is that because we don't produce that food
product in America or it was a purchasing problem?
Mr. Lew. I think that the challenge we have is to make sure
that we are providing commodities that are needed at levels
that meet the demand, get delivered to the people when they
need it, and that as much as possible don't cause instability
in the markets that we are seeking to help.
Mr. Rehberg. I can understand that in the emergency
standpoint, but in an ongoing food security program it seems
like somebody ought to be smart enough to get the product in
the hands of people that they want purchasing from us so that
we are not only teaching them to farm, which we all support,
but also undercutting ourselves financially locally because it
is our economic development in the farm States. It definitely
is a shift that I see. I recognize it from----
Mr. Lew. Well, I think that it is a mistake to characterize
these as emergency and nonemergency programs because these are
really all emergency programs, and the need that we have is to
meet the timeliness requirements, the appropriateness of the
commodities, and as much as possible support the local
production markets so we don't end up providing assistance but
destroying the local agricultural market.
There is a place for U.S. products in there. I don't mean
to be suggesting that it is all or nothing, but I think that
the fact that the program has become a mix, that is not a new
policy.
Mr. Rehberg. Could your agency provide information to me of
the changing mix?
Mr. Lew. Sure, I would be happy to.
Mr. Rehberg. Whether it was 90/10 and now it is 60/40 or
50/50 or 30/70.
Mr. Lew. Yes, I will. I want to underscore that the really
important focus of the Food Security Initiative that we are
undertaking is really in the area of promoting self-
sufficiency, and the big increase in the budget here is in the
area of promoting education and extension of technologies and
farming practices, which is kind of neutral in the sense that
it is not exporting or providing goods but helping to create a
sustainable----
Mr. Rehberg. Real quickly then. Do you read the authorizing
legislation in the farm bill that you are taking the $300
million figure for your appropriation request as $300 million
per year in authorization or $300 million total over the course
of the farm bill's authorization?
Mr. Lew. I will have to get back to you on that,
Congressman.
Mr. Rehberg. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Lew. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum.
Opening Remarks of Ms. McCollum
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Lew, I would like to
congratulate the administration on its budget request. I
support the smart power strategy that you described in your
testimony. I look forward to working with the administration on
our shared priorities, global health, climate change and
agricultural development. Congratulations.
Mr. Lew. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. I was also encouraged to hear the strong
statement from you in support of Middle East peace, a two-state
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Resolving the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an urgent national security
priority of the United States, but I have serious concerns
about the new Israeli Government's failure to embrace the
creation of an independent Palestinian state.
This budget commits billions of taxpayer dollars to Israel
and hundreds of millions to the Palestinians in pursuit of
mutual peace and security. The American people are making a
serious investment in peace. However, U.S. support must be
matched by accountability, and it is time for both the
Palestinians and Israelis to be accountable for removing
obstacles to peace.
One of those obstacles to peace and security is the
government of Israel's continued support for the expansion of
settlements and the failure to prevent the establishment of
illegal outposts on Palestinian land. This land must one day be
included as part of a future Palestinian state.
Since 1967, homes have been built for 470,000 Israelis in
the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In the past 3 years Israel
has built over 5,000 homes in the West Bank settlements and
another 500 bids for houses were issued.
Continued settlement expansion will only lead to one
conclusion, a one-state solution, and this is an unacceptable
solution. The continued expansion of settlements not only
undermines the peace process but it undermines U.S. national
security. In fact, the settlement expansion also undermines
Israeli security and America's investment in Israeli security,
and I would like to quote Vice President Biden in his speech to
AIPAC recently.
Quote, Israel has to work for a two-state solution, not
build more settlements, dismantle existing outposts, and allow
Palestinians freedom of movement, end of quote.
Now, I strongly support the Vice President's statement. So
I would like to ask you to help me to understand clearly where
the administration's position is. Does the U.S. Government
oppose Israeli Government policy of settlement expansion in the
West Bank and East Jerusalem? Can you assure me that none of
the $2.8 billion in funds provided to Israel through the
foreign military financing would be used to enable or
facilitate the expansion or maintenance of settlements? And
since settlement expansion is contrary to U.S. policy and
undermines national security interests, what is our government
doing to hold our partner Israel accountable if they choose to
continue their policy of settlement expansion? And as you can
tell I feel a sense of urgency to push for peace.
Mr. Lew. Congresswoman, the administration and the
President have, I think, taken a very clear position that we
strongly support a two-state solution and that we feel that it
is urgent for the United States to engage actively in the
process. The President and Secretary Clinton have appointed
Senator Mitchell as a Special Envoy and he has been traveling
in the region, meeting with the parties. He has been working
closely with the President and Secretary as they plan and
prepare for meetings with heads of state from the region which
are going to be held in the coming weeks.
I think that the time is now for all the parties in the
region to come forward and engage in this conversation
constructively, and we have made clear that we want to be
active and supportive of the process both diplomatically and
through our financial support.
I think that it is not the appropriate moment for me to be
putting forward new administration statements on this issue. It
is obviously a set of policies that are critically important in
the coming weeks, months, and years ahead, and we very much
hope that we reach a level of engagement that can break a
logjam here.
We are at a moment in history where in some ways there is
remarkable commonality of interest among so many of the
parties. There is a shared concern about the threat posed by
Iran in the region and the world. There is a shared concern
about the spread of extremism around the region and the world.
I think we have to move into these conversations so that
the President and Secretary are able to pursue in each of their
conversations, as effectively and aggressively as possible, the
efforts to bring the parties to be able to have a constructive
dialogue.
Ms. McCollum. Well, I thank you for your really diplomatic
answer, and Madam Chair, I strongly support what this committee
has been focusing on to make sure that we support Senator
Mitchell in a unity government and that we remove obstacles for
people who want peace to be part of that government, but at the
same time guarantee that we are not funding Hamas. But along
with the dollars that we are providing in that area, we need to
be having a frank discussion with a great ally in Israel, a
country which shines brightly with democracy in that area, that
we also have taxpayers who are very concerned about illegal
outposts and expansion, and we as representatives of the people
are starting to hear very loudly and clearly from people that
we represent from all faiths, from all walks of life who
support peace that the settlements are an obstacle and that we
have to stand strongly for a two-state solution, and they are
very concerned about lack of support that they are hearing from
the new Israeli Government.
Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Just briefly let me say that in addition to
being a diplomatic response, I thought that Secretary Lew did
reflect the observations of this delegation when we were in
Israel, the West Bank, and Egypt just recently. And it was
clear to all of us that there was a commonality of interests
that was new. There was concern on the part of Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, UAE, and others about the danger, the threat of Iran to
the region, and it was also clear to me that Bibi Netanyahu was
in the process of evaluating the position of Israel before he
came.
In our meeting, which was very cordial, very pleasant,
there was no clear answer to any of the questions that were
posed and it was fairly clear to us that they were having and
he was very specific about saying in the next few weeks that he
and his cabinet were going to reevaluate their positions before
they come to the United States.
So I would hope that the conversations between Israel,
between Bibi Netanyahu and others who may be part of it,
between, I am not sure, I assume Abu Mazen will be coming and
Salam Fayyad will be coming, and I hope that all the parties
can work together.
I think there is a real commitment on the part of the
majority of the Israelis and certainly on the part of the
Palestinians to a two-state solution. I am less optimistic in a
unity government and a power sharing government, although we
have placed many conditions in the legislation in response to
Senator Mitchell's request for flexibility, I think Senator
Mitchell, Abu Mazen, and the Israelis and most of us who were
there have real questions about the reality of a unity
government or power sharing government. But, however, that is
certainly on the table. It is certainly going to be discussed,
but I think there is agreement that this is a hypothetical.
So let me say this. In my lifetime, having worked on this
issue and been to the region many times, I hope that the
administration, the President, the Secretary of State, Senator
Mitchell, can bring the parties together and we can have two-
state solution and seek peace.
So I personally want to thank you and the administration
for the commitment to this goal and hopefully again we can see
it in our lifetime. And I thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Well, Madam Chair, being Irish and having
traveled to Northern Ireland when the peace process was
started, I am very confident in Mr. Mitchell, but what he does
is he holds everybody accountable. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you, and I told Senator Mitchell that
compared to the issues in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I think he
has a much easier job. So we all wish him good luck.
Mr. Lew. No shortage of hard problems.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you very much. I think we have votes in,
what, about 10 minutes or so. So perhaps we can continue this
discussion until the bells go off, and again I thank you for
appearing before us.
I want to focus for a few minutes on the Civilian
Stabilization Initiative because the fiscal year 2010 budget
requests $323.3 million for the Civilian Stabilization
Initiative, or CSI, and in fiscal years 2008, 2009, this
committee appropriated a total of $150 million in support of
CSI, $95 million to the Department of State, $55 million to
USAID. Your request reverses this pattern of joint funding to
State and USAID by requesting all CSI operations funding under
the Department of State. Furthermore, the budget recommends the
lead in language that was carried in the last 2 years requiring
that there be coordination between State and USAID.
Let me just say I don't understand this at all, and so I
would like to know, number one, what is the justification for
the decision to request all CSI funding through the Department
of State? I will give you a couple of questions and then you
can just respond. I know you will remember them all.
Mr. Lew. I am jotting them down.
Mrs. Lowey. Why does the request delete language carried
the last 2 years in the bill requiring consultation between the
Department and USAID and the elimination of direct funding and
the deletion of the consultation requirement? I would like to
know what role will USAID have in the decision making process.
And your budget request more than doubles the funding for this
initiative. What evidence is there that this capability is
effective and is being utilized, especially without USAID being
involved, and are there examples of successful deployments and,
if so, what are they?
Let me just say in addition, the request includes $76
million to USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives for a rapid
response fund. So I would like to know how these resources
would be used, and how would the Department and USAID determine
whether OTI will be deployed to a post-conflict situation or
whether the CSI would be deployed?
So as you can see, I think the coordination between State
and USAID is absolutely essential. So I don't understand this
request at all.
Mr. Lew. Well, let me start by maybe taking a step back and
saying that while efforts have been made to date to build a
civilian stabilization program, they are so early in
implementation that we do not have a capacity that is large
enough to deal with the very enormous demands that we see in
the world today and expect to see in the years ahead. So we
start out with a deep commitment that for the State Department
to take back the responsibilities that have over the past
number of years kind of moved over to the Defense Department,
it is absolutely critical that the State Department have the
capacity to quickly deploy people with the right skills to
areas of either crisis or where there are stabilization needs,
and the concept behind this initiative is that there need to be
three components.
There need to be full-time employees who work on this all
the time. There need to be ready reserve government employees
who can be redeployed when needed, and ultimately, there need
to be nongovernmental outside reservists, much like the
military reserve, and just to put into context----
Mrs. Lowey. Before you go further, because I did ask you a
lot of questions at once, I agree with you, but how do you do
this? Together we want to build up USAID and you want to build
up the State Department. So now you are saying it should all be
in State Department. We are building up USAID with that
expertise that I hope some day they can be transported swiftly
and appropriately where they are needed, but now you want to
move it all into State.
Mr. Lew. Well, first, the deletion of the language I think
is the same answer to the question before, that I think most,
if not all of the language that was included in the
appropriations bill was not included in the request just
because that is the tradition of budget requests. So I think we
need to separate the transmittal from the policy that we aim to
work together on.
I must say that I have had questions on this in my own mind
since coming to the State Department. You know, the question of
how to coordinate USAID and the State Department and other
agencies of government is much more basic than C/SRS, and I
think we need to get to the point where the dividing line that
money was appropriated for one but not for the other, therefore
they don't operate as one program is something that is right at
the top of my list of things that we have to overcome. That may
make me perhaps not sufficiently sensitive to how important it
is to people here or perhaps in the agency that when the
appropriation is made to one place or another it matters deeply
to them.
I think the goal here is to build a capacity that is
sufficiently robust that it can serve the mission. The decision
to put it in State versus USAID is something that we are
continuing to review in the sense that it is not obvious to me
why the decision was made to build an expeditionary capacity in
a second part of the foreign policy establishment. We do have a
S/CRS. It is working at its size very effectively. We just
deployed the resources of the civilian response team to go to
Afghanistan to work on the elections in August, and it was the
one resource that we could send over immediately. It
demonstrates the need to have this capacity.
Frankly, I would like to engage in a conversation within
the Department and between the Department and USAID and with
the committee because I think that this is in some ways a
cross-government effort. It is not just State and USAID. I mean
when we need people who are experts in governance or rule of
law or agriculture, they may or may not come from the confines
of the foreign policy agencies and we need to have the ability
to draw on the right people with the right skills to meet the
tasks, and those are going to change over time.
So I guess my view on this is that we have some something
that is nascent that we want to build up. We want to work with
you and the other committees of concern here to make sure we
build up something that is not duplicative but that harmonizes
the different parts of the foreign policy community, and the
nonforeign policy community has a role to play here and that
ultimately makes it less consequential where the appropriation
is and more consequential what we are asking the people to do,
and that is going to be how we try to manage across these
boundaries.
Mrs. Lowey. Clearly, I appreciate your response and I know
that we have to have further discussion, but again my concerns
have been if you don't have the civilian expertise at USAID and
you are not totally focused on building up USAID, and I know
you care very much about it, as does the Secretary, and
understand the importance of it, then it is very hard to focus
on the Civilian Stabilization Initiative without the investment
in that expertise. We can certainly continue this discussion,
and I also agree with you that there are people at the
Department of Agriculture, for example, that may be called on.
But I feel and I believe you share the commitment to building
up expertise at USAID. Frankly, in my visiting, was it
Ambassador Newman, I think former Ambassador Newman in
Afghanistan, a place where we need staff, putting aside the
Civilian Stabilization Initiative--you compare the strength
that USAID had in Afghanistan when he was ambassador to what it
has now and suddenly we are just trying to recreate everything.
So I just want to be sure we have the basic strength before
we try and build on other capacities elsewhere.
Mr. Lew. We agree totally about the need to rebuild the
USAID core base. But one point I guess I would like to add is
that there is a disproportionate number of positions that we
would like to be able to call on that will not be full time
either State or USAID positions. In this 2010 budget we would
end up with thousands of reserve civilians that we could call
on and hundreds of full-time State and USAID employees. So it
is like 10 to 1 in terms of the ratio of full-time versus
standby reserve.
I think the challenge we have is to design and implement a
reserve system where those people are truly available to us,
that they are pretrained, that they stay up to the standards
that are required to be deployed quickly, and that to me is a
huge undertaking, something the State Department has never
done. USAID has never done. And it is something we have models
of how military reserves work, but we need to develop the model
for how to do that on the civilian side.
I don't believe we are going to ever be able to have enough
full-time civilians who are sitting in Washington offices
waiting to be deployed, just as the military doesn't have
enough full-time soldiers waiting to be deployed. They need a
reserve capacity to meet these peaks and valleys of demand. I
think that is a huge undertaking and one that we are very
focused on, and we very much look forward to getting the
appropriations for that so that we can build our capacity.
Mrs. Lowey. The discussion should continue. Just before I
turn it over to Ms. Granger, I want to make it clear. I don't
foresee any capacity composed of people who are just sitting
there with expertise waiting----
Mr. Lew. No, no, I understand.
Mrs. Lowey [continuing]. To be deployed. Now they may be in
another country. They may have the capacity totally focused
someplace else and you'll be able to call on them. But to be
continued. Thank you.
Ms. Granger.
Ms. Granger. The administration has included another
request for $98 million in economic support funds for North
Korea. That is for fiscal year 2010. Tell me exactly what those
funds will support. I know the news that we see is grim. Do you
see a potential to restart the six-party talks?
Mr. Lew. The funds that are requested for North Korea are
all contingent on progress being made in the six-party talks
and progress being made in terms of compliance with the removal
of the nuclear capacities. The specific funding would be for
the area of fuel oil, keeping the commitment that we have to
replace fuel oil when nuclear capacity is taken down for energy
production, but it only would kick in in the event that North
Korea complies. So there is absolutely nothing that we would
provide here to North Korea absent North Korea's compliance.
Ms. Granger. I understand. Thank you.
Mr. Lew. And we hope that there is a return to six-party
talks and that North Korea goes back into compliance because
that is a hugely important policy objective that we and most of
the world share right now.
Ms. Granger. Certainly.
Mrs. Lowey. Ms. Lee.
Ms. Lee. Thank you very much. I was very happy to see that
the President's budget does take significant steps towards
rebuilding our civilian foreign assistance and diplomatic
capacity. I also strongly believe that the State Department
should really accurately reflect the diversity of the United
States in order to accurately represent our country. So I hope
that this process and what you are about to do will include the
whole issue of diversity, people of color, women, individuals
with disabilities in terms of advancing opportunities for these
populations of people.
Also, for a couple of years now I have been asking
questions with regard to the minority women-owned business
participation and utilization as it relates to contracting
within USAID and the State Department. I guess, Madam Chair, I
don't know if I need to request a report from the Department
because I still don't have a good handle on how the Department
is doing as it relates to minorities and women and individuals
with disabilities in terms of total contracting dollars and
what the percentages are to these companies. Would that be
under your jurisdiction or how could I get that information
because--and I mentioned this before previously--in my last
life I owned a small business and I tried to do business like
other African American companies with the Department of State,
USAID, and there were roadblocks after roadblocks after
roadblocks, and I mean I did it the way that it should have
been done, the proper way in terms of contracting procedures
and not one, not one instance, and I don't know many people of
color who have been able to do business with the State
Department. So I am trying to get a good handle on that and
still haven't been able to figure it out.
Mr. Lew. We would be happy to work with you and pull
together an analysis to explore both of those issues. Let me
just underscore the Secretary's commitment and my commitment
that in the area of recruitment it is very important that the
State Department broaden its base for all kinds of reasons. We
can only do our job effectively in the 21st century if we go
around the world reflecting the diversity of the United States
and the world that we are dealing in. And historically, the
diversity has not been that great. There has been a lack of
diversity at many levels historically in the State Department.
I think we are doing better than in the past, but that doesn't
mean we don't need to go out more aggressively and recruit at
schools and through organizations and that help us to build the
diverse base we need.
Frankly, we have an opportunity now with the first
significant expansion of Foreign Service officers in a
generation to go about doing it in what we would consider the
right way and to expand the opportunities for individuals to
come in and get information, to expand the opportunities for
them to be interviewed, and to make sure that as the selection
process moves forward it is fair and open.
So we agree wholeheartedly with that and would be happy to
work with you to go through in more detail what our recruiting
policies are and what the record is.
In the area of contracting, at the risk of sounding too
critical of my own department, we are kind of nondiscriminatory
in making the contracting process difficult. We have to fix it.
We have to get away from these giant contracts. It is not just
minority businesses that have a hard time doing business with
the State Department. I hear it from NGOs. I hear it from
medium size organizations, large organizations. There are good
reasons why things evolved the way they have over the years,
but one of the things that we need to do is look at it, and as
we look at it, to keep in mind that one of the benefits of
opening up contracting to smaller, more competitive contracts
is that it naturally helps to ease some of the barriers that
have kept minority firms from competing.
I don't have an easy answer for this, but I know that at an
administration-wide level this is a goal that the President
has, and it is certainly something we take seriously at the
State Department.
Ms. Lee. Well, thank you very much, and let me just say we
would like to work with you. As Chair of the Congressional
Black Caucus, we have some ideas on how we could make this
happen in a way that would work, and so I hope that you would
consult with not only us but those of us in the Tri-Caucus who
would like to see this happen.
Mr. Lew. Thank you.
Ms. Lee. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Mr. Rehberg.
Mr. Rehberg. Thank you.
As we enter into a world of identity and Real ID and the
next generation passport, I guess as you know you have a lot of
secure information, birth cities, passport numbers, and the
like. I guess, could you talk to me a little bit about what you
are doing within the Department to protect the privacy of
citizens. And does this budget--I was going through your
testimony. I see you talk a little bit about cyber security,
but I guess I want you to expand a little bit beyond your
testimony of what you are doing internally. And does this
budget reflect the kinds of things that you need to occur in
the short term, whether we are talking about immigration
policy, Real ID, and protection of that information.
Mr. Lew. Congressman, there is a natural tension between
raising the bar on how we scrutinize the comings and goings of
individuals and personal privacy.
Mr. Rehberg. I am from Montana. I clearly understand that
concept.
Mr. Lew. And we are very, very attentive to the importance
that both sides of the equation are very important.
I think that, you know, there have been some incidents in
recent history at the State Department that show that there was
perhaps not a high enough level of protection of individual
files, even before our arrival. I know that there were actions
taken to try and tighten that up.
As we go forward and look at the different systems that we
put in place, the challenge is to make sure that the law
enforcement agencies that have appropriate needs and reasons
for access get access but that nobody else does, and you know,
it is not a problem that one can just say, well, we fixed it,
we move on. You constantly need to pay attention to it. Systems
change.
Mr. Rehberg. Does this budget then reflect----
Mr. Lew. I think it is part of our ongoing program, and it
is more a question of focus than it is budget. I am not aware
of the need for any specific resources in this area, and I am
told that there is $2.7 million in our privacy office which is
for the programs.
Mr. Rehberg. In new money? And is that going to be part of
the next generation passports similar to Europass or have you
not begun that process of changing the passport?
Mr. Lew. Well, we have a new passport. I mean, the new
passport that we have has in it a substantial amount of
information that is electronically encoded. So that is in place
already. The challenge is how to make sure that the access to
the information is controlled and, as I said, available for
proper purposes but not for improper purposes.
Mr. Rehberg. So there is no additional money in this
budget----
Mr. Lew. I will get back to you in more detail. I must
confess that in the many details of the budget, I have
discussed this with people at a policy level, but I am not
deeply familiar with the funding issues behind it. So why don't
I get back to you?
Mr. Rehberg. I perhaps didn't know it as well when I voted
for Real ID, and Montana is one of those States where I have
got Ted Kaczynski on the left and the Freemen on the right and
everything in between. So I am perhaps more sensitive to
privacy and the identity crisis that we have going on with some
of that information getting out.
So if you could get back to me, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Lew. I would just say more broadly there are a number
of issues related to the bar having been raised very high on
security that we need to reevaluate, and it is always difficult
to put any interest over security. No one wants to be
responsible for changing a protocol and then having somebody
slip through who shouldn't have slipped through.
On the other hand, we have to be careful that we don't
create problems that are as important as the solution, and I
understand the direction of your question, and I look forward
to working with you.
Mr. Rehberg. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Deputy Secretary Lew, thank you again for your
time. I certainly look forward to working with you, as I know
does the committee, and this concludes today's hearing on the
President's fiscal year 2010 request for the international
affairs budget.
The Subcommittee on State Foreign Operations and Related
Programs stands adjourned.
Mr. Lew. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009.
OFFICE OF THE GLOBAL AIDS COORDINATOR
WITNESS
THOMAS J. WALSH, DEPUTY U.S. GLOBAL AIDS COORDINATOR (ACTING), U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Opening Statement of Chairwoman Lowey
Mrs. Lowey. The Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations
and Related Programs will come to order. I would like to
welcome Tom Walsh, Acting Deputy U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator
and Chief of Staff, to discuss the President's Fiscal Year 2010
request for global HIV/AIDS programs.
This Committee has made global HIV/AIDS a key priority,
providing $18.8 billion over the past five years, nearly $4
billion more than President Bush's initial commitment of $15
billion over five years, to address the global AIDS pandemic.
These resources have had impressive results, with 2.1 million
people receiving antiretroviral treatment; 9.7 million people
receiving care through PEPFAR, including 4 million orphans,
58.3 million people benefitting from HIV/AIDS prevention and
related programs. I applaud the tenacity with which your office
and the U.S. government as a whole has pursued treating and
preventing this horrible disease. Your efforts and the
complementary efforts of allies such as the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria have added years of
productive life to millions living with HIV/AIDS and have
provided time and space for other critical development to take
place.
However, we have seen new challenges emerge, as life saving
drugs have had the unintended consequence of increasing risk
behavior, have increased risk behavior. As we enter the second
phase of PEPFAR, we must evaluate our successes, examine new
challenges, adjust accordingly. While new infections among
children have dropped and younger people in some parts of the
world are waiting longer to become sexually active, having
fewer sexual partners or using condoms, we must do more to
ensure that our prevention efforts reach those most at risk. I
look forward to hearing how PEPFAR will expand prevention
programs in the coming years.
The pandemic continues to have a disproportionate impact on
women. As you know, among young people in Subsaharan Africa,
the HIV prevalence rate for young women is almost three times
higher than the rate among young men. This is not a new
statistic, and I am concerned that PEPFAR has not taken steps
to address this challenge. The fiscal year 2010 budget includes
a renewed focus on the needs of women and children, and I hope
that PEPFAR will reach out to USAID which has extensive
experience providing accessible community based services that
meet the needs of women and their families.
I would also like to see PEPFAR coordinate better with
country programs and strategies developed by state and USAID.
What efforts are you making to integrate PEPFAR programs into
these country strategies? PEPFAR is entering its sixth year and
sustainability is becoming a higher priority. Through
partnership framework agreements, PEPFAR is building long term
reciprocal relationships with developing countries.
In addition, recent discussions with the Global Fund and
developing country partners have begun the dialogue related to
integrating U.S. government programs into future Global Fund
grants. Can you provide an update on implementation of the
partnership framework program? Also can you outline the steps
PEPFAR is taking to empower developing countries to assume
greater responsibility for fighting the pandemic?
In order to create greater capacity in host countries, the
next phase of PEPFAR should expand programs that build capacity
and help infrastructure so that nations can better meet their
own health challenges. Although the fiscal year 2009 investment
of $734 million for health systems was significant, how will
funding for these programs be expanded in the coming years? If
these interventions are to be sustainable in the long term,
developing countries must be able to shoulder more of the
responsibility for the health of their populations. Please
update your plans to invest in health infrastructure and the
training of healthcare professionals.
Mr. Walsh, I look forward to hearing your remarks and
working with you on these and other issues, but first I will
turn to Ranking Member, Ms. Granger, for her opening statement.
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Granger
Ms. Granger. Thank you, Chairwoman Lowey.
I welcome you today, Mr. Walsh. I will keep my opening
remarks very short because we have votes coming up and I want
to hear what you have to say. Now that the PEPFAR program is
authorized for an additional five years, this Committee wants
to ensure the funds, no matter which agency implements the
programs, are being properly managed and coordinated. Also we
want to make sure that our multilateral contributions are
subjected to high levels of scrutiny and oversight and would be
expected as such from the American taxpayer of course. I thank
you for appearing today, and I look forward to what you have to
say.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. I understand that there are three
votes that may be coming up at 11:35. So we will put your
statement in the record, and summarize, please proceed as you
wish.
Opening Statement of Mr. Walsh
Mr. Walsh. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Ranking Member
Granger, and other Members here and staff. I will try to
summarize very quickly under the circumstances.
We really have appreciated the strong support and
partnership with the Subcommittee in the years to date. We feel
the bipartisan support here has been an important element in
the success of PEPFAR to date. As you see the President has put
forward a request that is very significant in terms of the
level of funding, and we do feel strongly about the need to be
accountable for how that is spent.
It includes both the bilateral programs which have been
very successful and also our contribution to the Global Fund
which is a critical piece of the overall U.S. government
approach to HIV/AIDS as well as malaria and tuberculosis, the
other issues. So rather than say anything more, because you do
have my statement, I will just throw it open for questions.
[The information follows:]
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Mrs. Lowey. I will save my question if I have time at the
end. And I will turn to Ms. Granger for questions.
Ms. Granger. My question has to do with the confusion
surrounding whether or not the Global Fund is experiencing a
$265 million shortfall. Can you comment on that? It is often
unfair the Global Fund does manage demand, it is a first come
first served organization. As long as the proposals are
technically sound, 10 countries consume 50 percent of the
Global Fund's resources. Is this sustainable?
Mr. Walsh. Thank you. Let me take your questions in reverse
order because the first one is more of a big picture question.
Demand management at the Global Fund is something that the Fund
has as of two weeks ago begun to turn its attention to with the
participation of the United States. As you know, we sit on the
board of the Fund and participate in some of the committees of
that board.
Two weeks ago at its most recent meeting, the Fund board
set up a working group to focus on this question. You are
exactly right that historically the Fund's approach has been
basically to fund any proposal that meets technical muster
without any attempt to prioritize the different proposals. And
there are questions in an environment of tightening resources
over whether that is really sustainable anymore.
And so we were pleased to join the other members of the
Fund in putting together this working group to focus on this
and come up with solutions by the time of the next board
meeting in November, because you are exactly right that there
is an inherent conflict there. With respect to its current
financial position, it is true that there are approximately
$265 million worth of grants that were approved for Round Aid,
or approved at the board's meeting I believe last November, for
which they do not yet have cash in hand. And thus under the
rules of the Fund they cannot yet pay out those grants.
That situation strikes us as quite analogous to that of our
U.S. government PEPFAR bilateral programs which have to wait
for funding during the course of a year. As we do different CNs
during the year, we commit funds and they go out to the field
and then are put into practice. At the time the Fund approved
those applications, it knew that it was going to be a rolling
process with several different tranches of approvals during the
coming year, and that is progressing.
On the one hand it is the case that right now they do not
have all the money to fund all the proposals that were approved
last year. We do anticipate that they will have that money by
later in the year, and we see that situation is again as
analogous to what we experience in PEPFAR on a fairly routine
basis. We are working to make sure that our programs are
ensuring that there is not going to be any gap in services or
anything like that because that would be of concern, but right
now we feel comfortable with where things are.
Ms. Granger. Let me just ask one more question. The U.S.
contribution is a third of the total contribution, right?
Mr. Walsh. That is the statutory maximum.
Ms. Granger. Tell me what the voting structure is on the
Global Fund. Does the U.S. have veto power like it does at the
World Bank?
Mr. Walsh. Not at all. In fact I am not sure I can tell you
in its entirety the voting structure. We can get back to you on
it. It is rather complex, but one thing I do know is, we do not
have veto power. We are one board member among many. They have
a rather complex structure in which the donor block and the
recipient so to speak, blocks are kind of set up into two
different blocks. We recently experienced some of the
governance challenges in the attempt to elect a new Chair of
the Global Fund board at the recent meeting. It did not work
because under the rules you needed a two third vote of the
donor block and the recipient block, and the recipient block
could not within itself agree on a single candidate. So it is a
rather complex structure and I would be happy to get back to
you with additional details on that.
Ms. Granger. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Mr. Israel.
Mr. Israel. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Walsh, I want to
talk to you about pediatric treatment. Today, 1,000 children
around the world will acquire HIV. Without proper care and
treatment, 500 of them will die before they reach age 2, 750 of
those 1,000 will die before they reach age 5. Seventeen percent
of all new HIV infections are children, but I am told that only
9 percent of those children are on antiretroviral treatment
under PEPFAR. What are your plans to reach the pediatric
treatment targets that are contained in the reauthorization for
PEPFAR?
Mr. Walsh. Thank you, Congressman. Our goal, as you know,
the reauthorization target was basically to have the proportion
of children who are on treatment correspond to the proportion
of children as a subset of all who are infected in programs
where we work. This is a very challenging situation mainly
because of the difficulty of diagnosing children at very young
ages. This has been a long lasting problem. We believe that in
the last five years we have begun to make some progress on a
couple of the things and indeed are progressing in terms of
rolling out pediatric treatment.
Just to give you a sense of what some of those best
practices are that we have learned, the lessons we have learned
and that we intend to apply in the years to come. The first one
is, in terms of early infant diagnosis, the new innovation in
recent years has been the use of what they call dried blood
spot testing, where you can take the blood from the infant and
then transport it somewhere else for testing rather than have
to have it in sort of a cold preserved chain.
We are really supporting, I think we are working through
the CDC which is one of our implementing agencies, to focus on
getting dried blood spot testing rolled out. We are also in a
number of countries trying to update these health cards that
mothers and children typically have to include HIV information.
In some places they have not included that, and that has been a
gap or a place where people can fall through the cracks that we
have been trying to address.
Another one is promoting universal provider initiated
counseling and testing in pediatric wards. When somebody is in
a health facility that is really the best time to catch anyone
to test them for HIV. And so ensuring that pediatric wards make
this a routine part of their pediatric care is another
important thing. And then family centered care is another
important innovation for scaling up pediatric services. Where
possible we really like to co-locate pediatric and adult
treatment so that we can get the whole family at once. Those
are some of the things we are trying to do, but we are very
much a learning organization. We have learned a lot, we have
more to learn and more to do to apply what we have learned.
Mr. Israel. I actually have some additional questions but I
know we are trying to move briskly because of votes. I will
yield back and follow up with you. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
I will turn to Ms. McCollum.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, and I will cut down quite a bit of
what I wanted to ask because I will submit it for the record.
But let me focus on one part of your written testimony
which I read, and that has to do with nutrition. As you are
well aware, the developing world was hit with a huge food
crisis in the past year, and it affects the same people PEPFAR
is intended to serve. So most people have an immediate concern
right now with food. And you know that without proper nutrition
and calories, the drugs do not work as effectively or as
efficiently. So I am wondering what the picture is for how you
are coordinating with what is part of the mandate for
nutrition, and it should be part of the mandate because without
nutrition the drugs do not work properly.
I have another question and I am going to put in, Madam
Chair, for the record about how PEPFAR is going to integrate to
meet all of its commitments that the Administration is making
on maternal child health and other issues. Thank you.
Mr. Walsh. Thank you, Congresswoman. Let me address the
food issue. We are really addressing the food and nutrition
needs that are related to HIV in two ways. One is directly
through our PEPFAR programs, the second is by attempting to
partner with other programs of the U.S. government and others
such as the World Food Program, for whom food and nutrition is
really what they mainly do. So we refer to that as wrap-around
programs. And so we really do see a need to strengthen our
linkages with these other programs where food is mainly what
they do.
With respect to our PEPFAR funding, we support food and
nutrition for three populations. One is pregnant and expecting
nursing mothers, a second is orphans and vulnerable children,
whether HIV infected or not, and the third is people who are on
treatment but meet certain clinical criteria for malnutrition.
Certainly one of the reasons PEPFAR has been successful is
because we have focused on HIV/AIDS. And so we do feel strongly
about the need to maintain that focus.
But as you say, if people are malnourished beyond a certain
point then the treatment really will not work. And so we have
some criteria that I think have been widely commended, at least
I have not heard a lot of criticism over them, for determining
when somebody meets that threshold and thus needs nutritional
support through our HIV/AIDS programs.
Ms. McCollum. Tell us in more detail, thank you.
Mr. Walsh. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. I wanted to make sure Mr. Jackson had an
opportunity.
Mr. Jackson. That is very kind of you, Ms. McCollum, thank
you. I was prepared to submit my questions for the record. But
thank you, Ms. McCollum, and thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Walsh, during my tenure on this Subcommittee--first,
welcome to the Committee.
Mr. Walsh. Thank you.
Mr. Jackson. I have tried to increase the capacity of
developing countries to provide basic services like healthcare
and education. Our bill carries from year to year two
provisions that I think do just that. One addresses access to
healthcare and education by eliminating----
Mrs. Lowey. I just want to say the speed with which you are
asking this question reflects the urgency of the issue.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Jackson. One addresses access to healthcare and
education by eliminating user fees. And the second addresses
government staffing levels of healthcare providers and
teachers. Congress set a target of training and supporting the
retention of at least 140,000 new health professionals and
paraprofessionals to help PEPFAR partner countries to develop
the health work forces required to meet PEPFAR goals and to
support long term sustainability.
Congress intended that these be additional health workers,
increasing the total number of health workers in these
countries beyond the number that would otherwise have been
trained, deployed, or retained. What is PEPFAR's strategy for
meeting this target and for ensuring that these are new, truly
additional health workers that add to a country's capacities
and are not health workers who have been added to the workforce
even without PEPFAR? Secondly, what level of funding does
PEPFAR expect to dedicate towards achieving this goal in fiscal
year 2010, and what are PEPFAR's estimates for the funding
required to achieve this target by 2013? And lastly, can you
report on how these funding estimates are derived?
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. Walsh.
Mr. Walsh. Thank you, Congressman. I will do my best to
answer your questions but I am afraid we are going to have to
follow up with you with some more detailed information because
some of your questions are a little more detailed than I am in
a position to answer. In terms of the new health workers, yes,
it is certainly our intention that these be 140,000 new health
workers, ones who would not otherwise have been trained without
PEPFAR efforts.
We have come up with some guidance for the field. This is
really going to be a challenging goal to meet. The initial
proposals we got back from our countries in the field for this
first year FY '09 really did not show us on as steep a
trajectory as we need to be on in order to meet that goal.
Therefore we are working with them intensively as part of this
larger effort at health system strengthening. That is really
the context. Health workforce is part of this larger issue of
health systems, because, for example, if you train healthcare
workers but there are not clinics for them to work in or there
are not supportive systems for them, then they will not have
the impact they need.
So I am really going to have to get back to you on some of
your specific budget questions about the amount we are devoting
to training this year, but all I can say is we do agree that
this is necessary not just as a goal unto itself, but it is
instrumental to achieving the prevention, treatment, and care
goals. A lot of the success we have had to date has been due to
building health workforce and structures, and we need to do
even more if we are to succeed at all across the whole range of
issues we face.
Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Walsh. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. I know Ms. Lee is on her way, and we have a
couple more minutes. So I will ask a few questions.
I want to follow up though on Mr. Israel's comments,
because to me that is so urgent and I am trying to understand
it. We know that more than one child is infected with HIV every
minute of every day, with newborns representing the vast
majority of the estimated 1,000 infected each day. And even
with progress, global coverage of prevention and mother to
child transmission services is still unacceptably low. And
looking at numbers in low to middle income countries, HIV
positive pregnant women do not receive the medicines they need
to prevent transmission of HIV to their babies.
This is totally unacceptable. If we reached all pregnant
women who are HIV positive, we could prevent hundreds of
thousands of infections per year in children. So I would like
you to explain, I have heard some of the explanations, but I
would like you to explain what have been the values to scaling
up PMTCT services, what can PEPFAR do to overcome these
barriers? A majority of mothers we know deliver in their homes
while most PEPFAR funded PMTCT programs target medical
facilities. What are you doing to change this? Are you visiting
communities? Why are you not reaching out in communities where
most of the mothers deliver the babies?
Mr. Walsh. Well thank you. We could not agree more about
this, the severity of this issue, and share your frustration
that something which we know how to do, and indeed the world
really has developed very successful PMTCT programs, that they
have not been scaled up to the degree we need to. The
authorizers put into our reauthorization a requirement for an
expert panel to come back to us with recommendations on this,
and that panel is now writing its report because we prioritized
it and told them we needed it fast. So we are expecting that to
be sent to you and Congress in July which will set the agenda.
But I can tell you a few of the things that we do know, and
that we do need to do more on and plan to do more on in the
days to come. Building on the success of a country like
Botswana, where there is now mother to child transmission which
is almost as rare as it is in the United States because their
programs are so successful, and then you can contrast it with a
country like Malawi where there is very little.
Mrs. Lowey. And has not Botswana's incidents gone up?
Mr. Walsh. They have an extraordinarily high rate of
infection, but the rate of transmission from the mothers to the
children is very low because, I mean as you see with many of
these countries they have succeeded greatly in one area, not so
much in others. And that is a pretty extreme case.
Mrs. Lowey. I would like you to finish this, but also
address the issue of Botswana, which is in a pretty good
economic condition, and why their rates have gone up.
Mr. Walsh. Right.
Mrs. Lowey. But let us finish the first.
Mr. Walsh. Yes. Some of the practices that have been
particularly successful are, first of all strong political
commitment from the governments. That is something we have seen
on mother to child transmission in places like Botswana, not
only Botswana but also in Namibia, Rwanda, Kenya or some of the
other ones. They have also decentralized services from the
capitals out to the district and local levels.
They have really worked successfully, and we have tried to
work with them, to coordinate the activities of all the
different donors rather than have one donor off doing a project
in one place, another one in another place, they have really
tried to get us all to work together. Identifying HIV positive
pregnant women in the first place is critical. And so I
mentioned before the importance of provider initiated
counseling and testing, where it is really an increasingly
routine part of healthcare, and in this case antenatal care,
for women to be tested and to learn their status, because if
they do not know their status then there is no way that the
PMTCT interventions are going to be given to them.
And that policy change in Botswana, by the way, is credited
with increasing the coverage of PMTCT interventions from 75 to
95 percent. That is something we are really trying to work with
other countries to show, you know, if you want that same kind
of success you need to get some of these policy things lined up
in the right way. And then it is really critical to link the
mother to child transmission interventions with HIV treatment
and care, and then with other maternal and child health.
We really do accept that it has been an issue for the whole
global response that there can be a tendency to silo programs,
and we have tried to resist that and we need to do even more to
break down the barriers between the different services because
a pregnant woman in a developing country faces a whole range of
issues of which HIV is an important one. So in addressing that
one, we also want to link with the programs that focus on the
others. What was your other question?
Mrs. Lowey. I will turn to Ms. McCollum and then we will
continue.
Ms. McCollum. Madam Chair, I think we are tracking so close
to the same wavelength that we could ask each other's questions
at this point.
I want to go back, the President announced the new global
health initiative, and it is going to increase substantially
the U.S. commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS through PEPFAR. But it
also calls for more comprehensive, to your point where you were
just talking about a better integrated U.S. global health
strategy that pays more attention to building health systems.
And in fact in April PEPFAR had an assessment done in the
Annals of Medicine, and the assessment found that in important
respects PEPFAR has been extraordinarily effective.
According to the study PEPFAR had prevented 1.2 million
deaths, which I used in earlier testimony, in the focused
countries, and it has reduced things by almost 10 percent. But
it also found out that prevention efforts had largely failed,
which is what the Chairwoman had asked earlier. It also asked
questions about the long term cost effectiveness of the effort.
So when you talk about building platforms, how is PEPFAR going
to be integrated, or is PEPFAR going to look a little different
as we go through and you are doing global healthcare reform as
part of the way we deliver things, and not worry so much about
labels now but outcomes.
Mr. Jackson's question about nurses and midwives and
encouraging testing and being able to do testing out in
communities, to the Chairwoman's question, this needs to feel
seamless. And so, are there discussions taking place? Because I
think it is okay if PEPFAR grows and develops and looks a
little different in the years to come because we have learned
lessons.
Mr. Walsh. Thank you. I think that is likely to be the
case. As I said, we try to be a learning organization. The
Institute of Medicine said we are, and we can do better. And
clearly one of the areas where we need to do more is linkages
and integration with other programs. I think that is really one
thing that is behind this global health initiative that the
administration announced, this idea that just as we have really
focused intently on HIV/AIDS and malaria, we need to bring that
same kind of intense focus to these other issues and to bring
them all into a single integrated approach.
I will say with regards to planning, and how we are going
to do that, is still at an early stage. And so for PEPFAR's
purposes, our incoming coordinator if he is confirmed by the
Senate, Dr. Goosby is certainly going to lead a strategic
review of our programs and ask I think some of these questions
that you are focusing on about integration. And then that
strategic review of PEPFAR is going to feed into this larger
strategic review that will inform this global health initiative
and really focus on what are these points of intersection, what
are ones that we can strengthen between PEPFAR and maternal
child health for example, family planning, malaria, TB,
neglected tropical diseases. I think what you are alluding to
is definitely the coming wave, one of integration and an
increasingly holistic approach.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. Votes have not gone off. We might as well
proceed some more. I would like to follow up on the Botswana
question, and frankly it is the same in Uganda, we used to brag
about ABC in Uganda, and was it in Uganda where the rates went
dramatically down after a famous singer in that country
contracted HIV/AIDS and then died, and that it frightened the
population so it went down. I think it was Uganda, was it not?
Can you explain what we are doing about that, obviously in
most of the places that we have visited there is an urgency to
focus on treatment because people are dying, they are lined up
around the clinics, and many of the clinic directors frankly
were very open and honest and said, okay prevention is fine but
we have to take care of people who are dying. But given the
upsurge of cases in Botswana and in Uganda and other areas,
Botswana in particular because the economy has been fairly
strong, I wish you would address those issues.
Mr. Walsh. Right, I think you are really putting your
finger on one of the toughest challenges we have to face. AIDS
is in many ways a uniquely terrible disease, and with
treatment, somebody who would otherwise die stays alive. It is
very apparent, there is no missing the impact, it is very easy
to count, and it is a great thing. But prevention is so much
more difficult to quantify. We never really know who would have
been infected, who is now not infected because of a program.
We really understand the natural tendencies of the host
governments we work with to really want to focus on treatment,
and we want to focus on treatment too, but prevention has to be
first, that has to be the highest priority. We are in some
cases finding a little resistance to that message, and we are
trying to work with countries to say, even as we address these
treatment needs which are so great and unfortunately rather
costly to address, because once somebody is on treatment they
are never going to be cured. Right now there is no cure for
HIV/AIDS, so we are taking on a lifelong commitment.
So the best way to address that is to prevent people from
becoming infected in the first place. Every country has a
different story, but Botswana and the other countries in far
southern Africa have the highest rates of infection in the
world, and there is a whole range of reasons. I think one thing
we have learned is that prevention really needs to be, we take
what we call a combination prevention approach, a multifocal
approach where you address the many different drivers of
behavior. You know, just because you are meeting a youth
population in one place where it goes, if you are not meeting
them in the other places where they go, then you are only
providing partial protection.
We really need to scale up our programs, build on what the
evidence supports, do it in a way that is tailored, and then
frankly hit the population with multiple different
interventions at once. Botswana is certainly one of the places
where we and everybody else who is working there needs to do
more and better because they have got a big prevention problem
on their hands.
Mrs. Lowey. I am pleased to turn to Ms. Lee because she
certainly has been a leader, not only on this Committee, but on
the authorizing Committee, and I am delighted that she was able
to get here.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And I apologize, there have been five things at one time
this morning, but I am so delighted to be able to meet you and
congratulate you and look forward to working with you and also
Dr. Goosby, and I hope the Senate confirms him very quickly. It
has been quite a job to get to this point with regard to our
global HIV/AIDS initiatives, but it has been worth the
bipartisan cooperation, and I think this effort probably more
than most really highlights how we can work together to try to
really address big big humanitarian, security and public health
crisis.
Of course I am always going to be concerned about funding,
and I never have thought we have put forth enough funding for
the Global Fund given the need. Also the integration with
PEPFAR and the Global Fund, the programs and how we do that,
and I apologize that I am being redundant, and if I am I will
just talk to you privately about that. But on the funding
request, it does not seem like that is much of a request, it
seems very meager, and I am wondering if that is all you really
think we need to fund the needs that are out there and the
proposals that are pending?
Mr. Walsh. Thank you, Congresswoman, and thank you for all
your leadership. I read Deputy Secretary Lew's testimony last
week, and one point he made was, this is a conversation and
this will be a conversation in terms of the right balances of
funding among on the one hand multilateral approaches like the
Global Fund, bilateral approaches that are run by the U.S.
government, HIV/AIDS versus malaria versus tuberculosis versus
all of the other areas that are now addressed in this global
health initiative such as maternal and child health.
We look forward to working with you on it. The Global Fund
request is a very significant request, $900 million. Compared
to the last request of the last Administration, which was $500
million, it is a large increase. But all I can say about
whether it is the right number is that we will look forward to
working with you to determine whether it is or not.
Ms. Lee. And may I ask one more question, not a final
question, but just the whole effort with regard to commercial
sex workers. How are we addressing programs and strategies to
help first of all make sure they understand prevention, but
also making the transition from commercial sex work to, you
know, 40-hour a week job that they all told me when I was there
they wanted but the resources just were not there to get a job.
And so how are we helping them at this point with our programs?
Mr. Walsh. Thank you. Our programs reflect both of the
pieces that you describe and recognize that we really have to
do both things. In an urgent way we need to help them stay safe
from HIV, and so we need to get them the whole range of
intervention including condoms and other prevention,
interventions. If they become HIV positive we certainly need to
get them in care and treatment as well. But we also do support
income generation programs to try to offer people a way out of
that way of life if they are willing.
We have many many programs, we will be happy to send you
examples of some and get you more information on it. But we
certainly recognize we need both approaches for those
populations. A big part of our emphasis under the
reauthorization as you know is really tailoring prevention
strategies to the epidemiology of particular countries. Every
country is different, but in many countries we do have these
populations you are describing who face very elevated risks.
Our teams are very focused on those, and that is part of what
is positive about PEPFAR being a largely country-driven program
where we have people on the ground working for the U.S.
government to assess the needs and to tailor our programs.
Ms. Lee. But you do not see any barriers to our funding now
given the history of the conscience clause and all of the
policies that had been established?
Mr. Walsh. Right, well no I do not, not through the
conscience clause nor through the prostitution policy
requirement. That is one that people sometimes say, does that
mean that the U.S. government cannot work with these
populations in prostitution? It definitely does not. In fact
the authorizing language specifically says that this provision
is not to be read to prevent the U.S. from working with people
in those populations. And so we definitely do and see a need to
do even more of it.
Ms. Lee. Good. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
I want to thank you and all the many people in the field
around the world for the important work that you do. And
certainly we understand that even though the Administration's
request has been very generous, the urgency of the situation
certainly demands a large response, and this is why this
Committee and the Secretary of State is focusing like a laser
beam on coordination, working with the multilateral
organizations, hopefully working with all the foundations that
you do so that we can use every resource as effectively as we
can. And I just wanted to express our appreciation to you
again.
And this concludes today's hearing on the fiscal year 2010
Budget Request for Global HIV/AIDS Programs. Subcommittee on
State and Foreign Operations and Related Programs stands
adjourned.
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009.
MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE CORPORATION
WITNESS
RODNEY G. BENT, ACTING CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE
CORPORATION
Opening Statement of Chairwoman Lowey
Mrs. Lowey. Today, we welcome Rodney Bent, the Acting Chief
Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, to
discuss the President's Fiscal Year 2010 request for the
Millennium Challenge Account. As you may know, Mr. Bent
formerly served as a staff member of this Subcommittee, and it
is a pleasure to have him back today.
The President's budget requests $1.425 billion for the
Millennium Challenge Corporation, a 63 percent increase under
the Fiscal Year 2009 enacted law. The request includes funding
for three new country compacts in Jordan, the Philippines and
Malawi, as well as funding for two additional baseline
programs. As the MCC enters its fifth year of operation, this
is an appropriate time to take stock of achievements and
challenges, and I believe the MCC holds tremendous potential to
bring transformative change to countries in the developing
world and to support sustainable long term development.
Since its inception, the MCC has signed 18 compacts
totaling $6.4 billion, 21 threshold programs totaling $470
million. The challenge to the MCC in the coming year is to
demonstrate that its model is not only innovative but that it
brings actual results in poverty reduction and sustainable
economic growth to the poorest of the poor. I hope you will
share quantifiable examples of progress today. The past year
has brought fresh challenges to the MCC due to political
instability. Compact implementation has been disrupted in
Armenia, Nicaragua, Madagascar.
At this time last year we discussed the impact of fuel
costs which led to the scaling back of several country
compacts. Today we face a global financial crisis, and I would
appreciate it if you would provide insight into how economic
and political circumstances have impacted MCC programs. Has the
global financial crisis led the MCC to alter its country
programs? Are participating countries expressing increased or
decreased interest?
MCC projections show that disbursements will at least
double in all 18 of the country compacts compared to the
previous year. In Morocco disbursements are projected to be
eight times higher, rising from $21 million to $194 million. In
Mozambique disbursements are projected to be 14 times higher,
rising from $12 million to $173 million. How realistic is the
projected disbursement data you have provided to Congress? What
project outcomes are associated with the increase in
disbursements?
Last year the MCC undertook a reorganization to focus on
MCC implementation, which seemed to have made a difference in
the programs. What lessons learned can you share with us in how
you are increasing the pace of implementation? Turning to the
specifics of the fiscal year 2010 request, it includes funding
for three new country compacts, including one in Jordan to
improve its water and sanitation systems, a critical need in
Jordan. Can you tell us where you are in the compact process?
And, Mr. Bent, I appreciate your testimony today, look forward
to discussing the fiscal year 2010 budget request for the
Millennium Challenge Corporation.
And before we hear from you, let me turn to Ms. Granger,
the Ranking Member, for her opening statement.
Ms. Granger. Thank you, Chairman Lowey. Thank you for
holding this very important hearing today.
And good morning, Mr. Bent, thank you for appearing before
our Subcommittee. I will make a very short statement this
morning because we have time constraints. Chairman Lowey talked
about the amount of this request. I realize that the MCC was
created to be unlike any other entity or account in the U.S.
Foreign Assistance Budget. Primarily, the MCC was designed to
be implemented in a way that elevates good governance as a
prerequisite to funding.
I especially appreciate the MCC's focus on accountability
and country-generated solutions. But it has been five years now
since the MCC's inception, therefore it is a good point in time
to examine the interim results and some ongoing and arising
policy challenges that will set the MCC's course for the
future. I have my concerns about the projects that are ongoing
and the increase in cost that Chairman Lowey brought up, and I
hope you will address these issues and answer our questions.
Thank you very much.
I yield back my time.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Bent, as you know, your full statement can
be placed in the record, and if you wish, you may summarize.
Please proceed, thank you.
Opening Statement of Mr. Bent
Mr. Bent. Thank you, Chairman Lowey, Ranking Member
Granger, and other Members of the Subcommittee for the
opportunity to discuss President Obama's request for the MCC. I
will definitely summarize my statement. I will try and be
brief. On a personal note, it is a little unusual for me to be
on this side, but nonetheless it is an honor to be here.
Let me start with two truisms. First, the planet is a small
place. The more countries that practice democracy, good
governance, investment in people, and promote economic growth,
the better for them and for us. Second, U.S. foreign aid will
never, can never be a substitute for the income that households
in poor countries want to and can produce for themselves.
Helping poor households earn greater incomes will allow them to
purchase food, buy better housing, spend more on healthcare and
education, and pursue other opportunities for a better life.
The key issue is how to make development assistance work
more effectively. Some key lessons from the MCC experience.
Select good partners who share our goals, enable those partners
to select and implement their homegrown projects but using
world class standards for project success, and by that I mean
economic, environmental, gender, engineering. Use incentives
which change behavior, frankly and do so more effectively than
rhetoric or sanctions. Be rigorous in using specific and
measurable outputs and outcomes. And be up front and candid
about what you are trying to do.
The MCC has signed commitment as you noted for $6.4 billion
in 18 countries. We estimate that brings $11 to $12 billion
worth of benefits to 22 million beneficiaries. So it is
definitely a program that works and does have metrics. We
anticipate as you noted three compacts. You have all the detail
in the budget justification, so I will spare you that, and let
us just jump to the questions.
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THRESHOLD PROGRAMS
Mrs. Lowey. Okay, and we will proceed from side to side,
which is our usual procedure. The MCC's threshold program has
become a topic of much debate over the past year. At its
inception, threshold programming was designed to assist
countries to meet the specific indicators. In practice,
threshold programs have had varied results. In some cases
countries have become compact eligible prior to the end of
their threshold programs, others have received a second
threshold program, others frankly received a threshold grant
but are not likely to ever become compact eligible.
The initial goal of the threshold program continues to have
merit, but I am concerned that this program has truly lost its
way. I understand that MCC is undertaking an internal review.
Could share some of the preliminary observations or
recommendations of that review, and while this review is going
on, what steps will MCC take to put this program back on track,
and what mechanisms do you have in place to ensure that there
is appropriate coordination between the MCC and USAID and there
is no duplication of effort on threshold programs?
For example, in Peru the MCC threshold program includes a
significant child health component while USAID already has a
$12 million health program in that country. And as you know
there is considerable discussion about the need to develop
whole-of-government development strategies in countries where
the U.S. government is providing assistance. If this strategy
was developed through a collaborative process that included all
of the relevant agencies, do you believe that the threshold
program would need to continue to be a component of the MCC
portfolio? So what is happening with the threshold program?
Mr. Bent. I did not count all the questions nested in
there, but there were quite a few. Let me see if I can broadly
explain the history and where we are going, how we are thinking
about at the 5-year mark what the threshold program should do.
The program was originally designed to help countries cross
that threshold to become a compact. So in that sense there was
I think an element of more risk taking. We were going to be
working with partners who are a little further away than the
compact eligible countries.
The notion was that it would be a 2-year program, it would
be largely administered but not entirely administered by USAID,
and it would be the kind of program that would deal largely
with issues like corruption that, frankly, are pretty tough to
deal with. You are quite correct. Several of the countries have
not done as well on the threshold program as I would have
liked. I would point to the Ukraine as an example, but in some
measure that is a good way of finding out whether the country
is really ready to work on a compact.
Other threshold programs have in fact been just brilliantly
successful. I would cite the Burkina Faso Girls' Education
Program in which we built 130 girl friendly schools, and that
is frankly covering not only the schools but drilling wells,
building teacher housing, working with the government of
Burkina Faso to pay for teachers and textbooks. It was such a
good program in fact that Burkina Faso wanted to include a
second stage of that program in their compact.
So I would highlight the purpose of the threshold program
is to help countries, it is to give us some experience. But I
think your question is really directed at, what is the future
about. I think what we are trying to do, and it is a new board
so they will have their own thoughts on this, we are going to
present a series of questions: Does it make sense to have a
second threshold program? If we have not been able to do
something in two years, can we do it in four? What should the
failure rate be like?
Frankly, having spent a long time in government, if you are
going to do something risky you ought to expect failures every
once in a while. So I have no illusions that somehow the
threshold program will produce 100 percent of success. But the
goal is to make sure that the programs are well designed, that
they get the beneficiaries in and of themselves, but that they
do in fact lead to a compact.
Having said that, I do not think every threshold program,
every threshold country should be a compact country. It is not,
and we make this clear when we talk about the threshold
program, getting a threshold program just means you have an
opportunity to compete. Whether you get a compact is going to
depend on whether or not you meet the criteria and frankly how
good the proposals are. How many beneficiaries, what is the
government doing, what are the kinds of needs that the country
has?
Mrs. Lowey. In Peru, why did you need an MCC child health
program when there was already a USAID $12 million health
program in the country?
Mr. Bent. What I have seen in a lot of cases, is that the
threshold program is a little more directive in the sense that
we are looking at indicators. And in a lot of cases, probably
90 percent of the time, USAID does administer the threshold
program. I think sometimes we have had a good segue, in which
people will look at a program, whether it is child
immunizations or girls' education or governance, and then AID
will in fact say, well look let us continue that program, it
builds on some things that we have tried to do. I am afraid I
cannot quite speak directly to Peru because I have not been
there, but I would be happy to try and answer that question for
the record.
Mrs. Lowey. That is another way to get them additional
money. Ms. Granger.
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Granger
Ms. Granger. Thank you very much. It is my understanding
that most of these infrastructure projects, in both poor and
rich countries, such as road projects, are often fertile ground
for corruption ranging from petty theft to perhaps large scale
collusion. As you know, corruption can lead to rising costs as
well as decreased development and economic returns. In 2010 you
are planning a compact with the Philippines, a country in the
middle of a corruption scandal in which the World Bank canceled
a $33 million road improvement project and black listed several
firms they said had colluded in the business process.
First, will the Philippines pass the corruption indicator
and if so how will the MCC compact combat the corruption
challenge that the Philippines infrastructure sector poses?
Two, please give specific anticorruption measures that MCC will
include in procurement, oversight, and auditing. And how do you
think the MCC is distinct from the World Bank in its effort to
prevent and counter corruption?
Mr. Bent. Great series of questions. Let me deal first with
the corruption and then with the Philippines. On corruption you
are quite right about infrastructure, because the large
contracts could be lucrative opportunities for people to scam.
What we have tried to do, because corruption for us is a key
indicator, and I will come back to that in talking about the
Philippines, is we have tried to take every measure that we can
to worry about, okay how do you identify it, how do you prevent
it, how do you build into place the systems that are going to
deal with corruption, and then how do you have that continuous
monitoring to make sure that if you see it you can stop it.
What I would say is that in the case of corruption, we have
a corruption policy that has been blessed by Transparency
International. Fighting corruption has been our hallmark and so
we pay a huge amount of attention to it. What we do in specific
infrastructure projects, it is in our interest, it is in the
U.S. taxpayers' interest to have the most efficient, most
capable companies do it. We hire procurement agents, we hire
fiscal agents, we have twice a year audits.
We try to make sure that when we look at the norms for
procurement whether it is a road or a port or an airport, or,
industrial park or building schools, what are the metrics? What
are other companies doing? What are other donors doing? What
has been the experience? We obviously do the checks in terms of
companies and black lists, but that can only take you so far.
What I have seen is that because we have engineers supervising
engineers, we are really big believers in belts and suspenders
in terms of looking at corruption.
So far we have not had a major instance of corruption in an
MCC funded project, but I will say we have had a couple of
procurements where we looked at them, we did not feel that they
smelled right, and we said, okay they are going back, you are
going to have to rebid, you are going to have to resubmit. I
think that kind of attention to detail is what marks us a
little bit as being different. We spend a huge amount of time
worrying about that issue and trying to ferret it out.
In the case of the Philippines, they are probably the
biggest program that we are likely to fund in 2010. For several
years they did pass the corruption indicator. They are at the
47th percentile, which is within the margin of error, but
enough to make us nervous and for us to in fact have a series
of discussions with the Philippine government, with President
Arroyo, with the Finance Minister Gary Teves. We have made
clear to them we are concerned, that they must, according to
the previous board policy, pass the corruption indicator before
we will sign.
They are well aware of that, I cannot think of any more
blunt and direct conversations that we could possibly have had
with them. The new numbers will come out in August and
September, and we will see at that point. It will also be a new
board, they will have to decide what they want to do. What is a
little bit different about how we operate than the World Bank
is that, and if there were somebody from Treasury here I would
probably have given them equal time to offer some commentary on
it, but several of our staff came out of the World Bank.
There is in the World Bank cultural context the desire to
get stuff done. You get promoted by doing projects. There is a
government to government relationship. We do not have that same
cultural context. We look at projects and they either work and
the beneficiaries are there, or they do not, in which case we
stop. We do not want to have that continuing 5-, 20-year
relationship with a country. We are willing to pull the plug.
In fact in several cases where we saw projects that did not
work, we stopped them.
Ms. Granger. Thank you.
Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Jackson.
Opening Statement of Mr. Jackson
Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Madam Chair.
First of all, welcome to the Committee.
Mr. Bent. Thank you.
Mr. Jackson. Let me comment on at least what I understand
the reformation of foreign aid to have been over the last
decade. We created the MCC and the threshold program to move
away from direct grants to countries who were not following
certain indicators to help reduce poverty, to get away from the
tyrants, the despots, the unaccountable foreign aid, really in
reaction to what the American people were saying about foreign
aid, but also we wanted greater accountability in areas like
poverty reduction.
I find it a little bit disconcerting, and maybe you could
help clarify it, when we would coax a country into the
threshold process and then after they have met the indicators,
including reformation of their civil society and other elements
that would provide greater transparency, to then say that once
they have met the thresholds, made these adjustments, they may
not be eligible for a compact. It just seems a little
disingenuous from my perspective. The whole point of the
threshold program is to make them eligible so that they can
have the resources to do that.
This is a thought I would like you to comment on, but
before you do, two years ago I accompanied the Chairwoman on a
CODEL to Subsaharan Africa, and one of our stops was to visit
the Kibera slum in Kenya, which was quite eye-opening. The
number of people living in poverty and slums in the developing
world is about a billion, and it is expected to grow rapidly
unless actions are taken to address the challenges and the
opportunities of urbanization and the growth of slums.
The International Housing Coalition in a study conducted
last year found that only about a quarter of MCC funds were
going to urban areas, and none to improve housing. The flexible
funding of MCC creates the real opportunity to provide multi-
sectoral assistance and fund strategic approaches to slum
improvement. How can the MCC constraint analysis process and
MCC funding better focus on critical interrelated issues of
slums, poor housing, and urban poverty alleviation?
I would not want a country, let us say like Kenya, to meet
the threshold, but after they meet the threshold there is no
compact possibility. This is maybe a far-fetched example, but
for a similarly situated country, there is no compact at the
end of the threshold to address what the Chairwoman and Members
of this Committee saw in that slum.
Mr. Bent. Right. There were a couple of questions there.
Let me see if I can parse them in the following way. For the
threshold program, we do regard it as a way of getting
countries to eligibility. But whether or not the country
becomes eligible is in some measure, okay have they met the
criteria? There are a couple of countries, I will use Guyana as
an example, that had a threshold program, that did meet the
criteria, but the previous board did not select for a compact
eligibility.
In part that is because Guyana is roughly a million people.
I have been to the country and you could throw a stone and
probably find 50 things that need going there, and so in some
measure it is a good place to do development kind of work. But
we have scarce resources. We have to look at both in terms of
our staff and in terms of our budget what makes sense. It is a
new board. Even though several of the private members are going
to continue, it is a new Secretary of State, a new Aid
Administrator, hopefully there will be one, a new VSTR, and
there is a new Treasury Secretary.
In some measure, what we are trying to tee up for the board
are exactly those kinds of questions as part of the threshold
review. Does it make sense if we have had a successful
threshold program and the country now passes the criteria to
make them eligible? And those are the kinds of decisions that I
think the board needs to look at. In the case of Guyana, they
essentially said, you have got scarce resources, is this a good
place to put your money? On housing and the urban question,
which is, we spend a lot of time on this, most of the poor in
Africa and elsewhere are out in the countryside. So in some
sense looking at those programs makes a lot of sense.
Mr. Jackson. I know you are going to get to the urban
question and I know my time is up, but I want to go back to
just part of that answer that you raised about the threshold,
and that is, in these countries that undertake the effort to
apply for the compact, to go through the threshold process,
they reform their governments, they reform civil society, they
try to create greater transparency, they shift resources in
order to comply so that they might be part of some kind of
systematic approach to addressing poverty.
Mr. Bent. Right.
Mr. Jackson. Now at the end of that threshold, after they
have made these reforms, what we are saying or the board is
saying, and maybe we need greater clarity, is that there is a
strong possibility that after all the reforms you have gone
through there is going to be some back treading here because
you may not get the compact?
Mr. Bent. Well let me be clear, if you gave us the money we
would be happy to do it. But, we do have to make choices. It is
really the board that needs to decide where do you get the
biggest bang for the buck, where are you going to get the most
beneficiaries, where are you going to have a good program. I
frankly do not like to be in the position of having to explain
to a country that has made the kind of commitments, made the
resources available, done the tough policy reforms, met the
threshold program criteria, and then have to go back and
explain as I did to the President of Guyana, I am sorry not
this year.
My hope frankly is that I can make a much more positive and
constructive phone call to say, yes, you know, we would like to
do it. But it is a function of the resources, and I probably
more than anybody else appreciate what this Subcommittee has to
go through in terms of making those kinds of choices.
Mrs. Lowey. I think Mr. Jackson asked some really important
questions. Maybe we can have a followup meeting on it, and I
thank you.
Mr. Bent. Could I just answer the one question about
urbanization? Because it seems to me we really do try to pay
attention to that. The Jordan program is hugely about urban
waste water and use of water. So we are cognizant of it. What
we are doing at airports and road and port infrastructure are
really about urbanization kinds of projects.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Rehberg.
Mr. Rehberg. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And, Rodney, nice to see you again.
Mr. Bent. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Rehberg. It is always with some interest I look at the
Members and staff that had survived a Kolbe death march.
Ms. McCollum. I was there.
Mr. Rehberg. Yes, some of us have won the t-shirt or
deserve that. Some of us have two death marches. I want to talk
specifically about some of the things Mr. Jackson brought up
because as you can tell we are very supportive and we want to
make this work. And we are particularly interested in why some
of the countries do not make it. One of our trips with Mr.
Kolbe was to Senegal and Benin. Having been on the ground and
seen their project and the enthusiasm of not only the public
but the government at the time, the one thing we did notice,
and I brought it up at prior meetings, the separation of the
judiciary always seemed to be a problem, but more specifically
I noticed in those two particular countries kind of two-term-
itis. They wanted to change the constitution so that as
president they could be president for life. Is that one of the
things that kind of knocks a country out, when they start
changing their constitution? Because we want to see them moving
more towards an open democratic or whatever government they
choose for themselves. And talk a little bit specifically about
those two countries. What happened, is there a chance to come
back in once they have been dropped off or are they too far
gone?
Mr. Bent. No. Let me talk about Senegal as an example. I
think we certainly had some startup difficulties there. Part of
the difficulty is explaining to the Senegalese government and
the Senegalese people how we operate. A lot of time governments
will come in and they will say, we have got these wonderful
projects, we want you to fund them. And we have to say, well
let us talk about the economic rates of return, let us talk
about the gender, let us talk about the engineering, let us
talk about the environment. Do these make sense? What are you
willing to put into these compacts?
In the case of Senegal, I went there about 3 years ago, and
frankly I was disappointed at the quality of the engagement we
had. It was pretty clear to me the President just wanted to
hand us over and say, you know, write the check, give us the
money. And we said, no we are not going to do that, we are
going to go through the full consultative process, it really
has to make sense, you have to make a contribution. We had some
back and forth on this, and for about 2 years I would have said
that Senegal was on the do not resuscitate list.
But in fact what happened was that I think the government,
when they saw that Mali and Burkina Faso had compacts,
countries that they regarded as less sophisticated, and
speaking colloquially here, they were a little stunned. And
they suddenly came back and they said, well what is it that
these countries have done that allow them to go forward? In
fact one of the key advantages of the MCC is that peer to peer
pressure.
When we see a compact that is in trouble, where things are
not going well, we can send people, or frankly they send
themselves, they will go to a country and say, okay you had
this similar kind of road project, what did you do that made it
work? That kind of peer to peer sharing is not something that
shows up in our advantages, but it is major, it is real. So in
the case of Senegal, they got wise, they came back, they put
together a very good core team, they have now got a whole
series of road projects that, depending on other events and
funding, we are going to go forward with.
Mr. Rehberg. Did their program or project change?
Mr. Bent. Yes, very much.
Mr. Rehberg. Not moving the town?
Mr. Bent. No, the town is off our radar screen. We are
working with roads and irrigation in Senegal. We have had
several countries that have gone through peaceful transitions.
El Salvador, I was just there a couple of weeks ago, were going
from President Saca to President Funes, I think that will be a
great success story. Ghana, President Kufuor handed over power
peacefully.
Mr. Rehberg. How about the changing of the constitution?
Mr. Bent. That is, there is always a question, you know,
one of the things that the board takes into account is what we
call supplementary information. We have the indicators which,
you know, we bore everybody with, but we have put together a
huge amount of additional information. What is the governance
like, what is the judiciary like, what is civil society like,
what are people saying? What do businessmen say about them
really, not just as measured by our indicators but much more
texturally? Is the rate of taxation too high, is it stifling,
what is going on?
Those are all questions that we put to the board, and among
them are going to be, okay is there likely to be a peaceful
transition? Will there be an extra-constitutional effort? The
case of Madagascar, I do not know if I want to save that as a
question for later.
Mrs. Lowey. Done.
Mr. Bent. Well essentially, but it is a good example of,
frankly Madagascar had one of our better programs. I was really
looking to it as a huge success story. We were going at great
guns, and then we have an extra-constitutional coup. That
violates our sense of good policy. We sort of looked at it and
we said, we have got to stop, you know, we are going to wind
this program up. But I have to say it tears my heart out
because that was one of our better performing programs.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Following up on this, and I know Mr. Berman is working on
looking at the way that we put our State Department and foreign
aid together, my problem with this is not that there should not
be specialized programs within the way that we do aid, it is
the fact that they start standing alone separate, they start
competing for the same funds, or they use funds from other
programs that we fund. For example a lot of USAID money has
gone into PEPFAR, a lot of USAID money has gone into MCC to
make the thresholds work.
So as we think we are plussing up USAID to work on child
survival, the child survival money gets kind of intermixed in
with funding for threshold. I am going to make more comments
and then I would like you to. I was always skeptical of having
this be a standalone program, and my skepticism has not changed
even though I have seen some good things happen. When you talk
about threshold countries and you make it really clear, let me
tell you it is not real clear to me that you have made it real
clear with the number of ambassadors that line up outside of my
door, literally.
Mr. Bent. American or foreign ambassadors?
Ms. McCollum. Foreign ambassadors who line up outside of my
door saying, we have done this, we have done that, we are a
threshold country, we are ready to go and we expect you to fund
it. That is the wrong way that it should work. It should be,
you make those tough decisions early on about what the
threshold countries are going to be based on your budget, not
the other way around setting up expectations. It is cruel, it
is wrong, and then it forces this Committee to make the tough
choices that we had nothing to do with as to whether or not we
want to plus up child survival across the board, or put in a
sustainable health care platform.
I do not disagree that you do good things, but I do
disagree with the way that it has been structured moving up.
And let me give you another example just even from the
conversation today. I think it is great that we did more for
education in Burkina Faso, I think that that is marvelous. I
think USAID has a clear mission to do that and that they should
be given the funds to fulfill that mission. Now where I can see
MCC working is to plus up the higher education, for technical
support for doing all those things that you are doing, not K
through 12 schools.
So I say this because I want to have an honest
conversation. I want to see you be successful, but I want to
also see us be successful in many of the other endeavors this
Committee works on and not be in conflict and not be in
competition. And I want to make it very clear from this Member
of Congress, I am fighting back as an appropriator when the
ambassadors from other countries are coming into my office
saying, you know what, they should not have done it that way.
They should not have put you on the track for threshold with an
expectation that you were going to get a compact when they had
not consulted Congress about the money that was going to be
available.
Mr. Bent. Let me give brief responses if I can. On
education, I think one of the advantages of the MCC is in some
measure, because we require countries to also put in their
contributions, so in the case of Burkina Faso it is looking at
the teacher salaries and other things, that is I think above
and beyond. There is no question that U.S. foreign aid needs a
complete rethink. I would give a shout out to the MFAN folks
and I would say, look everybody knows the status quo is not
good, so what is the future going to bring?
One of the advantages of the MCC is that we have a board
that has AID, it has the Secretary of State as Chairman. So if
you want to look at how to integrate programs, I think that is
a great place to start. Everything you said about the
competition for resources, I accept and I would be happy to
talk with you at greater length about how we can together make
sure these ambassadors have got the right approach to the
threshold program.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Mr. Crenshaw.
Opening Statement of Mr. Crenshaw
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
And welcome to the Committee. Earlier I asked the acting
head of USAID some questions about human trafficking, and I was
really encouraged to hear him say that when they decide in
terms of where that USAID assistance is going to go they
monitor the way the countries are complying with our TIP
reports that come out every year and they take it pretty
seriously, so that was very encouraging. I wanted to ask you
about that because sometimes when I look through, I guess one
of the things I like about the compact and the corporation is
you sign an agreement, and we have got those criteria that you
set out. And there is not really a criteria on human
trafficking but I imagine it falls in kind of the Ruling Justly
category.
Mr. Bent. Absolutely.
Mr. Crenshaw. But when I look at the chart we have 14
compacts, 12 of those 14 countries are ranked tier 2 or tier 2
watch list. Number 1 is minimum requirements, number 3 is not
very good, 2 is kind of, we are working on it.
Mr. Bent. Right.
Mr. Crenshaw. But here is what is interesting, 6 of the 12
that are on the tier 2 or tier 2 watch list, they passed 6 out
of 6 of the criteria under the Ruling Justly criteria, which
makes me wonder, how seriously do you take when you are grading
those compacts the compliance with the TIP report? Because if
they are still, in fact six of those, they were on tier 2 for
three straight years so they did not really move, and we are
pretty serious about trying to deal with this as you know. And
so, help me understand how that plays, and when you look at
those criteria, what kind of efforts do you make to say to
those countries, we have got a deal here and you are not really
meeting part of those requirements?
Mr. Bent. We take it very seriously. In the case of Moldova
I think they were on the tier 3 and we essentially went and had
a conversation saying, that will not be acceptable, you need to
deal with that. Again it is part of the information that the
board takes into account, it is certainly something we take
very seriously just as I think Mr. Wolf last year asked about
U.N. votes and we went back and we made sure that we went
through that and we looked at it. These are all important
factors. I cannot give you a mathematical weight because what
we are also looking at is, okay what can the country do, how
serious are they, is it a question of resources, is it a
question of enforcement? But we do spend a huge amount of time
on that.
Mr. Crenshaw. If you take these six countries that have
been on tier 2 for three straight years, it is almost $3
billion that we are spending. So I just hope that somehow we
can sit down with those folks and, you know, not year after
year after year have them not make any progress at all. So I
appreciate that, but I do think we can probably maybe send that
message, because I will from time to time ask the leaders of
these countries when we are visiting, and it never seems to be
high on their priority. It is always something they are
concerned about, in fact if you ask anybody in this world, they
are just outraged that this goes on in the 21st century. But
they do not seem to be making as much progress as they could if
they were really serious about it.
Mr. Bent. It is a question of using incentives as opposed
to withholding or using sanctions. We try to say, look we are
all about positive incentives, you know, speak softly and carry
a big carrot. But, you have got to do the right things and
trafficking in persons is really important to us.
Mr. Crenshaw. Let me ask you, do I have a minute, Madam
Chairwoman?
You know, when we were talking earlier about some of the
contracts where our money is being used to say build a road or
whatever, is there any kind of consideration given to U.S.
companies if we have got a compact with somebody, Honduras or
another country, part of that money is going to go to build
some sort of facility, the road or some sort of equipment et
cetera, is there consideration given to U.S. companies that are
bidding on that? I do not think they should necessarily be
favored, but do they get the same consideration?
Mr. Bent. We actually bend over backwards to make sure that
U.S. companies have every opportunity to bid. We make sure that
the documents are in English, we make sure we go out and visit.
It is in our interest to have a domestic constituency that
thinks we are a good program. When I was in El Salvador two
weeks ago and we just inaugurated a major road project to the
north, I was delighted to see it was Caterpillar equipment
there, and so I sent my friends at Caterpillar a picture
saying, hey look I am doing my bit for you now you have got to
do your bit for this country.
Mr. Crenshaw. Well thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Mr. Schiff.
Mr. Schiff. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Bent, I wanted to ask you about two countries, Jordan
and Armenia. I was very happy to see that the Jordan compact
will be ramped up in 2010, and especially pleased that we and
the Jordanians will be working to address Jordan's incredibly
scarce access to water. I think the late King Hussein said the
only reason he could see going to war with Israel in the future
would be over water.
In your testimony you referred to a framework for
benchmarks that the MCC will use. Can you elaborate on what
those benchmarks may be? And I would like to be kept apprised
of the Jordan compact's progress, so I would like to arrange to
be briefed as developments warrant. And let me just get the
other question out there in the interest of time. On Armenia,
according to Armenian press reports last week, Armenia will
request the MCC provide $1.6 million to rehabilitate railroad
infrastructure.
The press reports indicate that they are awaiting approval
from the Millennium Challenge fund before the matter is
forwarded on to the MCC. MCC already has in place a $67 million
road rehab program, but MCC froze about 30 percent of the aid
package in 2006 following that year's problematic elections.
And I understand that MCC said in March that the Armenian
government had still not addressed U.S. concerns about the
status of democratic governance in the country.
Last week Secretary Clinton wrote to President Sargsyan to
ask him to ensure that the upcoming municipal elections in
Yerevan are democratic. Are we awaiting the type of process
that takes place in those elections to determine whether
democratic governance has been restored sufficiently to release
MCC funds? If not, are there other factors you are looking to
in terms of the status of the funds?
Mr. Bent. Let me take them in order. On Jordan we would be
happy to brief you in more detail. We reckon that there will be
about a million and a half beneficiaries to the project. It
affects, I think, 90,000 households. But we would be happy to
go through the metrics in terms of the types of pipe that we
are putting in, the amount of water that will be saved not
wasted, and what this will mean for frankly a very poor portion
of Jordan.
On Armenia, we had major difficulties with the election as
you know. You are very well versed on events in Armenia. We had
some concerns about it. With the new board, we presented those
concerns and with a couple of other countries as well. The
Secretary of State I think is directly personally interested in
what is going on. We are going to have a board meeting in June
in which we will again raise the issue of Armenia, as well as
Nicaragua, as well as a briefing on Madagascar. So let me not
jump ahead of where the board is because this is one of those
cases where that tight coordination between the State
Department, AID, and other government programs is hugely
important to us.
Mr. Schiff. I remember at the time the MCC suspended the
funds that there were several issues, there was the problematic
elections, there were the continued detention of political
opponents, there were some potential media laws cracking down
on free speech, and some concerns I think about curbing the
rights of assembly as well as the opportunity for NGOs to work
in the country. Are you able to tell me if any, some, all of
those problems have been sorted out or whether they are
continuing to be problems?
Mr. Bent. I cannot tell you how they have been sorted out.
Let me back up one step.
Mr. Schiff. I do remember also that the Armenian government
decided to put their own money into the rural road
infrastructure to get it done before the rainy season, and so
that was good, that was a positive step, but I would love to
hear what you could tell me.
Mr. Bent. Well in both Armenia and Nicaragua the projects
are great, there is no question that, a little bit like
Madagascar, they are some of our best performing projects as
projects. I was at pains when I was in Nicaragua to talk with
the Minister of Finance and say, look these projects are going
great. The Armenian Foreign Minister came two weeks ago and I
had to say pretty much the same thing. The issue is not the
projects, it is the good governance questions.
Every point you just listed is in fact an issue of some
concern for us. The Secretary of State has taken a personal
interest in this--and as the Armenian Foreign Minister and I
think the Nicaraguan Foreign Minister said,--she has written
letters to both. I cannot tell you what the response has been.
I figured I would get phone calls from both ambassadors saying
how well the meetings had gone and then when we will be talking
about this at the June board meeting as well.
Mr. Schiff. My time is up, but if you could let me know
maybe after the hearing, of the issues that were raised earlier
that concern the MCC, on which issues has Armenia made progress
and which issues are you waiting to see progress.
Mr. Bent. Absolutely, and I would like to come in with the
State Department on that because we really do try to work
through our ambassadors. We are part of the country team and we
make sure that there is no daylight between the two of us.
Mr. Schiff. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. Ms. Granger.
Ms. Granger. Talk about the conflict in Mongolia.
Mr. Bent. That was, every once in a while you want to try
and do something that has not been done before. And so in the
case of Mongolia it was frankly a pretty innovative idea to
help the railroad, which is 50-50 owned by the Mongolian
government and a Russian company, because, really, the
heartbeat of Mongolia is going to be minerals and
transportation. So we thought this is a great way of moving
forward. But we insist on standards on accountability and
transparency, and one of our conditions precedent for the rail
project funding was that we be able to audit the company. If we
are going to do an innovative lease, we want to make sure that
we have got the financials there to back it up.
There was a fair amount of stalling, and I can tell you
more privately some of the other things that went on, but at
the end of the day, we were not able to satisfy ourselves that
that accountability would be there. The Mongolian government
basically said, well we are not sure we can therefore proceed,
and we said, fine. They are very interested in finding other
projects. We are frankly in the mode of, well if they are good
projects we will look at them but it is going to have to be
done within our framework of beneficiaries of good projects and
economic growth.
Ms. Granger. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you again for your time, and I look
forward to continuing our discussion on several issues that
were raised. This concludes today's hearing on the Millennium
Challenge Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Request. The Subcommittee on
State and Foreign Operations and Related Programs stands
adjourned.
Mr. Bent. Thank you.
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009.
THE MERIDA INITIATIVE
WITNESSES
THOMAS SHANNON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WESTERN HEMISPHERE
AFFAIRS (WHA)
DAVID JOHNSON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS
CONTROL AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS (INL)
RODGER GARNER, MISSION DIRECTOR FOR MEXICO, UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (USAID)
Opening Statement of Chairwoman Lowey
Mrs. Lowey. Good morning. The Subcommittee on State,
Foreign Operations, and Related Programs will come to order.
Today we have two distinguished panels to review
implementation of the funding Congress has provided for the
Merida program in Mexico and the countries of Central America.
I want to welcome our first panel: Mr. Thomas Shannon,
Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs;
Mr. David Johnson, Assistant Secretary of State for
International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement Affairs;
Mr. Rodger Garner, USAID Mission Director for Mexico. And we
also look forward to hearing our private witness panel who I
will introduce later.
Over the past decade drug trafficking and other criminal
enterprises have grown in size and strength, aggressively
intimidating and overwhelming government institutions in Mexico
and Central America and threatening security and the rule of
law.
Recent news reports as recently as this morning have
highlighted the surge in violence in Mexico related to drug
cartels and organized crime, while homicide rates and other
violent drug-related crimes have sharply increased in El
Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. This trend continues to raise
questions about the most effective way to confront those
powerful and well organized criminal enterprises.
An estimated 90 percent of the cocaine shipped from the
Andes flows through Central America up through Mexico and into
the United States. In fact, in 2007 approximately 563 metric
tons of cocaine transited into the United States via Mexico.
And the drug cartels have expanded into other types of drug
production, with Mexico now a leading supplier of
methamphetamines, heroin, and marijuana to the United States.
This subcommittee just returned from a trip to Mexico,
Colombia, and Peru where we examined these challenges. We met
with government leaders, law enforcement, military leaders, got
a firsthand look at counternarcotics and alternate development
programs the United States is funding. We were impressed by the
political commitment of Presidents Calderon, Uribe and Garcia,
all of whom understand the level of threat posed by the narco
industry and are marshaling the resources to fight it.
However, this problem cannot be solved through police and
military actions alone. More must be done to invest in society
and to provide alternate livelihoods, education, and
opportunities for youth. While enforcement by police and
military is important, security forces must institutionalize
mechanisms to ensure transparency and accountability as well as
respect for the rights of citizens.
I know that we will continue to work together to insist
that United States counternarcotics funding emphasizes these
principles; in addition, domestically more attention on
reducing demand in our own society and also on curbing the
traffic of guns from our country into Mexico. This is required
to win this war.
Since I became the chairwoman I have been pushing for more
comprehensive border security strategy that encompasses
counterterrorism, anti-gang, and drug interdiction in the
Western Hemisphere. Because counternarcotics efforts have a
higher chance of success when implemented in the context of
strong security and judicial institutions, we must also
strengthen these programs.
Finally, we must work with the governments in the region to
address the underlying poverty and lack of opportunity upon
which the drug cartels prey to gain power and influence.
Including funding in the fiscal year 2009 omnibus
appropriations, Congress has provided 700 million for
assistance for Mexico and 170 million for Central America under
the Merida program. I would like the panels to assess what
effect the funding is having on the flow of illegal drugs to
the United States, the type of coordination between the United
States, Mexico, and the countries of Central America, and what
additional steps are necessary to make this joint effort work.
Additionally, I hope the witnesses will address the
following key issues: First, how do we break the power and
impunity of criminal organizations and assist the governments
in Central America and Mexico and strengthen border, air and
maritime security from our southwest border to Panama? How do
we improve the capacity of justice systems in the region to
protect the rights of its citizens by conducting fair and just
investigations and prosecutions? How can we implement rule of
law programs as well as protect civil and human rights while
curtailing gang activity in Mexico and Central America?
And again, I want to thank Secretaries Shannon and Johnson
and Mission Director Garner for testifying today, but before I
turn to our witnesses let me turn to my distinguished ranking
member for her opening statement.
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Granger
Ms. Granger. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for having
this hearing today. Even before our recent trip to Mexico I was
certainly concerned about the violence that we are reading
about literally daily in Mexico. But as a result of our trip I
have grown increasingly aware that if the U.S. Government fails
to act quickly to help Mexico in its war against the drug
cartels, there may be grave consequences. For this reason,
bringing our subcommittee together today for this important
hearing is very much needed and very much appreciated.
We are all becoming painfully aware that drug-related
violence is rampant in Mexico and places in Mexico, with almost
6,000 people killed last year, twice as many as in 2007. The
rising death toll is in fact a sign that the Mexican Government
is serious about cracking down on the drug trade.
The instability that has shaken Mexico is on our doorstep.
I represent Texas, where we see criminals and drugs flow into
this country while cash and weapons that support the drug trade
move south across the border.
The State Department estimates that some 90 percent of the
cocaine imported to the United States comes from our southern
neighbor. In exchange, up to $23 billion a year crosses the
border and winds up in the hands of the Mexican drug cartels.
Fortunately, Mexican President Calderon and former
President Bush took an unprecedented step to enhance
cooperation between our countries to stop the scourge by
announcing the Merida Initiative. The Congress supported this
plan to provide Mexico with $1.4 billion to help control drug
trafficking, and as a result the U.S. Government is about
halfway through its commitment with $400 million appropriated
last summer in the supplemental, another $300 million that will
flow from the 2009 omnibus bill.
From helicopters and surveillance planes to nonintrusive
inspection equipment, the U.S. investment is intended to
provide the hardware necessary for the Mexican Government to
extend its authority to those remote and hard to access parts
of the country ravaged by the drug trade. The funding for
judicial reform will also help Mexico's law enforcement
community root out corruption and work more effectively.
Mexico has taken its own steps forward on this front with
the establishment in January of the national public safety
system, which will increase coordination between Mexico's three
levels of government and enhance their ability to fight crime.
I think these are very important investments to jump start
the Mexican Government effort, yet the struggle could be long
and painful.
In closing, I applaud the efforts of the Calderon
government to eliminate those powerful drug cartels. I want to
acknowledge the leadership of the previous administration and
the subcommittee in recognizing that the U.S. must partner with
Mexico, as well as Central American Governments in this battle.
And I encourage the Obama administration to continue this
Merida Initiative and make it a top priority for the upcoming
budget request to the Congress.
I look forward to hearing from you, and thank you for being
here.
Mrs. Lowey. Members of our distinguished panel, we thank
you again for being here. Your entire written statement will be
placed in the record. We are hoping to have a lively question
and answer session and we are limiting each of us to 5 minutes.
So if you can summarize your statement. We will make sure
we read it very carefully if we haven't read it already. And
the order of recognition will be Assistant Secretary Shannon,
Assistant Secretary Johnson, Mission Director Garner.
Secretary Shannon, thank you.
Opening Statement of Mr. Shannon
Mr. Shannon. Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Granger, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you very much
for the opportunity to be here today. I am very happy to be
joined by Assistant Secretary Johnson and Mr. Garner. This is a
great opportunity for us, and we also want to thank you for
your trip, as you mentioned, to Mexico and other countries. It
is so important to gain firsthand knowledge of what is
happening on the ground, and we deeply appreciate the effort
you and your committee made.
As you know, Mexico and the countries of Central America
and the Caribbean are passing through a very critical period,
which you highlighted in your opening statements. The fight
among organized crime groups and drug cartels to control
lucrative trafficking operations has unleashed appalling
violence in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and other countries in
the region. And the effort by our Merida partner governments to
attack and dismantle these criminal organizations has provoked
a harsh response.
The cartels are targeting police, military, and other
security service personnel and using graphic displays of public
violence to intimidate communities. This three-corner battle in
which cartels fight each other while attacking state
authorities represents a significant threat to our nearest
neighbors and to our own national interests.
The Merida Initiative recognizes the transnational nature
of the challenge we face and provides us with a framework to
collaborate with our neighbors to confront the criminal
organizations whose activities, violence and intimidation,
threaten the welfare, prosperity, and security of our citizens.
I would like to briefly discuss the strategic importance of
the Merida Initiative, what it means for the future of security
cooperation in the Americas, and its potential to transform our
relationships with our Merida partners. As I do so, I want to
highlight that the urgency of our Merida assistance is
heightened by the current financial and economic crisis.
With public sector budgets at risk, remittances declining,
and job loss throughout the region, the attraction that
organized crime and cartels present is obvious. In regard to
Mexico, as noted, the administration of President Calderon has
expanded cooperation with the United States and offered to work
with us in an unprecedented, collaborative, and coordinated
fashion. We have accepted that offer through the Merida
Initiative, but the nature of the challenge is daunting. As
noted, authorities estimate that in 2008 alone over 6,200
persons were killed in drug-related violence, including 522
civilian law enforcement and military personnel, and we believe
that the transnational nature of this threat is indicated by
Federal law enforcement estimates that elements of Mexican
based criminal organizations are present in 230 American
cities.
The important steps that Mexico has taken in this fight
have included deploying the military in large numbers in
operations against organized crime, professionalizing Mexico's
police forces, and prosecutors, extraditing top drug bosses
wanted by U.S. authorities, instituting long-term reforms to
improve the effectiveness of the Mexican judicial institutions,
and removing Mexican officials linked to crime syndicates and
corruption.
Working together with the Mexicans, we can address this
threat, and our ability to cooperate with the Mexicans is going
to be critical to our collaboration and our success.
As noted, the Merida is on one hand a robust assistance
package where we work directly with the countries of Mexico,
Central America, and the Caribbean to address immediate needs
they have, both institutional and with regard to their
equipment. But it is premised on a partnership between our
countries and our recognition that multifaceted problems
associated with criminal organizations represent a shared
responsibility whose solutions require a coordinated response,
and this coordinated response is really at the heart of the
Merida Initiative and at the heart of how our intra agency
operates.
In regard to Central America, in our conversations with
Central American leaders and public security ministers we are
convinced that the leaders of Central America have the
political will that you found in Mexico, Colombia, and Peru.
They are dedicated to eliminating violence and crime that
plague our nations, but they are challenged by sophisticated
traffickers, gangs and organized crimes who utilize widespread
bribery, intimidation, and corruption to undermine the efforts
of national law enforcement and judicial authorities.
We have engaged with the Central Americans in unprecedented
levels of discussion, and built I believe an initial framework
in Merida that is going to pay big dividends, especially as we
move forward. But we also recognize there is real concern about
the Caribbean. In that sense the decision by the Congress to
put funding in the 2008 supplemental for the Dominican Republic
and Haiti was an important effort to understand the importance
of the Caribbean and to require us to take a closer look at the
Caribbean. We have done that. Admiral Stavridis and I have
traveled in the region to meet with Caribbean leaders. Last
September in 2008, Secretary Rice issued a statement committing
the United States to working with the Caribbean to develop a
security cooperation dialogue. And we will be meeting with
Caribbean security personnel in May after the Summit of the
Americas to begin a larger discussion about what that kind of
security cooperation dialogue should look like.
In concluding, I want to underscore that we appreciate the
funding that the Congress has given us through the 2008
supplemental and the funding that is being considered at this
point in time. Continued funding is essential for the well-
being of Merida. Our ability to sustain resources over time is
going to be key to the ability of these governments to meet the
challenges they face.
In closing, the Merida Initiative was born out of crisis.
This crisis also provides us with a strategic opportunity to
reshape our security cooperation relationship and expand
dialogue with our partners on critical security and law
enforcement issues.
Thank you very much.
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Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Secretary Johnson.
Opening Statement of Mr. Johnson
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member
Granger, and other members of the committee. We appreciate the
opportunity you are giving us this morning to discuss the
Merida Initiative, our security cooperation partnership to
combat transnational narcotics trafficking and organized crime
in Mexico Central America and the Caribbean.
Our partner nations are already working hard to fight
transnational criminals. They are demonstrating unprecedented
courage and real determination. We believe with our help they
can do much more.
Since his inauguration in December 2006, Mexican President
Calderon has taken decisive action against transnational
criminal organizations. Under his leadership counternarcotics
and law enforcement operations have expanded throughout Mexico
and he has begun the arduous task of large scale police and
rule of law reform.
His efforts to combat corruption, confront powerful
criminal syndicates, improve coordination among security
agencies, modernize law enforcement agencies and
professionalize their staff are indeed without precedent.
But as President Calderon confronts the transnational drug
trafficking organizations that threaten his country and the
region, violence has climbed markedly.
In Central America overwhelmed police face extraordinary
challenges as criminals step up their murder, kidnapping,
extortion and robbery. Gang members migrating both within
Central America and from the United States take advantage of
the breakdown in law and order and expand the neighborhoods
they exploit. Failure to act now could mean that crime becomes
more entrenched and the consequences of dealing with these
problems later will be greater for all of us. With a long-term
effort, they can emerge stronger, with more resilient,
democratic and law enforcement institutions and with greater
capacity to respond to the needs of their citizens.
Madam Chairwoman, while the situation in present day Mexico
and indeed Central America is unique, lessons we have learned
elsewhere in other programs are still instructive. One of those
lessons is the vital role of partners political will plays in
meeting the crisis at hand. We truly have a partner of
extraordinary political will in President Calderon.
Another lesson is the importance of law enforcement and
judicial institution reform. This is the kind of reform that
lies at the hard of the Merida Initiative.
Finally, we have learned that law enforcement needs the
mobility to extend the state's authority rapidly to remote and
inaccessible places. It is crucial that we extend credible
deterrence across and ensure that law enforcement can reach
high value targets and eliminate their threat to the rule of
law. That is the reason helicopters play such a key role in the
program for Mexico.
Madam Chairwoman, the countries of the Caribbean, Central
America, and Mexico face an extraordinary challenge from drug
fueled organized crime. Merida in and of itself will not solve
the problems this crime wave inflicts, but it will give us and
our partners crucial tools to address the challenge effectively
and restore the rule of law in our own neighborhood.
Thank you for your time. I would be happy to answer any
questions when the time comes.
[The statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]
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Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Mr. Garner.
Opening Statement of Mr. Garner
Mr. Garner. Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Granger, and
other distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me here to appear before you today. I appreciate the
opportunity to testify on the U.S.'s role in the Merida
Initiative.
Madam Chairwoman, I also wish to thank you for your recent
visit down to Mexico, for the opportunity we had to discuss
different parts of our programs, and I especially want to thank
you for visiting the Trafficking in Persons Center. The young
victims were enormously encouraged by your words of support, so
thank you for that.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you for organizing it.
Mr. Garner. My pleasure.
Criminal organizations prosper when public institutions are
weakened by insufficient budgets, inadequate equipment, and
poor training. Mexican civil society estimates that only 2
percent of criminal cases actually reach conviction. Poor
coordination between law enforcement officials and efforts
across the region also contribute to criminal success.
The narcotraffickers have exploited our differences, they
do not respect our borders, our laws, nor human life. USAID
supports President Felipe Calderon's efforts to strengthen law
enforcement and justice sector institutions that are key in
addressing crime and violence. One way we do this is by
fostering greater collaboration between U.S. and Mexican
states. For example, New Mexico provided technical assistance
and training to the forensics labs of Chihuahua. Colorado
recently trained state police investigators from Baja,
California.
Drawing upon the best practices of the state experiments in
justice reform, the Mexican Congress last year passed historic
constitutional amendments to overhaul the entire justice system
of Mexico. USAID's Merida programs will support the Mexican
institutions as they now begin to train an estimated 1 million
people in new, transparent, and more accountable ways of
administering justice.
Our Merida programs also promote greater respect for human
rights. Mexico's old justice system relied heavily on
confessions to prove the guilt, leading to many charges of
human rights violations by police and prosecutors as they
sought those confessions. The new justice system is founded on
a presumption of innocence and evidence is required to prove
guilt.
In addition to providing scholarships to the rural
indigenous groups that you met while you were down in Mexico,
we also sponsor cross-border, university-to-university
programs. Three of the 64 partnerships which we have fostered
so far have assisted in law schools and helping law students
retrain into the new system. Southwestern University Law School
in Los Angeles, American University, and the Illinois Institute
of Technology Kent College of Law are participating in these
programs.
We are grateful also to the U.S. Western Attorneys General
of the States who have been very active in the program.
Arizona's Attorney General Terry Goddard hosted a meeting a
year ago in Phoenix between U.S. and Mexican state attorneys
general. Increased interactions have fostered greater trust,
cooperation, and identified simple practical solutions. For
example, Arizona shares with Sonora now their database on
stolen cars, which allows Sonora's law enforcement officials to
better trace the origin of those abandoned cars that may have
been used to smuggle guns and money from Arizona into Sonora.
Merida funds are allowing us to expand these kind of
programs. Of course the challenges we confront in Mexico are
shared and in fact extend into Central America. Geographic
isolation and the lack of economic opportunities makes some
communities especially vulnerable to criminal activity, to
gangs, and to drugs.
In these locations USAID will support vocational education,
computer literacy, and bring together businesses to increase
employment opportunities. USAID will expand community crime,
and gang prevention programs to strengthen the role of local
government officials and citizen groups in leading, organizing,
and mobilizing resources to improve security.
USAID will also expand policing initiatives that bring
together community leaders, civil society, and police to
increase the cooperation, mutual understanding and results.
In conclusion, I would like to add my thanks for the strong
bipartisan support in this committee and in the entire Congress
as we implement this very important program. Mexico has laid
out a very ambitious reform program for their police forces and
for their entire justice system. By participating in these
programs, our Federal, State and local officials will gain a
broader understanding and build a trust that will increase
regional cooperation to defeat international criminal
syndicate.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Garner follows:]
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Mrs. Lowey. Thank you very much. I am going to be calling
on members based on seniority, the members that were present
when the hearing was called to order, and I will alternate
between majority and minority and we are going to try to keep
our questions to 5 minutes. Thank you all for your testimony.
Some of you may have seen this article from the Los Angeles
Times today about the raid Sunday, reporting from Tijuana.
Mexican authorities on Monday announced the capture of an
alleged lieutenant of a top crime boss along with 21 other
organized crime suspects at a weekend party. The raid by
Mexican soldiers also led to the arrest of 8 state police
agents. And then it goes on.
It was explained to us, as you know, Mr. Garner, about the
complexity of the military, the issues that they have and that
the police departments have, and they often rotate to be sure
they don't have infiltration. But on the other hand, how do you
keep an experienced force if you can't compete with the
salaries of the gangs? So this was a challenge that certainly
was presented to us.
Secondly, as we know, Plan Colombia started as a three-year
commitment when it was announced by the Clinton administration.
Ten years later we are funding counterdrug programs in
Colombia.
Now my question is, and we all mentioned this, we are very
impressed with President Calderon's leadership and the
political will he has shown in fighting the cartels. But I
asked myself after I left what happens after President Calderon
leaves office? How do we institutionalize the political
commitment and capacity so that the progress that is being made
today remains after any changes in political leadership?
And I wonder if someone or all of you can comment, is
President Calderon reaching out to his political opposition to
create a national consensus on the war on drugs? Are we
reaching out to opposition groups in civil society and to
subnational governments to ensure that there is political
commitment beyond President Calderon's term? And related to
that, I mentioned that Plan Colombia was originally designed as
a 3-year program, here we are 10 years later. I know it is
difficult to commit, but I would be interested in what you
foresee as the length of this program, any changes that you see
coming from the Obama administration, and what would you
recommend to the Obama administration.
In other words, it was clear to all of us that we have a
real major problem there, and I wouldn't expect you to say
well, on January 1, 2010, everything is going to be hunky-dory.
So if you could respond. Maybe we should begin with you,
Secretary Shannon.
Mr. Shannon. Thank you very much. I am sure my colleagues
will have other things they can add in response to your
question. It is a very important question and it is an
essential question. I would respond in a couple of ways.
First, what President Calderon and the government of Mexico
are trying to do now is effect deep institutional change in the
national police, in the judiciary, but also driving that change
through State and local police. They are responding at the
moment in an emergency fashion to an urgent crisis, but they
understand that in order to get beyond the emergency they need
to build national capabilities and institutional capabilities.
That is their focus, and it is the primary focus of the Merida
Initiative. So institutional change will help ensure continuity
over time.
Secondly, the fact that President Calderon was able to
launch his initiative shows that there has been a sea change in
how Mexicans understand the relationship with the United States
and has created a political space for President Calderon to
build a new type of relationship with the United States that
can be sustainable over time. But for that relationship, that
kind of cooperative relationship, to be sustained over time,
first he needs to show success on the ground, he needs to show
that the kinds of steps he is taking now will allow Mexicans to
recapture their communities. And this is why it is so important
for us to engage as quickly and decisively as we can.
Also, aside from early success, the transparency of the
this initiative, hearings like this, the hearings that were
held in 2008, the hearings that the Mexican Congress has held
have really created a broader public understanding of the
challenges that Mexico faces and of what the Merida Initiative
is, and this will allow accountability over time and will allow
Mexicans to understand that their political leaders are
attempting to address a problem in working with us in the
course of that.
Mrs. Lowey. My time is up. Perhaps we can get back to some
other responses later. Just one question about the political
opposition. I understood and we understood when we were there
that Lopez Obrador was traveling around the country speaking to
large groups. Has he taken a position on the work that the
President is doing?
Mr. Shannon. He recognizes the problem. He has been
critical of the President on a variety of issues. I can't give
you a precise answer in terms of how critical he has been in
terms of the Merida Initiative, but we can get back to you on
that.
[The information follows:]
Mr. Shannon. All major political parties in Mexico recognize that
their country faces a security crisis. Political parties have expressed
differing views of how best to confront this threat. All have been
appreciative of the U.S. willingness to recognize our shared
responsibility, to do our part on our side of the border to reduce
demand for drugs, trafficking in arms, and repatriation of drug
trafficking proceeds. However, many (including Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador) have expressed concern that U.S. assistance could pose a
violation of Mexican sovereignty.
Early on, senators and deputies of all parties in the Mexican
legislature expressed a similar frustration to that of U.S. law makers
that the executive branches of both governments had not sought early
congressional input for the joint effort. As the Mexican legislature
has become more knowledgeable about the Merida Initiative, this concern
has subsided.
Mrs. Lowey. I think that is essential, because if we are
looking at the long run, it is really important to have some
cooperation from the opposition.
Mr. Shannon. I am not sure I would describe him as the
opposition at this point.
Mrs. Lowey. Okay, well, that is----
Mr. Shannon. I think the primary political opposition
remains the old PRI.
Mrs. Lowey. PRI.
Mr. Shannon. And Lopez Obrador's political party is
actually split along these lines. I think there is a broad
recognition of the national crisis and the urgency of it and
the need for a better relationship with the United States to
affect that crisis in a positive way.
Mrs. Lowey. Ms. Granger. Or Mr. Lewis.
Mr. Lewis. Hello.
Mrs. Lowey. Would you like to say something before Ms.
Granger proceeds?
Mr. Lewis. I think it has already been said.
Mrs. Lowey. Okay, Ms. Granger.
Ms. Granger. Thank you. I have two questions, and we may
not get to both of them. One is sort of long term. When we took
our trip to Colombia and Mexico, I was struck with the
similarities of where Mexico is today and Colombia was 10 years
ago or when I traveled there the first time. And Assistant
Secretary Johnson, you talked a bit about lessons learned. So I
would like to know, what do you think is transferable or
helpful for Colombia to the Mexico situation or some
comparisons we might make that are that are wrong or different
in those two countries and the situations they are on.
Mr. Johnson. I think we can learn some lessons, although
the situations are not by any means exactly the same. I think
one of the lessons that we are trying to implement through this
program is that what you need is not just addressing a specific
problem, but you need to introduce systemic reform. And
Colombia did introduce an adversarial justice system where oral
arguments take place as Mexico is doing now, which is important
both because of what Rodger was mentioning about the human
rights issue, but also I think because it gives the public an
opportunity to see justice being done. It is not done by closed
doors with someone signing a document; it is done in an open
courtroom setting. I think that is an important part of that.
The change in the institutional reform in law enforcement
is also an important element of this, and that is part of
Merida as well, although I must hasten to add it is going to be
a bigger challenge in Mexico because it is a federal state, as
Ms. Lowey was mentioning just a moment ago about the various
levels and the complexities of the law enforcement system.
Colombia was able to have a national police service and that
made it simpler, if you will, or more direct to make those
changes.
Merida does have elements of change that will have an
impact on state and local, but it is not focused there. It is
focused at the federal level. Among the things that will have a
state level impact is an ID system for police officers
throughout, up and down, all the way up and down to the beat
cop so that they have a better grasp of who the police officers
are and if there is a bad apple that they don't move from point
A to point B and get rehired.
It also provides for a polygraph training program that
gives at the Federal level the opportunity for a complete
polygraph and complete vetting of their entire police service.
So there is a greater opportunity there to limit the
opportunities for corruption. It won't ensure against it, but
it will make it harder.
And finally, I would say one of the things we are grappling
with here is how to define our strategic objective. I think
that is going to be more and more important.
In Colombia I think when we defined it in terms of
hectarage of coca, with due respect to my predecessors who were
trying to figure out how to deal with this, I think if they had
to do it over again they would look at establishing the rule of
law throughout Colombia and taking control of Colombian
territory. And that has been successful in Colombia, and I
think the GAO report and others have recognized that and we
have as well.
I think we need to look for some sort of strategic
objective in Mexico that we and the Mexicans define together
that is really the measure of merit for this program as well.
Ms. Granger. Thank you. I am on yellow. Let me ask one very
quick question. You were talking sort of like you have a house
and you have a foundation problem and you have to fix the
foundation but the kitchen is on fire. Right now one of the
things that has been mentioned, and we saw there, is the need
for equipment and helicopters. I am very disappointed to say
that my report this morning is that DOD said it will be 18 to
24 months before the Bell 412s are there, the Blackhawks even
longer.
Chairman Lowey said we have this President who is
absolutely determined to do something about this and we want to
help, and we can't get the equipment that we funded. What can
we do about that?
Mr. Johnson. I think the helicopters are the odd man out
here in the equipment. We are moving rapidly to bring forth the
nonintrusive inspection equipment that I understand President
Calderon personally asked you or other members of the
Congressional delegation about when you were there. We have
agreed with the specifications with the Mexicans on about 60
percent of that. The remaining 40 percent we are working on now
and anticipate will be agreed within the next several days.
We anticipate the bulk of this equipment will be delivered
about September. It is highly technical things and they have to
be built to spec.
The helicopters are harder, the FMF process has procedural
issues that are associated with it that we are moving through
it as rapidly as we can. We are in constant contact with our
colleagues at the Department of Defense trying to figure out
where the seams are there and push that together as much as we
can. We are aiming at reducing that number that you just cited,
but I can't tell you what we will achieve.
Ms. Granger. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Excuse me. Before I turn to Ms. Lee, we would
like to work with you on it. If there are FMF problems, perhaps
we can be helpful. We will certainly put language in the bill
if that is helpful, but it is absurd when you have a President
who is really working so hard with a target not to provide the
most obvious assistance immediately.
I would also like to address what you said about the rule
of law, because as you probably recall, when we adjusted the
monies to Colombia we put additional funding in support of the
Fiscalia and we are pleased that it made a difference. And as
we approach next year's bill any advice you can give us
certainly will be accepted with graciousness and appreciation.
Mr. Johnson. One thing, whether we are talking about
Colombia or Mexico or any large country which has an
undeveloped transportation infrastructure or hard to reach
places, it is this helicopter lift that really makes the rule
of law work, moving the security services to where they need to
be so that they can create the umbrella under which rule of law
can take place. So these are not competing objectives, they are
things that work together.
Mrs. Lowey. No, I understand that. But it is pretty
disappointing to me that we just came back, you have been there
many times, and you see the urgency, bodies are being
decapitated, people are being killed and we will get the
helicopters to you, but you'll get them 24 months from now. I
don't understand this at all.
So I think we would like to have a follow-up discussion on
this. If we are really helping them and pouring in all this
money, then where is the product?
Pardon me. Ms. Lee.
Opening Remarks of Ms. Lee
Ms. Lee. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you
for this very important hearing. I want to welcome all of our
witnesses. And I want to say to you, Mr. Garner, it is good to
see you. And thank you again for all of the support you
provided for our U.S. delegation to the International AIDS
Conference last August. Glad you are still there.
Let me just say, first of all, I have been skeptical on
this for years, and I am still not hearing any response in
terms of progress that would make me more optimistic that this
is working.
I was born in El Paso, Texas, and have many friends who
constantly call me about what is taking place in Juarez and El
Paso. So I often think about what is going on with the Merida
Initiative in that area. So I would like to hear some feedback,
if you have any details on that border area.
Secondly, let me just say I recognize that strengthening
the security forces to combat drug cartels is an important
component, but it is only one component of what must be a
comprehensive strategy to combat drug trafficking, drug use,
violence, and lawlessness. I don't see this as making a lot of
sense yet, it doesn't include any meaningful prevention
initiatives such as programs that deal with domestic violence,
that address young people at risk, criminally involved youth.
It doesn't really address job training and job creation, nor
does it address economic alternatives. And I am trying to
figure out how we move forward if in fact this is going to
continue the way it has in the past.
I believe with this kind of money that we are putting into
this initiative it should be more comprehensive and we should
look at it in a totally different perspective. And so I would
like to hear some feedback on why it is not as comprehensive as
it should be and do you believe that it should be. Because from
everything that I have learned about what is taking place
there, it is just not working the way it is structured at this
point.
Mr. Garner. Thank you very much. I enjoyed your visit down
there last summer when you attended the global AIDS conference.
Thank you for coming down.
You are absolutely right, we do have a lot of concerns.
When the Mexican Government and President Bush and President
Calderon got together, actually it was 2 years ago now, in
Merida, there was a lot of focus on the military hardware.
Remember the administration had just taken office, there was a
lot of fear for them to ask the U.S. Government for anything.
And of course there is always the issue of sovereignty. So the
Mexican Government asked primarily for hardware.
I think that the situation has evolved greatly in Mexico
since then, where we have worked together side by side for the
last 2 years. There is a greater comfort level that sovereignty
is not threatened by us working together as two great nations,
the U.S. and Mexico both making investments on both sides of
the border themselves and then the Merida program bringing us
together.
But you are correct, as the economy has deteriorated in
both countries, I think President Calderon initially felt that
his own social programs could address the problems in Mexico,
but he did not anticipate the economic downturn. So certainly
as we look at this program, more and more communities that are
unemployed, the narcos are advertising on the Internet, they
are advertising with slogans and banners across the streets,
good jobs, good benefits, great packages.
So they are really going after those people that are under
employed or unemployed. So certainly the economic opportunities
are a major concern.
Ms. Lee. What do we do? How do we do this right if that is
a component?
Mr. Garner. It has not been a component in the original
request. I think this is an evolving process where each year as
we get a new appropriation the Mexican Government and we will
sit down together, discuss our priorities and look at the
situation as it currently exists.
Ms. Lee. My concern is, is this one of our priorities,
Madam Chair?
Mrs. Lowey. Yes. In fact the language was changed because
of your input and my input, and we will continue to move in
that direction. But I know we made that position very, very
clear. I have felt not just in this last trip, but in other
trips you talk to young girls or boys at a hotel and where do
they learn their English? Not in school. If you have money, you
can go to private school. If you don't have money, you are in
public school and you are not learning English until you get
that job in the hotel.
So because of your input and I know the concern of this
committee, there has been language in the bill since we had the
opportunity to draft the bill and we will continue to work in
that direction, because unless you are going to provide
alternatives, and we did see some alternative development when
we were there, and unless the government is going to really
focus in its schools, and frankly President Calderon talks
about it, but I do think, again repeating myself, if people
have money they are going to private schools, they are not
going to the public schools and that has to change to give
people opportunity.
But one of the key concerns is in the interim it is very
hard for the police forces and others to compete with the kind
of money that the narcotraffickers are spreading around. So
this combination of giving people opportunity, investing in the
schools, investing in economic development, being tough and
strengthening the police and making sure you have a rotation
system so you are not having the corruption is a balance.
Ms. Lee. Also Madam Chair, that raises the question about
the police who are notoriously, as we know, corrupt. So what is
being done to make sure the police forces are cleaned up, in
essence, if in fact we are going to continue to rely on them?
Mr. Johnson. One of the things is what I mentioned a few
minutes ago, the efforts that we have underway through this
initiative to provide the basics of identification for the
police and at the federal level a full vetting and polygraphing
of the police.
My first foreign service assignment, you mentioned you were
born in El Paso, my first foreign service assignment was in
Ciudad Juarez, and I think that is a special place. And I think
it is pretty amazing that given the level of violence in Ciudad
Juarez is how safe El Paso has maintained itself. And that is
hats off to the police and federal agencies there. I think that
is a difficult task.
I have a team on the ground right now who are talking with
the people in the area about what sort of things that we may be
able to do to be of assistance, to be more focused on the
border region, because I think that is an area that we need to
give further thought to, but it is a work in progress at this
point.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Just one other point and then we are
going to turn to Mr. Lewis because I understand he has to
leave. We have 73 million for civil society, 5 million for
education as part of the program, and I would hope as a result
of the reality on the ground when we get your request for
additional monies that we can look at the whole picture and see
if the proportions are appropriate.
Mr. Lewis.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Lewis
Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I really have just
come to listen, but your comments regarding growing concern
about the availability of equipment, a new kind of circumstance
in relation to and along the border are to me a reflection of
this long history of Mexico being very concerned about its
sovereignty. It didn't receive foreign assistance from us
forever until the positive side of the drug challenge is that
suddenly we have a new kind of contact, and maximizing or
taking advantage of those relations and helping them with their
problem with corruption, et cetera, is a very, very important
part of the role we can play here.
Having said that, I would like to, Madam Chairman, work
very closely with you and Ms. Granger relative to this
equipment question, dealing with Bill Young, et cetera. If we
can't get the Department of Defense to recognize that this is
an American security challenge, then there is something wrong.
So could I yield my time to Mr. Kirk? Sure.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Kirk
Mr. Kirk. Thank you. I am very happy to be here and thank
the Chair for this hearing, because I think I am the only
graduate of La Universidad Nacional in Mexico here and came
from State, WHA, Secretary Shannon's operation. I think about
all that we have heard and remember the old Mexican phrase,
``Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United
States.''
We have seen now a real uptick in violence of Mexican drug
gangs brought to the United States. AP just reported a spike in
killings and kidnappings and home invasions in Atlanta and also
some beheadings in Alabama, that they conducted and an uptick
in murder for hire and kidnappings in Phoenix.
I wonder if I could submit for the record, this is DEA's
list of Mexican major drug operations in U.S. Cities. There are
199 of them. I will just pick some random cities, Albany,
Buffalo, New York, Chicago, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, San
Francisco, Dallas, Houston and Helena and Billings, just for
the record.
This is also a map, if I could give that, of all the major
operations, so it is covering all the large population centers.
Also if I could submit for the record, we are seeing a
tremendous increase in the weaponry brought in by these groups.
So for example, there were average 9-millimeter hand guns, but
this model 700P LTR, light tactical rifle, 30 caliber machine
gun, Fabrique Nationale submachine gun, Barrett sniper rifles
brought in by the cartels to the United States. AK-47 assault
rifles, AR-15s, 66 millimeter light antitank weapons, and 40-
millimeter automatic grenade launchers, all brought by the
cartels into the United States.
Mrs. Lowey. Do you have the manufacturer?
Mr. Kirk. Well, for example, the 9 millimeters is an
Italian pistol, the machine gun looks like an American one, the
Fabrique Nationale is a Belgian rifle, the Barrett is made in
the USA, AK-47 is made in Czechoslovakia and Russia, the AR-15
is made in the USA. The antitank weapon looks like a LAW, that
is an American weapon, and the 40-millimeter grenade launcher
also looks American.
Mrs. Lowey. Does that report detail where they were
purchased? I think that would be helpful information.
Mr. Kirk. No.
Mrs. Lowey. The information that I have received from this
committee is that they were purchased in the United States and
the gun law is so weak that the weapons are coming over the
border.
Mr. Kirk. Yes, it could be from a variety of sources. And
so the point that I would like to ask you is where do we go----
Where do we go absent a helicopter end game, because it
looks like now things are going to be quite some time but for
action of this committee. If we are rolling in on cartels in
trucks and cars, what does that operation look like as compared
to rolling in on the leaders in helicopters?
Mr. Johnson. First of all, I think that it helps to bear in
mind that this program is a partnership and the reason the
airframes that were proposed in part were proposed is because
they are fleets that we are adding to what Mexico already has.
So Mexico already has some capability in rotary lift in both
the Bell airframe and the UH-60, and they are using those to
operate now against these cartels.
So they are using trucks where trucks are more appropriate,
but in their outward planning they wish to establish a greater
range and a quicker reaction and the airframes that we would be
providing under this initiative would enable them to do that.
And so I think while they certainly don't have the capability
that they think they need and we think they need to have
success, they do have some capability and they are using it.
Mr. Shannon. Mr. Kirk, you raised a very important point
about the transnational nature of the organized crime in North
America today and the role Mexican cartels are playing in the
United States and their linkage with organized crime in the
U.S. And other illicit activities. And this is going to become
I think a larger focus of this administration as they try to
link up what we are doing in our foreign assistance authority
through Merida and what needs to be done with domestic law
authority in the United States as we are trying to make sure
there are no seams that can be exploited by these cartels.
Although this is a current problem for us and Mexico, it is
not a new problem historically. We faced a similar problem in
the 1920s and 1930s and 1940s when organized crime in the
United States was exploiting seams between municipal
governments and between State governments, and before we had
the kind of judicial tools necessary to attack organized crime
structures. What we are trying to do to a certain extent is
take the lessons we learned when we were fighting organized
crime in the United States and apply them on an international
basis for the first time with a country with whom we have a
border.
Mr. Kirk. Madam Chair, may I just conclude to say we have
seen tremendous violence in Mexico, but even in Iraq we do not
see routine beheadings. We have now seen that in northern
Mexico. That practice has come to the United States. It would
appear that this is a clear and present danger to the security
of major and medium sized U.S. cities, of which the list has
been submitted. And so I think this initiative directly relates
to the security of the people that we represent. And seeing
this kind of practice come across the border is a real call to
action for this committee.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Jackson.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Jackson
Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me begin by
associating myself with the gentleman from Illinois, his
comments, and his thoughts about interrelatedness of the
weapons trafficking and the cartels. We thank the witnesses for
coming today and thank the chairlady for hosting today's
hearings.
The Merida program has always been a very ambitious program
trying to break the impunity of criminal organizations, and I
am sure you all can appreciate that those of us who are
responsible for appropriating taxpayer dollars to fight these
kinds of illicit and criminal organizations, obviously a number
of questions that the American people want answered given the
nature of what Congressman Kirk indicated, are problems that
are now clearly creeping, if you will, across the border.
We have read reports of gun shops on the border States
selling weapons and organizations taking advantage of very
sophisticated weapons that could ultimately be used against our
allies in these countries, but also used against U.S. forces.
So my question at least initially and, Mr. Johnson, Mr.
Shannon, it is probably more appropriately directed at you, is
how can members of this committee be convinced that they are
not providing assistance to individuals or units that have been
previously implicated in corruption? Explain to this committee
how your confidence and the confidence that we have in
appropriating monies for this initiative will not be used and
accepted or somehow diverted or somehow end up in the hands of
these illicit organizations.
Mr. Johnson. I think first of all we have to talk about the
nature of what we are providing. The services and equipment we
are providing are not attractive to be diverted to the hands of
criminals for the most part. It is not intrusive inspection
equipment, it is not something that a cartel will be interested
in using. It is the type of things that a border service agency
working either in a land border or airport or seaport would use
to determine whether goods that are coming into the country in
containers, and so forth, contain illicit traffic. So that is
part of it.
The helicopters as well, while I suppose one could
speculate about helicopters being stolen for a particular
purpose, they are unlikely to fall into the hands of an illicit
trafficker.
The services that we are providing to help in the rule of
law reform and to help in police service reform likewise are
not the kind of divertable goods and services.
In addition to that, we have an extensive program in place
that we have had for some time, because we have had an ongoing
relationship with Mexico in terms of law enforcement support so
that we can vet individuals and units that they work with in
order to comply with the laws that you and your colleagues have
passed that require us to do so, and that program is quite
robust in Mexico.
Tom may want to speak to it a little more. Those are the
procedures and safeguards that we have in place in order to
seek to avoid just what you just described.
Mr. Shannon. More broadly your question I think also refers
to the problem of corruption and institutional mismanagement,
and one of the things we are trying to do through the Merida
Initiative is work with the Mexicans to help them transform
their law enforcement institutions, their public security
institutions, through a variety of mechanisms, including
creating vetting procedures, helping them develop polygraphing
skills, creating inspector generals offices, creating a regular
consultation mechanism between the Mexican state and civil
society organizations in order to get feedback on how law
enforcement institutions and the military are behaving in the
pursuit of their fight against cartels.
This is part of a broader effort by the Mexicans to unify
their national police structure and then use regulatory
mechanisms in law to build benchmarks and standards of practice
at the national level and then translate to the state and local
level.
Mr. Jackson. Mr. Shannon, let me ask the question because I
think you are touching upon it when you raise this question of
corruption, is there any concern that the cartels and these
illicit organizations are also engaged in democratic politics
within some of these countries, that their destabilizing
efforts aren't just in weapons trafficking or drug trafficking
or other illicit activities, but they themselves have
candidates running for office who could very well end up in
charge of U.S. equipment, who could very well turn the other
eye, if you will. That is the nature of corruption, that you
get elected or participate in legitimate processes. But then
you end up being covered for illicit and criminal activity. Any
concern about that at all?
Mr. Shannon. At the national level we have not seen
candidates that we have been able to identify as linked to
cartels.
Mr. Jackson. At the local levels?
Mr. Shannon. At the local levels. We don't track local
elections throughout the region closely, but I think especially
in some of the Central American countries there probably are
local officials who have received funding of one sort of
another from drug trafficking organizations. I would assume
that in areas where the traffickers have attempted to establish
themselves that this is a reality that we are attempting to
deal with.
This is one of the reasons why journalists have been
targeted in Mexico and in Central America. What journalists
have been doing is talking about relationships between cartels
and public figures, and the effort to kill and intimidate
journalists is designed to shut that down and not bring that
kind of transparency to relationships.
We are working with all the countries in the region to
build political financing laws and political financing
transparency requirements that allow us some insight into who
is financing operations or political activities. What organized
crime wants to do is not so much control the state, but to
weaken it to the point that they can go about their daily
business. Unlike political insurgencies, their goal is not to
capture the state and then use the state for a purpose. So the
degree to which they attempt to corrupt or intimidate political
leaders, it is to prevent whatever the entity is, municipality,
state or national government, from functioning in a way that
hurts the business interest of the cartels.
Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Rehberg.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Rehberg
Mr. Rehberg. Mr. Kirk was speaking specifically to the
involvement of the Mexicans coming across the border and
getting within the communities. My question is do you see an
interrelationship with organized crime in America helping in
Mexico and Central America as well? You used a Los Angeles
family as an example. Are they selling the weapons to the
Mexican cartels, are they selling drugs in America that they
get from the Mexican cartels, are they using their own
organization as a friction between the organized crime in
America and the Mexican cartels?
Mr. Johnson. I think in the case of the Mexican cartels I
can't cite you an example of what you describe. What I would
say though is that the Central American gangs are an example of
a criminal organization in the United States which has at the
very least a cooperative relationship, if it is not the same
organization as the ones operating in Central America itself.
And so there is a movement of people, as well as activities
back and forth across the borders.
Mr. Rehberg. And organized crime in America doesn't have a
problem with that, they are just allowing a free flow of
movement across the borders?
Mr. Johnson. Well, I think these Central American gangs, in
at least one case, are alleged to have actually started in the
United States and shipped themselves south, rather than the
other way around. So there is a----
Mr. Rehberg. But there was already organized crime
established in America, and they are either displacing or
supplementing or creating friction.
Mr. Johnson. As far as I am aware, it is a supplement,
rather than a displacement.
Mr. Rehberg. Okay. The second question I have is for Mr.
Shannon and Johnson. And that is, does the Merida Initiative
allow for the opportunity for the Mexican government to use
their military; and do you endorse their use of the military,
as opposed to a domestic police force?
I know we would rather have the public involved. We would
rather have domestic police involved and domestic judges
involved. But there is a constant pressure on us to place
National Guard on our border. We know that they are using their
military in Mexico. Does the Merida Initiative address the
military, how much they can use it, and is that something our
government endorses or encourages or would oppose?
Mr. Shannon. The Merida Initiative is primarily focused on
enhancing the capability of civilian public security
institutions. There is a component of equipment that will go to
the military, both helicopters and some interdiction equipment.
Mr. Rehberg. This is individuals, people that they are
using in Mexico.
Mr. Shannon. Well, I mean, for instance, there will be
helicopters and some interdiction equipment that the military
will use in the pursuit of its relationship with the police
force. But the use of the military at this point in Mexico is
an emergency measure, which highlights the urgency of the
crisis that Mexico is in.
Mr. Rehberg. How many then are they using in this emergency
category? How many infantry?
Mr. Shannon. Well, I believe--for instance, I believe there
is in the area of 9,000 troops in and around Ciudad Juarez now.
The Mexican military has, I think, 45,000.
Mr. Rehberg. Okay. Then the question is, does the American
government endorse that?
Mr. Shannon. This is a sovereign decision of Mexico. We
have not expressed a position on what we consider to be a
sovereign decision and probably a necessary decision at this
point in time.
Mr. Rehberg. Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson. I would just concur with that, that we are
working with Mexico in a very challenging environment. The
military was an organization that had the capability and the
integrity believed to be by the Mexicans to be the most
effective instrument that they had at their disposal now. But,
as Tom was mentioning, the aim they have and we have is to
build sufficient capacity in their civilian police force so
that they will not have to rely on this too long.
Mr. Rehberg. Okay. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Crenshaw.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Crenshaw
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman; and thank you
all for being here today.
Having just met with the President of Mexico and then the
President of Colombia, you get the impression that Mexico is
just beginning this, you know, to kind of stand up and say
enough is enough, kind of what they did in Colombia 10 years
ago. And I guess that is step one. Once you say we are not
going to tolerate it anymore, then things kind of blow up, and
that is why we saw 6,000 people get killed and more and more.
So my question really is about the money that we are going
to spend. Because if you look at Colombia, as somebody pointed
out, we started out with a 3-year program. It has been 10
years. It has been $7 billion. And so the money we are spending
now in Mexico--how significant is that in light of this huge
problem? Number one. Is it being spent the way you anticipated
that it was going to be spent? Do we have some accountability
measures there?
And the long-run question is, as it relates to how
significant it is, what is your view of the long-range aspect?
Are we looking at another Colombia? Is $400 million--is that a
drop in the bucket? Is that a one-time shot? Or is that the
beginning of a long involvement together that we may spend a
whole lot more down the road?
Could you touch on that just in terms of the money aspect?
Mr. Shannon. Let me start and Assistant Secretary Johnson
can address some of the accountability issues.
But the Mexicans are making the major investment here. In
2009, President Calderon's government will spend upwards of $5
billion on security-related issues. And their investment is not
only in money, it is also in blood.
But I would say that the money we are providing is of
catalytic importance. In other words, it is focused on
providing the Mexicans some key training and equipment that
they don't have right now and that they need in short order and
that this is going to allow them to accomplish their goal at a
much more rapid pace than they would have been able to do
previously.
But I also think that it is a symbol of partnership that
also will allow us to transform our relationship with Mexico,
and we are seeing this already in terms of security
cooperation. And, in that regard, what we are going to get out
of the money we are spending in the short- to mid-term is a
greater degree of security cooperation with Mexico as we
address a transnational problem, which is already affecting us
here in the United States. And so we will not only be helping
Mexico with this funding, but we will also be helping ourselves
in a significant way and laying a foundation of cooperation
that is going to pay large dividends in the future.
The Merida Initiative, as initially envisioned, was a 3-
year program. We are going to work hard with all of you to meet
our commitment to make this 3-year program what we thought it
was and make sure it is successful. But then, we are going to
have to sit down with the Mexicans and determine what comes
next. Because 3 years, I think, will be a good start and a good
way to get the Mexicans along over a critical security hump,
but after that it is really going to be up to the Mexicans to
come back and indicate to us what else they might need in terms
of help from the United States.
Mr. Crenshaw. Do you have an example of an early success?
As you talk about this, is there anything you can point to that
this is what we set out to do? Is it too early to tell, or this
is something that's really working?
Mr. Johnson. The things that we have done so far are
describing things of inputs, if you will, rather than outputs
or outcomes. We put in a server farm, which is not a visible
police thing, but it is entirely necessary so that their new
program to track evidence and police operations all the way
from the scene of the crime through the Court system can
actually work. That was done in December.
We are working now finalizing--we finalized one set of
specifications. We are finalizing a second set over the next
couple of weeks for this nonintrusive inspection equipment.
Then the contracting process will take place.
We anticipate this equipment will be on the ground around
September. It is highly technical gadgetry. You have to build
it from scratch. Those sort of the step-by-step things are
happening.
And we have put in place--in terms of accountability, what
we have concentrated on are the kinds of thing related to
internal controls and decision making: Accountability for
equipment, on-site inspection to make sure that it is being
used for the purpose for which it was provided. Those sorts of
things are what we are working on now.
We are working with the Mexicans to try to describe, if you
will, a strategic outcome; and we haven't really come up with
what I am comfortable with yet to come to you and say if we do
this we will have succeeded. And I think that's where we need
to concentrate our efforts right now in terms of defending what
we are requesting the American people to provide here.
But we think it is very much in their interest to be
supportive of Mexico. Exactly what we want to have at the end
of the program I think we are still struggling to define
clearly.
Mr. Shannon. But in terms of collaboration and the powerful
symbol that Merida is in Mexico, we are seeing the Mexicans
start to take apart some key drug trafficking organizations;
and we are also seeing in their willingness to extradite people
to the United States, a very important measure of success for
us. And I think that this is going to become more evident with
time.
In fact, if we had our colleagues from DEA or FBI or ATF
here, I think they would describe a relationship with Mexican
law enforcement officials that is unprecedented in terms of its
openness, the fluidity of flow of information, and the degree
to which they work together.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Before I turn to the next panel, I have one additional
closing question; and I know Ms. Granger did as well.
For clarification, in 1997, the United States signed but
never ratified the InterAmerican Convention Against Illicit
Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition,
Explosives, and Other Related Materials, CIFTA.
In 2005, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and
Explosives, ATF, launched its Southwest Border Initiative to
attack the firearm trafficking infrastructure of cross-border
criminal organizations.
Congressional Quarterly's cover story for this week relates
that Mexican cartels have taken advantage of openings in U.S.
gun control laws to stock up on military grade assault rifles,
grenade launchers, bazookas, and even heavy machine guns,
smuggling them back into Mexico. And when we met with President
Calderon he spoke of the flow of weapons coming from the United
States into Mexico. I told him I agree with him about the
problem of illegal movement of weapons from the United States
to Mexico and have written to President Obama that the ban on
assault weapons must be enforced.
So, whoever wants to respond, to what extent are arms
trafficked from the United States into Mexico and then further
trafficked to Central America? What cooperation exists between
Central American, Mexican, and the United States officials to
address this problem? How is the Merida program addressing this
issue?
Is the United States in compliance with all parts of the
convention against the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking
in firearms, ammunition, explosives and other related
materials? What are we doing to fully comply with CIFTA? Will
the President press the Senate to ratify this treaty? And what
is the President's time line for ratification of CIFTA?
You can answer part or all of those questions.
Mr. Shannon. I will talk about CIFTA. I will leave arms
trafficking and our e-trace activities to Assistant Secretary
Johnson.
But, in regard to CIFTA, we believe we are in compliance
with CIFTA. We have signed CIFTA. CIFTA has been sent to the
Hill. It has not been placed on a priority list yet for
ratification. We understand the importance of CIFTA. We have
heard the Congress loud and clear. The administration is in the
process of reviewing CIFTA with an eye to being able to say
clearly to the Senate that it is time to ratify.
Mrs. Lowey. Secretary Johnson.
Mr. Johnson. On the arms trafficking issue, it is clear
that a significant portion of the arms that are used by the
cartels and other criminal organizations in Mexico originate in
the United States. I think that the indictment about a week ago
of an arms trafficker who was seemingly operating legitimately
but clearly not, based on the affidavit that was issued, is a
significant move; and it illustrates what can be done within
our legal system in order to deter activities by individuals
who would assist these organizations and use legitimate
commerce to do so.
In terms of the work that we are doing within Merida and
its companion, one of them is in Mexico last year we were able
to establish e-trace facilities at all of our consulates, as
well as a long-standing one at the embassy, giving Mexican law
enforcement an opportunity to use those facilities in order to
trace weapons.
We also have a program which is outside of Merida, because
it is a domestic program that is changing, or is providing
programming so that this system can be used with Spanish name
conventions. That program should be in place before the end of
this calendar year.
As part of that, and within Merida, we are providing that
opportunity for all of the states of Central America to have
access to this program as well so that they can trace weapons;
and I think the combination of our police agencies working
together holds the best promise for actually doing something
about this problem and addressing the criminals that are
abusing the system.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Ms. Granger.
Ms. Granger. Just briefly--and thank you, Madam Chairwoman,
for this.
President Calderon has asked for our help, and he is--as we
know in this room, this is an all-out war on the drug cartels.
He has got 2\1/2\ years. He is through in January of 2012. The
question was asked, you know, what--after 3 years, what--kind
of give us a long term. This is Mexico, our neighbor. And there
is no doubt of what Mr. Kirk was saying, the threat to our
cities and where we are. So I just have great concern about the
urgency, for instance, you know, when there's that length of
time.
When we were on the trip, what we heard over and over is
equipment. I am just going to use that as the example. That is
not the whole answer, of course. But whatever we need to give
that helps, we need to have an urgency, too, that you can't
deny when you just turn on the television every day or read the
newspaper. So I would encourage you to let us help on that. But
understand that 3 years is certainly not the end of this.
Mrs. Lowey. I want to thank Ms. Granger for her final
comments and thank the panel for appearing before us.
It was clear, as you know, in our activities in Mexico,
meeting with the President, seeing some of the programs, the
urgency was palpable. I mean, this is really a problem not just
for Mexico but the United States of America.
Frankly, I grew up in government hearing about hydroponic
lettuce being grown. And when we had a meeting, the cartels are
obviously having some trouble at the border, and so they're
moving in and even growing products like marijuana,
hydroponically, forgetting about the border. They are just
moving right in. So we share the sense of urgency.
It is a bipartisan commitment, and we hope that this new
administration will be evaluating the programs and presenting
proposals to improve the program, change the program, if, in
fact, that is what you conclude, sooner rather than later so we
can move on it.
And, again, I thank the panel for your presentations. We
look forward to continuing the dialog.
Thank you. We will stand in recess for a moment while the
next panel comes up.
[Recess.]
Tuesday, March 10, 2009.
THE MERIDA INITIATIVE
WITNESSES
LISA HAUGAARD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE LATIN AMERICAN WORKING GROUP
JOY OLSON, DIRECTOR OF THE WASHINGTON OFFICE OF LATIN AMERICA
ANA PAULA HERNANDEZ, GENERAL DIRECTOR OF THE COLECTIVO POR UNA POLITICA
INTEGRAL HACIA LAS DROGAS (CUPIHD)
Mrs. Lowey. The subcommittee will come to order, and I
thank you for being here today.
I would like to welcome our second panel: Ms. Lisa
Haugaard, Executive Director of the Latin American Working
Group; Ms. Ana Paula Hernandez, who is a consultant on human
rights and drug policy; and Ms. Joy Olson, Executive Director
of the Washington office on Latin America.
I want to alert you to the fact that your written statement
will be placed in the record; and if you would like to
summarize, we certainly look forward to having a good dialogue
with you. Thank you very much.
Why don't we begin with Ms. Lisa Haugaard.
Opening Statement of Ms. Haugaard
Ms. Haugaard. Thank you so much, Chairwoman Lowey and
Ranking Member Granger and other members of the subcommittee,
for the opportunity to share perspective on this important
issue.
As all of you have said this morning, it is very important
for the United States to respond to the explosion of drug-
related violence in Mexico. But it must happen in a strategic
and careful way that addresses the underlying causes. I am
going to outline some ways in which the United States should
shoulder its own burden of responsibilities for the violence
and then talk about ways in which the United States can make
sure as it goes forward that its aid and policies protect human
rights.
The subcommittee is tasked with responding to damage in
Latin America caused by the illicit drug trade, but the main
solutions aren't in foreign policy but in domestic policy. Each
year, barely one-fifth of the Americans in need of treatment
for drug abuse receive it. Expanding access to high-quality
treatment would be the best single contribution the United
States could make to this problem of drug-related violence in
Latin America. Any aid package, however perfectly designed,
will not solve the problem without that; and we are going to be
back in this hearing room in another 5 years talking about the
shift to another area of Latin America. So we need to really do
something more about the problem of finding an effective and
humane public health solution to this problem of drugs and
drug-related violence.
I was very pleased to hear all of the talk this morning
about the problem about arms and the contribution of the arms
flow from the United States to Mexico. That is the piece of the
problem that we can deal with. The solution to these problems
are not easy, but they are pretty well defined in terms of
enforcing the ban on importing assault weapons and
strengthening the ATF's inspection capabilities in the border
region in particular, for example.
The second point I would like to make is that, as the
United States goes forward, it should not support and encourage
a Mexican military role in domestic law enforcement,
particularly an open-ended one, and should encourage the
Mexican government to define its plan to withdraw the military
eventually from public security and including its plans for
forming strength in the civilian police force. And USAID should
really be conceived of as helping to support this transition,
rather than reinforcing this role.
We are seeing that the growing role of the Mexican military
in public security is resulting in increased human rights
complaints against the civilian population. Complaints rose,
for example, from 182 in 2006 to 631 in 2008. If you look at
the State Department's recent human rights report you can see
that there are no less than five incidents listed where
soldiers killed civilians at checkpoints just in 2008, and
these crimes are generally not effectively prosecuted.
We know the subcommittee has been very sensitive to this
issue, and we will really appreciate that. We are concerned
still that there may be assistance through Defense Department
authorities that don't take this adequately into consideration.
Finally, I would like to talk a little bit about some
lessons. You had mentioned the question of the Colombia
experience, and I just want to say some lessons from the
Colombia experience for Mexico. And this is not to say that the
two situations are comparable but, rather, there are some ways
in which the U.S. government responds to these kinds of major
aid packages and major aid relationships that could help us as
we go forward.
The first lesson is that human rights training is good but
not enough. And U.S. government tends to have the concept that
if you add human rights training for security forces, that will
solve the problem. And that--we saw that going forward with
Plan Colombia; and yet rights groups have documented growing
violations by the Colombian Army, particularly killings of
civilians, in which soldiers were seen taking civilians dressed
in civilian clothing, they would later show up dead dressed in
guerrilla outfits, and they were claimed by the army as killed
in combat. And these really spiraled up.
Why did this happen with all of this human rights training
and all of these good intentions? There is nothing wrong with
the training. The training is good. But it failed to address
certain structural issues.
For example, there is a body count mentality where officers
were--soldiers were rewarded for the number of people killed.
And that, as well as the lack of investigation and prosecution
of such crimes, resulted in this increase. Basically, no amount
of human rights training can work when a justice system fails
to investigate and prosecute crimes committed by security
forces.
Second lesson, very briefly, is just that judicial
assistance is very good. We are very, very pleased to see the
attention to judicial assistance and training in this package.
But, as you move forward, there is kind of a standard package
that DOJ provides, the transition to the adversarial justice
system, all very good. And prosecutorial training. But unless
you have an analysis of why there's still impunity in each
judicial agency, you still can give all this training and it
won't result in what you want. So you need to pay attention to
that.
And the final lesson is that, for human rights to improve,
diplomacy and not just aid and training is the answer. With
these kinds of major aid packages, what we have seen is that
there is this natural human tendency to just--for our officials
to really think of the aid recipients, the country, not just as
a partner but as we are now kind of one entity; and that can
result in not pushing on some important human rights issues.
As this major aid package moves forward, it is really
important for the U.S. government to maintain a little daylight
between itself and its partner. And this is just--a healthy
relationship is, you know, sometimes you have to say to each
other, you know, well, you have a little flaw. It is important
to maintain that kind of relationship.
And what we found in the Colombia experience, what was very
important was the existence of human rights language in the
package and the willingness of Members of Congress,
particularly of this subcommittee and its Senate counterparts,
to look at that language and encourage the State Department to
take that seriously. Without that, frankly, I don't think we
would have had access as human rights groups to the State
Department to encourage them to talk to their Colombian
counterparts and to try to address this issue, for example, of
civilian killings by the army.
So, as you move forward, it is very important to really
think about maintaining that little bit of distance. That is
helpful in order to encourage the partner, in this case,
particularly, the Mexican government, to really overcome
problems of impunity.
And, finally, just as the United States needs to preserve a
little objectivity in relationship to recipient governments in
these large-scale aid programs, it is also important for the
Mexican government, in particular, to continue to raise its
concerns with us about our failure, if it still is, to reduce
demand for illicit drugs, to deal with the flow of arms, and to
achieve immigration reform and neighborly border solutions,
which brings me back to the first point, which is that, in this
relationship going forward between the United States and
Mexico, if the two countries are to resolve their joint
problems, there needs to be an objective dialogue that is this
two-way street.
Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
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Mrs. Lowey. Ms. Hernandez.
Opening Statement of Ms. Hernandez
Ms. Hernandez. Thank you very much for the opportunity,
Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Granger and other
distinguished members of the committee.
I have been working in the promotion and defense of human
rights in Mexico for over 12 years, and I want to focus my
testimony on speaking about the current situation in Mexico as
a result of the war on drugs but from the perspective of civil
society.
I want to talk about militarization, and militarization of
public security and the use of the army as a means to fight the
war against drugs has been a policy of the Mexican government
since the 1980s. Yet, clearly, the use of the military has
never been as evident or as intense as with President
Calderon's administration.
Direct participation of the military in public security is
increasing on all levels of government, and military presence
has become more and more common in principal cities in Mexico.
In states like Guerrero, where I lived for 4 years, the
presence of the military is not only in the cities but also in
the rural and indigenous communities where poppy and marijuana
are cultivated. This is a problem that is rarely talked about
in Mexico, where the growers of illicit crops are forgotten in
the drug war and there is not even talk of alternative
development as occurs in other countries like Colombia or
Bolivia.
Instead of fighting the structural causes of the situation,
recognizing its social and economic implications and
formulating an integral development plan for the community, the
government has continued to use the military as a way to
manually eradicate illicit crops. The situation with drug
cultivation in Mexico exemplifies, for me, the way the Mexican
government has decided to tackle the entire war on drugs: above
all, short-term, often dramatic actions with immediate but very
limited impact and not sufficient long-term strategic actions
that truly combat the structural causes of the situation Mexico
faces today: poverty, corruption, impunity, and weak
institutions.
The use of the military has been presented by the
government as a temporary measure that is needed due to the
uncontrollable violence related to organized crime and that
civilian institutions have proven incapable of dealing with the
problem in an effective manner. With this we turn once more to
the structural causes: clearly, a police force on all levels
that is extremely corrupt and that has been profoundly
infiltrated by organized crime, with almost no levels of
confidence on behalf of citizens.
To illustrate this, I want to refer to a civil society
organization operating in municipalities in the mountain region
of Guerrero, one of the poorest in all of Mexico, called the
Civil Police Monitor that promotes transparency through rule of
law and human rights within regional police forces.
In its first year, in 2008, the Civil Police Monitor
documented 117 cases of abuse committed by municipal police
forces and judicial police, particularly arbitrary detention
and extortion. At the same time, it received complaints by
police recording the fact that they didn't have the most basic
equipment, such as boots and ammunition, that they worked
shifts of over 24 hours, they didn't have life insurance, that
they were often not paid their salaries, which is less than
$300 a month in this region. With these conditions, can we be
surprised that the municipal police forces are so easily
corruptible and infiltrated by organized crime?
Lack of accountability, transparency, internal and external
controls, and human rights abuses characterize the vast
majority of police forces in the country. Lack of adequate
training in crucial matters such as the use of force, few
material and human resources, poor incentives, and low salaries
are the police force's other characteristics. The police
reforms in Mexico that have taken place and that have been very
positive have been focused almost all on the Federal level,
leaving the state and municipal police forces almost untouched,
in spite of the fact that these are the ones that are directly
in contact with the majority of the population.
If the use of the army is a temporary measure, the only
answer is a profound democratic reform of the police force
which is the civil institution in charge of public security.
Yet this reform on all levels, particularly the state and
municipal level, is not occurring sufficiently.
There are concrete reasons why numerous international human
rights protection mechanisms have clearly stated that the
military should not be in charge of public security tasks. They
are trained in the doctrine of war and confrontation, not of
collaboration and work with the community. For this reason, as
Lisa just pointed out, the risk for abuse of power and human
rights violations is extremely high; and that is precisely what
has occurred.
When military personnel are accused of human rights
violations, the military courts apply article 57 of the
Military Justice Code in order to keep cases involving their
members within their jurisdiction. Although the Mexican Army
may not be legally immune, military jurisdiction in practice is
a de facto amnesty law that guarantees impunity for military
personnel who violate the fundamental rights of the population.
It is imperative that Mexico abolish its military
jurisdiction and puts an end to impunity in cases of human
rights violations committed by members of the army. This is
even more urgent if the army will continue to be on the streets
and within communities in many states as part of this temporary
or urgent measure in fighting the drug war.
The Merida Initiative contemplates that 15 percent of the
funds are conditioned to the progress shown by the Mexican
government in certain key areas of human rights: transparency
and accountability within the police force, consultations with
civil society, investigations and prosecutions of security
forces accused of abuse, and enforcement of Mexican law
prohibiting the use of testimony obtained through torture.
These are, in my opinion, the minimal things that Mexico should
be held accountable for; and it is of extreme importance that
the mechanism to monitor their fulfillment is clear and
effective.
Many of the things contemplated in the Merida Initiative,
such as equipment and technology we have talked about a lot
this morning are very important. Yet, as has also been very
much talked about, they contribute to short-term immediate
actions but not to long-term structural reform. It is important
to emphasize that this war on drugs, fight against organized
crime, or however we choose to call it, is destined for failure
unless it considers these long-term actions to strengthen
Mexican civilian institutions on all levels, not just the
Federal level.
And it must be insured that this long-term reform agenda is
not lost in the response to immediate crisis. This is not a
battle that will be won in 4, 2, 6 years and clearly not within
one Presidential administration; and it is important that clear
benchmarks for short, medium, and long-term change be
established in order to know if we are moving forward or
backward.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
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Mrs. Lowey. Ms. Olson.
Opening Statement of Ms. Olson
Ms. Olson. Thank you, Chairwoman Lowey. It is a pleasure to
be here. And thank you, Ms. Granger, as well. We appreciate the
opportunity to present this morning, but we also appreciate
your work and work with your staff.
And I wanted to say to Representative Kirk that I thought I
was going to be the only graduate of the UNAM here. I am so
glad to hear that there is another.
WOLA has followed the development of the Merida Initiative
and consulted extensively with colleagues in Mexico with a
variety of expertise, including human rights, constitutional
law, judicial reform, policing and the military.
We believe that the U.S. can most effectively address drug
trafficking and violence in Mexico in three ways: First, by
launching an ambitious effort to reduce drug demand at home,
particularly by providing access to high-quality drug
treatment; second, by combating the flow of arms and illicit
drug profits from the U.S. back into Mexico; and, third, by
supporting institutional reforms in Mexico's police and
judicial systems.
My testimony will focus on this last point, where we think
that the resources that are appropriated by this subcommittee
might have the most impact.
Since the first tranche of the money was just released, it
is too soon to assess impact. However, WOLA is concerned about
imbalances in the assistance package, which we believe focuses
too heavily on hardware and equipment and not enough on support
for judicial and police reform.
Other witnesses have talked about the serious violence
taking place in Mexico. Suffice it for me to say that President
Calderon has enacted a series of initiatives to strengthen
public safety institutions by professionalizing and purging the
police and by providing financial support to over 150
municipalities most affected by crime and violence.
Nevertheless, the predominant element of Mexico's security
strategy continues to be large-scale counterdrug operations.
The military dominates these operations with the
participation of approximately 45,000 troops. That is the
number of troops that are involved in the drug war, not the
total number of troops in the Mexican Army. And the military is
increasingly involved in other public security tasks.
Mexico's counterdrug efforts are hampered by abuse,
corruption, lack of transparency, all to varying degrees in
police, judiciary and the military, and torture is still a
problem. But Mexico didn't get to this place overnight; and the
tactics being used to confront the drug trade--purging the
police, bringing in the military--are not new either. Efforts
to purge the police go back at least to the 1980s. And June of
2005 saw the start of something called Operation Safe Mexico,
which included the deployment of large number of troops to
Mexican cities, as well as--much similar to what we are seeing
today.
History is important here because past efforts to purge
Mexico's police and create new security agencies have all
failed to put in place the structural reforms needed to insure
police accountability and the continual ferreting out of
corruption. Follow-through is everything. They have also
generated a serious lack of faith in the police and attempts at
police reform.
Military deployments have not provided lasting solutions
either and have produced more human rights abuses. The military
can occupy a city, but after a few months they go back to the
barracks, and the fundamental dynamics have not changed.
U.S. policymakers should explore ways for the United States
to support and strengthen Mexico's effort to evaluate police
performance at the federal, state and local levels. One such
mechanism, the National Police Registry, which I understand is
still not fully functional--one is the police registry. Without
a complete registry, there is no way to do thorough background
checks and keep corrupt officials and human rights abusers out
of the police. A functioning registry would be a minimal
benchmark for assessing institutional reform.
There is a real opportunity for the U.S. to contribute to
lasting reforms in the justice system. Historic constitutional
reforms were just approved in 2008. These represent a
procedural revolution in Mexico, including oral trials and
reducing the likelihood of testimony obtained through torture
of being used. This reform, however, is not a quick fix. The
government estimates that it will take 8 years to fully
implement. But history tells us that quick fixes don't work and
that the U.S. needs to invest long term.
I know that the human rights language in the Merida
Initiative has been controversial, but it is important and
appropriate. Mexico's police and justice institutions are known
for corruption, and the majority of human rights violations are
committed by state and local police. There has also been a
dramatic rise in the report of cases against the military.
Because most of the human rights abuses committed by the
military and against civilians are remitted to military
jurisdiction, those responsible are seldom punished.
Merida engages these institutions, policing and justice
institutions--the police and the military, excuse me--so, Ojo,
as they say in Spanish, or watch out, because you are giving
assistance to unreformed and untransparent security forces. The
U.S., especially in Latin America, has a bad track record of
providing assistance to unreformed security forces that in turn
commit human rights abuses in which the U.S. is implicated.
The 15 percent withholding that Congress has required until
the State Department reports that Mexico is taking action on
human rights issues is completely appropriate and important.
There is another problem with the structure of the Merida
Initiative that should be addressed. It is one-sided. Although
the initiative was pitched as cooperation between the two
countries, it contains no additional commitments or funds for
the U.S. side of the border. Many studies have shown that
treatment for heavy drug users is by far the most cost-
effective way to reduce problem drug use, and yet these
programs are chronically underfunded. Any next stage for the
Merida Initiative should contain a truly binational plan.
One last concern. While the foreign ops process is funding
the Merida Initiative, the Defense Department also has the
authority to provide foreign military training for counterdrug
purposes; and, last year, Mexico was added to the Defense
Department's authority to provide equipment as well. Congress
needs to consider and monitor all sides of the U.S. counterdrug
effort, not just the Merida Initiative funded through this
committee.
In conclusion, success in Mexico's counterdrug effort will
not hinge upon helicopters or ion scanners. What the U.S.
decides to fund through the Merida Initiative signals what we
think is important. Strong, effective rights respecting
institutions and rule of law have the best chance of making a
difference; and that is where the limited U.S. dollars should
be spent.
Thank you.
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Mrs. Lowey. Well, thank you very much for your testimony,
and I hope this will be the beginning of a dialogue, because
the information you have shared has been invaluable. The key
here is how do you provide a balance between security and
accountability, and this is what we have tried to do in our
bill, and I appreciate your comments.
I have found, especially after our visiting there, that it
is very difficult to achieve that balance. Of course, it is
early, as you mentioned. But achieving the balance between
trying to address the security objectives of breaking the
cartels, simultaneously ensuring that security forces do not
overstep and abuse the very population that they are trying to
protect is difficult; and it is clear that all three of you
don't think that Mexico has achieved that balance.
You have mentioned various areas where you think they can
do better, so I am not going to ask you that again. And you
have also made suggestions about how we can do better to help
Mexico.
We know that the Merida Initiative intended to break the
power and impunity of criminal organizations; assist the
governments of Mexico and Central America in strengthening
border, air, and maritime controls from the Southwest border of
the United States to Panama; improve the capacity of the
justice systems in the region to conduct investigations and
prosecutions; implement the rule of law; protect human rights;
curtail gang activity in Mexico and Central America; diminish
the demand for drugs in the region.
These are laudable goals. I think the other panel and you
could all agree on those goals. It is difficult and probably
too early to evaluate what has actually been accomplished by
the Merida program, whether it is having the desired impact.
I have been in the Congress for 20 years. Drug use in the
United States is not a new challenge, exactly. I also serve on
the committee that funds labor, health, human services, and
education. We have been talking about increasing money to stop
the demand for a very long time. We know, whether it is that
committee or this initiative, we are not putting enough money
into it; and so I certainly respect that suggestion. Hopefully,
we will be more successful.
In terms of judicial and police reform, we have addressed
that in the bill; and I think you mentioned that. And you also
mentioned that efforts to purge the police go way back. We know
we need structural reform in the police.
We know we have to address poverty. What I find difficult--
and perhaps you can comment--to deal with now, when we were
there and talking to President Calderon and others, because of
the tremendous differences in salaries between the police and
the narcotraffickers, they have even tried to keep a rotation
in the police. But then it is hard to develop professionalism
if they come in, and then they go out and they join a cartel.
I appreciate your testimony. You have addressed so many of
the issues. But keeping the corrupt officials out of the police
has been going on in Mexico for as far back as I have been
going to Mexico, and this issue of competing with the
narcotraffickers on salary is really very difficult. So on all
the other issues I think we just have to do more of the same,
but on that issue we are never going to match their salaries.
And I wonder if you have any suggestions. Do you agree with
the rotation policy? Then you don't get the professionalism. If
they are there too long, the President is concerned that
corruption is certainly alive and well. How do you deal with
that? Now. I mean, you are not going to solve the poverty issue
overnight. We all know we have to do that. We have to reform
the judicial system. We know that. How do you deal with those
things now while you are dealing with all the other goals,
protecting the population?
Ms. Olson. I start with the fact that this has been going
on for a long time, the fundamental problem of corruption and
the fact that clearly the narcos have more money than the cop
on the street, but that is true of almost any place in the drug
chain. So there are other problems. I mean, salaries are one
thing. Salaries need to be raised definitely. But that is not
the only component.
I think what Mexico has failed to do in past police reforms
is follow through. There is an initial reform. There is an
initial vetting. People are pulled out. Sometimes the military
are brought in to temporarily take on roles while the police
are supposed to be built up again. Often the military will come
in, but that second stage of building up the local police
capacity actually doesn't happen before the military leaves
again.
So, for me, the big thing on police reform is that it is
continual, that it is consistent, and that there is follow-
through.
Mrs. Lowey. Does the polygraph work?
Ms. Olson. Well, you know polygraphs are controversial.
Mrs. Lowey. I know.
Ms. Olson. They are controversial there. They are
controversial here. I think polygraphs are a component. It is
one thing that can be used, and it shouldn't be the only thing.
So as you go about vetting police forces there are other
things you can do, you know, continual review of taxes and
financing of local cops. There are strategies that are being
put in place and being put in place much more at the federal
level than at the state and local level, and where you see the
biggest problems with corruption are at the state and local
level. So I think that part of the challenge for Calderon right
now is that he has made some, I think, really good steps on the
federal level with police reform. How that filters down to the
state and local level is really one of the main challenges.
Ms. Hernandez. I would agree clearly with everything that
Joy has said; and I think it is about also having reforms on
this level, particularly the municipal level which is so, you
know, where is the greatest contact with both the population
but also with the drug traffickers in certain degrees. And I
think there are minimal things that can start to be done. It is
such a huge problem. It is not something that is going to be
tackled in one year or in one administration.
But I think if at least there are better conditions for the
police, I mean, if their rights are also respected--and this is
a little bit of the example that I referred to. You know, they
have violation of their labor rights if they are also within a
very corrupt system. If they are also extorted by their own
bosses within that chain, then if you don't start combating
those things then there is no possibility to combat the big
things.
So it is about raising salaries, but it is also taking into
consideration what they have to say.
You know, we talk a lot about police reform, but I think it
is a democratic police reform with the police themselves taking
into account their needs and at least starting to improve those
things on those levels, a very local level, I think, which is
something that is almost forgotten many times. And you have got
many, many very poor municipalities that were still working
with dirt floors, with thin-sheet ceilings, you know, where the
police don't have life insurance. I mean, these are basic
things that I think you can start changing and that are going
to make a difference. They are not going to solve the full
problem, but they are going to start building up, I think,
progressive solutions.
Mrs. Lowey. Well, you probably know that we added $5
million for a police literacy program. It is probably too early
to make them literate at this point, but, hopefully, it will
help.
Why don't we just take another short comment--my red light
is on--if you have one. Otherwise, I will turn to Ms. Granger.
Ms. Haugaard. Well, just one reform that is important is
this establishing of a police registry so that if someone is
fired by the municipal police, they don't get rehired by the
federal or whatever.
Mrs. Lowey. You know, that is in the bill as well.
Ms. Haugaard. That is in the bill, and it is very important
to monitor that and make sure that that moves forward. Because
that is an agreed-upon reform that is already going forward
that could make a difference. But you really need to keep your
eye on that.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Ms. Granger.
Ms. Granger. Thank you.
Mine is a fairly short question, I think, but you talked
just briefly about human rights training. Is there human rights
training for the Mexican police as well as the Mexican
military? And give me an idea of what it is like.
Ms. Haugaard. Perhaps Ana Paula can talk more about what is
actually taking place.
In the case of how the United States has done it in other
countries, there is a standardized human rights training about,
you know, the laws of war and the laws of military and a
democratic society; and it is a very standardized training. It
is good. There are no problems with it. It can be helpful. But
if you don't couple it with making sure that if you actually
have a police or a military official who violates human rights
and if they never get caught, it doesn't matter how many good,
wonderful courses they go to. So the point is really that it
has to be coupled but not that this isn't useful in and of
itself.
Do you want to go into a little bit more about the kind of
training?
Ms. Hernandez. I wouldn't have an answer of exactly the
kinds of training. For example, there is a recent Secretariat
created within the Secretariat of Defense of Human Rights. And
I mean those are important things. But, clearly, if you have
got this contribution where military personnel that commit
violations cannot be held accountable, you have got the
military jurisdiction, I mean, how can you have--I mean, what
is the point of the training if they know that if they commit
violations they won't be held accountable?
And these were recent recommendations made to the Mexican
state before the Human Rights Council. They just went through
the universal periodic review, and all the recommendations that
they have not accepted yet have to do with military
jurisdiction. And I think that is a key--that would be a key
political, you know, sign of political will of really taking
serious human rights issue within the military if this started
to change.
Ms. Granger. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Rothman.
Mr. Rothman. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
I have appreciated the testimony today, and I just want to
put it in context perhaps for myself. I thought I heard someone
say most human rights violations are occurring by the police
and the army. Is that including the drug cartels?
Ms. Olson. The understanding of human rights in the context
of international law is that human rights are crimes against
individuals committed by the state and that the horrendous
things the drug traffickers are doing are crimes. So they are
not defined as human rights violations because of, you know,
the legal framework.
Mr. Rothman. Okay, so the comment in no way minimized the
horror and the magnitude of the violence and slaughter and
torture and maiming, decapitation, all those things that are
being conducted by the drug cartels.
Again, I appreciated your testimony; and I think that the
chairwoman and other members of the committee have struggled
and are trying to incorporate in our bill ways to address your
concerns.
I read a statistic that 90 to 95 percent of the guns used
in Mexico's drug violence come from the United States and a
very large number of high-caliber automatic weapons, assault
weapons.
Any thoughts on how the U.S.'s efforts to stop that flow
are going?
Ms. Haugaard. That figure comes from the ATF, I believe;
and it isn't going very well, right now. One of the issues has
been that the import or the ban on importing assault weapons in
the United States has not been enforced, and that coincides a
bit with the period of really expansion of the violence in
Mexico. So that is an issue.
Mr. Rothman. Is it your belief then that there are
sufficient laws on the U.S. books to prevent the export of
assault weapons across the border into Mexico?
Ms. Haugaard. Enforcing that existing ban would be helpful.
That doesn't solve all the problems, however. It would also be
important to deal with the question of the sale of assault
weapons within the United States, and it would be very
important to strengthen ATF resources.
Again, this is a question more of enforcing existing laws.
So that basically what is happening is that the drug cartels
are recruiting Americans to go and buy weapons.
Mr. Rothman. Straw purchases.
Ms. Haugaard. Yeah, just a few at a time at gun shows or
wherever, and the regulations are not sufficiently enforced.
There also aren't adequate regulations on ammunition, on sale
of ammunition, which is another issue, simply enforcing what is
already on the books.
But I think you would also have to look at what more could
be done in order to really put a stop to this. But it is a very
serious issue, and I don't think enough is being done right
now, yet.
Mr. Rothman. And how would you judge, if you have an
opinion, the coordination amongst Department of Homeland
Security, Department of Defense, and all the other U.S.
agencies that are now involved, DEA and national intelligence
services? Do you have an opinion on how that coordination is
going in terms of this Merida Initiative?
Ms. Haugaard. I don't think I could speak to that.
Ms. Olson. I don't think I can answer that.
The one aspect of the Merida Initiative that I have looked
at the interagency process on has been related to youth gang
violence. And, to be honest, the interagency process is not
very effective; and it needs work.
Mr. Rothman. How is it falling down?
Ms. Olson. Turf disputes and who is going to do what and
who is responsible for what, and I think it ended up with the
overall program not being as effective as it could be.
Mr. Rothman. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you very much.
I just wanted to follow up with one last question. What
type of support should we be providing to civil watchdog
groups, and what sort of protection does Mexico make available
to citizens who claim they have been abused or mistreated by
law enforcement and security forces? And what more should
Mexico be doing?
Ms. Olson. I am going to let Ana Paula address the issue of
what kind of protection is provided, because I am not sure on
that.
What I do know is that, as we have looked at witness
protection issues in Mexico, the system is really weak and
needs strengthening; and I think that the farther we get into
really going after organized crime the more important the
witness protection program becomes. I think that is one
important place where the committee could focus.
Mrs. Lowey. And perhaps you can give us some information,
who in the Mexican government works well with you? We have made
many changes in the bill, as you know, based upon the input you
have given us and others. Who else should we be empowering?
Ms. Olson. In terms of parts of the Mexican government?
Mrs. Lowey. Well, or in the country, there are civilian
watchdog groups that come to talk with us. How can we make this
package of aid, Merida package more effective?
Ms. Olson. That is a very good question.
Mrs. Lowey. You don't have to answer it today. You can
think about it. Because I believe you had said, Ms. Olson, that
it is early and we can't really evaluate. So if I am putting
you on the spot, you don't have to answer it.
Let me just say to the panel, we really appreciate your
input, your work; and, as we prepare for 2010, I do hope that
you can stay in touch with the committee. We constantly try to
fine-tune the package. The balance, as I said many times during
this hearing, is very difficult to achieve.
Demand, for example, we have been worried about for more
than 20 years. That is as long as I have been in the Congress.
So we really do appreciate your testimony, and I thank you
again, and I look forward to continuing the dialogue.
Ms. Olson. Can I make one last comment?
Mrs. Lowey. You certainly can.
Ms. Olson. One last comment, because I think--Mr. Rothman,
partly in response to your question, I think that when we talk
about justice and police reform, what we are talking about is
how you capture and prosecute criminals. I very much see the
issues that we are talking about, police and justice reform,
human rights, and catching and holding criminals accountable,
they all go hand in hand. And I think that when the process
starts working that way is when we will see the most impact.
Lastly, because I think it is important to encourage the
administration on this, is this idea of balance that you talked
about, but balance between what the U.S. is going to do on our
side of the border and what we think needs to happen on the
Mexican side of the border. I know it runs completely counter
to the budget system, because we budget in the different--the
150 account, and domestic demand treatment is not there. But I
think, as it is conceptualized and presented, the different
aspects of what the U.S. is going to do on its side of the
border, it is very important that those be articulated to
Mexico.
Mrs. Lowey. Well, I would hope that it would be. As these
agreements are negotiated, I would expect that it's not just
our committee that is changing the balance but that Secretary
Shannon and others are making their case as forcefully as they
can for improvements in the balance.
Why don't I just give Ms. Hernandez and Ms. Haugaard--if
you have any last comments, we would welcome them.
Ms. Hernandez. Well, I think, just touching on the last
thing that Joy said, I think that is very important in terms of
access to justice. As you were asking, Madam Chairwoman, what
could we do and what could be most effective I think, as Ms.
Olson was saying, if access to justice starts working in
regards to how citizens denounce crimes, how they are
protected--I think there is such a lack of confidence by the
citizens, both of police institutions, of the justice system,
that as those reforms that are currently hopefully being
implemented, as they start working, I think that will improve
and that will advance an overall thing.
As I was just saying in my testimony, I think it is very
important that these things, the minimal things that are
established within the initiative in terms of things that
Mexico has to report progress on, I think that is very
important that that is effectively measured. Otherwise, those
just fall as kind of empty words that are not----
Those are very important. They are the minimal things I
think that need to be taken into account. In that sense, the
possibility to dialogue with civil society organizations, the
role that civil society can also play in that I think is also
very important.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Ms. Haugaard.
Ms. Haugaard. Well, along the same lines, this is a really
complicated package; and the reforms we are talking about in
terms of the justice sector and police are really complicated
issues. The more that you can, obviously, both as we can see
from this hearing and listen to perspectives of civil society,
Mexican civil society, the more that you can encourage the
administration and embassy to meet regularly with both human
rights and justice reform and police reform kinds of groups
monitoring groups in Mexico.
I think the better the analysis, the broader the analysis
the U.S. Government will have and the better you can watch as
this develops. Because I have always found if you are trying to
improve a justice system or trying to make police or military
more accountable, you will move forward in one way and then all
of a sudden it kind of goes off in the wrong direction. And you
need that good analysis to be able to be on top of that and to
be encouraging in the right direction.
So the more there is that flow of information with civil
society experts in Mexico in particular, the sort of better the
U.S. Government's analysis will be and the more we will see
this going in the right direction.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you again for your testimony and your
time. This concludes today's hearing, examining the
implementation of counternarcotics funding associated with the
Merida program.
The Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related
Programs stands adjourned. Thank you.
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Thursday, March 12, 2009.
AFRICA: GREAT LAKES, SUDAN AND THE HORN
WITNESSES
JOHN PRENDERGAST, CO-FOUNDER, ENOUGH PROJECT
DAVID SHINN, FORMER AMBASSADOR, AND ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL
AFFAIRS, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
SULIMAN BALDO, AFRICA DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR TRANSITIONAL
JUSTICE
Opening Statement of Chairwoman Lowey
Mrs. Lowey. The Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations
and Related Programs will come to order. Today this
subcommittee will examine programs and policies in Africa,
specifically in the Great Lakes, Horn of Africa and the Sudan.
I welcome our distinguished panel, Mr. John Prendergast,
Co-Founder of the ENOUGH Project; Ambassador David Shinn,
Professor at George Washington University and former U.S.
Ambassador to Ethiopia and Burkina Faso; and Mr. Suliman Baldo,
Africa Director of the International Center for Transitional
Justice. Their diverse experience will provide valuable insight
to United States policy in these troubled regions of Africa.
As our nation grapples with global security imperatives,
including in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan, we must
not neglect the myriad of challenges and opportunities in
Africa.
Over the last 40 years, nearly 20 African countries or
about 40 percent of subsaharan Africa have experienced at least
one civil war. It is estimated that 20 percent of subsaharan
Africans now live in countries which are formally at war.
Despite this grim statistic, there are glimmers of hope that
some countries are emerging from conflicts and consolidating
peace.
Optimism--cautious optimism--is spreading from the center
of the continent as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and
Rwanda join together to face down two rebel factions in eastern
DRC. This joint action, which was followed by the retreat of
Rwandan forces from the area, has weakened the rebel forces,
and the people of the Kivus can look forward to a reduction in
violence and a return to peace.
I hope that the witnesses today can provide some direction
on how the United States and the international community can
help sustain this progress. What should the United States and
other donors do to help consolidate the peace in DRC? What
efforts can help overcome the destruction of communities as a
result of the war and the gender-based violence used
systematically as a weapon of war?
Unfortunately, the news out of Sudan has not been positive.
The actions of the Khartoum government last week demonstrate
that they continue to thwart every effort to resolve the
conflict in western Sudan and continue to oppress the people of
Darfur.
The expulsion of 13 international NGOs, the kidnapping of
five aid workers which you just saw on the news, the apparent
disregard for the health and well being of 1.5 million people
living in Darfur is simply genocide by another means.
Some Members of Congress and many in the NGO community have
called for a Presidential special envoy to marshal
international attention and put pressure on the Khartoum
government. Perhaps our witnesses can give us examples of other
steps that the Administration must take in the next 30 days to
demonstrate that the United States remains committed to a long-
term solution in Sudan and Darfur.
I am also deeply concerned about Somalia's decades long
descent into chaos. Since the 1990s, the country has been in
the state of crisis. Recent actions by the people of Somalia to
begin to form a consensus government offers some hope. However,
how to deal with al-Shabab is a major challenge, and
instability has led to increased piracy off Somalia's coast.
Joint international action seems to be addressing some of
these concerns. Could a similar joint effort to reestablish
governance in Somalia and collaboration with the new government
offer a chance for peace in the country?
Finally, let me note that my colleagues and I have long
criticized the narrow focus that provides only health and
humanitarian dollars to Africa. While these challenges
certainly are great, Africa needs trade, agriculture, economic
development to prosper and grow. Additionally, more security
assistance in the region would help counter the growth and
influence of al-Qaeda and the other terrorist cells.
Perhaps frustrated by the lack of State Department
resources, we have seen the Department of Defense deploy
greater resources and personnel through Africa, yet we cannot
delegate responsibility to the military, nor allow them to be
the dominant interface for the nations of Africa.
I hope that the Obama Administration will reverse the years
of a one-dimensional Africa assistance policy and put forward a
more comprehensive diplomatic and development strategy for the
African continent. I look forward to working with Secretary
Clinton and all of the officials in the Obama Administration
who share my commitment to this goal and expect that we can
build on the goodwill and successes we have had in Africa over
the past few years.
Now before I return to more impressive witnesses, let me
turn to our distinguished Ranking Member for her statement.
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Granger
Ms. Granger. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for convening
today's panel on Africa, a region increasingly vital to the
national interest of the United States. The panelists before us
have extensive experience on the African continent and share
our goal of bringing peace and stability to the region, and I
appreciate your being here today.
The political, economic, security and humanitarian
challenges the United States faces in the Great Lakes, Sudan
and the Horn are considerable. The spread of terrorism,
regional instability and food insecurity are real threats to
U.S. interests.
The Congress has appropriated over $6.5 billion in fiscal
year 2008 for this region to provide humanitarian aid,
establish and sustain multiple peacekeeping missions, combat
disease and develop and reconstruct nations emerging from
conflict.
The picture of this region, as the Chairwoman said,
unfortunately is still mixed. In Sudan, over two million people
remain displaced in the Darfur region, a conflict that is
affecting neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic. At
the same time, a fragile peace agreement brokered by the last
Administration between North and South Sudan struggles to
succeed.
The announcement last week of the Sudanese Government to
expel 12 nongovernmental organizations that are delivering life
saving humanitarian assistance is unacceptable.
The United Nations African Union Peacekeeping Mission in
Darfur authorized at over 26,000 personnel only had 12,359
troops deployed by the end of January 2009, nearly 19 months
after its authorization. Maritime piracy based in Somalia is an
increasing threat to international trade.
Conversely, the President's emergency plan for AIDS relief,
PEPFAR, and the Malaria and Neglected Diseases Initiative have
made great strides in improving health care on the continent.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation has become an
innovative tool to combat poverty, grow economies and
strengthen African democracies. To date, there have been 11
compacts signed with African nations totaling about $4.5
billion. The Congress has invested billions and demonstrated
its concern for Africa, but these resources need to be coupled
with an effective and concerted strategy for achieving peace
and stability in this region.
I look forward to hearing from each panelist on the
approach needed to address these chronic challenges and your
expert views on the resources Congress might be asked to
provide.
I thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Ambassador Shinn, why not begin with you? We are happy to
place your full statement in the record. If you would be kind
enough to summarize your oral statement, we want to get to the
questions and have a real dialogue. Thank you.
Opening Statement of Ambassador Shinn
Mr. Shinn. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, and
Members of the committee. I will define for the purposes of
this session the Horn of Africa as constituting Ethiopia,
Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan. I would make the point
that a problem or a conflict in any one of these countries has
relevance for one or more of its neighbors. It is very
important to treat this area as a region, not on a bilateral
country-by-country basis.
The only serious U.S. policy effort that tried to deal with
the countries as an integrated region occurred in the mid
1990s. It was known as the Greater Horn of Africa Initiative.
The initiative was a good one. Unfortunately, it did not have a
lot of success for reasons spelled out in my paper, but I think
it would be useful at some point to review the lessons learned
as to why it did not have more success.
The major crises in the Horn today are the failed state of
Somalia, the civil war between Southern and Northern Sudan and
the crisis in Darfur, the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea and
periodic famines in several of the countries. There is also a
second tier list of problems that I will not get into and even
a third group of localized conflicts that deserve more
attention that I will not mention now.
It is also key to work with other players in the region
rather than trying to carry out any policy on a bilateral
basis. The United States cannot and should not be expected to
solve the problems of the Horn on its own.
In addition to working with traditional donors, it needs to
work with countries like Egypt, the Arab countries and China.
Russia is a little more problematic because of its arms sales,
but even Russia needs to be included, also India and even
Turkey, which is becoming increasingly active in the area.
Having said that, a new or relatively new arrival to the
area is Iran. I am not suggesting we work with Iran. I think
Iran has to be monitored very carefully in terms of what it is
doing there.
Let me turn first to Ethiopia. U.S. policy towards Ethiopia
since the current government took power in 1991 has been a
delicate balancing act, and this will continue to be the case.
On the one hand, Ethiopia is a strong supporter of U.S.
counterterrorism policy in the region. It has been consistently
responsive to U.S. concerns about stability and peacekeeping
operations in the region.
The United States must weigh very carefully these positive
factors against the need for significant improvement in human
rights issues and the democratization process. There have been
the arrests of political dissidents, harassment of the private
press, and unwillingness to allow civil society to engage in
advocacy work.
The next general elections occur in 2010, and the outlook
for serious competition in these elections is frankly not very
good.
Eritrea. Relations with Eritrea have reached the lowest
point since Eritrea became independent in 1993. There is a lot
standing in the way of improving relations with Eritrea. Any
U.S. attempt to improve relations with Eritrea faces huge
challenges.
A new Administration has the advantage, however, in that it
can look at old problems in new ways. It may not be possible to
improve relations with Eritrea, but I think the effort still
needs to be made.
On Djibouti, it hosts the only American military base in
Africa. Its purpose is mainly to counter terrorist activity in
the region. I think it is time, frankly, to have an independent
assessment of the CJTF-HOA operation to find out whether it
really is doing what it costs. Because Djibouti hosts CJTF-HOA
and Ethiopia is dependent on the port, Djibouti becomes an
important part of the regional policy for the Horn of Africa.
Somalia has been much in the news of late. The situation is
particularly fluid in Somalia today. The first priority is
reestablishing security. An enlarged African Union peacekeeping
force is not the answer, although it can help play a useful
role by keeping open the port and the airport.
Somalia needs to train in the first instance a community-
based police force, and the international community has started
that, but it needs to put more effort into it. The United
States should also continue to support this new government in
spite of its imperfections, while remaining in the political
background.
This is not the time for the U.S. to be up front and
center. Let Somalis work through their differences in their own
way. We should eschew military activity in Somalia and provide
humanitarian assistance and be willing to step in as quickly as
possibly with development assistance when the security
situation permits.
Turning to Sudan, the United States has four principal
goals in Sudan: Ensuring implementation of the comprehensive
peace agreement, or at least avoiding a return to civil war
between the north and the south; ending the crisis in Darfur;
improving the overall human rights situation; and continuing to
receive the support of Sudan on counterterrorism.
Achieving these goals requires a combination of pressure,
frank talk and acceptance of some unpleasant truths, which some
of you will disagree on. The government in Khartoum is highly
flawed--that is unquestioned--but I think there are two
positions that need to be reconsidered.
The first is that I do not think U.S. policy is being well
served today by continuing in the present tense to refer to
what is happening there as a genocide. It is terrible, yes.
Genocide? I do not think so.
And the second position is that the United States
appropriately put Sudan on the list of state sponsors of
terrorism in 1993. In my view, the situation has changed and I
think the State Department's annual terrorism report
substantiates that.
I think a combination of discontinuing references to
genocide in Darfur in the present tense and taking steps to
remove Sudan from the list of state sponsors of terrorism just
might jolt the situation and create some opportunities. Most,
if not all, sanctions against Sudan would remain in place even
after it is removed from the list.
I will stop there, Madam Chairwoman. I have some comments
on operational issues, but they are in the written record and
members can review them.
Thank you.
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Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Baldo.
Opening Statement of Mr. Baldo
Mr. Baldo. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, other Members of
the subcommittee, for inviting me to this hearing. I will focus
my comments on the Great Lakes region and particularly the
situation in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
The update from that is grim. There are opposing rebel
groups, militias and the Congolese army, plus foreign armies
from Uganda and Rwanda to be specific, that are waging wars
there against different parcels of the eastern providences of
Congo.
The clashes are becoming increasingly violent from 2007
through late 2008, triggering the displacement of tens of
thousands who are fleeing killings, mass atrocities and
horrendous rapes and mutilations.
In western Congo, the Kabila government demonstrates its
use of abusive force, fronting concerns about narrowing space
for democratic governance and political opinion. The mediation
efforts in the Great Lakes region has caught only limited
successes in containing the violence, and international
pressure on President Kabila and his government to create a
space for meaningful democratic exchange has not progressed.
Therefore, a lot remains to be done if you want to reverse
the cycles of killings and human suffering. Congo has been
bleeding for the last two decades because of a lack of decisive
policy to really address the root causes of the violence there.
We believe that in the short term a policy intervention
could be the appointment of an independent human rights and
military observer mechanism, the purpose of which and in light
of these ongoing atrocities by all sides in the conflicts to
support the mechanisms of accountability and lead a major
effort to end impunity, which is responsible for the repeated
cycles of violence there.
We believe that a push for a meaningful security system
reform is essential. The international community must change
its current approach, characterized by piecemeal and
uncoordinated bilateral and multilateral initiatives to reform
various sectors of the security system such as the army, the
police and justice in isolation from each other.
The security sector reform requires a long-term commitment.
Further financial and technical assistance on security sector
reform must be accompanied by political pressure and benchmarks
to promote national ownership of the long-term security sector
reform process in the country.
Continued support for civil society in the DRC is key. The
country for decades has had an implosion of central power, and
in the vacuum alternative power sources have developed.
These are the churches, civil society organizations,
community groups that are providing for the needs of the
populations at all levels, including local governments,
protection of rights, and monitoring of abuses as they happen
in civil society in Congo is a major actor in all these areas,
and the struggle for accountability there could build on its
tremendous efforts in this area.
Now, traditional justice measures are needed. There is
little political will in the Congo to really uphold members of
the military, for example, accountable for their role in
committing abuses. It is the documented fact by, among others,
the United Nations peacekeeping mission that most of the
violations that occurred in the country are committed by
members of the National Army and the police, and the mechanisms
are simply not there.
We are encouraging local actors such as civil society
organizations and others to really lead in terms of advocacy.
Foreign assistance programs should really make sure that this
happens. Recent security developments in Congo demonstrate the
influence that the donor community and the international
community could help bring about in a positive direction.
As you recall, in January 2009 Uganda and Rwanda agreed to
send their forces in a joint campaign into the DRC, in eastern
DRC, with the purpose of fighting the rebel predominantly
Rwandan Hutu group, the FDLR, the Forces Democratiques pour la
Liberation du Rwanda.
That campaign was very much triggered by international
pressures both from Rwanda and the DRC due to the revelation in
the United Nations report of November 2008 that Rwanda was
supporting a very abusive rebel group in Congo led by Laurent
Nkunda of particular notoriety and that Congo was also using
the FDLR in its effort to contain the forces of Nkunda and to
repel attempts.
Therefore, the establishment of the responsibility of this
steps in backing abusive rebels has forced them to move towards
some reconsideration of their previous negative relationships,
and this is what allowed progress in terms of establishing
peace. As a result of the reports some European countries
suspended their military assistance to the Rwandan Government,
as you recall, and this was a triggering factor on this.
Therefore, any progress towards peace in the Great Lakes
region and in Eastern Congo would require really making of this
alliance between the government of Kinshasa and the government
of Kigali a strategic thing with cooperation and collaboration
in addressing the security threats in the region and trying to
find solutions for them.
The political and humanitarian costs for conflict in the
region are otherwise too terrible. We know that Congo is having
by default of its own army and the lack of political will to
make of it a dependable force to defend national security for
all the rebel groups from the region. Lord's Resistance Army of
Northern Uganda is settled there.
A joint military campaign between the Congolese army and
the Ugandan army that started in November and which is still
ongoing has shown the costs of unprepared military campaigns in
this case assisted by the United States military at the
planning level, you know, that such planning for military
operation, if it does not take the dimension of civilian
protection into account, could have disastrous effects.
That is exactly what happened. The campaign did not make
any provisions for protecting local civilians, and the LRA
vanished from the camps that were attacked by the Congolese and
Ugandan army, but then retaliated against civilians, committing
massacres, including the famous one on Christmas attacking
several villages in Dungu District, Northeastern Congo, as
people were celebrating Christmas. Hundreds were killed, and
LRA remains at large.
Unfortunately, the current campaign which ended between the
Ugandan and the Rwanda army again is the FDLR. We are expecting
in the humanitarian community--the United Nations peacekeeping
mission in Congo are actually planning--for a backlash with
FDLR fighters again taking revenge on defenseless Congolese
civilians.
The cycles of violence continue. A key trigger for that is
the dysfunctionality of the Congolese army, its corruption, its
total absence of capability of providing protection for the
population, and in fact it is the perpetration of violence
against the population.
Our reading of this is that no matter what effort is put in
extending development assistance to a place like Congo such as
in the areas of fighting HIV or malaria and development of
building the micro and macro national economy, as long as there
is no genuine reform at the level of the institutions of
governments, the security and the judiciary, all this aid will
be jeopardized by the dysfunctionality of the systems in the
Congo.
I will stop here and end the discussion. We may address
some of these points in more detail.
Thank you.
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Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Mr. Prendergast.
Opening Statement of Mr. Prendergast
Mr. Prendergast. Thank you, Madam Chair, and to all of
those on the committee who have turned up today for this with
all the competing priorities. By the way, for us in the
independent sector it is refreshing not to get buried behind
the Administration witnesses. It is nice to get a chance to go
first.
What are the stakes here, just to put it in very clear and
sharp focus. The region of East and Central Africa is the
deadliest war zone in the world since the Holocaust. There is
nowhere in the world that is even close, a close second, to
this region.
Ten million lives have been extinguished in the context of
conflicts over the last 20 years, so the stakes simply could
not be higher for what we are deliberating this morning and
what the Administration is going to be facing in the coming
months.
I would say that our aid and our policy, going back
Administrations, has mostly focused on managing the symptoms of
these conflicts rather than committing to ending the conflicts.
It is a paradigm shift that is needed for U.S. policy. We need
that shift in order for us to begin to see an end to some of
these cycles of violence and impunity that Suliman just so ably
described.
Congress should demand that the Administration that we look
to ending these conflicts rather than managing their symptoms
as a basic strategy of our government policy. In the strictest
sort of U.S. taxpayer term, given the committee we are in front
of today, what is a more efficient use of our resources?
Let us just take an example. Was it to spend billions and
billions of dollars for 20 years in Southern Sudan on
humanitarian assistance or $100,000 over the space of two or
three years to invest in the diplomatic effort that ended that
war? I think the answer is obvious and the answer then has
incredible implications for today and tomorrow.
Why is there no peace process right now for Darfur? Why are
we not engaged in building the peace process for Darfur 6 years
into what many of us believe is a genocide still ongoing? Why
is it that we do not have, nor are we even deliberating over, a
special envoy for Congo and the Great Lakes, which is by itself
the deadliest war in the world since the Holocaust?
These are urgent priorities. They are almost cost free in
terms of our budgetary implications, and they would save
literally billions of dollars over the course of the decade. It
is not an exaggeration. We are squandering, in my view, U.S.
taxpayers' money with this approach that manages symptoms
rather than ends crises and ends conflict.
This is a business model for our foreign policy. If we just
keep bailing it out with additional money for more symptom
management we will see the continuing cycle of failure that we
have. Let us put the resources and money into prevention and
cure.
Now, I was asked to focus on the two deadliest conflicts,
Congo and Sudan. Starting very quickly with Sudan, and I am
just going to make some recommendations about specific U.S.
actions, particularly with respect to the appropriations
process, hopefully that will have some relevance to your direct
jurisdiction.
President Obama's first major African crisis has officially
begun with the expulsion of these humanitarian agencies from
Sudan. We are already getting reports from some of the agencies
left behind of children who simply have no food.
So we are going to see now I think a dramatic spike, if
nothing changes, in severe malnutrition and the diseases
related to it that will see a death toll increase fairly
rapidly. Directly responsible is the regime that has now been
implicated in crimes against humanity through the arrest
warrant of the ICC.
I think it is imperative that the President confronts
Khartoum's intransigence much more directly with a forceful and
coordinated diplomatic response. We have to work with our
allies and other countries that have leverage, but to maximize,
and here comes the issues related to the Appropriations
Committee. To maximize the effectiveness of such a response, it
requires an adroit use of all of the elements of the foreign
policy tool kit.
The Appropriations Committee and its resources have a
crucial role to play in this effort. Let me give you just a few
recommendations specifically:
Number one, funding for the Sudan special envoy and not
just a person to go running around. A team should be in place
under that envoy so that we have a fully developed squad that
can be talking to Beijing, talking to the Saudis, talking to
the Egyptians and the countries who have leverage--who if we
were to work closely with them behind the scenes we could have
an influence directly on the situation on the ground now.
We need to be doing that. We need to be 24/7. That is what
we do on Iran. That is what we do on Iraq and in North Korea
and the issues that matter. We can do it on Sudan on the cheap
with a special envoy and a small team with that person.
Second, we need peace dividends for the people of Sudan.
They need to see in Southern Sudan after the incredible
investment of the United States Government in brokering that
peace deal in Southern Sudan, maybe one of the signature
accomplishments of the first term of the Bush Administration.
The people of Southern Sudan need to see some measure of a
peace dividend and so investing more clearly.
We have put a lot of money in there, but not a lot is being
shown for it. I go there fairly frequently, and you do not see
it. So we need to put it in more visible spending on
infrastructure, roads, education, health care, the kind of
things that people can say okay, there is a benefit in peace.
There is an incentive for peace, which will have an impact in
continuing implementation in the south of that deal that we
helped broker and in encouraging the Darfurians.
Third is the issue of security sector reform. I think we
have to again engage with the Southern Sudanese Government that
we have helped in the birthing of with some very specific
things with respect to: the preparation for election, the
preparation for the referendum, and particularly with the
development of military capacities, including the
professionalization of their military capacities with respect
to air defense and training, and moving from a rebel movement
to a professional military.
Finally, we need support for the election. This is one of
these make or break issues. If it goes wrong, it could go
really wrong. It could break really badly. We could see a
resumption of war in Southern Sudan, which makes Darfur look
like a footnote in Sudan's history, the death toll in Southern
Sudan seven times as high as the estimates for Darfur.
So we have to put some significant assistance into the
logistics of making those elections work and the diplomatic
muscle to work with the parties to ensure that there is some
measure of fairness to the process.
That is a very rapid shorthand of a lot of things that have
to happen with respect to bringing about some positive
direction on Sudan, but in the interest of time let us move on
to the Congo and the surrounding region.
As we have already heard from Suliman, the U.S. helped
provide the diplomatic muscle to bring the parties together in
Central Africa--the Ugandans, the Congolese and the Rwandans,
countries that were just a few years ago at each other's
throats. That diplomatic rapprochement to some degree has
helped them facilitate the military operations that have
allowed for joint operations against the Lord's Resistance Army
and the Rwandan militia led by the former genocidaire, the
FDLR.
These are encouraging opportunities, but, as Suliman has
said, they have resulted again in terrible human rights abuses.
We own it because we were part of the conceptualization of the
military strategy and military advisors are out there. We need
to redouble our efforts to make sure.
If we just walk away from that the repercussions for
civilian populations are going to be dramatic in terms of the
response by the Lord's Resistance Army and the FDLR and other
militias who will see that they are not really serious about
this stuff.
So what do we have to do? I will do just the same as I did
on Sudan. Just a few quick things that I think some measure of
appropriations might make a difference in unlocking the cycle
that the Congo and the Great Lakes region are locked in.
Number one, and just as important as it is for Sudan, we
need a special envoy and a team for Congo and the Great Lakes
to deal with both the issue of Eastern Congo, the deadliest war
in the world, and the scourge of the Lord's Resistance Army,
which has gone on for 20 years with no resolution. I think a
team working with their task being to end these twin crises
could actually make a difference.
Second, funding for the DDR account, the Disarmament,
Demobilization and Reintegration, providing an incentive for
particularly the child soldiers who have been abducted, the
younger people who do not want to stay in the Lord's Resistance
Army, providing incentives to bring them out that are not just
military, that are not just the stick. We need the carrot as
well.
Programs where they can see there is a place that they can
go back to. Many of them are afraid to go home because of the
crimes that they were forced to commit against their own
families, so we want to create that opportunity.
Security sector reform. Just like with the Southern Sudan
Government, the Congo Government, as Suliman was telling us, is
one of the worst abusers not just in Congo, but in the entire
continent of Africa. That requires professionalization of the
military, and that requires human rights training.
Finally, there is the issue of funding. The Senate is now
working on a bill to deal with the conflict minerals that are
fueling the Congo conflict. The tantalum, the tungsten and the
tin and the gold are four minerals that are produced in Congo
which end up in all of our electronics products, our cell
phones and our laptops and our iPods and all the rest of it.
We are directly, as consumers, fueling the war in eastern
Congo, the deadliest war in the world. So the Senate is working
on that and are going to work with the House on this measure.
We need a bill that goes right to the mine of origin to ensure
that these companies do not purchase the minerals that actually
fuel wars.
This is the same concept as the blood diamond movement. If
you can change the logic of the producers from war to peace you
can have an impact on the overall stability in the country.
Conclusion. I think Africa's remaining wars require some
thinking outside the box, which means that we have to have 24/7
diplomatic effort in this era of diminishing resources.
The cheapest and most effective instrument we have is the
vast experience of American peacemaking. I got a little glimpse
of it when I worked for President Clinton for four years in his
Administration. We have incredibly talented foreign service
officers who ought to be deployed in small teams in both of
these places, in the Great Lakes and Sudan, and could have an
enormous impact.
The cost effectiveness of ending these wars rather than
continuing to manage the symptoms would be undeniable. So it is
not an exaggeration I think in East and Central Africa to say
that literally millions of lives are at stake with what we
actually end up doing over these next four years.
The committee's interest in this is extremely, extremely
encouraging. Thank you very much to all of you for coming
today.
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Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
I want to thank the witnesses for your outstanding
testimony, and I personally appreciate your focus on next
steps. What do we do now? All three of the witnesses certainly
presented your observations and your suggestions.
DRC
I would like to focus on DRC, and I know my colleagues will
pursue many different lines of questioning, because in DRC you
really see multiple challenges. Last month the DRC Government
joined with two bordering countries to undertake joint
operations to dismantle rebel groups.
Do you think, whoever would like to answer that, that the
joint operations represent a strengthened central government
willing and able to collaborate with partners? Do you think
that these operations represent a desperate government
struggling to reclaim control of its own borders?
The joint action in eastern DRC has brought some peace to
the area, but you all had several suggestions. What needs to be
done to maintain the peace? The United Nations has developed a
redevelopment plan for the region. Do you believe that these
efforts will make a difference? Then you can talk about MONUC,
the U.N. force in DRC.
Perhaps I will stop with my question at that point. Who
would like to respond first? Mr. Baldo. Thank you.
Mr. Baldo. It is just totally inconceivable how much the
Congolese army is dysfunctional. It is not a dependable
fighting force. It is an army where privates and officers are
of the same proportion, 53 percent, and the others in the
millions are noncommissioned and warrant officers.
There are people from defeated previous armies, you know,
the ex Force d'Armee of Mobutu, defeated armies of Laurent
Kabila and so on. What Congo is doing, because it does not have
any capability to do anything on its own as an army, is it is
outsourcing its military needs to armies of the neighborhood
that are much more professional.
But these armies have a long history in Congo, including
during the deadly war from 1998 to 2002. All the eastern half
of Congo was under occupation by the Rwandan army and the
Ugandan army in northeastern Congo, and that was a military
occupation which was driven by pillaging of natural resources
in Congo.
So Rwanda and Uganda are both very much obliged to assist
because this interest has not disappeared. In fact, the flow of
resources from Congo to the global economy passes traditionally
through these two capitals, and there are mechanisms that are
now ongoing whereby the two states are drawing a lot of
resources from Congo even during this time.
Therefore, there are no good guys in this operation. The
international community and the U.S. Administration really have
to keep a very close watch over Congo and its neighbors because
of the history involved here.
The key issue is to cut the most damaging driver and fueler
of conflict in that part of the world, which is the illicit
exploitation of resources. There have to be put in place
mechanisms to really make sure that these resources do not feed
conflict.
The second important component is that the Congolese army
really needs to be reformed at a large scale, and this is a
political decision. Pressure has to be put on the Congolese
Government to assume the responsibility and protect its own
territory and its own population.
No one can do that for them. Therefore, there must be a
serious security sector reform in Congo happening if we are to
have lasting peace in that part of the world.
Thank you, Madam.
MONUC
Mrs. Lowey. What role should the MONUC, the U.N. force play
in this effort? They have been there for I believe ten years.
Mr. Baldo. Yes. The United Nations mission has a mandate to
assist the Congolese National Army in campaigning. Again, it is
these abusive rebel groups and militias like Laurent Nkunda's
group, the LRA for that matter, the FDLR for that matter and so
on.
But MONUC is basically assisting an army that does not even
know how to be assisted. It cannot fight in place of the
Congolese army and it cannot fight, for example, along side the
Congolese army when it invites armies of the neighborhood
because the agenda is decidedly to keep the international
community out of this bilateral arrangement.
You know, it was a secret deal between President Kabila and
Kagami that allowed the joint operation in Eastern Congo. So
for the moment MONUC, and rightly so, are staying out of this
campaign and are not assisting it. Why? Because none of these
belligerents, state armies, militias, armed groups, care about
the humanitarian cost of conflict to the local population.
Therefore, campaigning, when it happens, is accompanied by
massive killings, massive rapes, pillaging by all parties and
no accountability for any of this. Therefore, we cannot expect
the United Nations mission to be a party to a campaign which
does not really aim to conduct war according to the Laws of
Four. Thanks.
Mrs. Lowey. I am going to turn to Kay Granger and then
alternate according to the order of attendance.
We are going to try to keep to the red light because
obviously because of the complexity of the issue we could all
go on and on. I am going to turn to Ms. Granger, our Ranking
Member.
Ms. Granger. Thank you.
Mr. Prendergast. I am sorry. I apologize for mispronouncing
your name.
Mr. Prendergast. It is not the first time.
DARFUR
Ms. Granger. Okay. President Obama and Vice President Biden
and U.N. Permanent Representative Susan Rice all called for a
no-fly zone for Darfur prior to assuming their current duties,
but there are many nongovernmental organizations on the ground
that said they do not agree with that, including the ones that
were ordered to leave. They oppose a no-fly zone, fearing its
impact on their ability to deliver vital humanitarian
assistance.
My question to you is what is your position on a no-fly
zone in Darfur?
Mr. Prendergast. A very complicated issue. Thank you for
raising it.
First, we have to figure out our policy objectives. If our
policy objective, for example, is to protect civilian
populations from attacks, particularly aerial attacks, the
principal advantage that the Sudanese Government has is its air
force. On the ground they are largely neutralized, but when
they add air support that is when you see some of the more
significant damage done by ground attacks by the Sudanese
Government. It makes sense.
So the United Nations Security Council passed resolutions
over and over again banning offensive military flights by the
Government of Sudan, but then they have not created an
enforcement mechanism for that, so that is why we saw Senator
Biden and Senator Clinton, when they were senators, and Susan
speaking on behalf of these things.
Now, the question then for the purpose of the no-fly zone
is will it work, or would it actually make things worse? I
think it is not a given that it will work. If we are only
prepared, for example, to go in, and let us just say we are not
going to patrol the skies like this is Kurdistan.
What we would do, though, is once they conduct one of their
offensive flights we would send a plane from the Gulf or from
Djibouti and shoot an airplane on the ground and destroy--
disable or destroy--one of their planes on the ground, just
sort of a quid pro quo, tit for tat.
If the Sudanese Government said well, do you know what?
Maybe that is all they are prepared to do and then they shut
down all airspace to humanitarian operations for three months
let us say, what will we have accomplished? Well, potentially
we will accomplish the starvation of hundreds of thousands of
people.
So we have to be very careful that if we are going to go
down the military road, which I think at some point may be
required, we better be darn sure that we are going to back it
up with a series of escalating measures perhaps, further
targeted bombings, if we are going down that road.
I am just worried that this sort of spurious kind of one-
liner--let us start and try a no-fly zone--without thinking
through the implications that we have to have a backup plan if
Khartoum escalates like they escalated in response to the ICC,
I think we ought to go down that road of significant planning
with NATO now.
And I think just doing that, by the way, just sending the
signal that we go and we start consulting with our NATO allies
about the possible enforcement of a no-fly zone, will I
guarantee you have a very significant effect on the
calculations of this regime in Khartoum. If they think we are
finally getting serious about imposing a cost for the kind of
things that they are doing, I think they will change their
behavior.
More accommodation, more statements without any meat behind
them, is going to lead them down a further road of
intransigence, and we are just going to see more people die in
Darfur.
Ms. Granger. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Jackson.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Jackson
Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have been on this
subcommittee for 10 years, and we have never had a hearing on
Africa, much less the three regions we are discussing today,
and so I want to applaud you and the subcommittee staff for
holding this hearing, and I want to thank the witnesses for
their testimony and for the work they have done in subsaharan
Africa.
Over the last several years I have raised concerns with
Secretary Powell and Rice about the need for a comprehensive
strategy to deal with failed or failing states so that they
will not become havens for terrorists. Programs like the MCC
that can make a huge difference with its infusion of capital do
not address failed or failing states. What can we do? What
resources do we have to mitigate the situation in some of these
countries?
Also during the last few years I have served in the
Minority on this subcommittee. I was successful in securing
funding for humanitarian assistance in a supplemental
appropriations bill for Sudan and Liberia, and although I was
pleased that the assistance we were providing was going to save
lives, I wondered if it was sustainable. Could we year after
year solve the fundamental problems that plague some of the
poorest countries in the world in an ad hoc and a piecemeal
fashion?
I have introduced legislation that specifically deals with
Liberia. My legislation does not attempt to provide
humanitarian assistance. Instead, it identifies the root causes
of Liberia's problems and tries to address those problems,
providing Liberia with a foundation upon which to grow and
develop and lift itself out of conflict and poverty.
I am not saying this is the Tao or the way to solve the
myriad of problems affecting subsaharan African countries, but
I think we need to think about new ways to solve these problems
that are comprehensive and sustainable.
Now, this is really not a question, but I am interested in
the panel's thoughts on this. In his book, The Bottom Billion:
Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done
About It, Paul Collier posits the circumstances of the world's
population is gradually improving as their countries develop
economically, but that there are about a billion people that
live in the most dysfunctional, conflict prone and stagnant
countries that have experienced little growth since the 1980s
and that they are most likely to remain stuck in poverty for
the long term.
Collier argues that this bottom billion are susceptible to
radicalism, to terrorism, disease and many transnational
afflictions that impact our global security. He attributes
their lack of growth to several traps, including conflict, poor
governance, being landlocked with bad neighbors and excessive
dependence on natural resources. The populations of the DRC,
Sudan and Somalia are clearly members of that bottom billion.
For the panelists, should the donor community be taking
Collier's advice and reorient itself toward focusing primarily
on lifting these bottom billion countries out of their
development traps? In whatever order you would like to address
it.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Shinn. Congressman Jackson, I am very sympathetic to
the approach that you take, and I am also a fan of Paul
Collier.
I am not sure that it is feasible to deal with all of those
who are at the bottom of the pecking order, but I think an
effort certainly has to be made, if I could just bring it back
to the Horn of Africa since that is the area I specialize in.
I would reiterate a point that I made in my written
testimony on something that was a little bit like what you are
suggesting today that was tried in the mid 1990s in the Clinton
Administration. That is the Greater Horn of Africa Initiative,
which had its faults, which did not achieve a great deal for a
number of reasons.
The focus of that effort was to deal with, one, improving
food security through the Greater Horn of Africa, which
consisted of 10 countries and included Rwanda, Burundi,
Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, but did not include the Congo, and
two, preventing conflict and mitigating conflict.
We found that two things happened. One, new conflicts kept
piling on the existing conflicts to the point that we never got
ahead of the game. That was a pity because it just wore
everyone down. As a result there was not the success that we
had hoped to see in it.
The other problem, quite frankly, was a bureaucratic one.
The embassies in the field, some of them, were not really
enthusiastic about this effort. They did not fully support it.
They wanted to do their old bilateral thing. What is the United
States Government going to do for Tanzania or going to do for
Kenya? They did not want to look at it in terms of the 10
country concept, so it ultimately died a slow death. There was
some very modest progress made, but it was exceedingly limited.
I think what you say makes a lot of sense. It is the way to
go. It requires an enormous amount of resources, which may or
may not be available in this economic climate today. It also
requires an approach that involves all the other major donors
or interested parties outside of Africa to be supportive of it.
The U.S. cannot do it alone. It has to be with the
involvement of others, and if that is not going to be
forthcoming then it probably is not going to work.
Mr. Prendergast. Thanks, Congressman Jackson. I think the
MCC has been for a while the flavor of the month and so it is a
bit sacrilegious to critique it, but I think it set itself up
for eventual failure.
Not initially, but if you are going to just promote islands
of stability in the seas of instability without addressing some
of the issues of sometimes failed states, sometimes eroded
states, and we have no resources left to deal with those
countries then what is going to happen to the few jewels that
people put billions of dollars into when nothing is going to
some of the other ones who are not performing as well? I think
it is structurally a problem.
And so the response then, and to almost echo David's issues
with regard to the Greater Horn of Africa Initiative, in your
legislative proposals with respect to Liberia we need to invest
in a strategy that deals with the root causes.
You know, looking at how you reform the security sector
sounds so boring. My God, it is so fundamental to state
construction. You know, it is so you do not have an abusive
military, which is the source of so many problems. Not just the
human rights abuses that that military commits, but then the
rebellions that are sparked because of it that end up being the
wars that we then spend billions of dollars to take care of the
victims of.
We have to focus our support for opportunities for young
people. If there are not those opportunities, if there is not
the educational and employment opportunities in places like
Somalia today--we do not have a development assistance program
there--so who do we leave the education to?
Everybody knows what is going on. We are losing the game in
the long run because we are trying to nickel and dime it right
now and spending most of our resources on humanitarian
assistance because we are not investing a little bit in
prevention. This is why diplomacy, and I think President
Obama's campaign and what his Administration stands for, focus
on the United States' leadership, diplomatic leadership.
You know, dealing with the fault lines in society that
cause conflict and addressing those fault lines, getting at the
root causes. It sounds like a mantra, but we do not do it. So,
I mean, that is really what we have to do is focus--refocus--
our considerable diplomatic and developmental capacities on the
root causes of what then causes us to have to spend way too
much money in cleaning up messes that could be prevented or
addressed in the first place.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Kirk.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Kirk
Mr. Kirk. Thank you. Madam Chairman, thank you for holding
this hearing.
John, you are uniquely positioned, as the Secretary of
State is, to answer my questions, which require some
remembering of critical decisions President Clinton made in the
1990s with regard to the United Nations. Let me just review the
record that we see in Sudan.
According to Save Darfur, of which you are a director,
UNAMID, the peacekeeping force in Sudan, has never fired a shot
in self-defense. It has never initiated any offensive action
inside its Darfur AOR. The U.N. Secretary General reported 12
Janjaweed or government attacks in December and January, and
there is no documented UNAMID response.
UNAMID has a formal mission statement which requires it to
confirm bombings, investigate attacks and monitor those
attacks. In the UNAMID AOR it cannot enforce no-fly days
imposed by the Government of Sudan to restrict humanitarian
assistance.
Now, UNAMID deployed in 2007, and from its deployment to
date vehicle hijackings have gone from 137 to 277, a 102
percent increase. Since UNAMID's deployment, abductions have
gone from 142 to 218, a 53 percent increase, and attacks have
gone from 53 prior to deployment to 192 today, a 106 percent
increase.
This committee has provided $718 million of taxpayer money
to UNAMID. We are approaching the $773 million this committee
provided to UNPROFOR, the United Nations Protection Force, in
Bosnia.
I read the UNAMID mandate. The direct words in the UNAMID
mandate are to deter violence, robust patrolling, establish
disarmament, create security conditions--here is my favorite--
ensure security of humanitarian workers, ensure, protect
civilians and proactive patrolling. On Monday, four UNAMID
soldiers were wounded. There was no response from the force.
I recall, as you can, President Clinton's experience with
UNPROFOR. Many times when I talk to people who are fairly
knowledgeable of foreign policy I say you know, we really
should have solved Iraq like the way President Clinton did, by
going to the United Nations and getting a mandate before we
went into Bosnia. Everybody shakes their head yes, that is
right. That is what President Clinton did.
Actually President Clinton got no mandate from the U.N. for
Bosnia in the Kosovo war. A lot of people say well, we relied
heavily on the U.N. peacekeeping force in Bosnia, and that is
what helped solve the problem. It was President Clinton's
decision to move the United Nations out of the way and move a
NATO force into Bosnia that actually ended that conflict.
I think a number of people in the Congress have completely
forgotten the central lesson that President Clinton learned. We
used to talk about UNPROFOR as the United Nations Protection
Force for Bosnia. It was really the United Nations. It was
neither very united, nor had very many nations, did not offer
much protection and was not a force.
And so I would ask you. Do you think that UNAMID is really
the United Nations Accountants for Mass Internal Destruction
and really is not adding very much value added as UNPROFOR did
not, but at tremendous expense to the taxpayers through this
subcommittee?
Mr. Prendergast. Thank you. Well, on the surface every
critique of UNAMID imaginable is probably justifiable, but I
think we need to look at the context, the political context of
the United Nations Security Council and the larger
international community that doomed it to failure. Just a
minute is all I need on this.
Number one, we sent a peacekeeping mission, first an AU
peacekeeping. We did not have the guts to even authorize a U.N.
We sort of sent an AU peacekeeping mission out there without a
peace deal, so we have sent an apple to deal with an orange in
a crazy analogy.
Secondly, we have sent this force out there to observe a
peace deal that does not exist, but without even the requisite,
the basic equipment necessary to allow us to have a chance of
success.
We made promises, going back three Administrations, to
African forces all over the continent, along with our British
and French allies. We said to them, and I saw it during the
Bush I, saw it during Clinton, saw it during Bush II, that if
you, Africa, will provide the troops, the human fodder, cannon
fodder for these missions, we will give you the equipment and
we will train you.
We train them because it is cheap, but when it came time to
provide helicopters and air support and the kind of grounds
that----
Mr. Kirk. If I could just interrupt you, because I do not
agree with you.
I have dealt with peacekeeping troops from other countries,
and except for guard duty they are really not that capable. You
need western military forces to execute a mission. The
Government of Sudan knew that and so they directly forbid that
to be, Part A.
When you look at the TOE, the table of equipment, for
UNAMID it is basically a World War I military just trucked into
a place, and it is sitting on bases administering it itself.
When I look at the key factor in operations in an AOR like
this, it is helicopter support. I think UNAMID can rent two.
The Government of Sudan has 43 helicopters, including
Heinz, which are basically highly capable flying tanks. The
danger here is that we claim to be doing something, and when we
claimed to be doing something in Bosnia 300,000 people got
killed.
This committee felt very good. You know, I watched this
committee as it felt very good in providing money for UNPROFOR,
but it was a complete distraction and it was not until
President Clinton and Madeleine Albright made the critical
decision to push the U.N. out of the way that we actually
stopped the slaughter.
Mr. Prendergast. A brief, brief, brief response would be
indeed the response of just giving a little bit more to UNAMID
is not the answer. It means that we are just continuing to
treat symptoms rather than causes.
We need to do what we did in Southern Sudan, which is to
work assiduously, the U.S. leadership, in brokering a peace
deal in Darfur, and if it does not work or if the situation
continues to deteriorate in Darfur we need to look at some
other options that do not involve the United Nations that would
involve some use of military force as Senator Biden, Senator
Clinton and Susan Rice talked about in the run up to the
election.
So I actually think there are solutions. We just need to
utilize the resources that we have.
Mr. Kirk. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. Ms. Lee.
Opening Remarks of Ms. Lee
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Also thank you for this
hearing, and thank all of you for being here. This region of
the world has been, quite frankly, totally neglected. I think
all three of you have absolutely laid that out once again for
us. I want to go back to Darfur, John, since you have been on
this from day one. It does not seem to be getting any better.
We declared genocide, but what it took in terms of enacting
the mechanism to make sure that our declaration of genocide was
real, that just, quite frankly, did not happen. Now we are
looking at President Bashir being brought before the
International Criminal Court. I think that is long overdue.
Wanted to ask you, what is the implication, though, of him
being brought before the Courts as it relates to the United
States not being a part of the ICC? So what kind of influence
do we have to help bring this criminal to justice? Secondly,
let me ask you about the issue of the humanitarian workers
because now, as a result of the arrest warrant, it is my
understanding that Bashir has asked the humanitarian workers to
leave and the humanitarian crisis is growing, so how do we
address that?
I am wondering if the White Paper we submitted, and you
were part of this--Madam Chair, we worked with Majority Leader
Hoyer and Mr. Payne and came up with a series of
recommendations and a White Paper to submit to the new
administration. We are still waiting to hear their response to
the White Paper, but I believe many of the strategies that you
laid out were incorporated in that White Paper, so I want to
see if you are hearing anything from the administration in
terms of what their overall strategy should be.
Finally, let me just ask you about the numbers now in
Darfur. What are the realistic numbers in terms of the people
who have been killed? How are they going to survive through
this next phase? Do we anticipate more people being killed,
more refugees being run from their villages? You know, we have
heard many suggestions but we cannot seem to figure out, you
know, just exactly what to do.
Personally, I think we need to use our chips with China.
You know, I do not think the previous administration was ready
to call China on the carpet, nor the Arab nations. We have
talked with President Mubarak about this, and I know personally
I have talked to the President of Algeria about this several
years ago, but we cannot seem to get the world community to
come down hard on what is taking place in Darfur. So I want to
get your response and see what you think what else we can do.
Mr. Prendergast. Okay. Great. Great questions, Congressman
Lee. First, on the influence we have at the ICC, I think even
though we are not a signatory, we have actually more leverage
because of the ICC action than any other country because on the
security council we are the one country that has been stood up
and said we are not going to provide prematurely this Article
16, which is the deferral of the case that the ICC charter
allows in the interest of peace, we are not going to allow that
prematurely.
So we are standing in the way of President Bashir skating
away for free. So he knows that in order for him to have to
remove this sword of Damocles over his head, the United States
has to be involved. I say it is a sword of Damocles. Look,
there is no world police force. We are not going to go in and
arrest this guy tomorrow. There is no capacity to do that.
However, remember how Milosevic responded after he got
indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia.
He laughed. What tribunal? Eighteen months later, he is in
prison. You know, Charles Taylor laughed. That was even funnier
to him. You mean a tribunal based in Sierra Leone, this little
country I have been dominating for the last 10 years and
exploiting and taking all their diamonds, they have indicated
me and I am supposed to somehow take this seriously?
Eighteen months, 20 months later after he went to Nigeria
he was captured by the Nigerians and sent to the Hague. I would
not be dancing in the street if I was President Bashir for much
longer. I think he ought to be looking over his back, not only
externally at some of his allies, but internally within the
National Congress Party. Who wants this millstone around their
neck. They are going to have elections.
The National Congress Party is going to run for president
an indicted war criminal? I do not think so. I do not think it
is the Taliban. We need to play this one very, very smartly.
What that means is just like you are suggesting, we have got to
go to Beijing which has an interest not in condemning, they are
not going to vote for security council resolutions that condemn
their commercial allies, but what they will do is they will
support us in working towards a solution because their
interests, their $8.5 billion investment in southern Sudan is
at risk if the war resumes again in southern Sudan.
The Egyptians are sick and tired of Bashir's support for
Hamas, and Mubarak has said in no uncertain terms he is done
with this guy, and the Saudis even are starting to have enough.
You see these little articles popping up in the Middle Eastern
press comparing Bashir to Saddam, which is very, very
interesting. The wheels are starting to grind in the Middle
East about this guy, and so if we play our cards right, I do
believe we will see some progress.
We cannot give this Article 16 up prematurely. We cannot do
megaphone diplomacy without responses. We have to get in there
and on a daily basis be discussing with the key countries that
have a real leverage in Sudan. Just a note about what the U.S.
Congress has done. Congress has been a battering ram against
the last three administrations for them to do something about
Sudan.
They would not have done this comprehensive peace agreement
that ended the war between the north and the south if it was
not for years and years of activism on the part of people like
yourself and many other congresspersons on both sides of the
aisle. We would not have had the kind of extraordinary
humanitarian assistance program led by the United States.
By the way, no other country in the world combined gives as
much as we do. What is that? That is a symptom, but it is
actually to make sure that millions of people have not died
like they did in southern Sudan. So the Congress has to again,
I think. Even though we want to give the new administration a
chance, it is seven weeks in or whatever it is, they have got
to hear in no uncertain terms that we need action now.
You know, President Obama was able to name George Mitchell,
he was able to name Dennis Ross, he was able to name Dick
Holbrooke as envoys. Where is the Sudan envoy? Where is the
Great Lakes envoy? It does not take that much energy. You get a
person, you put them out there and say it is your job, and put
a little team together and go to work. In terms of number dead,
I mean, the estimates are 350,000 to 400,000. It is a wild
goose chase to find the numbers.
We know, what, about 2.75 million people, maybe three, have
been displaced, so that is a more firm number, but in terms of
the number of dead, I think the evidence has been sort of
whisked away by the sands of the Sahara Desert. We are never
going to know.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Chandler.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Chandler
Mr. Chandler. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for having
this hearing. This is an area that so many of us know too
little about, and it is very important for us to get this on
our agenda as best we can. With that being said, I find myself
mortified by what I hear. The information that you give leads
me to believe that we have got a situation here that is as
close to being insoluble as anything that I have heard about
anywhere in the world given the history of it, the depth of the
problems, the intricacy of the problems.
I know that you put out some suggestions, but frankly, I
would love for you all to give me an honest assessment of the
need for or lack of need--I guess the best way to ask this is
how can this be dealt with short of some kind of significant
military intervention? I just do not know how you can get the
security situation and deal with the governmental corruption,
with these roving armed bands, I do not know how you can deal
with all of these problems and then get back, get into a phase
of humanitarian aid and nation building without some kind of
military intervention from somewhere.
Now, I am not about to suggest that we need to have a
military intervention. Goodness knows we know what our
situation is, and we know where we are in different places in
the world, but if you could give me some assessment of how you
get these regions in a situation where anything really
ultimately can be done that can be lasting and meaningful
without military intervention. Thank you.
Mr. Shinn. Congressman Chandler, I think first my starting
point is that there is no one out there who is going to engage
in the kind of military intervention that you are suggesting
which would be necessary to solve any one of these problems,
not to mention the collectivity of them. Certainly the United
States, in my view, is not prepared to do that. The United
States has 43 peacekeepers in all of Africa today.
Mr. Chandler. Well, can it really be solved, though, short
of that? Do you really think it can be? I am not suggesting
that it be done. I do not mean to say that. I am just wondering
if you can solve it short of that.
Mr. Shinn. If you look at history and the efforts that have
tried to solve it up to this point one gets rather discouraged
because there frankly have not been a lot of solutions in this
part of the world. If you look at Liberia, Sierra Leone, or
some other parts of Africa, there have been some solutions. The
Horn is clearly the most conflicted corner of the world, and I
agree with John on this, since the end of World War II.
There is just one conflict after the other, and they are
all interlinked and intermingled. That is why it is imperative
to have a regional approach rather than a country-by-country
approach. I must confess, I was very taken aback when Darfur
developed as a serious crisis. Then there was very little
attention to the north/south peace agreement in Sudan which, in
my view, is potentially a much bigger problem than Darfur has
been, although Darfur is pretty enormous.
So you do have to look at it from the perspective of what
is going on throughout the region. You do have to engage all of
the partners who have some interest in this area. You cannot
ignore anyone, and that includes China and that includes Russia
because it is actually the largest provider of arms to the
region. Whether you are going to get cooperation from some of
these countries, who knows, but I think one has to try.
That does mean you have to give high level diplomatic
attention to it, and I agree with John on this. We may disagree
on how to deal specifically with what is going on in Darfur,
but I agree with the overall approach that that is the only way
to do it short of major military intervention, which simply is
not going to happen because no one is willing to do it.
You look at the failed efforts to set up a peacekeeping
effort in Somalia, for example. The Africa Union operation
there is pathetic. You look at the UNAMID operation, and I
would agree it has been highly unsuccessful, and I do not see
it building up to the point where it is going to be very
successful. All the United States has been prepared to do is
write checks and provide logistical support and fly people in.
They are not prepared to put troops on the ground, and it is
not going to happen. So the best you can do, and it may not be
enough, is to make an all out diplomatic effort.
Mr. Prendergast. And the diplomatic effort would--you know,
we said the same thing, people said the same thing about
southern Sudan. It is insoluble, it is hopeless, blah, blah,
blah. When the United States government invested in the peace
process we went to the core issues and the core interests of
these parties, we addressed them and within the 2-year process
of those negotiations, the peace deal, which was an enormous
accomplishment of the United States' foreign policy, was done.
In Darfur, the issues are negotiable. Individual
compensation, dismantling of this Janjaweed militia, power and
wealth sharing, these are all issues that at the table they can
be resolved. There is no table. Where is the United States?
Where is the international community to do what we have
actually proved can be done in southern Sudan, the same country
with the same genocidal regime? It is remarkable that we have
not done anything.
This is the investment we need to make. Congo, the fuel for
war is not there, it is here. We have got to start taking some
responsibility, and that is going to be a huge role for
Congress, I think, is to come up with that legislation that can
verify that we are not purchasing minerals for our electronics
industry that is actually fueling the deadliest war in the
world.
So there are many, many things that we can do in these
places that can help. There is no magic bullet. We would have
fired it a long time ago. There are things that we can do
within our power as consumers, as a Congress, and as an
administration and as a civil society like us that we can do
that can actually make a difference. Sorry. Did not mean to
interrupt.
Mrs. Lowey. I was going to say, before we get to Mr.
Israel, let us go to Mr. Baldo.
Mr. Baldo. Many of the solutions that are needed and not
military. On the contrary. These problems are just not soluble
through military action. If we limit ourselves to the Great
Lakes region, first I agree with Mr. Shinn that these are all
interlinked conflicts of a regional nature.
The Lord's Resistance Army is a Uganda rebel group that is
now causing a lot of damage in four countries, in eastern
Congo, in southern Sudan and in southern Central African
Republic and potentially with the possibility of going back
home into northern Uganda and disrupting the progress that has
been made. Therefore, there is no way of dealing with these
problems country by country. It has to be a regional approach.
Second, the United States is a major actor. There are other
major actors out there. What is needed is the multilateralism.
You know, regional approach is multilateralism, just to say.
Coordinate policy with the other international players with
influence in the region, mainly European Union, leading
European Union member states and share the layer of regional
actors with a lot of influence.
Eritrea qualifies, Libya does. You know, some of them are
not traditional diplomatic partners but we have to face the
reality that if you want to prevent this cycle of violence
either in the horn of Africa or in Central Africa, we must take
into consideration the influence that regional powers have.
South Africa is very influential in the region of southern
Africa and in the horn and so on, and then the African Union is
subregional organization, the EGAD and so on.
Third, the issues could be resolved through leverage. All
the countries in the region, whether Rwanda or Congo, depend on
the international donor community to supplement, you know,
their functioning budgets. There is direct budgetary support
for the governments of Uganda, Rwanda and DRC, and some
liberties, you know, some little pressure could help achieve a
lot of development at the level of peacemaking, peacebuilding
and addressing security risk.
This is exactly what had happened in the joint campaign
between Rwanda and the DRC because Netherlands, Sweden, just to
stop their budgetary supports for the Rwandan government and
the next day Kizani agreed with Kabila that we need to address
the issue of these abusive rebel groups from our country who
are there. Therefore, solutions have to come from the region
but the international community can apply pressure and get
things done.
This is diplomacy, this is policy and it does not need
military responses. The military response is actually not wise
to resolve these issues. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. I would like to continue that. Thank you. I am
going to turn to Mr. Israel, but at some point, I know for
those of us who have interacted with Mbeki and even Mandela,
people are dying, starving in Zimbabwe, Sudan. We have gotten
no assistance through the years. Let me turn to Mr. Israel and
perhaps we can pursue that some more, I think.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Israel
Mr. Israel. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to follow-
up on this line of thought. I believe in muscular diplomacy and
robust multilateralism, but I think you have got to have
something to back that up, for as long as we delay, delay and
delay, Bashir and others will defy, defy and defy. Let me
suggest one asset that has been largely overlooked with respect
to Darfur that some in Congress have given some attention to
but I think it needs to be explored more fully.
Near the border of Sudan and Chad is the Abiche airfield
which is currently operated by, actually, the French. In 2007,
I offered an amendment, which passed, to the Defense
Authorization Bill, and I did this with my colleague, Ms. Lee,
that asked the Department of Defense to do a feasibility study
as to whether the Abiche airfield is feasible for humanitarian
operations.
And, in fact, once an airfield is feasible for humanitarian
operation, it is feasible for other operations as well. The
Department of Defense did a classified study, reported to
Congress, and without going into the details of that classified
study, obviously, the next step would be to actually fund some
upgrades to the runways at Abiche.
The government of Chad supports this, the government of
Chad has indicated that it would cooperate with this, the
government of Chad believes that that would be a very strong
signal to send to Bashir that the world is taking this
seriously, so seriously that it is putting money in to expand
an airfield for humanitarian operations.
We are going to pursue that in the current fiscal year
Defense Authorization Bill, seeing if we can provide language
stating that it is a priority of the United States Congress to
see Abiche upgraded and provide those funds. My sense is you
may not agree with this, but I would like your opinion as to
whether if in a multilateral setting if France, and the United
States, and Chad and other countries began to upgrade the
capacity of an airfield that is within 200 miles of Darfur,
what the consequences of that would be with the regime in
Sudan.
Mr. Shinn. I think it would require knowing a little bit
more about what the potential use of that field is going to be.
If it were announced as strictly a humanitarian operation,
Sudan may or may not accept that. It may assume it has a more
nefarious purpose behind it. That would probably give the
Bashir government some pause for concern. I do not think there
is any question about that.
Pressure does have a role in this part of the world and
with this government. I spent three years in Sudan, not when
Bashir was in power but with other governments in Sudan, and I
have some feel for how they think. It would leave a question
mark in his mind. Let me put it that way. That might be good.
If it were in the meantime carrying out legitimate, useful,
humanitarian operations, that is for the good.
I have been to Chad but not to Abiche. I have been to
Darfur, but I do not know the Abiche airfield, so I do not know
from a logistical point of view exactly what it would add to
the humanitarian operation to that which is already going on. I
am just not in a position to judge that. But if it would add in
a quantitative sense to improving the humanitarian operation
there, that is positive.
Activating the airfield would leave a question mark in
Bashir's mind as to what is this airfield really for. But at
some point Bashir is going to come to the conclusion that it is
just for humanitarian assistance and I do not have to worry too
much unless it is, in fact, used for something more than that,
at which point I might start being troubled by what we were
trying to accomplish with it. I am just not sure that military
action in this part of the world, particularly by western
forces, gets us very far. I have seen too many cases where it
did not.
Mr. Baldo. Just to add here. What are the worst-case
scenarios today in Darfur? With the rising tensions around the
involvement of the International Criminal Court and the events
there, we do have a population of victims of 2.5 million in the
internally displaced camps, we do have multiple totally
unaccountable militias that are roaming around these camps, and
in the event of a worst-case scenario I could imagine, you
know, militias attacking camps for the displaced because of
some retaliation for the suspected support, for example, of the
indictment of the president or because of, you know, there is a
policy to dismantle the camps or disburse the displaced so that
they are not so visible.
If that happens it will be an immediate major humanitarian
disaster. It is necessary to have that capability for
humanitarian purposes on the Chadian end of the border to
address precisely, you know, that kind of major humanitarian
disaster. I see the likely scenario given that there are no
viable peace efforts to resolve the conflict peacefully, and
now the trend is actually on the contrary, rising tensions and
rising confrontations with the international community.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Mr. Rothman.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Rothman
Mr. Rothman. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you,
gentlemen, for your distinguished service. I read your
respective written testimonies. Ambassador Shinn, you make an
argument that I have not heard before, your section about the
Sudan, where you say U.S. policy is not well-served when it
says that genocide is continuing today in Darfur.
You then cite a report that says from an expert, as you
describe him, that violent deaths in 2008 in Darfur were only
relative to the charge of genocide of 1,550 violent deaths in
Darfur, presumably not meeting the threshold definition for
genocide. You say it is time to acknowledge that the situation
has changed and that this label of continuing genocide is
inaccurate and counterproductive. Have I summarized your view
on that?
Mr. Shinn. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rothman. Can you elaborate on that?
Mr. Shinn. Yes. I think that it is important when we are
making policy to be making that policy on the basis of the
facts that we have at the time they are being made. I am not
talking about 2003, 2004, or 2005 in Darfur. I am talking about
today, I am talking about through 2008. You get into all kinds
of definitional problems when you start talking about genocide,
but genocide is very emotionally laden.
Whenever that term is used, as awful as things have been in
Darfur, and I would be the first to acknowledge that, I do not
think it crosses the threshold of the definition of genocide. I
would agree that I am one of the very few people who is willing
to stand up publicly and make that statement. I think there are
a lot of others out there who may agree with me, who have
looked at it from an academic point of view or who know the
region, people like Alex deWaal, who has said it publicly.
Mr. Rothman. But, Mr. Ambassador, what would be the
diplomatic or public policy benefit in no longer using the term
genocide to describe what is going on in Darfur?
Mr. Shinn. Simply a degree of honesty. That is all. Just
acknowledging the situation for what it is.
Mr. Rothman. So it would not have any practical benefit to
the people of the Sudan.
Mr. Shinn. No. That we do not know. If one is to approach
the problem of Sudan with a greater degree of honesty--and I
made two points that are very controversial, one was this one
and one was the list of state sponsors of terrorism--I think
you will have a better response from the people in the region.
We do not know what the response would be from the Sudanese.
Mr. Rothman. Are the other nations in the region offended
by labeling what is going on in Darfur genocide?
Mr. Shinn. Let me put it this way. Offended, probably not,
but the United States is the only nation in the world that has
ever declared what is going on in Darfur as genocide. The only
nation in the world. Does that not raise some issues? Why is
the United States the only country to call this genocide?
Mr. Rothman. Well, if we called it mass slaughter, would
that be better?
Mr. Shinn. Other nations call it crimes against humanity. I
am not even judging what it was back in the 2003 to 2005
period, but I just point that out by way of fact we have to be
more honest when we deal with these issues. That is the only
point I am trying to make.
Mr. Rothman. Okay. I accept the academic notion of proper
use of terms. I am just wondering what the practical benefit
would be beyond that accuracy in the use of verbiage. On the
Congo, do either of you two gentlemen have any notions--I know
Mr. Prendergast talked about using consumer power in some way,
the west consumer power to in some way better the situation in
the Congo, but as I read it, this is a conflict primarily
between two major militias, and so how would efforts as
consumers address their conflict for power and domination?
Mr. Baldo. Well, there are a multitude of militias very
often operating at the very local level in resource-rich areas
in the DRC, in the Congo. The land is so rich in many areas you
just have to do some digging to find diamonds, or gold, or
cassiterite which is a material for tin, and so on. Timber,
coffee are also other forms of riches in that country.
To in a way address the issue of the link between illicit
resource exploitation and violence, because it is in the
fighting at the local level between these militias over control
of mining areas and between corrupt army officers, whether of
the Congolese Army or during the war of occupying armies of
Rwanda and Uganda, that most of the killing occurs and most of
the violence and the sexual violence occur because all the
fighting men have one thing in common, they all prey on
civilians and they are all perpetrators of mass violence
against civilians. Just what you do when you have the gun and
the civilians----
Mr. Rothman. So forgive me. Would you make the connection
then between the consumer efforts and improving the situation
there?
Mr. Baldo. Exactly. These resources enter into global
economies through Kigali and Kampala. For gold, for instance,
Kampala, Uganda, has a production of only a few kilograms of
gold, but the Central Bank of Uganda in its official statistics
gives a number in the tons. Similarly, it is known that Rwanda
is not a producer of many of these special minerals that go
into information technology gadgets, and, you know, advanced
industries.
The international community could simply mandate that no
minerals are imported from countries that do not produce it.
That would immediately have the effect of really creating a
clogging of the system.
Mr. Rothman. So the Ugandan and Rwandan forces in the
Democratic Republic of Congo would then, you believe, withdraw?
Mr. Baldo. Now they are not present there. They are only
present when they go by invitation of the Congolese government
as has happened of late.
Mr. Rothman. And how would that address the local militias?
The native militias?
Mr. Baldo. Well, you know, if you do proper investigation,
as the United Nations has done through its materials, you could
find links between these militias and state access, including
the Congolese government itself and influential people in the
army financing militias, buying these resources from them,
exporting them through contacts, you know, in the regional
markets for these minerals.
Interestingly, because of this economic interest, in the
conflict, you know, you will find that there are business
interests between the Congolese Army and the militia of the
democratic forces for the liberation of Rwanda which the
Congolese Army is supposed to be fighting. Together there have
been linkages of an economic nature that were documented by UN
investigators.
Mr. Rothman. Thank you, doctor. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. Lowey. Before I want to turn to Mr. Schiff, Mr. Baldo
you know that the U.S. Ambassador to Congo and the U.K.
Ambassador are trying to put together a task force just to deal
with the issue that Mr. Rothman referenced. They are working on
it to deal with this issue that you referenced. So we can
follow-up on it. You are probably aware of that.
Mr. Baldo. Yes.
Mr. Rothman. I am just going to another panel.
Mrs. Lowey. That is quite all right. Send them my best. I
should be there, but I am not going there. Mr. Schiff.
Mr. Schiff. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, gentlemen,
for being here. I wanted to turn the topic in a different
direction to Somalia. Ambassador, you mentioned in your
testimony that the U.S. had essentially abandoned Somalia after
1994. I think that is largely true. To the degree that we have
been focused on Somalia, it has been intermittent, largely
unsuccessful, uncoordinated and lacking in any really
comprehensive policy direction.
The question is what should our policy be now? We have a
new president there, we have a supposedly moderate Islamic
government, we have al-Shabab in the wings, we have a limited
ability to intervene or act there because of the dangerous
situation. I am not suggesting that we have some kind of
military action there, but I am asking what role can we play
constructively?
Should we try to find ways to support this new government
based on what we know about it or would our support for a
government therefore damn the government in the eyes of the
people there? Some have suggested it is so hard to get
international aid into Somalia that we should establish through
the international community a form of green zone in Mogadishu.
I know you have recommended us focusing on trying to help
them build a police force, but given the difficulty we have had
in Afghanistan developing a police force, we found there it is
much easier to build an army than a police force. I think you
have, you know, some of the same clan dynamic in Somalia that
it would be very difficult to build a police force potentially,
a national police force in any event. What do we do? What can
we do constructively in Somalia?
Mr. Shinn. Thank you very much for the question,
Congressman Schiff. I wish there were more interest in Somalia
generally. On the Hill there are a number of people who do have
an interest in it but it is not a very large group. The
immediate problem in Somalia today is the issue of security.
There is a window of opportunity right now, and that is the
current new government of national unity. It is a combination
of the former Transitional Federal Government (TFG) that the
United States supported very strongly, which has been joined by
the so-called moderate group of Islamists, actually, former
members of the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia, the people that
the United States was once opposing.
That grouping has divided into various factions and the
more moderate part of it, the Sheikh Sharif portion, is now
working with the TFG. It is not clear whether this government
is going to be widely accepted by the Somali people. We simply
do not know. It is clearly being given somewhat more of a
chance by Somalis generally in the country than the previous
Transitional Federal Government, which was not doing the right
kinds of things in order to ingratiate itself with the people
generally.
This government may trip and fall, too, but in the
meantime, I think there really is no good option to doing
anything other than trying to support it. By doing so, I am not
suggesting that the United States should be out front and
center at this point. I think this is frankly a time for the
United States to quietly step back, let the Somalis do what
they do best, which is to talk to each other. Let them engage
in their own dialogue in their own way and work things out.
Sometimes they do not work out, and in recent years they
have not worked them out, but give them an opportunity to see
what they can manage by bringing into the fold some of these
dissident elements, the most difficult one being the al-Shabab
group, the militantly religious organization that is opposed to
this government. I am not convinced that all of that al-Shabab
group is that committed to a radical ideology.
I think there are some who are opportunists, some who can
be eventually brought along to the moderate side, and I think
that is the way to go. In the meantime, I think it is important
for the United States to have in mind some kind of support for
a development program once security becomes appropriate. You
cannot do that now. There is no way to do a development program
in Somalia today, but you have to be able to step in quickly
when that is possible.
The police force idea, I agree it is a gamble. There is
absolutely no guarantee a police force would work, but Somalia
has one interesting thing going for it. It has a very long
history of a proud and professional police force. It is
something that Somalis have always felt very strongly about. So
it may not be the same situation you had in Iraq, for example.
I am not saying it will work, but I am saying it is worth a
chance.
That is a medium term solution. You cannot have police go
in and try to combat heavily armed al-Shabab right now. That is
not going to work. So I see the police force as more of a
medium term solution, and in the meantime, one has to muddle
through on the security side by leaving the very weak Africa
Union force there to keep the port and the airport open. That
is important to keep them out of the hands of al-Shabab.
The focus now should be on the political side and
supporting the current government and helping it behind the
scenes, whatever one can do, perhaps bringing the Arab League
more into it, to peel away those opponents that still do oppose
that government, with the hope that eventually it can stand on
its own two feet.
Mr. Schiff. Thank you. I do not know if you would like to
add on to that as well?
Mr. Baldo. Well, I am in agreement with this line
definitely. It is the time for perhaps the new president to
widen the support base of his government, and he is working
very hard on this, coming from the background of, you know,
because they were not on the same side, they were actually the
opposition force to the previous government as the Islamic
Courts, and to build a region of support base within Africa and
in the Arab League region.
I believe the potential is good. The outlook is that, you
know, there is some expectation that this time Somalia may
finally have a working government. So we are in this
expectation and we will see where things will be heading.
Mr. Schiff. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you both. Before we close the hearing I
have one additional question, and if you do, you are certainly
welcome to ask it, Mr. Schiff. This subcommittee was in
northern Uganda about a year and a half ago when there was
still hope that Kony was going to sign a peace agreement. We
met with some of the rescued girls and rescued boys, and there
was a feeling of optimism that perhaps in spite of all the
challenges there would be some movement towards a future in
Uganda.
Now, we know that the U.S. military was helpful as an
advisor, we understand, in the recent military action which
led--we saw in its wake murder, decapitation, rape, the ugliest
scene. Over 150 people were either killed, or maimed, or
destroyed by this recent action. I have a question for both of
you. Do you have any comments on what, if anything, should be
done now? How do you take action, if that is what you would
recommend, to minimize or reduce the impact on civilians?
Mr. Baldo. The prospects for peace have really helped
create a real momentum in northern Uganda. Even before the
conclusion of the UBA process there was a movement of people
out of the camps going to their own areas and trying to revive
their shattered lives and so on. Suspicion from Kony, in
particular, was a key obstacle for concluding that peace
process.
He never believed the commitment of the government that
once he had signed, then they would apply the other
accountability mechanisms and will request the International
Criminal Court to withdraw its arrest warrants against him. The
government is committed to applying these mechanisms regardless
of the fact that the peace has not been formally concluded.
Therefore, they are forging ahead with the establishment of
a special chamber in the high Court to try, you know, some of
the war crimes out of Kenya and northern Uganda, they are
preparing alternate mechanisms for the use of traditional
justice as agreed, and some mechanisms for reparations for
victims and to extend the benefit of the amnesty law to those
willing to come out from the rebellion.
One of the top people, deputy of Kony, who is also indicted
by the ICC, has actually asked to be given amnesty and is
negotiating his, you know, hand-over by an intermediary
humanitarian actor to the government for amnesty. The
government has had also as part of that package adopted a very
ambitious reconstruction program because the problem of
northern Uganda is economic and social marginalization and the
lack of investment of the national wealth in infrastructure and
development effort in north Uganda.
The government of Uganda really has to do a lot of effort
to bridge that gap. It has developed a program which receives a
lot of international donor support, but the government is not
doing much at this time to implement that program. It is a
key--a key--prerequisite, I believe, for returning northern
Uganda to stability, and to peace and to a sense of some
belonging to their country.
Once the people see that there is an effort to try and
introduce, you know, a measure of compensation for many, many
years of neglect from the government and many years of
marginalization. I believe without that commitment from the
government of Uganda, you know, the chances of lasting peace
will be minimal. This is an area where again diplomacy and
policy could play a major role by really pushing the government
of Uganda to stay committed to this approach. Thank you.
Mr. Shinn. Madam Chairwoman, it is an awfully good question
and you raise yet another horrific problem in this part of the
world of which there are far too many. I agree with what
Suliman said. I cannot add a great deal to his comments except
that my own personal view is that I do not think Kony has any
intention of ever signing a peace agreement and abiding by it.
We have gone through these charades so many times. How many
times do you have that football pulled away before you decide
to stop kicking at it? The one thing that I would add, though,
that I think needs to be looked at more is the degree to which
you can use traditional methods of conflict resolution among
the Acholi people.
They have their own systems for dealing with conflict. Many
in the West would find these systems very disagreeable because
they do not accord with western systems of justice at all, but
there has been some history in using them and they have
actually had some success, at least at local levels, in the
Acholi area. I think that there has to be some more attention
given to that because I sure do not see anything else working
out there.
I do not think that the International Criminal Court action
achieved anything either, quite frankly. Arguably, it worsened
the situation in the case of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA). I
think it is time to look at some traditional mechanisms of
conflict resolution. It probably is not going to solve the Kony
problem, but it might solve some of the issues underlying the
Kony problem.
Mrs. Lowey. Would that include military action?
Mr. Shinn. The traditional mechanisms are very much based
on local systems of justice, and, in some cases, letting some
people off with a lot less than we would ever accept in a
western system of justice. That is why we find them so
disagreeable. In the context of the Acholi people, they have
been shown on occasion to work. I am just arguing that there
has to be more attention given to that.
I do not want to suggest that this is going to resolve the
problem of Kony. It will not, but if it can at least reduce the
amount of violence in that region, that is a starting point.
Mr. Schiff. Just one last question, Madam Chair. I wonder
if you would mind giving us any thoughts in terms of Yemen, the
status of any issues in Yemen that we should be concerned
about, and whether you have any policy recommendations.
Mr. Shinn. We are probably not the best people to be
addressing Yemen. I have been there, though that does not make
me an expert. I am concerned about the willingness of the
Yemeni government recent many years to carry through with what
it says it is going to do in terms of being supportive on
counterterrorism and related issues. There have been too many
occasions when they have not followed through, and, in some
cases, have done the opposite of what the United States
expected from them.
This is very troubling. I was just reading a report the
other day where it appears that some of these Somali pirates
are being aided and abetted from: Yemeni territory. These may
be private activities not those by the government, but if this
is true, it is very disturbing because it is up to the
government to stop that sort of thing. The government of Yemen,
in theory, should be in a position to stop it.
I think we are dealing with a government that is very torn
between its continuing in power because of the views of the
people that it represents, on the one hand, and wanting to
maintain a decent relationship with the United States, on the
other, and other western governments. As a result, you are
getting a very ambivalent response out of that government. I am
really not an expert on Yemen. I wish I did have a list of
things that ought to be done, but I really do not.
Mr. Schiff. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. I would like to thank you again for your time.
This concludes today's hearing on Africa. The Subcommittee on
State Foreign Operations and Related Programs stands adjourned.
Thank you.
Thursday, March 5, 2009.
THE ROLE OF CIVILIAN AND MILITARY AGENCIES IN THE ADVANCEMENT OF
AMERICA'S DIPLOMATIC AND DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES
WITNESSES
DR. JOHN J. HAMRE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
NANCY LINDBORG, PRESIDENT, MERCY CORPS
AMBASSADOR GEORGE MOOSE, VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, UNITED STATES
INSTITUTE OF PEACE
DR. GORDON ADAMS, PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, AMERICAN
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL SERVICE
Opening Statement of Chairwoman Lowey
Mrs. Lowey. The Subcommittee on State, foreign operations,
and Related Programs will come to order.
My ranking member I gather will be here any minute.
Good morning. I welcome our distinguished panel, Dr. John
J. Hamre, President and CEO of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies; Ms. Nancy Lindborg, President of Mercy
Corps and a recognized leader in the NGO community; Ambassador
George Moose, Vice Chairman of the Board of the United States
Institute of Peace; Dr. Gordon Adams, Professor of
International Relations at American University School of
International Service.
We really look forward to hearing from you today on this
very important topic.
As you probably know, I strongly believe that foreign
policy decisions rest with the Secretary of State as the
principal adviser to the President, and this authority should
neither be delegated by the Department of State nor superseded
by any other department or agency in the executive branch.
With this in mind, today's hearing will examine the
relationship between the civilian agencies and the military in
the formulation and execution of foreign policy.
Last month, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Admiral Michael Mullen, told an audience at Princeton
University that United States foreign policy has become too
militarized, end quote. I could not agree more. I have a
growing concern with how the lines of responsibility between
civilian agencies and the military are increasingly blurring,
with the Department of Defense playing a larger role in
diplomacy and development. I believe in the long run this will
have a detrimental effect not only on the civilian agencies and
America's reputation, but also on our military and ultimately
our national security.
Now, let me state clearly that I believe the United States
military is the very best in the world, and they prove every
day that they are adaptive, creative, innovative and serve our
country with distinction. Yet the fact remains that if the
civilian agencies are not stepping up to the plate, this does
not mean that the job should fall to our overburdened military.
It means that policy makers in Washington must provide support
for and demand more from the civilian agencies.
Today's panel of outside experts will explore with us the
militarization of foreign policy and the toll being placed on
the Department of State and the Department of Defense as well
as on USAID.
I would like this hearing to address several key issues.
First, we have all witnessed the increased role that the
military has recently played, often by necessity, in diplomacy
and development, especially in insecure areas like Iraq and
Afghanistan. Operationally what are the unintended consequences
of this increased role to both diplomats, foreign assistance
professionals, and the efforts of the NGO community, and what
is the unintended consequence to United States foreign policy
and how it is viewed by our friends and adversaries? On a
practical level, what type of coordination and division of
labor is necessary between the civilian agencies and the
military to make any joint effort work, and is there confusion
about who speaks for the United States?
Additionally, there is growing consensus that the resources
of the military and civilian elements of our national security
apparatus are grossly out of balance. What will it take to get
the civilian agencies in a position to fulfill their roles,
particularly in nonpermissive environments? On a related note,
what are the consequences of dueling security assistance
authorities between the Department of State and Defense?
As I said in our hearing last week on growing the
diplomatic and development workforce, I cannot remember any
other time during my service in Congress when diplomacy and
development assistance were viewed as coequal components of
defense in relation to our Nation's national security.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in July said our diplomatic
leaders, be they in Ambassadors' suites or on the State
Department's 7th floor, must have the resources and political
support needed to fully exercise their statutory
responsibilities in leading American foreign policy.
I wholeheartedly agree and welcome the growing support for
strengthening civilian capacity and believe that it is critical
that we take advantage of this pivotal moment of consensus on
this issue. This subcommittee has already begun to expand the
capacity of USAID and the State Department because we all know
that soft power is a more cost effective alternative to
military interventions. Yet increased capacity will not
materialize overnight.
So then in the interim how do we move forward? Civilian
agencies and our military have vastly different missions, and
although they are not mutually exclusive, they cannot be
substituted for or replace one another. So now is the time for
Congress and the Obama administration to aggressively increase
support for civilian agencies, strengthen our development and
diplomatic capabilities, relieve an overburdened military, and
provide the political support for the civilian agencies to
exercise the responsibility Secretary Gates called for in July
2008.
No one would dispute that a failure to act rapidly
increases the risk to vital United States security interests.
But the Congress and the administration must stop taking the
easy and quick-fix route of providing duplicative authorities
and overburdening our military while demanding results of
civilian agencies without equipping them with the tools or
resources needed.
So I look forward to working with Secretaries Clinton and
Gates and the Chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral
Mullen, to create the framework for the United States
Government so that they can execute their mandated areas of
responsibility in a coherent and coordinated pursuit of the
United States foreign policy objective.
I look forward to hearing from this impressive panel of
witnesses today as we explore this critical issue. But first I
look forward to hearing from our ranking member, Ms. Granger,
for any comments she may have. Ms. Granger.
Ms. Granger. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for
holding this hearing on the role of civilian and military
agencies in advancing U.S. diplomatic and development
objectives. Last week the subcommittee held a hearing on the
21st century workforce needs for the Department of State and
USAID, and today we continue that discussion by examining the
future of the civilian-military relationship.
I want to thank the distinguished witnesses for coming and
for sharing their insights on this important topic. You are the
people we need to hear from.
It has become clear that future threats to U.S. national
security will require an approach that incorporates all three
Ds, defense, diplomacy and development. It is also important
that military and civilian agencies increase the level of
cooperation in Washington and in the field in order to succeed.
But over the last few years, civilian agencies have experienced
difficulty carrying out their core functions, forcing the
military to take up traditional civilian roles. That has
created imbalance in the 3 Ds and strained areas of cooperation
between the military and civilian agencies.
Secretary Gates, as well as other military leaders, have
acknowledged that future success in preventing conflict and
stabilizing post-conflict situations requires a civilian
component that can work effectively in partnership with the
military. Recognizing the value of strengthened civilian-
military cooperation, the Congress has provided resources to
build the civilian agencies so they can more effectively
advance U.S. interests. In addition to funding the Department
of State and USAID staffing initiatives, the Congress
appropriated $75 million in the fiscal year 2008-2009
supplemental and another $75 million is included in the fiscal
year 2009 omnibus bill to support the standup of a civilian
reserve capacity.
Now that funding is in place and the civilian agencies are
establishing civilian-military policies and programs, the
Congress is monitoring closely whether the 3 Ds are returning
to the appropriate balance. I look forward to hearing your
views, the views of the witnesses on our progress and the
prospects you see for achieving this goal.
And I thank you for being here, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. And members of our panel, of course
we would be appreciative if you could summarize your statement
for the record. Your total statement will be entered in the
record, and I want to make sure that we have plenty of time for
questions. So the order of recognition will be Dr. Hamre, Ms.
Lindborg, Ambassador Moose, and Dr. Adams. We will begin with
Dr. Hamre.
Opening Statement of Mr. Hamre
Mr. Hamre. Chairwoman Lowey, Ranking Member, all of the
colleagues on this committee, thank you for inviting me to
participate. This is the first time I have had a chance to
appear before this subcommittee. I have been in front of the
Defense Appropriations Subcommittee about 100 times, but I have
never been invited here before. So I think it took 8 years of
exile from the Department before I was invited and I do want to
thank you for including me and thank you for taking the
testimony. I am going to depart a little bit from it because I
think the nature of the way you framed the discussion this
morning differs a bit from my testimony, so if I might react to
your statements and then open up for just a few observations.
I think, Chairwoman, you highlighted the central problem
when you talked about nonpermissive environments. I don't think
there is a big dispute, I know there is no dispute from a
Defense Department standpoint about the leadership we expect
the State Department to give us in peaceful environments, and I
know that the State Department doesn't have any quarrels about
us being in charge when we are shooting. I think the question
that is awkward is when you have difficult, compromised,
insecure environments and we need to work together. That tends
to be the problem.
Now, unfortunately, when we are in insurgency warfare, this
tends to be a very long and prolonged period. It is not the
case for conventional war. You know the first Iraq war was 35
days, you know, it was over, and then it was a very different
environment. We are involved in insurgencies in the last years
and we are up against an opponent who intentionally blends into
civil society, making it dramatically more complicated. We know
we can't win insurgency warfares with violence. Those are won
through political gestures. And political gestures in a, as you
say, in a nonpermissive environment blend use of force and the
use of soft power means. And so how do we construct that in a
smart strategy in a very complex and difficult environment?
Now these last 6 years have not gone well. We went into
Iraq with probably an inappropriate model for what we
anticipated we would confront. We didn't manage dynamically an
evolving environment very effectively, and in honesty, our
partners, I say ``our,'' I am speaking from a DOD standpoint,
our partners in the civilian agencies didn't have resources
that they could bring to the fight. So the Defense Department
stepped in. It isn't a role that they seek. They would much
prefer, frankly, they would much prefer not to have to do the
economic engagement. But when you just didn't have the
resources, many years of underfunding of the State Department
and candidly not an operational culture in the field where you
have an insecure environment, where it just created a highly
unique circumstance that the military would prefer not to be
in.
Now, 7 years ago when I first went, actually, 8 years ago I
first went to CSIS, I had just lived through the experience, I
had been Deputy Secretary of Defense and I had lived through
the challenges of Bosnia. And we knew how to get in a war. We
didn't know how to rebuild civil society. So we launched a
project to try to identify what does it take to succeed in
post-conflict reconstruction? And Nancy was one of our
commissioners. Congressman Wolf was one of our commissioners.
And one of our early projects we did was to draft a template of
all the things that have to be done in a post-conflict, in this
kind of an environment, during the initial response when they
are still shooting, in the transition phase to a stable
environment, and then in the sustainability phase, in four
different dimensions.
Probably only 10 percent of these tasks belong to the
military. You know, most of them belong to the civilian
agencies. But they don't have the capacity to deal with it, and
I would have to honestly say today they don't really have the
capacity.
So to sum up, you need to give resources to the civilian
agencies to do their job.
Number two, you have got to hold them accountable for
producing capability that can go into the field with the
military, otherwise the military will have to do this.
Three, we need to start developing a framework where we can
work and regulate the business of contractors on the
battlefield. That framework has not been in place. We are now
overreacting in the wrong way, and we are making it more
compromised and more difficult. We have to get this right.
And finally, we need to work out in insurgency situations
the working relationship between government and nongovernmental
organizations. I think we have especially in insurgent
situations highly compromised circumstances that we have NGO
people involved with and their relationship with us. This has
to get worked out and it doesn't exist now.
I would be happy to amplify during the question period.
Thank you very much for inviting me.
[The statement of Mr. Hamre follows:]
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Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Ms. Lindborg.
Opening Statement of Ms. Lindborg
Ms. Lindborg. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Lowey and
Congresswoman Granger, and members on the committee. I echo the
appreciation for tackling this very critical topic, and there
is an extraordinary consensus I think emerging on the need for
smart power and for rebalancing our three Ds and the capacity
to address these very critical challenges, and so we do have
this amazing opportunity right now.
I speak as the head of an operational NGO, Mercy Corps. We
work in 35 conflict affected and transitional countries around
the world. So I really speak from that experience of being on
the ground where often it is the NGOs, the journalists, and the
military who are there. And we see firsthand the need to work
out these systems and these approaches that enable all of our
capacities to be fully harnessed.
These are challenging and deeply critical environments
where you have got countries burdened by a very potent brew of
poverty, weak governance, and conflict, and it is imperative
for our national security interests that we determine the best
way to address that.
My greatest fear against the backdrop of what we said in
terms of the lack of resourcing for our civilian capacities is
that as the military has stepped into this void and we all
appreciate that they have in fact shouldered burdens that were
not otherwise able to be addressed, that we may be learning the
wrong lessons. As we have equipped our military with additional
capacities and additional authorities, created mechanisms like
AFRICOM and the PRT, that we risk confusing short-term
insurgency fighting methods, short-term security goals and
approaches with our longer term development needs and
objectives. And we need to understand that there is value in
both and that they will require different approaches to enable
both to fully go forward.
We frequently have had to figure out how to work in these
very tough environments. I would flag that in the last decade
we talked quite a bit about complex humanitarian emergencies.
The greater challenge for this decade is complex development.
As John mentioned, we have many environments where what the
military is calling counterinsurgency, we are seeing insecure
environments that are plagued by poverty and poor governance
and insecurity, and the challenge is how do you adapt the
fundamentals of good development to these complex development
environments? But first and foremost among those is the need
for a community-led approach, and at a recent event hosted by
USIP, World Bank President Robert Zoellick in fact noticed that
community-led and community ownership of development is
critical for legitimacy and authority of development processes.
We need that process to be able to move forward, even as we are
looking at the shorter term security objectives.
Mercy Corps and other colleague agencies have had that
experience in places like Iraq where we have interrupted
uninterruptedly since 2003 with support and funding from USAID,
where we were one of five NGOs working nationwide on a
community action program. And I think it shows some of the
models of how we might be able to construct community-based
development programs even in the midst of a very insecure
environment, where we use mechanisms such as community
acceptance, where communities buy into these projects, they are
their projects, and they vote on what projects will go forward.
They vote on where our offices will be located. We have had no
security incidents with any of the programs that we have
conducted during our time there. Communities have invested
significantly their own resources into these programs as well,
and all of this has been done by unarmed civilians, the
majority of whom are Iraqis. And they know full well that this
is a gesture and a program funded by the U.S. Government. To
the extent that when Katrina hit, a group of Iraqis joined
voluntarily together to donate money to the victims of Katrina,
recognizing the hand that the U.S. had extended to them.
I would just sum up by saying that as we look forward to
what we might do to help redress the balance, I would start by
rethinking the PRTs. We need to create structures that allow
both the short-term and the long-term development objectives to
be pursued by both the military and the civilian.
We should look at civilianizing 1207. This is an authority
that was an inefficient workaround that is serving now to have
the Pentagon fund projects through USAID. It is more efficient
if USAID just does that for the post, the conflict prevention
objectives that it is meant to serve. We need longer term
funding that is more flexible, that enables the kind of
flexibility that the military has with the CERP funds that can
be deployed on the ground to move us quickly as these conflict
environments move but through civilian structures.
As has been noted, we must rebuild USAID which operates
with less than half the staff that it had a decade ago, and I
think there is a good start with the Obama administration's
fiscal year 2010 international affairs budget and its request
for $51.7 billion, especially with the emphasis of increasing
personnel for State and AID.
I look forward to the conversation. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Lindborg follows:]
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Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Ambassador.
Opening Statement of Ambassador Moose
Mr. Moose. Thank you, Madam Chair, Ranking Member Granger,
and members of the committee. I too am grateful for the
opportunity to appear before you and for the committee's
interest, the subcommittee's interest in this particular
subject, which I think is critical to the conduct of our
foreign policy as we go forward.
I mentioned in my prepared remarks that I have benefited
from my affiliations with several organizations that have taken
a profound interest in this subject, among them USIP, Search
for Common Ground, and LMI Government Consulting, but that my
remarks will reflect strictly my own personal views. I thought
that essentially my prepared remarks focused on what I believe
is required to restore some semblance of balance between the
military and civilian dimensions of our machinery for
conducting U.S. and international security policy, and I won't
rehearse those views here.
I do think it is important to note, partly in response to
previous comments, that I think this rebalancing is important
across the full spectrum of our foreign relations, not only in
hot, nonpermissive environments or even in environments which
are partially secure and partially insecure, but the fact of
the matter is our military is present everywhere in the world
and they are increasingly active across the board, and so the
question becomes how do we ensure some effective integration of
those activities with the rest of the foreign policy activities
of our government.
I have tried in my prepared remarks to reinforce the
testimony of colleagues from last week; namely, the case for a
major increase in the capacities of the Department of State and
other civilian international agencies. But as I looked at my
testimony last night I thought it might be helpful to try to
situate my remarks, perhaps that of others, in a somewhat
larger context that is insofar as I can discern that larger
context from where I sit down here in the trenches.
As members of the subcommittee are aware, there has been a
rich discourse going on around this town for the last several
months, all of it turning on the question of how to reform and
restructure our national security architecture. Those
conversations certainly have been driven by the events of 9/11
and how we might better organize our foreign policy national
security resources to address the threats that 9/11 exposed.
They have also been driven by our experiences in Iraq and
Afghanistan of trying to bring to bear the full capabilities of
our government in order to accomplish our goals of
reconstruction and stabilization.
Starting with Iraq, in particular, that conversation has
prompted precisely the question of how we better integrate the
tools in the field, and that conversation has led to at least
one construct, the PRT, which is an effort to try to bring
together the elements of our military, diplomatic and
development capabilities at the operational level. There have
been similar kinds of conversations taking place at various
levels of the Defense Department, both here in Washington but
also in the field, and I would note notably at AFRICOM and
SOUTHCOM.
At a more strategic level, there is the project of our
national security reform which was funded by the Congress which
has undertaken an examination of what might be done to achieve
integration across Federal agencies, both military and
civilian, and that study too starts with the assumption that
the security challenges that we face are of such complexity
that they require us to draw upon all the capabilities of
government and to bring them together in whole of government
approaches.
That discussion at the Center for the Study of the
Presidency has had a parallel at what John Hamre's organization
has been doing over at CSIS under the rubric of smart power,
and I believe that those two conversations, the one on national
security forum, the one on smart power, are very much informing
the conversations that are taking place at the NSC these days
about what the future organization structure authorities of the
new National Security Council ought to look like.
Very much related to this is the conversation that my
colleague, Gordon Adams, has been involved in over the question
of reorganizing and restructuring foreign assistance, and Nancy
as well. And that conversation certainly got a boost from
Secretary Rice when she arrived at the State Department and
quickly discovered how difficult it was to array the resources
of our foreign assistance portfolio and to align them behind
what she and President Bush determined were their national
security priorities. And I would say that that is a problem
that faces any administration given the fragmentation and the
way that we do our foreign assistance and foreign policy
budgeting.
And closely connected to that has been another conversation
about the role of public diplomacy, how we conduct the need for
new structures within government, but beyond that how we
leverage the capabilities, the resources, the contributions of
nongovernmental actors in order to achieve that.
Now, last but not least, there is a discussion that has
been taking place in some parts of town about how what we do
here in the United States somehow gets linked to what is
happening overseas. And that conversation stems from a
recognition that at the end of the day these problems, national
security threats, foreign policy issues that we address, are
simply too large for us to be able to deal with on our own. We
need to figure out how we leverage of resources of others.
Carlos Pasqual, over at Brookings, has been very much a part of
that conversation.
Now, returning to my remarks, the central point I want to
make in this hearing is that the role of the State Department
is, in my view, central to all of those conversations, and it
is because that is where traditionally these issues get
integrated, and it is quite true that in cases like Afghanistan
and Iraq, which are major challenges to security, the fact at
that level that requires a major role of the NSC. But there are
simply too many problems out there for the NSC to be able to
take them all on unless one envisages moving the entire
apparatus of the foreign policy of the United States into the
West Wing of the White House. We need therefore to rebuild the
State Department as the centerpiece of a model, of a paradigm,
of a structure that allows for the effective coordination of
all aspects of our foreign and international security policy,
which includes not only again the hot situations, the
nonpermissive environments, but how we integrate those things
across the board. And my experience is in Africa, and I can
tell you that the security challenges in Africa require
contributions from diplomats, development experts, and the
military if we are to solve, help Africans solve the challenges
that pose threats to their security, but which if unaddressed
also pose long-term threats to our security. That begins with
rebuilding the State Department, but I also think it goes to
the question of the authorities and the mandates which have
been eroded over time and which need to reviewed and restored.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
[The statement of Mr. Moose follows:]
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Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Dr. Adams.
Opening Statement of Mr. Adams
Mr. Adams. Thank you, Madam Chair, Congresswoman Granger,
and committee members, for having this hearing. I think it is
critically important and quite unusual, I think a very unique
precedent to have this subcommittee hold a hearing on this wide
a topic, which is of course in the end structure and process
and institutions are all going to be central to the decisions
you have to make in this subcommittee. So I congratulate you
for having the hearing, and I am happy to join the rest of my
panelists in saying well done and a good start.
What I am going to say will be very brief because we have a
lengthy statement. I am not going to try to lumber you with the
whole thing, but I wanted particularly to point out that much
of what I say is based at least on two pieces of work with
which I have been associated with other people both here at the
table and on the dais. Congressman Kirk, who had to leave, was
a member, a co-chair of a task force at CSIS which I sat on, on
nontraditional security assistance which informed my thinking
in this area greatly. And we have, as you know, and I have made
copies available, done a report with the American Academy of
Diplomacy at the Stimson Center on what we need to do to
strengthen the tool kit of statecraft on the civilian side for
the United States Government. So those two experiences plus my
own experience at OMB and in the research world have influenced
what I have to say.
I am not a doctor and I don't play one on television but I
thought I might cast my oral statement somewhat in the
framework of diagnosis, prognosis and cure, to see if that at
least lays some steps toward discussion in the question and
answer.
Diagnosis, I think quite simply we have, as you stated, a
growing imbalance between our military and civilian tools of
statecraft. And I would argue that is not healthy, hence the
medical metaphor. It is not healthy for our military, it is not
healthy for our civilian instruments, and it is not healthy for
the American role in the world. And I will come back in terms
of prognosis to what I mean by that.
But the diagnosis I see in such areas as five new spigots
and programs for security and foreign assistance in the Defense
Department under DOD authorities over the last 8 years, which
have cost us now as taxpayers a total of $50 billion in
expenditure directly through the Department of Defense. And I
see it in the seven spigots and programs that we have for
stabilization and reconstruction operations across the
government, many of them new and many of those in the
Department of Defense.
I see the diagnosis in the increasing tendency to develop
civilian engagement capacities in military commands, AFRICOM,
SOUTHCOM, whose commander is a fine man, basically describe
SOUTHCOM as a giant velcro cube to which other parts of the
government could attach itself. And increasingly I was quite
struck, for example, that General Petraeus was leading an
across-the-board, governmentwide review of our CENTCOM policy,
particularly with respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan. And my
question, coming back to George's question, was why is that
review not being led in the State Department? Why is it being
led by a military command? And that results in a yawning
imbalance.
We see other areas of activity that you are not less
concerned with today, but public diplomacy, which George
mentioned, is another one of them where there is a growing area
of activity at DOD that is not well understood or even well
studied.
Prognosis. I think there are three consequences of this
that do not bode us well for the future of American national
security and foreign policy. Consequence number one is in fact
an overstressed military, that we are asking an institution in
uniform to perform an increasing number of functions which are
not central to their core capacities, but we are asking them to
do them nonetheless. Occupations, the civilian side, as Dr.
Hamre mentioned, of counterinsurgency warfare, public diplomacy
activities, economic development, building health clinics,
schools and the like, all of which are wonderful things in high
stress combat environments to have the military try to do, but
have real severe consequences for the overall capability of our
military in combat terms.
Second consequence, a weaker civilian tool kit because to
the extent that we rely on the military as the default
position, we are increasingly saying to the civilian side let's
not bother because we now have the military assuming the role.
And third consequence, a message to the world, and this to
me is perhaps the most serious, that to the rest of the world
the American international engagement increasingly wears a
uniform and however much we may respect our uniformsists and
the jobs that they do, that is not always welcome in other
parts of the world.
In addition to that, we are sending to some parts of the
world, Latin America, for example, a message that says we have
spent decades asking you to keep your military in its barracks
and out of politics and governance; meanwhile, we are inserting
our military more and more into politics, governance, economic
development and other activities in your countries. It is a
mixed message that we are sending.
Cure. I think it is important, and I think it was Nancy
Lindborg who suggested it, that we not learn the lessons of the
last post war. We often learn the lessons of the last war.
Well, we are learning some lessons of the last post war. And
there are real dangers in learning those lessons or taking Iraq
or Afghanistan as the template for the capacities and
structures that we need to build.
Issue number one, strategy, what is it we intend to do? And
Nancy raised that question. If what we are looking at is how we
deploy civilian forces alongside a major U.S. military
deployment, that is going to give you one kind of capacity. If
what we are looking for is smaller scale international
interventions where the primary responsibilities are civilians
and the military is there as a security force, that is a
different kind of capability. If what we are concerned about is
strengthening governance in fragile and failing states or
helping restore it in recovering states, that may be a third
kind of capability.
And in my testimony, and I am happy to discuss it more in Q
and A, I talk about how we need to strengthen State, how we
need to strengthen USAID, much of it drawn from the report that
we did with the Academy, and particularly, and that is part of
the focus of my testimony, is what we need to do to move
transition, some of these authorities that have been created in
the Defense Department over to the State Department as we build
capacity in the State Department to take them on and perform
them.
And I will take questions happily. Thank you very much for
the hearing.
[The statement of Mr. Adams follows:]
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Mrs. Lowey. Thank you very much for your praise. As you can
see, this committee is very interested in this topic, and in
fact so is every think tank in town, as Ambassador Moose
mentioned.
I am just going to try to keep us all to 5 minutes,
including myself, so that we can talk quickly and then perhaps
have several rounds. Before I begin a line of questioning, Dr.
Hamre, you said something and I wondered if I heard it
correctly, and the White House has been talking about it, you
said we need a framework to regulate contractors.
To hear that from you as a military person is really
shocking to me. We know what Stuart Bowen did as the SIGIR. Now
are you saying there is no system? Or we need people at the
Defense Department who are going to do what they should be
doing? You can answer that quickly if you would like. It is
shocking to me there isn't a system in place.
Mr. Hamre. I think the system has become quite confused----
Mrs. Lowey. Is it the people who are confused or the system
is?
Mr. Hamre. I think the system is, and let me give you an
example. How can we acquire technical services to support the
government? This is a fundamental question. And we could
acquire it, but we have decided that we can't afford that. And
so we have chosen to go into the private sector to buy it.
Should that be in the profit seeking side of the private sector
or the nonprofit seeking side? It is very unclear. We have
profit seeking organizations that are operating policy
positions inside the government. We have nonprofit
organizations that are running profit making operations. It is
completely confused.
It has become confused in recent years for several reasons.
One is our personnel system for civil servants is obsolete. We
do not hire the right people to manage contractors. It is a
very profound problem.
I would like to come back to you on another day. It is a
much bigger issue than people realize. And it is not
superficially the question we have evil people doing wicked
things in the government. That is not the case. They are
struggling with obsolete systems, obsolete policies, and we
have been trying to make it work under very changing and
dynamic circumstances.
So I would be pleased to come and talk with the committee
at another time.
Mrs. Lowey. I would be interested in that and certainly our
ranking member, Mr. Rothman, currently serves on the Defense
Subcommittee. We do have expertise here on this committee. But
it is shocking to me. You make some very good points but, boy,
we could use some of those billion dollars here, and I would
hope we would be able to figure out what to do with them at
State and USAID. So we will get back to that issue.
Ms. Lindborg, I just would like to follow up on a couple of
things you had said. Will the NGOs first of all accept
assistance from military sources? Is humanitarian space still a
concept that the United States should try to ensure? Or is it
your observation that insurgencies are deliberately targeting
aid workers regardless of who provides the funding and
therefore makes the concept irrelevant?
Ms. Lindborg. Those are all the critical questions that our
community is facing and struggling with. The majority of NGOs
as a matter of policy do not accept funding directly from the
Department of Defense. There are exceptions, but most of the
interaction----
Mrs. Lowey. I didn't necessarily mean funding, assistance.
For example, in Afghanistan the military met with us and they
are building schools. And AID was saying by the time--that is a
matter of staff, too--by the time they contract the military
already built the schools. But then there are those who will
tell us that they, as you mentioned with the CAP program in
Iraq, that they can operate perfectly well without the military
assistance. I mean assistance from, work with.
Ms. Lindborg. The greatest value that the military can
provide in complex development environments is everything
possible to increase security, ambient security, security that
enables both the people to invest in their own future who are
living there and development actors, including NGOs, to assist
them to do that. And the challenge in insecure environments is
that, especially when you have got U.S. troops playing both a
combat role and a counterinsurgency role, is that it can
actually undermine our ability to work by being associated with
military troops.
There is an example recently in Afghanistan with a
colleague agency where they built a clinic and, despite efforts
to stop it from happening, the PRTs built a clinic a kilometer
or so away. And those are not about development needs. Those
are about hearts and mind needs. But by not having better
coordination and by not having the primacy of the development
objective, you undercut the ability to move towards longer term
development objectives, and you make more likely that the
targeting will happen.
Your question is that will you be targeted anyway whether
you are associated with the troops or not? We think that, you
know, we have to go into these situations eyes wide open. But
increasingly there are methods, remote management approaches,
ensuring that you----
Mrs. Lowey. What does that mean, remote management
approaches?
Ms. Lindborg. In places like Somalia and Iraq and
Afghanistan, you can still provide development assistance where
you are using primarily the local communities to drive their
own development forward, which is the most important aspect of
actually accomplishing those longer term development goals.
There are numerous studies that show that it is this deep
poverty, the deep illiteracy that is connected to conflict and
keeps a lot of these countries from being able to advance more
quickly, combined with many of the other factors.
Mrs. Lowey. So are there ever any benefits of military-NGO
coordination?
Ms. Lindborg. The benefits are if you are able to stop that
clinic from being built in a way that undercut the clinic that
was just built by an NGO, communication, yes, for them to come
visit our sites can be terribly undermining if we are then
associated with the military. Our greatest value as NGOs is to
be able to communicate that people-to-people support for
communities to develop based on their vision, so that they own
the development process. The military is inherently constrained
from doing that by virtue of being associated with their own
objectives. That doesn't translate into a community looking
forward to its own future.
Mrs. Lowey. Last year, I know that DOD in cooperation with
USIP published a set of guidelines for relations between U.S.
Armed Forces and NGOs in nonpermissive environments. And I have
heard that a similar project to establish clear guidelines for
relations between the military and NGOs in permissive
environments may be forthcoming.
So in just a couple of minutes, if you can just clarify for
us again what is the role of the military in your judgment, if
any, in providing foreign assistance in permissive or friendly
environments, now that I have less than a few seconds.
Ms. Lindborg. The guidelines which were produced, which
were extraordinarily helpful and I think advanced the
understanding and mutual respect and knowledge of the military
and the NGO communities, were specifically in nonpermissive
environments. The challenge that we have is they were
addressing humanitarian action, lifesaving action. As we look
at this complex development environments, that is yet a
different set of goals. The third is the permissive
environments, the kinds of activities that go on in AFRICOM
that Gordon mentioned, where it is 100 percent hearts and minds
approaches, there is no--there are plenty of civilian capacity
in places like Uganda and parts of the Horn of Africa where you
at the same time have AFRICOM actors digging wells and building
schools.
I would argue that we need to rethink the role of the
military doing any kind of development assistance in permissive
environments because it fundamentally undercuts the long-term
objectives that are an important goal for supporting fragile
countries.
Mrs. Lowey. I am going to turn to Ms. Granger. But I think
the question still is the nonpermissive environments and how do
you coordinate effectively, and what are the guidelines. So we
can get back to that.
Ms. Granger.
Ms. Granger. There are so many questions. But I think that
everyone up here and I think you all agree that there needs to
be a rebalancing, that we would all agree with that. In that
rebalancing, what priorities do we begin with? In other words,
we could start arguing over, that the military should do this
or not, but what are the priorities? And Dr. Hamre, I will
start with you but anyone can answer that.
Mr. Hamre. Well, forgive me for taking people back to this
framework that we developed, but would you put this in the
record, please? I think you should, and the reason why, have
somebody go through and say who does these various boxes? I
mean they all need to be done.
Mrs. Lowey. So ordered.
Mr. Hamre. There are several hundred tasks that need to be
done in the transition from a nonpermissive environment to a
permissive environment. And who should be doing these things?
Department of Defense shouldn't be doing these things.
Department of Defense doesn't want to do these things. And the
problem is this very long extended nonpermissive environment
that has evolved with insurgency wars. Nancy and I are very
good friends, and I respect what she said. I do want to say one
thing.
The military has a very valid role to play in using
construction things during a nonpermissive environment to start
establishing working relationships with local leaders. It is
part of what they have to do. It is getting out of this kinetic
world into a nonkinetic solution. And there is a role for that.
That is why the commander's response funds are so important.
And so the priority would be, ask people to sit down, ranking
member, and look through all the tasks and say, who is doing
these things? And I think what you are going to find is too
many people arguing about authorities and not enough people
saying what do we do? Let's try to figure out what do we have
to get done and who is really doing these things? I think you
will be surprised to find we have got gaping holes in the
government.
Mr. Moose. Thank you. I have a slightly different take on
this, but it begins with I think the core of the problem is one
of lack of capacity in the civilian agencies to manage the
kinds of tasks that we would like them to perform. What we have
seen in consequence is kind of a downward spiral; that is to
say, in recognition of the lack of capacity in the State
Department, USAID, political leaders eager, desperate sometimes
to find solutions to problems, have looked to the places where
there are resources and what better place but the Defense
Department, which has billions of dollars. And that has become
a downward kind of a spiral in terms of the response of the
political leadership.
It has to begin, I think as our colleagues last week said,
with the effort to rebuild the capacity of the State
Department. As one of Gordon's colleagues from the Stimson
Center said yesterday, the construct is a three-legged stool.
We have one leg on that stool that is like 4 feet tall and the
others are like nubs. And so we have to begin to rebuild those
capacities.
If you were to turn to the State Department today and say,
assume responsibility for the management of the $50 billion in
programs that have been developed under the Defense Department
over the last decade or so, they could not do it. They don't
have the personnel resources. They don't have the staff.
I will give you a particular example, which is AFRICOM. In
my conversations with my colleagues at State as well as with
General Ward and his colleagues out in the field, one of the
things that is absent in that construct is somewhere, some
place back here in Washington that actually brings together
these various capabilities that AFRICOM has said it wants to
incorporate into its structure. Now I happen to think that is
probably not a bad idea for them to do that, but I also happen
to believe that absent some mechanism back here in Washington
that ensures that the activities of the command are indeed
fully integrated and fully consistent with our overall policy
goals, that is not going to happen. But the State Department
currently has no means, no capacity, no staff, no structure to
undertake that important coordination function. It is not a
function the NSC realistically should be asked to assume. It is
a function that I believe belongs in the State Department, but
until and unless there is the staffing, and frankly going into
the report that Gordon referred to, you know, I strongly
endorse the recommendations in that report but I frankly think
it understates the actual capacity needs and staffing needs and
training needs of the Department if indeed the Department is to
resume its responsibility, reassume its responsibility for the
central coordinating and integrating function.
Mr. Adams. I have my little checklist here, what to start
with and where to go, because and I agree very much with what
George has just said. Number one priority, oddly enough, is a
relatively small one, and this is a congressional
responsibility in part as well, as well as an executive branch
responsibility, and that is to act now to ensure that whatever
authorities are in place do not become part of permanent law,
an absolutely critical, near term step because if the
Department of Defense comes up in this administration, I have
no idea whether they will or not, and seeks, as they have for
the past 3 years, permanent law status for things like CERP and
section 1206, then you have institutionalized the problem that
we are focused on in your hearing today.
So it is a relatively small step but a very important
signal that says we understand that there is a problem of
capacity in State, in USAID. We understand that we have
military deployed forward in the field and cooperating NPRTs.
What we want to do though is figure out what the right
rebalanced relationship needs to be, not institutionalize those
authorities. So that would be my number one near-term,
relatively small but important to buying the time for figuring
out two other things.
Second, what are we doing? As I suggested earlier, if the
question is an operational one, and I put John Hamre's
statement in the operational category, how do we associate
civilians with U.S. military operations in combat environments,
that is a particular type of dilemma. It may not be of the size
of Iraq or Afghanistan, but it may be a real problem that we
need to solve in which Department of Defense needs permanent
authorities to do very specific kinds of things, but very
specific in very specific environment, not very broad, with a
lot of funding and a lot of people doing things they probably
shouldn't be doing.
So we need to answer the strategic question in order to
know what it is we are trying to solve. If the problem is, as
an alternative, what goes within the range of what Nancy
Lindborg does for a living to problems of government, failed
states, fragile states, and development, then what we really
need to focus on is the civilian capacity, to upgrade that
capacity. So that is a second priority.
Third priority is human resources at State. George has been
eloquent on this subject. But both State and USAID need human
resources. John's contracting problem is rampant at USAID where
many of the staffers are now contract managers because most of
the actual in-the-field work has been handed to contractors
given the weakness of the institution. That is a trend that we
argue in the report that George referred to needs to be
reversed in the State Department.
Fourth, the highest priority needs--I think this is longer
term I would say, I don't know if George would agree with me on
that, but revamping and reforming the Foreign Service of the
United States. Our civilian engagement needs to be populated,
in my view, with people who know more than report, negotiate
and represent. Those are very important skills. They also need
to know about program development, program management, program
implementation. They also need to know about strategic
planning, about budgets. So there is a training and recruitment
issue, and there is a question of ensuring that the career path
for those people takes them to Department of Defense, takes
them to Justice, takes them to the NSC so that they have
actually populated different experiences, takes them to AID as
a development officer so they learn those skills and can walk
and chew gum at the same time.
And finally, I think the appointment of a second Deputy
Secretary of State here is a critical first step on this one,
is integrating strategic planning and budgetary planning
professionally at the senior level in the State Department so
you can build the kind of capacity that George is calling for
but you can do it right at the top of the building with
somebody responsible for it. The absence of strategic and
budget planning capacity at the top of the State Department is
one of the biggest weaknesses that undergirds some of these
other institutional problems.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Mr. Schiff.
Mr. Schiff. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all for
being here. I wanted to just share some thoughts and get your
reaction because, Dr. Adams, I might put the order of what you
suggested in a different form, and that is I would think the
first thing that we have to do is build State Department's
capacity. Because right now the capacity to do a lot of things
in terms of our government only inhabits the Defense Department
because we have allowed State to atrophy and we are not going
to be able to turn responsibilities over to State if they don't
have the capacity. So I would think the first thing we need to
do is build up the State Department's capacity, Foreign
Service, USAID.
Then I think we need to redefine Department of Defense's
mission. I think you are right. Department of Defense doesn't
want to do a lot of things we are asking them to do, and I
don't think it is good for the DOD to do them because it
overstresses and strains the military. They do some things
extraordinarily well, and I think we have some tough questions
to answer about whether we want to try to develop a parallel
capacity at State for some things that the military does really
well. The immediate relief in the face of the tsunami, for
example, in Indonesia. They have the logistical capability to
move in quickly to remote areas and provide aid in a way that
may be prohibitively expensive to develop at State, but you may
not need to develop it at State as long as you define the
military's mission in the initial stages of disaster relief and
figure out what is most appropriately done, what is most cost
effectively done. And I think we need to look at all these
things.
Authorities that you mentioned, 1206, I am a little
concerned by the DOD Directive 1404, which is as of last month,
and that seems to be continuing potentially down the wrong
direction.
And I think we have an opportunity to do that in the
context of the budget for the Defense Department. The President
has indicated, you know, nothing is going to be sacrosanct
anymore. We have some hard fiscal choices to make, and maybe
the best way to approach redefining DOD's mission is to do it
in the budget context when they need to find money to do the
things that are more part of the core military mission and
can't afford to be doing the State Department's job as well.
The other aspect that was brought to my attention when I
had a meeting at the State Department last year is that while
we need to expand State Department's capacity, there are other
departments that need to be deeply involved also. And we don't
necessarily want to replicate at the State Department what the
Department of Agriculture does. But right now there isn't a
career path for people at the Department of Agriculture to go
and spend a couple of years in Afghanistan and come back to ag
and know that their job is still not only there but has been
advanced by being in Afghanistan.
Other departments have that tradition. Department of
Agriculture may not, and the Department of the Treasury may not
and Department of Commerce may not and other people that we may
need to pull into this. So it may not just be rotating State
Department through other agencies as in tapping the expertise
of other agencies.
Probably the hardest part of this I think, Madam Chair, is
going to be our own responsibility and trying to wrestle with
our friends at the Defense Subcommittee and so we have our own
jurisdictional difficulties. But anyway I would love to get
your reaction in the remaining time I have left.
Mr. Adams. I will take the first cut and others will
certainly respond.
Since you suggested that our order of priorities is
different, the only reason I put the authorities first is that
I think it is right now timely to stop the trend in order to
buy the time for what was my second order of priority, and I
fully agree with you on that, which is building the capacity at
State and USAID because it takes time to build the capacity.
You have to recruit, you have to change the recruitment
process, you have to recruit the right people. We have to do
more with mid career accessions which is not always favored by
the career people who are currently in the Foreign Service. We
have to look at how we assign people on rotations that
incentivize them to gain a wider range of experience. We have
to look at the Foreign Service human resources process to
ensure that that is right. We have to look carefully, and this
I would definitely emphasize, we have to look carefully at what
capacity we are building.
I think you are right at State. I have my own doubts that
building the capacity we are now building through SCRS is the
right capacity in the right place at State and USAID. And as I
say in my testimony, I would urge very strongly a step back and
a relook at the balance between NSC, SCRS, regional bureaus and
USAID with putting a reinvigorated USAID much more in the role
of being the recruiters, trainers, deployers and operators of
the civilian capacity, properly sized for the kinds of
strategic decisions we made.
I think you are quite right. There are a lot of things that
need to happen.
I also agree with you that the military very clearly has a
role. The military has done remarkably effective work in
disasters, as you underlined, and should because they have the
lift and supply capacity. There is no reason to build an
airlift capacity at State and USAID to do what the Department
of Defense does.
What begins to concerns me is when we look at the
humanitarian and disaster relief authorities in the Department
of Defense and note that as part of its legislative package,
the Defense Department seeks to expand that humanitarian and
disaster relief authority to cover stabilization.
That is an issue that I think the committee, both the
authorizers and appropriators, need to take a close look at,
because that is a further extension of mission in that capacity
that they do so well, adding to burdens, detracting from
responsibilities on the civilian side, and with implications on
how we engage overseas, as I said in my statement.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Mr. Israel.
Mr. Israel. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Like the ranking
member, I don't know where to begin.
Let me first commend to the subcommittee's attention a
statement that Ms. Lindborg made in her testimony that really
stood out for me, and that is there are more service members in
military bands than there are Foreign Service officers at the
Department of State and USAID. That is a pretty compelling
indicator of where we are.
I served for 4 years on the House Armed Services Committee,
and I had to give that up to come to the State Foreign Ops
Appropriations Subcommittee. So I have my own perspective on
this, having been a defense authorizer and now a State
Department appropriator.
I just want to share one of the more insightful experiences
that I had as a lead-in to my question. Congressman Jim
Marshall from Georgia and I when we were on the HASC visited
two very remote fire bases in Afghanistan in the Helmand
Province, fire base Ties and fire base Robinson. These fire
bases were near a small village called Musikalia. Musikalia had
changed hands between the Taliban and Coalition Forces three or
four times. While we were there, Special Forces was planning
yet another operation to take Musikalia back.
So I was meeting with a small group of special forces
personnel. I asked is Musikalia supportive of the Taliban, are
they supportive of us? How come it keeps switching hands?
The answer was, sir, they are not supportive of the
Taliban, they are not supportive of us, they are good betters.
They hedge their bets. Here is the problem, Congressman. The
problem is we are going to go into Musikalia tomorrow, and we
are going to go in shooting. We are either going to kill the
enemy or send him into the mountains. We are going to build a
bridge and a health clinic. We are going to help construct a
local governing council, and then we will leave. And then the
bad guys are going to come back in and blow up the bridge and
the health clinic, and kill the people on the governing council
that we helped elect.
Then somebody said we talk a lot about hearts and minds.
That is something that I heard in your testimony. We hear a lot
about hearts and minds as a strategic doctrine of the United
States, and I say this as a good friend and strong supporter of
General Petraeus. But one of the actual fighters said, sir,
people's hearts harden and their minds change. And until we can
get used to the notion of permanence, give people an
alternative and then protect the alternative through NGOs and
security, we are never going to get where we want to be.
Here is my question. In the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s there
was a lot of talk about joint rivalries in the service
departments, and we finally had something called Goldwater and
Nichols, and the byword was jointness, jointness, jointness.
This hearing has focused on the details of what we need to
do in order to promote coordination and whether the military
has the right mission or the NGOs have the right mission or the
State Department has the right mission. But those are details.
In terms of permanence, do we need a new Goldwater II that sets
a new architecture of interagency coordination between the
military and the NGOs and the Department of State? Jump ball
for anybody who wants to take it.
Mr. Moose. With all due respect to Nancy, I think the first
time I heard the anecdote used about the military bands and the
size of the State Department was actually from my boss, Ron
Spiers back in 1986 when he had been charged with George
Schultz to do exactly what the committee is trying to do today,
which is make the argument for a substantial reinforcement of
the capabilities of the State Department. So one of his
anecdotes was 7,000 members in the band outnumbering the number
of State Department people, and the other was the cost of two
B-2 bombers was roughly the equivalent of the operational
budget of the State Department.
I think we do need perhaps not a Goldwater Nichols II, but
clearly it seems to me even if you say that Iraq and
Afghanistan are the exceptions to the kinds of operations that
we are going to be dealing with in the world in the future, I
think there is clear recognition that the kinds of security
threats and foreign policy challenges that we face require us
to have a better way of integrating our military, our
diplomatic and our development capabilities. That is going to
require some thought how you structure that. I think that is
what general Jones is trying to do as he is thinking through
right now how he structures the national Security Council.
And one of the challenges is how do you ensure a model that
not only draws on the traditional security and foreign affairs
agencies, but admits to the need to involve other agencies of
our government so that they can, in fact, contribute to the
solution to these challenges.
Now I have not a clue as to what that solution might be.
That is something ultimately that this committee and others in
Congress are going to have to address. But I do think within
that construct if one does not focus on the role, the central
role in my view of the State Department handling the
traditional responsibility that it has had for serving as that
focal point for coordination with the military and other
agencies of government, building their capacity to do that, and
I absolutely agree with Gordon, it is going to require not only
more people, it is going to require different kinds of people
with different kinds of skillsets and different kinds of
mindsets about how you do that. But that to me is key to the
whole problem.
Mrs. Lowey. I am now going to turn to Mr. Kirk and then Mr.
Jackson and Mr. Rothman to see if we can get the first round in
before the vote. I think the problem with this hearing is we
can all talk about it for 6 hours.
Mr. Kirk, I have been trying to keep everyone to the 5
minutes.
Mr. Kirk. Thank you.
I really want to echo my friend Mr. Israel's comments that
I think we do need a Goldwater Nichols for the State
Department. I think I have a unique perspective since I am one
of the only Members of Congress that was in the State
Department, in the World Bank, in the military, and in the
Congress, sometimes all at the same time.
The Assistant Secretary of State should be basically the de
facto pollad for the combatant commander, that their empires
should be aligned exactly alike so these two people have to get
along. We have reoriented things. We finally moved AID into the
State Department. That was from our experience from El Salvador
when one of the factions of the rebel movement, the RN, came
out the bush and said we are going to bag this war, just bring
in some electrification into the village of Santa Marta. And so
our ambassador went to the AID mission director and said I need
an electrical line into Santa Marta, and the AID mission
director told him to go to hell, it wasn't in his budget, it
wasn't in his program to end a war.
So it was off that experience that we rolled AID into
State. I think AID should work for Secretary Clinton, but the
AOR lines are not properly aligned, and should.
I have a lot of friends in here. We have 150 billion years
of experience in foreign aid in this room because I see
everyone that I have worked with in the past. We have a lot of
expertise.
Secretary Hamre and I coauthored this report taking on
this, and I know how difficult the environment is. Nancy at
Mercy Corps, we lost Dr. Kastani just the other day in
Afghanistan, showing just how difficult this environment is.
And I just finished an active duty tour in Afghanistan in
December in which I was in Kandahar and Lash Kagar. And I think
southern Afghanistan is the center of gravity for the Obama
administration on conflict. It is the war the President has
signed up to. He has committed 17,000 troops, and every
national media organization is going to send reporters there,
so this is the key focal point.
I think it was in 2004 the Taliban as it reconstituted saw
a weakness and attempted to whack an employee of Kamonics who
was leading the counternarcotics effort for Helmand, Helmand
being the end all to be all to narcotics in Afghanistan. Half
of the entire crop is produced in that one river valley. When
Kamonics saw the threat, they bugged out.
Under the old organization of the State Department, U.S.
Foreign Assistance Agency, the moment the contractor bugged
out, the mission stopped for a year. So obviously the U.S.
military had to step in because AID couldn't deploy its
contractors in the area. But having just come out of the big
green machine, we do things in a pretty dumb way. We roll
people in there for an 11-month deployment, and then lobotomize
the command as everyone rotates out. It is better than what AID
wanted to do which is not be there at all. I think there is a
crying need, one, to realign the AORs exactly along DOD lines,
and that would actually increase the authority of the State
Department; and, two, to develop a civilian corps that brings
technical expertise that is there a lot longer than a combat
tour and most importantly doesn't bug out. People are going to
get hurt and some people are going to get killed. But if you
let that collapse the mission, then that is the first person
that the Taliban is going to whack, is the contractors to
collapse the program, and that can't happen.
John, I remember in Kosovo when we had this problem under
your watch.
Mr. Hamre. If I may just say one thing. The great problem
that we have and the reason DOD gets a lot of these missions is
it has mobilizable capacity. The civilian organizations have no
mobilizable capacity.
Mr. Kirk. And they also bug out.
Mr. Hamre. It is a tough situation, and a lot of the people
in the civilian agencies don't feel that they have signed up to
for an insecure situation. I agree that we need to provide the
security for an environment like that, but we need to have
partners that will stay with us, too. But we need mobilizable
capacity.
Mr. Kirk. If we look at the Fatwa in north and south
Yurgistan right now, and I believe the hunt for Osama bin Laden
is a theological mission of the United States, but if you talk
to the mission director in Islamabad right now and say tell me
your assets and your programs going on right now, he can't
deploy anything in that AOR.
Mrs. Lowey. Can you answer in 30 seconds?
Ms. Lindborg. I think that greater coordination between the
civilian and military sides of the house is critical
particularly in those kinds of area. Mercy Corps has worked in
Helmand and Lash Kagar and Kandahar for 15 years. Who doesn't
bug out are the local communities. The degree to which you can
build local community capacity to continue their development as
a part of the solution is critical, and better focus the
military capacities to do what we need them to do, the security
sector reform, to do a better job of the interdiction of the
poppy crops.
Early on there was an abdication of any role of the
military in helping on that. And not to focus your civilian
capacities on the poppy trade, but rather on the development of
alternatives. It is a long term goal to get the poppy
eradicated and to provide alternatives. So you need to have
mechanisms that can stay, can continue past a shorter term
mission or past the possible threat of instability.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Jackson.
Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Madam Chairman for holding this
hearing. I also want to build upon the very thoughtful analogy
of my colleague Mr. Israel, who I think touched upon the crux
of the problem, at least in the field. That is the analogy of
the tug of war between our military power in a specific village
pushing the Taliban back and building the infrastructure,
withdrawing the military power, the Taliban or some force
regaining control and undermining the infrastructure that was
put in place, and this kind of tug of war that actually takes
place in the battlefield.
It appears to me that some of this discussion, Madam
Chairman, is the appropriate balance between our hard power and
soft power, and that soft power almost can't exist unless it is
surrounded by the bubble of hard power. The civilian agencies
can't enter to engage in the kind of civilian reconstruction
that needs to occur unless it is occurring in a secure
environment, and then how do you maintain that secure
environment so that State Department and other agencies under
its auspices can secure sustainable development in a country or
in a region so that the efforts are not undermined and we find
ourselves engaged in this tug of war.
With that said, I wanted to raise a question about AFRICOM.
The White House's stated mission for AFRICOM is that it ``will
strength our security cooperation with Africa, and create new
opportunities to bolster the capabilities of our partners in
Africa. AFRICOM will enhance our efforts to bring peace and
security to the people of Africa and promote our common goals
of development, health, education, democracy and economic
growth in Africa.''
More narrowly, AFRICOM's own mission statement states that
``it will conduct sustained security engagement through a range
of military-to-military programs and military activities and in
concert with interagency and international partners in support
of U.S. policy and a stable and secure Africa.''
I certainly think that it makes sense to have AFRICOM
conduct and manage security assistance, but do you have a sense
of the rationale behind AFRICOM's support to humanitarian and
development assistance? And do you believe that this is an
example of something more rationally implemented through USAID
and does this exhibit a lack of clarity about the command's
mandate?
Secondly, in your observation of AFRICOM to date, do any of
you have any sense that it fits into a broader strategy for
foreign policy in Africa? And lastly, AFRICOM has a 1,300
person command in Stuttgart, Germany, while USAID has just
under 279 technical experts employed across the entire
continent of Africa. What is your assessment of this balance?
Mr. Moose. If I might begin, I have spent a fair amount of
time thinking about, talking about and engaging with people at
AFRICOM.
I do think that the original statement of AFRICOM's mission
which actually took place a year and a half before it got its
new commander, was an extraordinarily ambitious mandate for the
command. I don't think there was any ill-intention about it,
but I think that statement of AFRICOM's mission was informed by
a desire to better integrate the capabilities of our diplomacy
and our development and our military.
Unfortunately, however, and this goes to something that
Gordon said earlier, the impression that was left here in the
United States and I would say particularly abroad was that
somehow AFRICOM was going to become the new face and the new
voice and the new center for the formulation of U.S. policy
towards Africa, and I think that has enormous negative
consequences.
To his credit, I think General Ward has tried to if you
will reframe the nature of AFRICOM's mission and in particular
to recognize that in those areas where the military clearly
lacks competency and capability, that the intent is to put
AFRICOM's capabilities in the service of our broader foreign
policy and development goals. That, I think, in terms of a
philosophical orientation is the right formulation. The further
issue, however, is how you actually achieve that.
And how given, and I know that Jim Kunder mentioned this
last week, this imbalance in resources. I have been to
Stuttgart, and I have seen the resources there and you do have
this large establishment, and an establishment relative to
State Department and AID resources is huge and cannot help but
impress people when the general gets on his plane and flies
off, and it does give a distorted perception of who is in
charge of American foreign policy and who is in charge of
achieving this sort of balance and coordination and integration
of the instruments of our policy. That is the challenge that I
think remains.
I believe AFRICOM, and that the military generally, has
important capabilities and capacities that they need to be
contributing to the solutions of the problems that we face in
places, many places across Africa. There was the mention of the
military's potential contribution to security sector reform. If
you look across Africa, there are many opportunities for that
to happen. So there is a role, but that role needs to be
carefully defined, carefully targeted, and it needs to be done
in a way that it is at the service of our larger foreign policy
and development agendas.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Rothman.
Mr. Rothman. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. This is a very
important hearing.
Mrs. Lowey. I apologize in advance for cutting everyone
off, including myself.
Mr. Rothman. I have read everybody's testimony and I agree
with your conclusions about rebalancing, focus and resources,
et cetera. But let me make you a little uncomfortable. I
haven't read all of the studies that were cited in the
footnotes to some of the remarks, but with that in mind, you
say that the military does not have the core competency to
carry out some of these missions that State and NGOs can do
better, that there is an inherent negative in having a
``military face'' on reconstruction efforts and other things.
Now I do get my friend and colleague's story about the
failure of the military, building the infrastructure but not
having sufficient local population ownership to survive and
defend the infrastructure reconstruction from the insurgents.
But the main argument was this is different than the past when
State and NGOs had responsibilities, that there is an inherent
negative quality to a military face on things. And I agree with
a rebalance, but here is the uncomfortable part.
Was there any problem that was a source of legitimate
motivation to the Defense Department and past administrations
in terms of the reliability of the State Department in
cooperating and identifying with the goals and mission
established by the respective administrations and the
Department of Defense? Or was it simply an accidental reduction
in resources to the State Department that then had to be made
up by the Defense Department? Do you follow my question? Was
there any ``there'' there? Was there any good reason why the
Defense Department decided to crowd out the State Department?
Mr. Adams. My view on that is yes, indeed. We have a lack
of capacity, and we have had a lack of capacity and declining
capacity for some time at State and at USAID. See, the Cold War
was different than the hot war.
Mr. Rothman. Let me make it more pointed. Some of my
colleagues to the right of me would say that there was
resistance on the part of the State Department to following the
goals that they, when they were in power, wanted to pursue.
Therefore, they reduced the funding.
Mr. Adams. I would rather let George address that
specifically, but when you are dealing with deployment of a
kind of Iraq and Afghanistan, you are not working in the Cold
War environment and the fold the gap. You are working where
insurgencies are real, and response time requirements are real.
And, frankly, in Iraq, we ended up going in with no plan and
no-built capacity.
Mr. Rothman. I get all that. So you are saying these
preconceptions were out of date by the time we got to Iraq and
Afghanistan?
Mr. Adams. Yes. What I am saying is this is the danger of
fighting last post war. The risk in fighting last post war is
to say okay, what we are going to do throughout the future is
deploy at the speed and with the mission that we are doing in
Iraq and Afghanistan, and so what we need to build on the
civilian side is the capacity to do that. That is what I am
raising the question about.
Mr. Moose. I wanted to say that I addressed this briefly in
my testimony, but there has been an assault, a rather sustained
assault on the State Department and Foreign Service alleging
that the department and its members were not reliable partners
in the administration in the execution of the President's
foreign policy. I defy anybody to come up with any kind of
objective analysis that would demonstrate that. I think it has
been a canard. I think it has done a tremendous disservice to
the people at the State Department.
If anything, I find that my colleagues in the State
Department are too malleable, too eager to serve, and too eager
to carry out the instructions and the guidance from the White
House. That is what they exist for. They like nothing better
than to be used.
Mr. Hamre. There was a decision made before the war that
DOD would have the soul responsibility for the after action,
assuming it was going to be a sweet and short.
I don't think DOD properly understood what they were
getting in for, and I think State Department was offended and
frankly sat back. And I think both of those things happened at
the same time.
That sentiment was then, I think, distorted when the
security environment deteriorated. And DOD, you know, didn't
really have the capacity to do all of the things that it was
trying to do and didn't really have a viable and up to date
security model about what they were facing. And State, at that
stage, was overwhelmed and couldn't get into a much less secure
environment than existed for the first 3 months.
So I think there were unique historical circumstances that
made this worse. Now are people in the State Department
cowards? No, not at all. The implications some people would
like to give that is the case, that is wrong.
Mr. Rothman. Clearly that was not mine.
Mr. Hamre. I know, sir. But I have heard it from other
people. I think that is absolutely wrong.
Does State have an operational culture and do a plan in the
kind of cycle, no, it doesn't. I think this is one of the
problems.
We need to have in that kind of a tough environment the
same kind of operational dynamic as a partner in the field, and
they don't currently have it. They do not have the resources to
do the kind of training for this kind of operation.
There is only a half of one percent overhead float of
personnel in the State Department. We have 10 percent in the
officer corps. So a lot of this is resources.
But we need to step past this anger of the last 6 years
that is distorting clear thinking about this problem that we
are facing, and you brought that up very appropriately.
Mr. Rothman. I was going to what the ambassador hit on the
nose, and there was no there there. It was a canard, as you
say.
Mr. Moose. The State Department does have some pedigree
here in dealing with difficult situations. I started my career
in Vietnam. I spent 3 years in Vietnam. Some of us think that
we were doing transformational diplomacy for a very long time,
and doing it in some very hard places.
Some of the places where I have served in Africa are as
difficult, not as dangerous as Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is
not as if there is not a tradition, but there is a need to
bolster the capacity to do that and to train the people in the
Department to assume that responsibility.
Mr. Rothman. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. I just want to follow up before we
have to go on a similar line of questioning. You said there is
the expertise at the State Department. Let's talk about the
field for a minute. Now the ambassador has overall
responsibility for the programs. The military follow their own
chain of command, so I guess my question would be now is it
that the chief of mission ambassador provides the overall
strategic leadership in a host country, and is this really the
case?
As things currently stand, the ambassador is the final
decider on issues of U.S. Government policy in a host country;
is that really the case?
And how does the mix of roles between the military and the
civilian leadership and development of diplomacy translate to
the application of United States foreign policy? What should
the chain of command be? Is there a chain of command right now,
or is the military doing their thing and the ambassador and the
chief of mission doing their thing? What comes down from
Washington? Perhaps you can comment on that.
Mr. Moose. I think this again illustrates one of the core
problems we have at the moment because I think the reality is
that the chief of mission authority in both its concept but
also in its operation has been eroded significantly over the
past decade.
Mrs. Lowey. Comment on the work around, too. I guess that
is the lingo that the people are using at the embassy.
Mr. Moose. I don't know that I can do that directly, but
let me say what I can say. We certainly saw in the aftermath of
9/11 a situation where the perceived nature of the threat, and
I am again speaking mainly from my knowledge and experience of
Africa, the perceived nature of the threat, and in that
situation political leadership called for extraordinary
solutions and responses. Part of that was to give
authorization, whether legally or not, in writing or not, to
our military commands to expand their activities and their
operations in order to identify, root out, perceived terrorist
threats in Africa.
That was done in a way that had little coordination and
little cognizance of chief of mission authority, and one of the
battles that the State Department waged in 2003 and 2004 was to
reestablish the primacy of the chief of mission in knowing
about and then having some authority over activities that were
taking place in his or her country.
I would argue that in the best of circumstances that still
is inadequate because if you look at our missions in Africa,
they are small missions. They have very few people. They have
limited capacity really to appreciate not only what is
happening in their country, but many of these activities are
regional. And they have no say nor authority about what is
going on next door; although what is happening next door may
have tremendous affects on what they are doing.
That is why I think it requires a different kind of
paradigm construct back in Washington to ensure that the
Department, and particularly the regional affairs bureaus, have
some visibility as to what these activities are. Under the
current circumstances, I don't have any reliable assurance that
is taking place.
Mr. Hamre. Just briefly, the legal situation is this: The
State Department and the ambassador is the authoritative
representative of the President in every country unless there
is a deployment order signed by the President that puts the
chain of command through the military. And we have that in
certain circumstances.
In the days after 9/11 there was kind of a global war on
terrorism deployment order that created this ambiguous
situation. The Defense Department is not trying to take over
control from the State Department. It does want to have chain
of command when it has a deployment order, when it has a task
that is assigned to it. I think this is a very easy problem to
fix, and I think the historic model is valid.
Mrs. Lowey. Do you have any closing comments?
Ms. Granger. I have just one. I want to thank Nancy
Lindborg for appearing today. With the expulsion in Sudan, I
know there is great concern about your staff and their safety,
and I want you to know that we understand that also. Thank you
very much.
Mrs. Lowey. In closing, I had the former head of the F
process before our subcommittee, and I had just opened the Wall
Street Journal that day and none of us on the committee nor the
staff that knows everything was aware of what General Abizaid
was doing throughout Africa, and it was upwards of $700
billion. I remember turning to the gentleman and I said what is
the coordination because he was just doing development work,
typical USAID work, upwards of $700 billion throughout Africa.
That's not my responsibility, we were told.
Mr. Moose. I would like to make it mine.
Mrs. Lowey. Let me say that on behalf of all of us we truly
appreciate your input, and we know that we just scratched the
surface so we hope that the dialogue will continue between this
committee and all of you. I know the dialogue is continuing in
the community and in the White House. We really appreciate your
appearing here before us today.
This concludes today's hearing on the Role of Civilian and
Military Agencies in the Advancement of America's Diplomatic
and Development Objectives. The subcommittee on State foreign
operations and related operations stands adjourned.
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Wednesday, February 25, 2009.
BUILDING A 21ST CENTURY WORKFORCE
WITNESSES
HON. THOMAS PICKERING, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO THE REPUBLICS OF KENYA AND
GUATEMALA, RETIRED FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER, AND MEMBER OF THE 2006
COMMISSION ON ``THE EMBASSY OF THE FUTURE''
JAMES KUNDER, ACTING DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. AGENCY FOR
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Opening Statement of Chairwoman Lowey
Mrs. Lowey. The Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations,
and Related Programs will come to order.
Before we begin, I would like to welcome my colleague Kay
Granger as the Ranking Member of this committee, and I do
believe it is the first time not just on Appropriations but in
the Congress where there are two women as Chair and Ranking
Member of a subcommittee. So I am delighted to welcome Ms.
Granger. We look forward to all working together on the many
challenges that we have ahead.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The subcommittee on
State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs has come to
order for our first hearing of the session. I am pleased to
open our first hearing of the year on a subject that is very
much on everyone's mind: the need to strengthen the capacity of
our diplomatic and development personnel of the Department of
State and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Strong leadership and expertise are necessary to confront
the extensive global challenges facing our Nation and the
world, and we have much to be concerned about. As Admiral
Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence recently noted,
``The primary near-term security concern of the United States
is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical
implications,'' which include growing instability and
extremism.
For the first time in my 20 years in the Congress,
diplomacy and development are considered key components of our
national security. In a November 2007 speech at Kansas State
University, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, ``What is
clear to me is that there is a need for a dramatic increase in
spending on the civilian instruments of national security,
diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic
action, and economic reconstruction and development.''
I wholeheartedly agree, and I welcome the growing support
for civilian capacity. However, we need to do more than just
add diplomats, development staff and foreign aid dollars to
truly transfer our foreign policy institutions to meet the
challenges of the 21st century. We must increase and enhance
the skills and knowledge of our diplomatic and development
staffs to effectively interact with the communities in which
they serve. They must get outside the embassy walls, engage in
people-to-people diplomacy, work hand-in-hand with partner
governments and civilian society as part of a comprehensive,
integrated U.S. Government strategy to meet the diplomatic and
development needs of the host nations.
This committee has already begun to expand and strengthen
the Foreign Service, and with the resources provided in the
2008 Supplemental Appropriations Act and in the Omnibus
Appropriations Act for 2009, USAID and the Department of State
will be able to hire approximately--I am going to interrupt
myself to welcome Ambassador Pickering, and I apologize for
keeping you waiting on those long lines.
Mr. Pickering. I apologize to you.
Mrs. Lowey. Next time, call and one of us will come and get
you. I thought you were so important they would understand
immediately they needed to let you through.
The committee has already begun to expand and strengthen
the Foreign Service and with the resources provided in the 2008
Supplemental Appropriations Act and the Omnibus Appropriations
Act for 2009, USAID and the Department of State will be able to
hire approximately 450 new core development workers and 638
diplomatic personnel.
However, as our witnesses--and again I thank you for being
here--will testify today, there is still much more to be done
and we must ensure that both agencies have the capacity to
effectively and rapidly absorb, deploy, and manage this
expanded workforce. This need to rebuild our diplomatic and
development capabilities has been recognized and embraced by
the Obama administration, and Secretary Clinton reiterated this
message during her confirmation hearing earlier this year when
she stated, ``I don't think there is any substitute for having
seasoned, experienced professionals and experts leading our
efforts on diplomacy and development and working, where
possible, in partnership and coordination with the private
sector and the not-for-profit sector.''
A quick review of the facts clearly demonstrates the
weaknesses that have developed in our civilian agencies since
the end of the Cold War. And as the October 2008 American
Academy of Diplomacy report entitled ``A Foreign Affairs Budget
for the Future'' observed: Since the fall of the Berlin Wall,
the diplomatic capacity of the United States has been hollowed
out. A combination of reduced personnel, program cuts, and
sharply increased responsibilities has put maximum pressure on
the capacity of those U.S. agencies that are responsible for
the missions of core diplomacy, public diplomacy, foreign
assistance, reconstruction and stabilization under the 150, the
international affairs account.
By September 11, 2001, the overseas staffing shortfall in
the State Department had approached 20 percent, with a larger
gap at USAID. USAID currently has 8,000 employees, half the
number the agencies had at its peak in the 1970s. Only 1,000
are Foreign Service officers, the technical experts and voice
of the U.S. Government in missions around the world.
While USAID has experienced staffing ups and downs over the
past 20 years, foreign assistance funding has increased
dramatically. In 1998, USAID conducted approximately 2,990
transactions, obligating a total of $2.5 billion. And in 2007,
USAID conducted 10,613 transactions obligating a total of $10.3
billion, a fivefold increase. And to manage this workload,
USAID has turned to new funding mechanisms--as we know,
contractors--often transferring oversight responsibility,
vetting and implementation to its contractors. It is clear we
need to expand the number of qualified Foreign Service officers
at USAID.
Today, we are fortunate to have with us several individuals
who have examined and led reform efforts to address the lack of
core development and diplomatic personnel. A report entitled
``A Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future: Fixing the Crisis in
Diplomatic Readiness'' was released by the the American Academy
of Diplomacy in October 2008, and we are pleased to have with
us the chairman of the advisory group, former Ambassador Thomas
Pickering.
A year earlier, the Center for Strategic and International
Studies began the dialogue on the need to strengthen civilian
agencies, with the publication of the findings of the Embassy
of the Future Commission, and today we are also joined by
former Ambassador Prudence Bushnell who served on that
Commission following a distinguished career in the Foreign
Service.
Finally, USAID began efforts to strengthen its internal
capacity with the launch of the Development Leadership
Initiative in 2008, and former USAID Deputy Administrator Jim
Kunder, who supported this important effort, will provide
perspective on this important initiative, as well as
recommendations for future staffing growth at USAID.
All of these reports call for increased support and focus
on the civilian agencies that champion our foreign policy
priorities. Now is the time for Congress and the Obama
administration to respond to these calls. We must strengthen
our development and diplomatic capability in order to relieve
the stress on an overused and overburdened military. My efforts
to halt the erosion of the Department of State and USAID's
diplomatic and development capacity, to build up a robust
reconstruction and stabilization capability, and to expand
USAID and Department of State's staffing are just the first
steps in what must be a multiyear effort to rebuild the
civilian instruments of national security that Secretary Gates
called for in November 2007.
So I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today as we
explore this critical issue, and to working with Secretary
Clinton to rebuild our foreign policy infrastructure with a
workforce prepared and equipped to address the global
challenges of the new century.
But before I turn to our witnesses, I would like us to hear
from our new Ranking Member of the committee, Congresswoman Kay
Granger.
Opening Remarks of Ms. Granger
Ms. Granger. Thank you, Madam Chair, for your warm welcome
and also for holding this hearing today, the first in our
subcommittee of the 111th Congress, and it is a topic that is
so important in building the USAID and State Department's
workforce of the future. This is critically important for our
U.S. diplomacy. This is my first hearing as the Ranking Member
of the subcommittee, so I want to thank the Chair for convening
this panel and look forward to working closely with her.
We just returned from a very productive visit to Mexico,
Colombia and Peru. I applaud that wonderful trip and the
information that we got as we move forward. I also want to
thank Ranking Member Jerry Lewis for putting me in this
position, and I look forward certainly to hearing from a very
distinguished panel this morning.
There is a growing recognition that emerging threats to
U.S. interests around the world must be confronted with smart
power, a combination of military strength and civilian
engagement. I have been serving on the Defense Appropriations
Subcommittee and so I look forward to seeing how that works and
how we arrive at what is the right balance in our military
strength and civilian engagement and smart power.
The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan certainly have
demonstrated the importance of building a civilian capacity to
quickly respond to post conflict situations. Developing a
civilian response capacity to rapidly bring stability to these
very volatile situations is a topic that we will be examining
in upcoming hearings.
Our civilian agencies, the Department of State and USAID,
are experiencing difficulties carrying out their functions, let
alone emerging challenges such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and we
will have to work on this together, and that is how we will be
successful. As a result, some of the traditional roles of
development and diplomacy have been taken up by the military,
placing a burden on our armed services and Armed Forces that
may undermine their ability to focus on their primary security
responsibilities, and Chairman Lowey talked about the numbers.
They speak for themselves.
In 1990, USAID had 3,500 personnel to administer
approximately $5 billion in development assistance. Today that
number is over $8 billion, but they only have 2,200 staff.
The State Department and the Congress recognize the need
for additional staff, and in 2001 we supported the Diplomatic
Readiness Initiative launched by Secretary Powell by adding
more than a thousand new personnel. Additional staff increases
were provided for critical diplomatic security and consular
affairs initiatives. And we supported Secretary Rice's
transformation diplomacy effort, which further bolstered the
Department's ability to shift personnel resources to the most
complex and highest-priority regions and issues.
All of these State Department staffing initiatives were
made in the context of heightened security risks and the
increased costs of placing more American staff overseas.
As we move forward and as we listen, I say to this very
distinguished and experienced panel, I look for guidance as a
new member on this subcommittee as to how we can arrive at the
right numbers so that we can be most effective.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you, Congresswoman Granger.
Ambassador Pickering, we are delighted you are here and we
are happy to place your full testimony into the record. And if
you would like to summarize your statement, I am sure many of
my colleagues have questions and we would like to have time to
put the questions forth and get as much information from you as
possible. Please proceed.
Opening Statement of Mr. Pickering
Mr. Pickering. Thank you, Madam Chair.
It is a pleasure to be here and I will attempt to provide a
summary. Thank you, Congresswoman Granger, as well, for your
statement and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today.
I am pleased and honored to join Ambassador Prudence
Bushnell and former Deputy Administrator James Kunder on this
panel to provide you our views on this critical and important
issue which both of you have so well outlined.
I come before you at a time when funding for the conduct of
diplomacy is obviously something less than the only budget
priority we face as a country. I also come before you, I
realize, against the background of relatively recent
jurisdiction of this subcommittee in some of this territory and
the competing demands with supportive U.S. constituencies
across the board.
Indeed, I apologize for being late here today. I had an
opportunity to meet with the Foreign Minister and Defense
Minister of Colombia, and the Congress has become so popular
that the lines outside, while not rivaling the Super Bowl, do
make it harder to get in than I normally expected. My deep
apologies to all of you.
I also come before you as a committed internationalist with
what I believe is a very clear message. We urgently need to
begin rebuilding our diplomatic capacity, and we can either pay
the financial price of doing that now, or pay a much higher
price later in the likely costs of humanitarian, reconstruction
and perhaps even military responses.
Events of the past decade have produced obvious shifts in
U.S. national security posture. One of these in particular now
merits urgent reconsideration. Our post Cold War equation of
military deterrence, diplomatic activism, foreign aid and human
intelligence work has become seriously and, I think,
counterproductively distorted. Rebalancing this formula rates a
place among the early action items for the new administration
and the 111th Congress, and that is why we are here.
In fact, the period since the fall of the Berlin Wall has
seen U.S. diplomatic staffing constraints in most countries
abroad, as the chart over here clearly illustrates. You too
have recognized in your opening statements this particular
point. But these findings were a key output of the recent
report to which you all referred, ``A Foreign Affairs Budget
for the Future,'' and which I believe you are familiar with, in
which the American Academy of Diplomacy cooperated with the
Henry L. Stimson Center in producing. I was very privileged to
chair the advisory group for this report, and we would request
that a copy of the report be placed in the record.
The report's principal findings include the fact that
during the 1990s, overseas diplomatic staffing has been
consistently constrained.
Second, more than 1,000 new State Department diplomatic
positions were established between 2001 and 2004 by Secretary
Powell. These increases, however, were quickly absorbed by the
diplomatic surges in Iraq, Afghanistan, and neighboring
countries.
Third, since 2004, core diplomatic staffing deficits have
in effect returned to pre-2000 levels.
There will be an increasing need for pre- and post-conflict
stabilization efforts in many parts of the world, which we
believe should be managed by civilian leadership, and that puts
again an additional burden on current staffing.
Finally, effective implementation of U.S. foreign policy
will require, in the words of the report, 4,735 direct hire
American staff increases by 2014, and the increased funding for
function 150, totaling $2 billion above the fiscal year 2014
CBO current services estimate by the end of the 5 years to
support that increase.
As the subcommittee considers its priorities for the 111th
Congress, I would strongly recommend support for the more
field-first staffing orientation that has been developed in the
report and was begun under Secretary Rice's tenure.
In compiling the report referred to, we believe its
conceptual owners saw that the following principles ought to be
central to the end of our diplomacy and, indeed, to the
staffing requirements for the future.
First, what we call universality. Simply that the U.S.
should have resident presence in every country with which it
maintains a national government-to-government relationship and
at every multilateral organization of which it is a member.
Second, expanded engagement. That the State Department will
need significantly to expand interaction with nongovernmental
actors, requiring concomitant staffing increases across the
board. This includes academia, the NGO community, and the
private sector.
Third, location and configuration. To this end, the
Department will need to extend the U.S. presence in capitals
and outside of capitals. We have to get out of the compound. To
quote the report of the Embassy of the Future Commission, of
which Ambassador Bushnell was a member, this extension would be
manifested by, among other things, the establishment of branch
offices, American presence posts, American centers and by the
use of traveling circuit riders, among other techniques.
Fourth, security. To speak plainly, it can be anticipated
as we proceed that physical threats to U.S. Government
personnel abroad will continue. They will likely grow with
dispersal, and they may grow in any event. In our opinion, this
is a risk which now comes with the territory. It is part of the
job, unfortunately. The alternative is starkly inadequate
management of U.S. global policy demands, and the report makes
some important recommendations on moving to be able to find
ways to deal with risk rather than totally submit ourselves to
compoundization as a way to deal with the problem.
Specific to core diplomacy, State Department staffing
remained static during the 1990s at a time when workload
demands were growing significantly. My next chart illustrates
these trends.
Again, specific to core diplomacy, the report we referred
to recommended staffing increases in the core area totaling
1,099. In other words, staffing growth averaging 4 percent a
year for the next 5 years, and a total underlying budget growth
of $510.5 million by fiscal year 2014 to sustain this effort.
One uplifting thing I can say about core diplomatic
capacity is that it has fared marginally better than its public
diplomacy counterpart. A number of significant analyses have
documented public diplomacy's declining fortune in the post-
Cold War era, notably the report of the Smart Power Commission
of the CSIS, of which I had an honor to be a member, which
cited a 30 percent real dollar decline in spending between 1994
and 2008, illustrated in the chart again to your left. It is
interesting that this chart shows a real decline in real money
terms between 1994 and 2008 as depicted on the chart by the
yellow line.
At the admitted risk of stating the obvious, we noted the
not uncommon 1990s' assumption that a strong public diplomacy
effort was no longer needed after the fall of communism and, in
fact, the end of the division of the world. To some, public
diplomacy in those days looked like an easy kill during a time
of overall U.S. Government fiscal constraint.
At the risk of stating something that is obvious, I think
it is safe to say that this represented a really bad job of
looking around corners. The plain fact was that there was a new
generation of hearts and minds in the world to win, a new
competition for them in a technologically exploding new
Information Age with new technologies, new techniques and new
opportunities.
At the same time, our reaction to physical security threats
and budget constraints has included closing on a serious bases
of facilities abroad, many of which were important to public
diplomacy efforts, and the concentration of personnel in
compounds which I just talked about sometimes really distant
from the centers of our interest and the centers of population.
Whatever one's views are regarding the validity of the U.S.
policy message in recent years, I would argue that shooting the
public diplomacy messenger served no one's interest. The fact
remains that more than in any other nation, the U.S. is looked
to for ideas, innovation and opportunity. In most of the world,
the U.S. is viewed as the society that recognizes individual
initiative and rewards talent. We need to do a far better job
of capitalizing on that outlook.
Our report for public diplomacy staffing shows an increase
of 487,000 U.S. citizen direct hires, and 369 locally employed
staff, with an underlying budget growth of $155.2 million over
the 5 year period.
We further propose expansion of public diplomacy programs,
something that was beyond the initial scope of our report but
considered so important in our minds that we had to include it
in the document. This includes doubling of international
exchange programs, a 50-percent increase in international
visitor grants, and a 25 percent plus-up for youth exchanges at
a further cost of $455.2 million over the baseline during the
same time frame.
Significantly, our public diplomacy recommendations also
comprise the proposed opening or reopening of 40 freestanding
American cultural centers and three new media hubs abroad. This
is of course something that returns us to the question again of
physical security which I touched on earlier.
The past year has seen an unusual set of milestone
anniversaries in the ongoing evolution of international
terrorism, some largely unmarked, but all of them significant.
Among these were the 30th anniversary of the onset of the
Iranian revolution in 1978 and 1979; the 25th anniversary of
the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Beirut and Kuwait; the
10th anniversaries of the attempted bombings of the U.S.
Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in which Ambassador Bushnell
played a major role.
The terrorist activity of which these events are emblematic
has produced, obviously and continuingly, shifts in U.S.
diplomatic deployment. Secretary Rice some time ago recognized
the downside impact of these changes, committing to move our
diplomatic presence out of foreign capitals and to spread it
more widely across countries to work on the front lines of
domestic reform.
Reinforcing this 2 weeks ago, Senator Lugar introduced a
bill specifically citing the budgetary and security pressures
which have resulted in the drastic downsizing or closure of
most American cultural centers and endorsing the goal of their
reestablishment.
Former Secretary Albright in my view had it right 10 years
ago when she said that job one is to ensure effective promotion
of U.S. interests and values around the world.
Expanding diplomatic activity is imperative to this work,
and entails a greater risk to diplomatic personnel which I, and
I believe most of us will say, is worth the return as long as
we take the necessary steps to ensure that our people are well
prepared, well trained, knowledgeable and understand not only
the risks but the adequate steps that have to be taken in every
way to avoid those risks and to identify them.
Madam Chairwoman, as I mentioned earlier, our report also
comprised significant findings and recommendations in areas
relevant to training and assistance diplomacies, issues which
my co-panelists are with me here today to address but which our
report strongly supports.
It is my understanding that an upcoming hearing will
examine issues relevant to security assistance authorities and
staffing, at which our report's principal contributor in this
particular area, Gordon Adams, will testify. But simply stated,
we believe that some $780 million worth of security assistance,
currently supervised and allocated by the Department of
Defense, should be reallocated to the traditional pattern of
behavior; that is, that the Secretary of State would be
responsible for defining the amounts in the budget and
signifying the countries to which it is devoted, while the
Secretary of Defense, as always, carries out those programs.
I realize, of course, that some of our recommendations,
specifically in the area of expanded training, will likely be
partially addressed in fiscal year 2009 appropriations as the
cycle is now concluded, and I am heartened by your
signification of the fact that it does include some significant
personnel for the State Department. I am also aware that the
outline of the President's budget for the 2010 fiscal year is
expected to be before you in a day or two. It is my hope, based
on what the administration has been saying publicly, that the
President's request for overall State Department operations
will be ambitious and we hope in line with the recommendations
we are making.
I also realize that prioritizing among request components
has never been what one would call the strong point of the
State Department. What our report has put forth is a collection
of what we consider to be the top operational priorities for
consideration by your subcommittee. We do so humbly, but we do
so on the basis of lots of experience and knowledge and we
strongly urge their favorable consideration by your committee.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I, along with the others, look
forward to your questions.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you, Ambassador Pickering.
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Mrs. Lowey. I am going to turn to Ambassador Bushnell, but
I just want to say when we get to the questions, you talked
about hope and optimism, and I would like to know, and, if you
don't have the figure, get the information as to what all of
your hopes and dreams reflected in your statement will cost.
Mr. Pickering. It is $3.286 billion.
Mrs. Lowey. Everything?
Mr. Pickering. Yes. Chump change.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Now we will turn to Ambassador Bushnell and we will place
your statement into the record. Welcome.
Opening Statement of Ambassador Bushnell
Ms. Bushnell. Good morning, Madam Chairwoman, and
Congresswoman Granger. I appreciate the opportunity to be here
and to follow up on Ambassador Pickering's testimony.
My name is Prudence Bushnell. I am a retired Foreign
Service officer and former Ambassador to the Republics of Kenya
and Guatemala, and member of the 2006 Commission on the Embassy
of the Future. My remarks will reflect those experiences, and I
hope that the Commission's report can be placed in the record.
The Foreign Service attracts people who are fiercely
patriotic and deeply committed to making a difference. While
their capacity to perform remains outstanding, their jobs have
become increasingly complex and dangerous. According to a 2004
survey, over 87 percent of those with 15 years of service had
confronted significant crises, and that number is probably much
higher today.
Having experienced the impact of the Rwanda genocide,
suffered the wounds of the al Qaeda attack in Kenya, and
witnessed the violent legacy of the 35-year conflict in
Guatemala, I understand the difficulties in balancing security
concerns and policy objectives.
Over the past few years, the former has trumped the latter
in our efforts to keep people safe. I applaud the impulse, but
I also believe that it is possible to accomplish both: the work
of our Nation overseas and manage risk sensibly. It requires
more staff, better technology, innovative strategies, and
training, and a greater emphasis on taking care of people.
We could, for example, staff and operate embassies
according to strategic interests instead of past tradition,
limiting the presence to agencies and Americans who really need
to be at a post. Foreign Service nationals and locally employed
staff could be trained, delegated and rewarded to assume more
professional roles. Everyone, including family members, could
be prepared through training, crisis exercises, and vigilant
leadership to confront danger.
As Ambassador Pickering suggested, we could put a virtual
American presence, without risk to people, in all kinds of new
places through American corners, resource centers operating in
libraries and other venues. We already know that with adequate
resources these centers work very well. We could also increase
our influence and outreach through more American presence
posts, operations staffed by a single Foreign Service officer
and local employees to accomplish specific and limited
objectives in cities other than the capital.
With the capabilities to produce video conferences, pod
casts, blogs and other virtual links, Foreign Service personnel
could reach people, NGOs, and businesses across time, distance,
and danger. Program management and greater language skills
could bolster these opportunities even further. With
appropriate, secure, hand-held communications equipment,
written work could be accomplished outside the confines of our
embassy fortresses.
Imagine the possibilities were our embassies to have the
backup of department-run centers to implement innovations,
state-of-the-art technology, and modern business practices.
Think of the new ideas employees could conceive if they had
access to more sophisticated information and research links,
formal communities of practice, and interagency blogs. Consider
how much better embassy decisions regarding security would be
if ambassadors and emergency action committees were privy to
intelligence analyses still too often confined to Washington
and the few considered in the need to know.
Should the worst happen, think of what we could learn if
our accountability review boards sought lessons and not just
blame. And suppose we considered post-traumatic stress and
other psychological wounds to be just that, wounds to be healed
instead of weaknesses to be suppressed or stigmatized. What a
more healthy and better-prepared workforce we would have.
A recent Foreign Service Association poll noted employees'
willingness to work in dangerous and difficult places. In
return, they would like greater attention to family concerns
and single sex partners, equitable assignments and salaries,
and improved leadership. By that they mean bosses who care
about people as well as policy, with the courage to stand up
for them to secure the necessary resources and programs they
need to do their jobs effectively.
I witnessed the extraordinary performance of which they are
capable during the difficult months following the al Qaeda
attack on our Embassy in 1998. A thousand pounds of explosives
detonated in a small, confined area, left half of the occupants
of our chancery dead or severely wounded. Outside, hundreds
more were killed and thousands were injured. With no 911, or
any of the services we take for granted in the United States,
Kenyan and American employees had no choice but to move from
victim to rescue force. In later weeks and months,
notwithstanding the deaths, destruction and trauma, this
community stayed in place, overcoming one challenge after
another to reconstruct their organization, assist Kenyan
victims and businesses, and help one another to heal. Despite
the toll on themselves and their families, they put the U.S.
Government back in business within hours of the bombing and
never lost sight of its interests. Not for one day were we
closed, and it showed in the policy objectives we achieved
against great odds.
Now, imagine what people of this caliber could achieve if
they were given the kinds of resources, technology, training,
innovations and leadership we discussed today.
Thank you for listening.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Aren't we fortunate to have people
of your caliber here, and we thank you again.
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Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Kunder, we will be happy to place your full
testimony into the record.
Opening Statement of Mr. Kunder
Mr. Kunder. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I made four basic points in the testimony, and I would like
to summarize them briefly. Just to put some meat on the bones
of this personnel issue for the committee, the committee asked
me to draw a little bit on my field experience, and I would
like to make a couple of comments.
Why is it important to have these folks? Why is it so
critically important to our national security? I would like to
give you a quick example at the tactical level and at the
strategic level.
When I was in Afghanistan in 2002, immediately we started
creating these provincial reconstruction teams to reach out and
assist with the reconstruction of Afghanistan. We followed on
in Iraq with the same approach.
Our military colleagues learned very quickly that when they
were out in the hinterlands in Afghanistan and Iraq, they
needed exactly this kind of diplomatic personnel that the
ambassadors have been talking about, or the development
specialists at AID. You needed health officers and agricultural
officers, and you needed folks who knew how to rebuild a
government that had been torn apart. And we simply ran out of
bodies.
As one report pointed out, there are shortages in filling
these provincial reconstruction teams even today in Iraq and
Afghanistan, not because folks don't want to serve or because
they lack courage, but simply, practically, we have run out of
bodies to meet our country's national security interests.
If you move to the strategic level, it is more of an
invisible effect but equally critical to our national security.
All of you know about the so-called ``Green Revolution'' where
American technology during the 1960s and 1970s allowed--through
the application of technology and new agricultural techniques,
we had agricultural production around the world growing at 3 or
4 percent a year. So we were able to stay ahead of population
growth around the world.
During the 1980s and 1990s, we cut back on American
investment in teaching people how to grow food abroad. We cut
back on the number of technical experts at USAID, as both the
Chairman and Ranking Member have said. And what happened?
Agricultural growth, agriculture productivity growth in the
developing world, in the poor countries of Africa, Asia and
Latin America, stopped growing at 3 or 4 percent a year and
started growing at 1 percent a year, which doesn't keep up with
population growth in those countries.
So what do you have over 20 years? You have less and less
food, prices going up. And for the so-called ``bottom
billion,'' the bottom billion of our fellow citizens in the
world who live on less than a dollar a day and who spend almost
all of their money on food, all of a sudden they can't afford
food. And also, I might add, they are not very good customers
for American exports when they can't afford a basic livelihood.
So what happens, you have a billion potential recruits. A
billion hungry people who no longer have faith in the future.
I think both at the tactical level and at the strategic
long-term level, it is not just some abstract question of
``State needs more people'' or ``USAID needs more people;'' our
country really needs these kinds of strategic effects in our
national security interest.
I make four points in my statement, and you all have a
copy of this PowerPoint called ``USAID in 2012'' that
summarizes USAID's staffing needs and its plans. I would just
call your attention to slide number 7, which is the one that
shows the growth in our nation's foreign aid dollars over the
last 20 years, the blue vertical bars, and then the little
yellow triangles are the decline in our nation's technical
experts overseas.
So, one, we are not getting the kind of bang for the buck
that we should be getting with our foreign aid dollars and the
taxpayers are not getting the kind of oversight that they
deserve when we spend this kind of money overseas without
enough staff.
I do want to thank the committee very much for the support
that it has given to USAID for this ``Development Leadership
Initiative,'' and we are starting to rebuild that technical
capacity that served America well over the decades. We hope
that the committee will sustain that effort in the coming
years.
Second, reinforcing what Ambassador Pickering's and
Ambassador Bushnell's studies have said, it is not just a
question of hiring more people. These numbers for our diplomats
and our development experts abroad are so small compared to our
military forces that we ought to look at these folks as
``Special Forces troops'' that need to be maximally equipped
with the best technology America has to offer.
I like to give the example that our nation recently
reemphasized the importance of instability and possible
terrorism in Africa. We created AFRICOM at the Department of
Defense. I have served in uniform and I have nothing against
the U.S. military, and I have the greatest respect for our
uniformed services. We have 1,300 people at AFRICOM
headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. We have 279 technical
experts working for USAID, scattered across all of Africa.
Something is wrong with these numbers. We need to rebuild the
numbers and we need to equip these folks with the best
technical capacity and communications capacity that they could
possibly have.
I say this as a former military officer. By the time folks
reach the ambassadorial level that Ambassador Pickering and
Ambassador Bushnell received, if you were a military-equivalent
general officer, you would have achieved, as I know Mrs.
Granger knows, you would have had 2\1/2\ years of training
provided by the U.S. military, cohort training at the
lieutenant colonel level, at the Army War College or Navy War
College level, 2\1/2\ years of training. A similar State or AID
officer would be lucky if over a 20-year career they had 2\1/2\
weeks of organized training.
We have got to carve out the training ``float'' for State
Department and USAID so people are going off to school to learn
Arabic and Urdu and Farsi and the critical languages. And I
have to tell you that our senior State and AID officers are not
being given the computer skills and the management skills that
our military officers are being given. And it is not because
they are not smart. They are smart and highly educated. But we
are not carving out the training, because as these numbers show
you, there is no training float. If I have a warm, sentient,
competent body, I send that person to Anbar Province.
I point out in my testimony, there are some hidden assets
in this system. At USAID, we have about 8,000 employees. About
5,500 of those are Foreign Service Nationals. Ms. Granger was
just in Peru and probably saw this. If you go to a place like
Lima, we probably have 10 American AID employees and about a
hundred Peruvian experts who speak Spanish and know the
culture. We don't allow those folks to be transferred
internationally and we don't really give them the kind of
compensation needed in terms of the value they provide to the
United States of America.
So I suggest one of the things that this committee might
look at in terms of the title of this hearing, ``Creating the
Workforce of the 21st Century,'' we need to hire more folks who
are Americans and give them technical skills, but we also need
to look at maximizing our Foreign Service National workforce at
State and USAID and see if we can't get more productivity out
of these folks as well.
Third, I address security. I cannot rival what Ambassador
Bushnell said, but I believe we are on a collision course. By
law we are still compacting our platforms abroad. We say we
want to grow our diplomatic presence and our development
presence, but I don't believe the lines cross. We are
continuing to solidify, compact our diplomatic platforms, and
we are continuing to shut down USAID offices and bring them
within the embassy compounds. And then we are trying to figure
out, as Ambassador Pickering said, how to do better public
diplomacy.
It is very hard if you are a farm cooperative leader in
some Third World country, or a women's group or a lawyer's
group leader, it is very hard to get into a U.S. embassy. You
used to be able to walk over to the AID office and talk to your
American colleagues. But today it is very hard to get through
security.
I would request that the committee take a hard look at this
area because, driven by these horrible events that Ambassador
Bushnell experienced firsthand in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam 10
years ago, our platforms are shrinking. Instead, we have to
grow and meet and reach out to more people, and the lines are
just not crossing. We have all of these wonderful projections
of more people and I don't know where we are to put them. It is
a great idea, but it doesn't comport with the law in terms of
embassy security.
My fourth point is somewhat abstract but I think is the
single most critical one.
All of us on State and USAID have worked on what kind of
formula do we need to build our staff. And there has been some
good work done. But I argue here that we are nowhere near where
we should be in creating a mechanism something like the
Department of Defense Quadrennial Defense Review. We need a
``quadrennial diplomatic review'' and a ``quadrennial
development review.'' We need to link our staff explicitly with
the threat we are trying to address.
The Quadrennial Defense Review is not a perfect document,
but at least it attempts to lay out our nation's strategic
threat and then build a force that will meet that threat. This
is hard stuff to do. It is similarly hard to do this in the
diplomatic or development work, but it can and must be done.
And I believe the Congress should mandate that State and USAID
develop such quadrennial reviews that identify clearly our
development objectives over the next 4 years, and then force
the personnel planners at State and USAID to present you with
these kinds of numbers to accomplish the mission that we have
been assigned.
Those are the four points I have made. I appreciate the
committee taking on this difficult task. And again, as
Ambassador Pickering said, we are all American citizens and
taxpayers, and we understand that a lot of our fellow citizens
are hurting in the current economic crisis, and we very much
appreciate the courage of the committee in recognizing that
reforming foreign aid is also an important part of meeting the
taxpayers' priorities.
Thank you.
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Mrs. Lowey. First of all, let me thank you all for your
incredibly valuable testimony. We really are so appreciative
and we certainly know that the Secretary of State and her staff
is focused on thinking through many of these issues. I am
hoping that you all have input and you have certainly made some
recommendations because we appreciate it on this committee.
Before we proceed to questions, I just want to say that I
have received written testimony from the American Foreign
Service Association. The Association represents the members of
the U.S. Foreign Service, an important voice as we examine
workforce issues at the Department of State and USAID, and I
ask unanimous consent that their written statement be made part
of the record.
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Mrs. Lowey. I would also like to make it clear that I will
be calling on members based on seniority of the members present
when the hearing was called to order, and I will alternate
between majority and minority. Each member is requested to keep
questions to 5 minutes per round.
I would like to follow up, and again I want to thank you on
your expert testimony. I would like to follow up with
Ambassador Bushnell. I can't believe it. I was not aware of it,
that the intelligence analysis is confined to Washington, so
you as an ambassador in the field do not have access to the
whole picture. Is that what I heard you say?
Ms. Bushnell. At the time I was Ambassador, that was
correct. We had an al Qaeda cell in Nairobi. I was aware of
that fact. I was also aware of the fact that our Intelligence
Community was intercepting telephone calls both in Nairobi and
with Osama bin Laden. We took, that is to say the FBI and CIA,
took the computers of the head of the cell in Nairobi, and I
never received any information as to what was on the computer
because--and this gets back to what my colleagues have been
saying, is we continue to follow the tradition of the Cold War
which is ``You will know if you need to know it.''
But if it is about Osama bin Laden and we think his
activities are in the Near East, you, Ambassador in Kenya,
don't need to have that information.
I think things have gotten somewhat better, but I don't
believe that ambassadors are in the information chain because
the Intelligence Community and the State Department still see
Washington as the client, not overseas chiefs of mission.
Mrs. Lowey. That is extraordinary. This is a basic
question, that the ambassadors have the highest clearance but
the intelligence officers just choose not to provide you the
information. So it is not that you don't have the highest
clearance, they are just choosing not to give you the
information?
Ms. Bushnell. I don't want to leave you with the impression
that chiefs of station or others are choosing not to give
ambassadors information. The fact of the matter is that
ambassadors are not privy to the information that goes from a
station chief back to Washington because of issues of methods
and sources. So yes----
Mrs. Lowey. So yes, you do not have access?
Ms. Bushnell. Correct. But it is not because anyone is
saying I don't think I am going to give my ambassador the
information; it is because they are not allowed to give the
ambassadors the information.
Mrs. Lowey. By whose law are they not allowed?
Ms. Bushnell. You know, I don't know.
Do you know, is it a law or a regulation?
Mr. Pickering. I think we are getting into a sensitive
subject, but the Intelligence Community's internal directives
are such that they are required to protect sources and methods
in situations where individuals either have a need to know
because they are directly engaged in the case; that is, how and
in what way and from whom they collected information, and
individuals who don't in the view have a direct role in the
collection need to know.
Now I, as Ambassador, was briefed by my station chief very
frequently on activities and operations that they were
conducting because when they blew up, they inevitably knew I
would be on the hot seat. And so they gave me prior warning.
And the best of them did that for me.
I think in Prudence Bushnell's case, the failure to provide
information on the operation of the cell as opposed to just the
presence--and she is in a better position to judge this--was a
huge error because it didn't permit her to take the active
steps she would have to in defense of the embassy to deal with
the issue at hand.
I am not sure that is generalized, but it happened; and it
shouldn't happen again, in my view.
Mrs. Lowey. Let me just say as a member of the Intelligence
Committee, I am very aware of the need to know. If you don't
ask the question, you are not going to get the information, and
you need the information often to ask the question.
But I will follow up. I think it is important that we have
a classified briefing on this very essential issue.
Ms. Bushnell. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Lowey. I have 15 seconds left.
I just wanted to follow up on the technology issue as well.
Do you currently--whoever wants to answer--do you currently
have the technology to support your work outside the embassy?
Is it a money issue or you don't have the technology? Do you
need the technology? Can you comment on that as well?
Ms. Bushnell. Very briefly, we have some technology. We do
not have adequate technology, particularly compared to the
private sector. And yes, we need it; and yes, it requires
resources.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you very much, and I will turn to Ms.
Granger.
Ms. Granger. Thank you. I am intrigued by the suggestion of
a quadrennial review type of program because I think it could
help guide us as we look at these personnel, equipment, and
other issues. Doubling the number of Foreign Service officers
by 2012 can't be a goal itself. What do they do? What do we
accomplish? What are our goals? So I would ask you as a panel
what specific goals do you think that State and USAID should
establish that would more clearly justify the request that we
are getting?
Mr. Pickering. Perhaps I could take the first shot at that,
and I know the others will have it. With respect to the point
that Mr. Kunder made, I would recommend that you look at this
report called ``Forging a New Shield'' done by the Project on
National Security Reform. The central piece of this report, but
it covers the wide inadequacies of our Washington-based
national security system, is precisely the points he made. And
in fact, a fairly elaborate system of preparing both guidelines
and budgets for the longer term in the national security area,
and it makes recommendations with respect to those, as well as
a lot of other recommendations which I think would be important
for the committee to know about in terms of the future
organization of national security.
Two of the current new appointees, General Jones, the
National Security Adviser, and Admiral Blair, were on the
report staff that did this. It was not exclusively an ex-
military staff. There were a lot of the rest of us who worked
on it.
I think in addition, let me if I can, cover what the people
in the core diplomatic area will be doing. The others we have
to--Mr. Kunder recommended doubling AIDS Foreign Service
officers. We are not recommending doubling across the board,
but we are recommending the increases I had in my statement.
But some examples are, for example, to deal with
multilateral diplomacy, an additional 100 staff. To deal with
international law, which we see as a major asset to the United
States, that the international rules can be made in an open and
fair basis, which is obviously very much in harmony, in tune
with our system; the creation of an additional staff of 20.
Economics, where we have very few people, 8 percent of our
people are expert in economics. And I don't have to tell you
the number one crisis today is economics; an additional 80
officers to deal with economics.
Science and technology, something we have left behind. We
currently have 35 people around the world dealing with science
and technology. We recommend an additional 70 staff, public-
private partnerships that outreach, that I talked to you all
about, in terms of one of the principles that we have adopted
as guidance for this report. We think an additional 100 people
are needed to deal with those.
Interagency coordination, again back to Mr. Kunder's very,
I think, salient point. Planning, developing and executing
policies and budgets in Washington and across the board and
staffing regional planning hubs overseas, we recommend 175
additional staff.
In addition, there is, as you all know, no allocation of
people to do training, certainly not in the core diplomatic
area, so that everyone we train is pulled out of the front
line. We don't have any units at rest. We don't have one up and
two back. Everybody is in a full-time job. In order to train,
we have to take people out of a full time job. That means other
people have to cover that person's full-time job. So we are
recommending a significant number, up to 1,000 training spots
and spots for people who are in movement, so in the end we
don't leave critical positions in the front line of diplomacy
uncovered.
And that basically constitutes the bulk of the 1,099 core
people I recommended, and some of the 4,735 that the report
recommends as a total in public diplomacy, in aid, in
stabilization and reconstruction, in addition to core
diplomacy.
Ms. Granger. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Kunder. May I point out briefly this gets into--I
reread the CRS, latest CRS report on foreign aid reform, and
your question gets into I think the fundamental question that
all of us are grappling with, which is, what do we want our
foreign aid program to accomplish? We are spending $25 billion
across all agencies. What do we hope to get for that?
And this requires a much larger hearing, and I don't want
to take a lot of your time now, but the question of whether we
are essentially doing this because America is good-hearted and
we want to keep starving people alive, or whether we are doing
this for national security interest or whether we are doing it
for commercial interest. The short answer is, for those of us
who read the Foreign Assistance Act and try to follow the law,
we are told to do all of the above. And hence, when you layer
in additional earmarks--I am not here to insult the committee,
I'm here at your request, but obviously we are told to do a lot
of very specific things in malaria, in AIDS, and a whole bunch
of other topics. And at the end of the day, the very bright
officers we send off to carry out our nation's foreign policy
are torn in 100 different directions in terms of what they are
supposed to accomplish in Malawi or Peru or Bangladesh. And so,
this is a fundamental question. If we were a corporation we
would have gone out of business a long time ago because we are
in every line of business known to mankind.
And so this question of should we do something similar to
what DOD does every 4 years, and refresh the system and say
what we really want to do the next 4 years out there in these
85 developing countries is focus on democracy or agriculture or
women's rights, whatever it is, and give them some honest
guidance. They will do the job you tell them to do. But right
now they are just pulled all over the place by trying to read a
45-year-old law that is now very thick.
Mrs. Lowey. Before I turn to Mr. Israel, I just have to
follow up, if I may, because your comments are puzzling. And I
wonder, with my great respect for you, whether it is a matter
of who is the leader at the top. Is it really working so that
the country team puts together a plan?
Look, we all work. I work on food allergies and then I work
on asthma and then I am chair of this committee and then I do
homeland security. Life is complicated. And it is more
complicated when you have to deal with a whole range of issues
in a country. But that is what you are supposed to do in
establishing a country team plan.
And it is frankly it would seem to me any new leader is
going to put together a plan and give some directives. And if
the procedure works with the country team putting together a
plan with an ambassador, and staff knows what they are going to
do, they are going to send a plan up. And then, obviously, the
Secretary of State and the President have the responsibility to
say, Well, I think you should do it this way or I think you
should do it that way.
But it is hard for me to believe--I don't want to say there
hasn't been really strong leadership--but it is hard to believe
that you need a Foreign Assistance Act to determine goals and
priorities and get the job done. So if I can take the liberty
and give you a minute or two to answer and then turn to my
colleague, Mr. Israel, because your comment was just confusing
to me.
Mr. Kunder. The world is a complex place. And I am not
going to suggest there are only three things we ought to do or
we ought to use. As we don't need what the military calls a
6,000 mile screwdriver from Washington, and tell our staff in
Malawi precisely what they should do. But I think the system
suffers, honestly Madam Chair, from the lack of an overall
conceptual framework globally that says ``our goal is to do the
following.'' If you told us our goal was to meet the Millennium
Development Goals, eliminate illiteracy in the next 20 years,
and AID was told I don't care if you give the money to Pakistan
or Cameroon; there is not going to be any pressure to put more
money in Pakistan; and I don't care if you put the money in the
Ministry of Education or build schools with it, I don't care if
you help the poorest people or get the technical experts paid,
you eliminate illiteracy in the next 20 years, I believe that
the State Department and USAID working with our international
partners would eliminate illiteracy in the next 20 years. But
as soon as somebody comes in with a plan to eliminate
illiteracy, we say I am sorry, we don't have money in that
category; would you like some AIDS money or malaria money,
because that is what he have.
Mrs. Lowey. This is a long discussion and I don't want to
deprive my colleagues of asking questions, but I think we
should have more discussion on this issue. Mr. Israel.
Mr. Israel. Thank you Madam Chair.
Mr. Kunder, I was actually going to ask the panel about the
Civilian Response Corps, but you triggered something and so I
am going to address something that you said and ask for your
comments. You talked about the Green Revolution of the sixties
and seventies and how that was an effective promotion of
American strategic policy through agriculture. I want to ask
you about a different kind of diplomatic Green Revolution. I
will tell you about a model I heard of and ask you whether you
believe it should be integrated more fully into the State
Department and USAID.
I spend most of my time on energy issues and was in India
several years ago and met with Dr. Pachauri who runs the Energy
Research Institute of Delhi and received the Nobel Peace Prize,
and shared it with Vice President Gore for his work on climate
change. And he was showing me, he was torturing me with an
abundance of PowerPoint slides on energy resources. And I was
with our colleague, Congressman Tim Ryan, and just as we were
on the verge of falling asleep, I respectfully asked Dr.
Pachauri if he could put the PowerPoints aside and give me one
game changer in U.S. foreign policy on green energy, something
that was really changing the game.
And he said to me, ``Well that would be the six women of
the Sunderbans.'' I said, ``What is that?'' He said, Well, the
Sunderbans is a delta in a delta region, no connectivity, no
infrastructure, but there are six women who have a solar panel
and they use the solar panel to charge solar lanterns and they
rent the solar lanterns to the population. And that in the
global war on terror, we have everything we need, we have the
empowerment of women, we have the development of a sustainable
small business, we have light. And I said, ``Well what State
Department program funds that? Is that a USAID program?'' He
said, ``Oh no, that is a $35,000 grant from the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.''
Do you believe that that kind of program would be more
suitable as a USAID function or somewhere in the State
Department? Do you believe that the State Department, in order
to effectuate good national security policy and foreign policy,
are to be embracing more of those clean energy micro-financing
programs? Is that the modern day Green Revolution?
Mr. Kunder. I am sure Ambassador Pickering and Ambassador
Bushnell will want to comment on this as well. The point you
make is an example of what is happening, the transformation of
the development field. Fifty years ago, the only people really
who cared about what was happening in the small villages of the
developing world were a few folks at State and AID. But now we
have a large NGO community, we have large private sector
investment, we have many parts of the U.S. Government, as you
just suggested, that are involved. And part of what is behind
these PowerPoints in the training recommendations I am making
is the notion that our diplomats and our aid professionals have
got to be less operators and more ``symphony directors'' of the
many, many players who are out there. Private sector
investments from America and remittances from America, American
immigrants, exceed our foreign aid account in most countries of
the developing world.
So the answer is yes, it is more than just micro-
enterprise, I would argue. It is mobilizing all of these
private sectors, for-profit and not-for-profit resources,
because there is a lot going on out there, more than just our
technical experts. But they have got to be trained to think
that way and to be seen as synergistic players in the broader
arena. I hope that is helpful.
Mr. Pickering. Mr. Israel, it is nice to see you again and
thank you for asking what I think is a very trenchant question,
and I certainly would echo the ``yes.'' I think Mr. Kunder has
pointed out that he is engulfed in a sea of legislative
restrictions. And, indeed, the history of the aid program is
that we have passed 20 restrictions to stop every mistake we
ever made. And when we do that, of course, we end up with no
aid program. And he has shown you some of the frustration in
his comments that the legislative boundaries or the legislative
bindings are very difficult.
We do need I think new foreign assistance legislation. We
need to find a way for you to tell us, in general terms, go and
do something that is innovative that will help people lift
themselves out of the mire and the morass of poverty and get
engaged in growth. Use technology, which is something I think
we are very weak on. Aid over the years has generally shied
away from technology or contracted it out. But technology is
very important because it is the wave of the future and we do
see how things like technology in your example, the six women
of the Sunderban, or indeed how we see innovative ideas, micro-
lending, can provide empowerment and innovation.
Now, we don't have to do it all. I agree with Mr. Kunder
entirely. There is a huge community out there. But one of the
things that has happened in our own government is we now have
22 or 26, whoever counts, different centers of aid activity.
And one of the problems is that they all might be simply
splendid, but who is coordinating and where are the priorities?
And so in some sense we need to find a way to pull this
together.
I would be strongly in favor, if it looks like aid and
involves aid, pull it in; but keep the mission agencies with
their innovative skills and with their technology linked to the
process so we don't end up finding a kind of single solution
that eliminates the innovation. And we have to find ways to
think about that.
I will just make one other point because I could go on
forever.
Mrs. Lowey. We all could.
Mr. Pickering. One of the ideas in this report is that we
do not use what I would call empowered network task force
activities in our national security ideas, writ broad, to pull
together and develop the kind of ideas, whether they are policy
ideas or development ideas or public diplomacy ideas, that we
could. We have a very rigid structure, and the same people
consider everything, and we are not well linked up and we have
lots of bureaucratic stovepipes that don't work well together.
And so moving in a cross-cutting whole-of-government
approach to some of these problems is, in my view, something
that is very important in the wave of the future. And I think
it fits with what we are talking about now. And it certainly
fits with AID and its focus and where we are going.
And for goodness' sake, let's adopt, adapt, and use and
empower people outside who have all these wonderful ideas, who
could make these happen, and we need new ways to do that. So we
are on the cusp, I think, of discovering that we have a
striking series of very interesting capabilities out there from
all over. And our job together is how do we empower this and
get it working in our common interest to do the kinds of things
that obviously you and the Congress tell us are high priorities
for you as we move ahead.
And on one final point, don't change the priorities every 5
years.
Mr. Israel. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. I am tying to figure out, how many minutes?
In the meantime, Mr. Crenshaw, do you want to begin while
we are figuring out? I see there is a vote--how many more
minutes?
I just have to say, Mr. Ambassador, you haven't convinced
me, and I support the rewrite of the act, and Howard Berman is
aggressively working on it, and we consult. But I still believe
with strong leadership and direction you can get the message
out. But I don't want to take Mr. Crenshaw's time.
Let me ask my distinguished witnesses--I am willing to come
back. We still have a question from Mr. Chandler and Mr.
Crenshaw. What is your time like? We have three votes. Mr.
Chandler, do you want to come back or submit a question for the
record.
Mr. Chandler. I hate to make them wait just for my
questions.
Mr. Crenshaw. Same.
Mr. Chandler. I have a lot of questions but I hate to make
them wait for them.
Mrs. Lowey. Why don't we do this, then, because I think
your input is so valuable. Perhaps we can orchestrate an
additional--not an additional hearing, but additional
discussions so that we can pursue this, because I hate to keep
you waiting a half hour, I guess, while we go and vote.
So I am going to, instead of recess--this is very difficult
for me because I would like to hear more of your outstanding
advice and testimony--I am going to adjourn the hearing so we
don't keep you waiting a half hour. And I do hope--I know you
have all been in to see many of us--we have the opportunity to
continue this discussion.
So thank you so much. The hearing is adjourned.
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W I T N E S S E S
----------
Page
Adams, Dr. Gordon................................................ 521
Baldo, Suliman................................................... 463
Bent, R. G....................................................... 285
Bushnell, Prudence............................................... 613
Clinton, Hon. H. R............................................... 1
Fulgham, A. L.................................................... 57
Garner, Rodger................................................... 339
Hamre, Dr. J. J.................................................. 521
Haugaard, Lisa................................................... 387
Hernandez, A. P.................................................. 387
Johnson, David................................................... 339
Kunder, James.................................................... 613
Lew, Jacob....................................................... 163
Lindborg, Nancy.................................................. 521
Moose, Ambassador George......................................... 521
Naland, J. K..................................................... 650
Olson, Joy....................................................... 387
Pickering, Thomas................................................ 613
Prendergast, John................................................ 463
Shannon, Thomas.................................................. 339
Shinn, David..................................................... 463
Walsh, T. J...................................................... 231