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two interesting pieces that teach you a bit about government work:
1) the miranda letter - a letter from a former Foreign Service Officer in Iraq, criticizing the foreign service for its bureaucracy and inability to follow through:
1) the miranda letter - a letter from a former Foreign Service Officer in Iraq, criticizing the foreign service for its bureaucracy and inability to follow through:
GENERAL ASSESSMENT
After a year at the Embassy, it is my general assessment that the State Department and the Foreign Service is not competent to do the job that they have undertaken in Iraq. It is not that the men and women of the Foreign Service and other State Department bureaus are not intelligent and hard-working, it is simply that they are not equipped to handle the job that the State Department has undertaken. Apart from the remarkable achievements of Coalition forces in the pacification of Iraq, the few civilian accomplishments that we are presently lauding, including the debathification law and the staffing of PRT's are a thin reed. It was regrettable to see the President recently grab on to it.
The purpose of the Surge, now one year old, was to pacify Iraq to allow the GOI to stand up. The State Department has not done its part coincident with the Commanding General's effort. This is not the fault of intelligent and hard working individuals skilled at the functions of the "normal embassy." The problem is institutional. The State Department bureaucracy is not equipped to handle the urgency of America's Iraq investment in blood and taxpayer funds. You lack the "fierce urgency of now."
Foreign Service officers, with ludicrously little management experience by any standard other than your own, are not equipped to manage programs, hundreds of millions in funds, and expert human capital assets needed to assist the Government of Iraq to stand up. It is apparent that, other than diplomacy, your only expertise is your own bureaucracy, which inherently makes State Department personnel unable to think outside the box or beyond the paths they have previously taken.
Inadequate Management Profile
As managers, the Embassy's leaders may be talented regionalists and diplomats, but they do not have the leadership profiles or management experience called for by the nation's high sacrifice of blood and treasure. It has been impossible, at any time this year, to believe that the pacification and standing up of Iraq is America's No. 1 policy consideration by observing the leadership of the U.S. Embassy, the State Department's negligent manner of making decisions, or the management priorities and changing goal posts of the State Department and Embassy leadership.
In particular, neither the State Department nor its Foreign Service is competent to manage and lead personnel who have been hired and brought to Iraq as experts, or to synchronize expertise, funds, and programs to support the GOI. As managers, the Embassy's leaders do not have the leadership profiles or management experience required by the nation's high sacrifice of blood and treasure.
The American people would be scandalized to know that, throughout the Winter, Spring and Summer of 2007, even while our Congress debated the Iraq question and whether to commit more troops and more funds, the Embassy was largely consumed in successive internal reorganizations with contradictory management and policy goals. In some cases, administrative and management goals that occupied our time reflected the urgencies and priorities that could only originate in Foggy Bottom and far-removed from the reality or urgencies on the ground. The fact that over 80 people sit in Washington, second- guessing and delaying the work of the Embassy, many who have been to Baghdad, is an embarrassment alone.
Likewise, the State Department's culture of delay and indecision, natural to any bureaucracy, is out of sync with the urgency felt by the American people and the Congress in furthering America's interests in Iraq. The delay in staffing the Commanding General's Ministerial Performance initiative (from May to the present) would be considered grossly negligent if not willful in any environment.
I would venture to say that if the management of the Embassy and the State Department's Iraq operation were judged by rules that govern business judgment and asset waste in the private sector, the delays, indecision, and reorganizations over the past year, would be considered willfully negligent if not criminal. In light of the nation's sacrifice, what we have seen this past year in the Embassy is incomprehensible.
Most emblematic of the State Department's weakness in basic management was its decision to dismantle and cannibalize the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office rather than to strengthen it and to fix its problems, among them inadequate management by Foreign Service officers placed at the helm. The fact that this massive reorganization was undertaken at the critical time that it did, and even while the Commanding General was requesting greater civilian support of the GOI has to join the list of fatal errors that we have made, this time under the State Department's ledger.
The Embassy is also severely encumbered by the Foreign Service's built-in attention deficit disorder, with personnel and new leaders rotating out within a year or less. Incumbent in this constant personnel change is a startling failure to manage and retrieve information. The Embassy is consequently in a constant state of revisiting the same ground without the ability to retrieve information of past work and decisions. This misleads new personnel at senior levels into the illusion of accomplishment and progress. This illusionary process of "changing goal posts," as one senior official put it, helps to explain why so few goals are scored by us on those benchmarks codified by Congress, the President, or by the GOI itself.
Most notable, there is a near complete lack of strategic forethought or synchronization between Embassy staffing and program initiatives and funding. This is also true of PRTs. Only the military takes seriously the Joint Campaign and its metrics of achievement, while State Department leaders use it only when advantageous.
Overall, the lack of coordination and leadership in key areas (including Rule of Law activity, PRT's, and others), upon which the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has repeatedly commented, is real and pervasive. The waste of taxpayer funds resulting from such mismanagement is something that only a deeply entrenched bureaucracy with a unionized attitude, like the Foreign Service and Main State, could find acceptable.
After a year at the Embassy, it is my general assessment that the State Department and the Foreign Service is not competent to do the job that they have undertaken in Iraq. It is not that the men and women of the Foreign Service and other State Department bureaus are not intelligent and hard-working, it is simply that they are not equipped to handle the job that the State Department has undertaken. Apart from the remarkable achievements of Coalition forces in the pacification of Iraq, the few civilian accomplishments that we are presently lauding, including the debathification law and the staffing of PRT's are a thin reed. It was regrettable to see the President recently grab on to it.
The purpose of the Surge, now one year old, was to pacify Iraq to allow the GOI to stand up. The State Department has not done its part coincident with the Commanding General's effort. This is not the fault of intelligent and hard working individuals skilled at the functions of the "normal embassy." The problem is institutional. The State Department bureaucracy is not equipped to handle the urgency of America's Iraq investment in blood and taxpayer funds. You lack the "fierce urgency of now."
Foreign Service officers, with ludicrously little management experience by any standard other than your own, are not equipped to manage programs, hundreds of millions in funds, and expert human capital assets needed to assist the Government of Iraq to stand up. It is apparent that, other than diplomacy, your only expertise is your own bureaucracy, which inherently makes State Department personnel unable to think outside the box or beyond the paths they have previously taken.
Inadequate Management Profile
As managers, the Embassy's leaders may be talented regionalists and diplomats, but they do not have the leadership profiles or management experience called for by the nation's high sacrifice of blood and treasure. It has been impossible, at any time this year, to believe that the pacification and standing up of Iraq is America's No. 1 policy consideration by observing the leadership of the U.S. Embassy, the State Department's negligent manner of making decisions, or the management priorities and changing goal posts of the State Department and Embassy leadership.
In particular, neither the State Department nor its Foreign Service is competent to manage and lead personnel who have been hired and brought to Iraq as experts, or to synchronize expertise, funds, and programs to support the GOI. As managers, the Embassy's leaders do not have the leadership profiles or management experience required by the nation's high sacrifice of blood and treasure.
The American people would be scandalized to know that, throughout the Winter, Spring and Summer of 2007, even while our Congress debated the Iraq question and whether to commit more troops and more funds, the Embassy was largely consumed in successive internal reorganizations with contradictory management and policy goals. In some cases, administrative and management goals that occupied our time reflected the urgencies and priorities that could only originate in Foggy Bottom and far-removed from the reality or urgencies on the ground. The fact that over 80 people sit in Washington, second- guessing and delaying the work of the Embassy, many who have been to Baghdad, is an embarrassment alone.
Likewise, the State Department's culture of delay and indecision, natural to any bureaucracy, is out of sync with the urgency felt by the American people and the Congress in furthering America's interests in Iraq. The delay in staffing the Commanding General's Ministerial Performance initiative (from May to the present) would be considered grossly negligent if not willful in any environment.
I would venture to say that if the management of the Embassy and the State Department's Iraq operation were judged by rules that govern business judgment and asset waste in the private sector, the delays, indecision, and reorganizations over the past year, would be considered willfully negligent if not criminal. In light of the nation's sacrifice, what we have seen this past year in the Embassy is incomprehensible.
Most emblematic of the State Department's weakness in basic management was its decision to dismantle and cannibalize the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office rather than to strengthen it and to fix its problems, among them inadequate management by Foreign Service officers placed at the helm. The fact that this massive reorganization was undertaken at the critical time that it did, and even while the Commanding General was requesting greater civilian support of the GOI has to join the list of fatal errors that we have made, this time under the State Department's ledger.
The Embassy is also severely encumbered by the Foreign Service's built-in attention deficit disorder, with personnel and new leaders rotating out within a year or less. Incumbent in this constant personnel change is a startling failure to manage and retrieve information. The Embassy is consequently in a constant state of revisiting the same ground without the ability to retrieve information of past work and decisions. This misleads new personnel at senior levels into the illusion of accomplishment and progress. This illusionary process of "changing goal posts," as one senior official put it, helps to explain why so few goals are scored by us on those benchmarks codified by Congress, the President, or by the GOI itself.
Most notable, there is a near complete lack of strategic forethought or synchronization between Embassy staffing and program initiatives and funding. This is also true of PRTs. Only the military takes seriously the Joint Campaign and its metrics of achievement, while State Department leaders use it only when advantageous.
Overall, the lack of coordination and leadership in key areas (including Rule of Law activity, PRT's, and others), upon which the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has repeatedly commented, is real and pervasive. The waste of taxpayer funds resulting from such mismanagement is something that only a deeply entrenched bureaucracy with a unionized attitude, like the Foreign Service and Main State, could find acceptable.
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