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AN AROUND–THE–WORLD REVIEW OF PUBLIC

DIPLOMACY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

NOVEMBER 10, 2005

Serial No. 109–128

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman 

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, 

Vice Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

PETER T. KING, New York 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado 

RON PAUL, Texas 

DARRELL ISSA, California 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

JERRY WELLER, Illinois 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

THADDEUS G. MCCOTTER, Michigan 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

TOM LANTOS, California 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

BARBARA LEE, California 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California 

THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel 

ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director 

KRISTEN GILLEY, Senior Professional Staff Member 

JEAN CARROLL, Full Committee Hearing Coordinator 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESS 

The Honorable Karen P. Hughes, Under Secretary of State, Office of the 

Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, U.S. Department 

of State .................................................................................................................. 15

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Karen P. Hughes: Prepared statement ........................................ 20

APPENDIX 

Responses from the Honorable Karen P. Hughes to questions submitted for 

the record by the Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of New Jersey and Vice Chairman, Committee 

on International Relations ................................................................................... 61

Mr. Allen Rosenshine, BDA Board Member & Chairman, BBDO Worldwide: 

Statement submitted for the record ................................................................... 61

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AN AROUND–THE–WORLD REVIEW OF PUBLIC 

DIPLOMACY 

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2005

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:32 a.m. in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Henry J. Hyde (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Chairman HYDE. The Committee will come to order. 

Ms. Hughes, we are very pleased to have you with us today. As 

is the case with many who appear before this Committee, you are 

bringing very impressive credentials to your task, but not too often 

do I have the pleasure of saying to an Administration official of either Party that he or she appears to be ideally suited for her position. 

The subject of this hearing is the state of U.S. public diplomacy, 

specifically what can be done to arrest and hopefully reverse the 

sharp rise in anti-American sentiment around the world. Allow me 

to offer some brief comments that may differ from prevailing opinions on the subject. 

The idea that the widespread and growing hostility to the United 

States emerges from an unfamiliarity with our country defies logic. 

For most of the last century, American popular culture has saturated the world to such an extent that we are routinely accused of 

cultural imperialism, with foreign governments able to erect only 

feeble barriers against the onslaught. Decades of American television, from I Love Lucy to American Idol, and thousands of movies, from the Wizard of Oz to Rocky, to say nothing of virtually 

every other aspect of life in the U.S., have insured that even in the 

most remote corners of the world the full array of American life is 

on display—the good, the bad, the embarrassing and the most 

noble. 

There is more than a touch of arrogance to this common explanation. To believe that to know us is to love us is a surprisingly 

immature attitude for anyone to profess. It is in fact quite possible 

for people to know us and still dislike us. That is certainly true on 

an individual level, and to dismiss our detractors as merely being 

ignorant is a crippling self-delusion. 

Often, the governments of countries have very significant disagreements with one another, disagreements that resonate with 

their population. We see it in our own country, and we ask if the 

widespread dissatisfaction with France is simply the result of ignoVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:37 May 16, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\111005\24516.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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rance on our part, or do the statements and actions of the French 

Government and others play a role? 

Given that most of the world is familiar with so many aspects 

of our society, any campaign that focuses on increasing knowledge 

about the U.S. with its noble ideals, wonderful accomplishments, 

and welcoming tolerance is unlikely to dispel much hostility. Most 

of the world in fact has been repeatedly exposed to many of our 

best attributes. The problem is many also believe that we are their 

enemy. And we are, in plain truth, the enemies of many. 

Osama bin Laden rightly views us as enemies of his plan to overthrow governments throughout the Middle East and replace them 

with fanatically anti-Western regimes, and he has a large following 

in the Muslim world who see our opposition to that vision as that 

of an enemy. Imperial Japan saw us as an enemy not because its 

leaders were unfamiliar with us and our traditions—Admiral 

Yamamoto spent many years in the United States and strongly admired what he saw—but because we were an impediment to their 

plans, to their vision of the world. 

I don’t understand why we are so reluctant to accept the obvious 

fact that, in crafting our various policies, we are often choosing one 

group over another, one country’s plans over those of its competitors and, therefore, those opposed to our policies are likely to resent and even hate us. How could it be any different? 

But not everyone who is opposed to us is unalterably so. Many 

people have been persuaded that we are their enemies, and our 

policies do not target them accidentally but do so deliberately. This 

audience is one on which we must focus much attention and much 

effort. 

Around the world there are many relentless campaigns that depict the U.S. and its policies in the blackest and most threatening 

terms. Our great failure is that we either do not respond or we respond in so feeble and misdirected a way as to be entirely ineffective. 

To use an analogy familiar to you, imagine a political campaign 

in which an opponent relentlessly paints your candidate in the 

most outrageous distortions and lies, with endless accusations 

stretching from criminal activity to moral depravity. If the response 

is limited to handing out talking points regarding your candidate’s 

accomplishment as an Eagle Scout, or his or her love of liberty and 

worth as a person, election day is unlikely to be a pleasant one. 

Thus, to have any hope of reversing our downward slide, we 

must begin by abandoning the comforting belief and easy solution 

that our problems stem from the world not knowing us, that if everyone only knew us then they would love us. Unless we do, we 

can’t hope to understand the rapid growth of hostility over the past 

few years other than by attributing it to mass amnesia. Instead, we 

must accept the large numbers who dislike us, do so because they 

believe we have chosen to be their enemy and that our policies 

have that as their intent. 

Many have been persuaded of our hostility or had their suspicions and biases sharpened by others in the media and elsewhere 

who, motivated by an intent to slander, are clouded by simple misinformation, peddle an image of conscious malice on our part. 

Given this reality, the most important task facing us is to accept 

3

that we have done far too little to counter this daily blackening, 

that the fault is ours, not theirs. Central to our plans must be a 

determination to engage our audiences, not just the elites, with a 

persuasive case for our policies. 

Let me emphasize the critical distinction again. We must make 

a persuasive argument for our policies and not just for us as a people and a country. We can’t hope to win over our audience by trying to persuade them to change, by preaching to them, by outlining 

our vision for them, however hopeful. We can only do so by explaining and defending our own position, our own policies, what it is 

that we are in fact trying to accomplish. 

No magic bullet has yet been found. Those whose recommendations focus on reorganizations of the bureaucracy often greatly 

overestimate the possible beneficial results. We can certainly do 

better, but when is that ever not the case? Regardless of however 

imaginatively done, this can only be a small part of what must be 

a much broader effort. 

Our Foreign Service, however superbly trained and motivated, 

can never be expected to counter a deluge of televised images of 

fiery commentary. How would the Foreign Service have fared in 

the campaign between President Bush and Senator Kerry? Why 

then should we expect them to perform miracles in Egypt or Indonesia? 

Nor is more money the answer. Doing more of what we have 

been doing for decades will not produce useful results. Shortwave 

radio has a glorious past but a bleak future. Satellite television and 

other means of communications represent a way forward, but most 

of these remain largely terra incognito. 

Similarly, stories on life in America may be heartwarming for expatriots, but these can do little to change the minds of those set 

against us. Instead, what we need is a permanent campaign aimed 

at the minds of our estranged audiences, a combative, aggressive, 

fully-engaged political campaign, one that directly counters assertions and distortions by presenting a convincing case for what we 

are doing, for countering our enemies’ assertions and lies and proving our case. 

Preaching to our foreign audiences, trying to get them to change, 

to live up to our ideals, is fatally misconceived and directs our attention and energies toward ends of limited effect. We are very unlikely to win them over by outlining our vision of what we want 

them to become. Our only real hope is to convincingly explain our 

policies and how these either help or do not hurt them. That effort 

must embrace not merely all the standards and worthy elements 

of public diplomacy such as student exchanges and citizen ambassadors, but the sustained attention of those at the top levels of our 

Government, from the President on down. He, most of all, must be 

directly engaged in addressing our target audiences, convincing 

them that our policies have been crafted to achieve certain goals, 

that we do have reasonable purposes and plans and that the dark 

visions of us filling the airwaves are lies. 

That is why I believe you are ideally suited for this position. You 

have been doing this very thing for many years and very successfully, and you have the standing to draw in the highest levels of 

4

our Government. I don’t think we can ask for better and we can’t 

reasonably expect more. 

I now yield to my good friend, the Ranking Democratic Member 

of the Committee, Representative Tom Lantos, for any opening remarks he would like to make. 

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman; and I want 

to commend you for a singularly thoughtful and serious statement. 

I want to welcome Secretary Hughes; and instead of reading my 

prepared comments, may I just share a few ideas with you? Your 

success, Secretary Hughes, is our success, because we have only 

one Public Diplomacy Program. You are heading it, and we all wish 

you the very best. 

Let me say at the outset that, since we all know this, you have 

a gigantic task, an incredibly difficult task. I am reminded of a day 

I spent with my late friend, Edward R. Murrow, in Geneva, probably before you entered high school; and Ed Murrow, although he 

had a somewhat narrower scope of responsibilities, basically dealt 

with the same issue, telling the American story abroad. But he had 

an enormous advantage over you, and his advantage was that he 

spoke on behalf of a pretty united country. 

So while we will all give you suggestions, which you really don’t 

need because, having had the pleasure of a long conversation with 

you, I know you are fully aware of all of these ideas, but I would 

like to deal with the issue that perhaps is at the core of our dilemma. That is the profound division in the country, which is reflected in the profound division in Congress. You are one of the few 

people to whom I can say that this is not above your pay grade. 

This is at your pay grade because of your close relationship with 

the President. 

It seems to me that we will not succeed in our public diplomacy 

as long as the country is as profoundly divided as it is today; and 

while I know I will not be viewed as a partisan observer, let me 

just make a couple of observations in this regard. 

Today, this House will vote on cutting back on a variety of desperately needed programs for our most needy; and within a few 

days we will be voting on an incredible new tax cut for those who 

need it the least. This brings with it an internal division of 

unreachable proportions. My feeling is that your success is likely 

to be very limited as long as we don’t deal with fundamental divisions in the body politic of our Nation, and only the President can 

do so. 

It seems to me that all of the suggestions that we are making—

and you really don’t need us to make them—allowing more foreign 

students to come to this country; improving the linguistics of our 

diplomatic staff; another item you and I had the pleasure of talking 

about, namely, establishing American presence in countries, because in many countries just having one Embassy in the capital 

doesn’t do it because parts of the country are really culturally and 

linguistically isolated from the capital. All these are good suggestions, but they do not deal with your fundamental dilemma that all 

our opponents—and I will come to Aljazeera in a minute—all of our 

opponents only need to quote public figures in the United States 

and their message is already prepared. 

5

So my only request to you is to sit down with the President and 

remind him that, if we are to succeed abroad, he does have to be 

a uniter and not a divider. I don’t need to tell someone of your sophistication that a number of the issues, beginning with the nowforgotten Social Security Program which has now been shifted to 

2009, only divided the country and it made your job and your colleagues’ job all the more difficult. 

Now as one who comes from a generation where people still read 

newspapers, I know that again this week, again, newspaper readership is down, which should remind you and me and all of us that 

your principal challenge will be to deal with Aljazeera, which is 

now moving into the English language on a full-scale basis and is 

likely to be your single most important adversary during your tenure. 

I very much hope that you will study—I know you have already—the legislation that Senators McCain and Lieberman and 

my colleague, Frank Wolf, and I introduced making our Embassies 

active advocacy posts for democracy overseas. Some of the best 

American Ambassadors in the last couple of generations were Ambassadors who did this. Ambassador Mark Palmer in my native 

city of Budapest, speaking fluent Hungarian, made the Embassy an 

outpost of freedom at a time that Soviet troops were still occupying 

the country. So my feeling is that, apart from all the obvious suggestions we are making to you, your principal task to tell America’s 

story is to see to it that unnecessary divisions are not allowed to 

persist in the public arena. We will have different views, but the 

degree of divisiveness which is present in the country and in the 

Congress today makes your job almost impossible. And I suspect 

that is even more important than making getting visas easier for 

students from abroad, because they are now going to Canada, England and Australia rather than here, beefing up the language program for our diplomats, and providing a public/private partnership 

because you need additional resources from the private sector. 

And I was appalled by the testimony yesterday of the oil company executives who displayed a degree of unwillingness to live up 

to their public responsibility. They simply feel that providing subsidies for low-income Americans to get through the winter with assistance with their fuel bills is something that needs to be handled 

someplace on the moon. They have no responsibility. With Exxon 

making a $10 billion profit in one quarter, they think they are in 

a hermetically sealed container that has nothing to do with the 

plight of poor Americans in New Hampshire and Vermont and in 

other cold areas. 

My hope is that you will deal with the underlying issue as probably only you can in this Government of underscoring, as the California election results 2 days ago so clearly demonstrated, that an 

ideological approach to public issues simply does not fly and an ideological approach to public diplomacy surely will not fly. So as one 

who wishes you the best of success, I am asking you to deal not 

just with the mechanics and the programs but with the underlying 

issues. 

I welcome you, and I look forward to your testimony. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Lantos. 

6

The Chair will entertain brief 2-minute statements from each of 

the Members who choose to make them before we go to our witness 

in chief, and so Mr. Berman for 2 minutes. 

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I have no comments at this time. 

I would rather have my time on the questions. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. You certainly shall. 

Mr. Chris Smith. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman; and I want to welcome Karen Hughes and thank her for the 

work she is doing. I think this is a very important and vital role 

that she has undertaken, and she is certainly well suited for it. 

As we know, the 9/11 report spent a great deal of time and focus 

on the issue of public diplomacy and the fact that our message is 

not getting out. We all know, as politicians, what a 30-second commercial can do to tear somebody down in a campaign. When every 

day Aljazeera and other vehicles are out there—as a matter of fact, 

I have held hearings myself as Chairman of the Helsinki Commission where we have heard and seen some of the ugliness that is 

broadcast each and every day in the Middle East. 

We had a hearing not so long ago where we talked about the fact 

that as the emigrating communities from the Muslim world move 

out into Europe and the United States, many with satellite television and the like, many of the poisonous broadcasts, the anti-Semitic broadcasts make their way into that community, and they 

carry with them this vitriol, this hatred, and it just gets passed on 

from one generation to the next. 

We need to tell our story, it is a good story, and I think the more 

honest we are, the better. I think this is one of those times when 

America does have—we are that shining city on a hill. We are not 

perfect, we make mistakes, but we have in place the ways and 

means to correct those mistakes. Dictatorships and authoritarian 

regimes do not have that. 

So I want to commend the Under Secretary for taking up this 

very, very vital post. Again, she has all of the talent and the 

wherewithal and the ability to do an exemplary job and already is, 

so I want to thank you for your work. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Paul of Texas. 

Mr. PAUL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me just take a moment to welcome Ambassador Hughes 

today, a fellow Texan. It is nice to have you here. I can’t imagine 

anybody not wishing you success because it deals with the image 

of America. Everybody wants a favorable impression, and for that 

reason I think we would all agree that your efforts should be 

worthwhile. 

I think the dilemma, though, that you may be already facing and 

that we as a country face is separating image from policy, and you 

can’t really separate the two. If you have a policy that is difficult, 

then your job becomes more difficult. 

I do have a question that I will ask later on dealing with the finances and how much financing you get and where that comes 

from, but, once again, welcome to the Committee. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Schiff of California. 

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

7

At the outset, I just want to compliment you, Mr. Chairman, on 

your very thoughtful opening remarks. I also wanted to mention, 

with respect to Mr. Lantos’ comments, how remarkably on point I 

think they are, not only in the context of this hearing but with so 

many challenges facing the country. With the need to rebuild the 

Gulf, with the budget deficit problems, the War on Terror, and potential avian flu pandemic. All these challenges, I believe, are surmountable by the United States, but I am not sure they are if we 

continue to be divided between the red and the blue. 

I think there is a real hunger in the country to be one country 

again. It will not only, I think, help you in your mission, as Mr. 

Lantos points out, but help us with innumerable other seemingly 

insurmountable challenges. So I really appreciate, Mr. Lantos, 

what you had to say. 

In February of ’04, Edward Djerejian, the Chairman of the State 

Department Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy, told the House 

Appropriations Committee that:

‘‘A process of unilateral disarmament in the weapons of advocacy over the last decade has contributed to widespread negative attitudes and even hostility toward the United States, left 

us vulnerable to lethal threats to our interests and safety.’’

Referencing a report by the Pew Center, Djerejian said:

‘‘The bottom has indeed fallen out for support for the United 

States.’’

I am reluctantly in agreement with Ambassador Djerejian. I have 

been deeply concerned about the lack of focus and leadership in our 

public diplomacy in the past. Unfortunately, our image has not improved since the Ambassador’s comments. 

I really look forward to your testimony. I appreciate your being 

here and the magnitude of the job you have undertaken, and I am 

particularly interested in your thoughts on, first, what you see as 

the drivers of America’s image problem around the globe and especially in the Muslim world. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. SCHIFF. May I have 10 more seconds Mr. Chairman? 

Chairman HYDE. Okay, without objection. 

Mr. SCHIFF. I am interested in your vision of public diplomacy, 

whether it is to use American foreign policy to create a new image 

for the U.S. or to push back on the rest of foreign policy bureaucracy and consider the effect of some of our policies on the image 

of the United States. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Mr. Poe of Texas. 

Mr. POE. As a fellow Texan, I want to take the opportunity to 

welcome you. I am way over here on the end. It is a pleasure to 

be here at your first International Relations Committee hearing. 

You know, your new line of work, in my opinion, is much like 

your old line of work. You are sort of sent out there to deal with 

wolves, some of these wolves in sheep’s clothing, but you are certainly prepared because of your experience and the lines of communication in a journalism background, television reporter and workVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:37 May 16, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\111005\24516.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
8

ing for the President, especially during September 11th, those troubling times. 

Now you are asked to communicate, to sometimes a hostile environment, the goodwill mission of the United States and foreign diplomacy. I admire anybody that can deal in diplomacy. It is not one 

of my strong suits. But I commend you for your work, and I followed your entire career. We need more people like you in Government. You certainly give credibility to the phrase ‘‘public servant.’’ 

so I look forward to your testimony. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. You are welcome. 

Mr. Blumenauer of Oregon. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My only concern is dealing less with image than fact. The facts 

are a little uncomfortable at times. We need to be able to communicate with our friends, with our adversaries, with one another. We 

had a brief run at it yesterday on this Committee, which I appreciate the Chair’s courage in at least allowing it to go for a while. 

I am hopeful that—and I have noted that when we deal with 

facts and sort of get the basics, that we have more success; and I 

am hopeful that there will be more emphasis on ways to be able 

to deal candidly with the facts on the ground, some that may be 

unpopular, that we have to have the courage to have unpleasant 

realities that we contend with and that we can deal with our public 

as well as people around the world. 

You have a difficult task. I wish you well and look forward to 

your comments. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Burton of Indiana. 

Mr. BURTON. First of all, congratulations. 

I have some questions on foreign policy in just a minute, but my 

colleagues have been attacking the Administration again in this 

forum. I don’t know why. Maybe it is because they don’t have any 

ideas of their own. 

But I just read an article in the Washington Times. We have had 

4 years of economic expansion under this Administration, the longest in about the last 20, 25 years. Interest rates are down. Home 

building is up. Inflation is down. There is more people working 

today than any time in history. Unemployment is down. 

So all these things they are talking about, a divided country, 

eludes me, it just eludes me. And they talk about this deficit reduction package, we are talking about hurting the poor. They talked 

about Medicaid here, and soon the Floor of the House—today we 

are going to increase Medicaid over the next few years by 7 percent. What we are doing is cutting the growth rate, but Medicaid 

is increasing. Student loans. We are going to continue with all 

those. 

All this stuff being put out about a divided country is baloney. 

It is politics. This country is doing very well economically, and the 

President has done a good job in leading this country. Unfortunately, the PR hasn’t been that great, but we are going to do something about that, and I am glad you are here. 

Chairman HYDE. Ms. Berkley of California. 

Ms. BERKLEY. Of Nevada, but thank you. 

9

Chairman HYDE. I knew that. I just wanted to see if you were 

awake. 

Ms. BERKLEY. I am indeed awake, Mr. Chairman; and I would 

like to welcome you, Ms. Hughes, and thank you for being here. In 

the interest of time and the fact that I am most anxious to hear 

what you have to say, I will reserve my comments and questions 

for after your testimony. Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Bless you, Ms. Berkley. 

Mr. Flake. Not here. Mr. Tancredo. 

Mr. TANCREDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Although I am usually quite impressed and certainly I agree 

often with what the Ranking Member says in his opening statements—I find them to be almost always quite profound—this time 

I must admit that I am perplexed by his statement and that of 

other Members in that, how in the world we can assume that Ms. 

Hughes’ job would be easier if we were to simply increase taxes in 

this country or ignore a looming catastrophe in our Social Security 

system or simply all turn blue in terms of the way the States are 

represented. Then everything would be better. Then everything 

would be great. You could portray us as a happy-go-lucky country, 

I suppose. 

The fact is, it is possible, Ms. Hughes, it seems to me, that one 

of the great strengths of America and one of the great things we 

can tout to the world and one of the things we can be most proud 

of is our ability to debate these issues in a free society and our ability to wrestle with big issues and big questions and to do so without guns blazing in the streets, to do so in a way that most of the 

world, I think, would find admirable. Seems to me that that would 

also be a nice way to portray us. 

Thanks for being here. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Mr. Delahunt of Massachusetts. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. You really do, Madam Ambassador, have a Herculean task before you. There was a report that was done by the 

Government Accountability Office back in April 2004, and they unequivocally stated that anti-Americanism is spreading and deepening around the world. It isn’t just restricted to the Middle East. 

It is all over the world. And that is the reality and that is the fact, 

according to that independent arm of Congress. 

I believe you are going to be an excellent Secretary. I think you 

can sense that there is a division of opinion as to the basis for this 

anti-Americanism. Some of us believe it is because of the Administration’s policies, but let us put that aside for a moment. I think 

that you can make a difference, I really do, and I think you should 

know—and I think I speak for other Members on this side of the 

dais—we desperately want you to succeed. It is important. Please 

feel free to call on Democrats as well as Republicans to assist you 

in that goal, because this really is important to our country. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Mr. Leach of Iowa. 

Mr. LEACH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome, Madam Under Secretary. I think you will find there is 

virtually unanimity in this Committee in support of a stronger public policy approach and unanimity and respect for your personage, 

10

and that is important. I would just throw out one cautionary sign, 

and that is that I have sensed in my political Party an almost escapist view, that all would be okay if we just projected our public 

diplomacy better. The fact is there is no substitute for good policy, 

and there is no public diplomacy that can disguise policy that 

doesn’t work and that a fundamental element of public diplomacy 

has to be a feedback that goes into the decision-making mechanism 

of what policy itself is. 

I urge you to give that considerable thought because most people 

that think of your job think of it as exclusively one of projecting 

an image that is defined to be good about a policy that may be imperfect, and I just throw that out as strongly as I can. Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Leach. 

Ms. Watson of California. 

Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman; and I want to 

welcome you, Deputy Secretary. I watched you in 2000 from thousands of miles away, and you had a special charisma. You made 

the bad look good for me. 

I often recall my training in the Department of State. I went 

through it twice. And what I want to stress, it is so important how 

we speak to people who come from different cultures, customs and 

traditions; and saying one thing and doing something different does 

not help our image. 

I can testify to the anti-Americanism. I was shocked and appalled. As I travel with this distinguished Committee, it is told to 

us constantly. So you have an awesome job to show our image a 

little differently. If we are trying to spread American values and 

principles, we must practice them ourselves. 

The rule of law, and that is what I stressed when I was sitting 

as an Ambassador, the rule of law, because we were using American dollars to support their Government in Micronesia. So what I 

am hoping that we can do here is give you what you need as you 

go through various parts of the world trying to improve our image. 

And you can say what you want, the facts are the facts are the 

facts, and our enemies watch our television on a daily basis, and 

they watch what we do here. 

So, to put a good face on it, you have a challenge, but if anyone 

can do it, you can. Good luck, you have our support and go out 

there and get it done. Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Royce of California. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you. 

Welcome, Ambassador Hughes. 

If we do adopt good policy, if we do promote democracy or the 

rights of women to education or religious tolerance in the world, organizations like al-Qaeda, radicals in various creeds and ideologies 

are going to hate you, they are going to hate us. So I think since 

September 11th, our country has faced a difficult task of changing 

our image abroad because, frankly, a lot of what we stand for is 

resented. And unless we are prepared to shift off of the position of 

the rights of women to an education or religious tolerance or certainly advocacy of democracy, they are going to continue to organize and spread their message. 

I got a good lesson in this in the early 1990s, when we shut down 

our broadcasts into Afghanistan and all the people of Pakistan and 

11

Afghanistan had to listen to was Radio Shari’a run by the Taliban 

and orchestrated by bin Laden’s cohorts, and it took us 4 years. I 

had legislation that I finally got through this Committee. We could 

not, in the ’90s, get Radio Shari’a jammed. So that view is all people heard. 

Four years after 9/11, I think we all agree that we are struggling. Radical ideologies are proliferating because they are using 

the airwaves, and if we are going to succeed we need a complete 

reevaluation of our efforts. We need to determine what measures 

have proven successful and which have not, and we need to do that 

with urgency. That is what we are looking to you to do, Ambassador Hughes, to define ourselves. Because the 9–11 Commission 

said if the United States does not act aggressively to define itself 

to the Islamic world, the extremists will gladly do the job for that. 

I am looking forward to hearing about our efforts. 

Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Adam Smith of the State of Washington. 

Mr. SMITH OF WASHINGTON. I will be brief. 

I want to echo Mr. Leach’s comments and say as we go forward 

on this I hope we don’t look at it and say, gosh, if we just come 

up with a better marketing campaign everything will be fine. In 

some cases, it is unbelievable what you can accomplish with a good 

marketing campaign, but in this case we do need to look at the 

policies as well, and for each Member of this Committee, you would 

have a different view of what policies are right and what are 

wrong. 

I want to express the view that really matters in trying to get 

confidence back. As we witnessed in Latin America, we have issues 

out there. We need to look at our policies, and I think one of the 

best things we can do is really listen to the rest of the world instead of going there and say here is why you should like us. As 

someone told me a long time ago, selling is listening, and I think 

that would go a long way toward helping us. 

I thank the Chairman for the time. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Rohrabacher of California. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Good luck. Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Wexler of Florida. 

Mr. WEXLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First, I would like to thank the Under Secretary for giving me 

the opportunity to speak with you before you traveled to Indonesia. 

I think, as you well understand, that we should avoid making generalizations with respect to how America can present itself to the 

Muslim world. There are extraordinary opportunities, I think, for 

positive engagement, opportunities in Turkey and in Indonesia 

where we have democratic governments that are committed to furthering democracy in their own countries and, I think, value American friendship at a very significant level. 

I would concur with what Mr. Leach and Mr. Smith said in 

terms of listening, but I often wonder, in the context of explaining 

American policy in the position that you have, if at times we almost apologize to a certain degree a bit too much. I found it quite 

ironic when there was controversy regarding the actions of or alleged actions of American service personnel with respect to debasing the Koran—I think there would be a unanimous view that deVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:37 May 16, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\111005\24516.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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basing the Koran is unacceptable, it is incorrect, it doesn’t conform 

with American values, but isn’t it ironic that while we were talking 

about the debasing of the Koran that we don’t point out that when 

the extremists bomb a mosque, that in addition to the 20 or 30 

human beings that are destroyed there are probably tens of thousands Korans that are destroyed, and where is the outrage in that 

regard? 

It would seem to me, I wonder, in this context, yesterday’s bombing in Jordan, if maybe we wouldn’t be wiser to focus less on America and the impact on America and more the impacts on Jordan. 

It is mostly Jordanians that were destroyed in that bombing yesterday. In Egypt, it was mostly Egyptians whose lives were destroyed. 

I wonder whether or not we would almost be more effective if one 

of the roles that you would play would be to help persuade some 

of our allies and some who are lesser allies in the Muslim world 

that this is as much if not more an attack and a war on the Muslim way of life, the peaceful Muslim way of life, as it is on America. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Wexler. 

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Ambassador Hughes, for your service to our country 

and for your dedication to promoting the wonderful interests that 

we have, the values that we share as Americans. You have a tough 

mission, but you are doing it very well. Thank you for appearing 

before our Committee. 

The vicious anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-Western propaganda that permeates much of the Middle East and beyond helps 

to set the stage for the terrorist attacks upon our country, and we 

find ourselves facing a powerful ideological enemy. The fanatical 

incitement that is among the extremist factions of the Muslim 

world and beyond, that incitement is a real threat to long-term 

U.S. interest in the region; and I hope that in your remarks you 

will talk about your discussions with leaders in the region on your 

recent trip, about what improvements you are considering to enhance the broadcasting to offset the venom that is spewed by the 

government-controlled media and the like of Hezbollah, Al-Manar. 

With respect to Al-Manar, what actions has the State Department taken to designate Al-Manar and its parent company, the 

Lebanese communication group SLA, as global terrorists and the 

foreign terrorist organizations; and what are we doing to get tough? 

Because there is a correlation between governments that are gross 

violators of human rights and religious freedom and an environment that breeds incitement and anti-American sentiment. 

For example, Saudi Arabia has been designated by our Department of State as a country of particular concern under the International Religious Freedom Act. It is at the center of terrorist financing, its education curriculum fosters intolerance at home and 

exports it, and that needs to be addressed, even though we consider 

Saudi Arabia our ally in some fronts. 

So we have got to integrate human rights, religious freedom, and 

trafficking reports into our public diplomacy and have a good strategy, a positive strategy to reach civil society in the region. I know 

it is a tough job, but you can do it. 

13

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Mr. Issa of California. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Madam Secretary, good to see you back. You look well rested. I 

do remember one of the last times I saw you, you were talking with 

such excitement about going back home to Texas. I hope your time 

outside the bubble, however short, gave you the exact insight that 

somebody who is in the loop and has been outside the bubble will 

have. I think that is critical in the job you are going to do. 

I am just sorry that you had to be dragged back in like the godfather in—I think it was Godfather II—that you just can’t get away 

from it, can you? I just—you are going to say that one was bad. 

You should see some ones I have to go still. 

I am looking forward to your service for a very specific reason 

and something different than perhaps what others said. I believe 

you are the best person to know what is in the heart of the President, to take that around the world, to listen as an independent. 

I was very thrilled to see your four E’s, but I also think your independence, access, influence will be critical. 

When you go to meet with foreign leaders, they know that you 

have the knowledge of the President in a virtually unheard of way, 

your access and your experience with him. They know when you go 

back you will meet with him, and I know that you will be able to 

bring back perspectives outside the bubble that he is in. 

I look forward to your testimony, and I look forward to your 

being able to do that. Because nothing can be more important to 

foreign policy than somebody as good and honorable and dedicated 

as our President having somebody like you to be the eyes and ears 

and an independent mind. 

Thank you. I look forward to your testimony and yield back. 

Chairman HYDE. Ms. Lee of California. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you and the 

Ranking Member and, of course, Secretary Hughes for being here. 

I can just imagine how challenging your job would be during a 

time of more positive engagement with the rest of the world, but 

putting a positive spin on our military engagements and our international scandals, that has got to be a true challenge. I would be 

very interested to hear from you, how you are able to put really 

a positive face on the Administration’s foreign policy in light of the 

unnecessary war in Iraq, the horrific incidents at Abu Ghraib and 

Guantanamo Bay, and the recent revelations that the United 

States is using former Soviet jails in eastern Europe as torture centers, just to name a few. 

The truth is, quite frankly, I believe that this Administration’s 

foreign policies have greatly, greatly diminished our standing as a 

world leader and has had direct impacts on our safety. In fact, according to the results of a program on international policy attitudes, the international poll said only 37 percent of the respondents felt that the United States was having a positive influence in 

the world. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I believe—and I know we disagree here—but 

I believe that the Bush Administration’s policies itself, these poliVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:37 May 16, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\111005\24516.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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cies have created our image problem with our own foreign policies 

as it relates to the rest of the world. 

So I am pleased that you are here today, Madam Secretary; and 

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these important issues. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Chabot of Ohio. 

Mr. CHABOT. I will be brief. 

I would like to associate myself with the comments from the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Wexler, whom I often disagree with on 

the Judiciary Committee on most issues, but in here tend to agree 

with him on many issues; and I think his remarks were right on 

point. 

I am often reminded, Madam Secretary, about a cartoon I saw 

some years ago. It showed a man, a Middle Eastern man, opening 

up a flag on this bag of food. He is opening it up and said something along the lines of, how thoughtful of the Americans, food and 

a flag to burn. 

Unfortunately, I think our country, we have a tough time around 

the world public relations-wise. We are obviously the superpower 

able to do the most good around the world, and I think in general 

we do do the most good. But when you are up against the radical 

Islamic fundamentalist movement that has been growing worldwide and people willing to kill innocent women, children, anybody, 

in order to make their point, as we saw in Jordan just yesterday, 

we face a very difficult challenge. You are right in the middle of 

it, and we all on both sides of the aisle wish you the best. So you 

will be in our prayers. 

Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Joseph Pitts of Pennsylvania is a Member 

of this Committee. However, he is on leave of absence. But because 

of the significance of the subject matter he has returned to the fold 

temporarily; and, Mr. Pitts, if you want to make a 2-minute statement, you are recognized. 

Mr. PITTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the privilege to attend 

and to sit although I am on leave. 

I believe the issue of public diplomacy is extremely important in 

the world we live in for winning hearts and minds around the 

world, for American ideals and values; and I just want to thank 

Ambassador Hughes for your marvelous job that you have done so 

far. 

But I don’t think our country has been doing everything we could 

do. I think we need to think outside the box. I believe in Government programs and Government relationships, but I also believe 

there is a place for people-to-people diplomacy and people-to-people 

efforts, if they are properly promoted. 

I concur with the gentleman, Mr. Wexler’s, comments when he 

said there are extraordinary opportunities for positive engagement 

around the world. For instance, I would just love to see every Member of Congress just adopt one country to partner with, to become 

educated about, to get to know their officials, to open the door for 

their constituents, to engage in various ways, business, humanitarian, sister relationships. 

Many countries are very small. They don’t have big budgets, and 

there is not a lot of awareness about their culture. If just half of 

15

our Members would do this, we could cover the globe and put forward a face of Americans who are interested, that are aware, who 

care about ordinary people in other countries. I would be interested 

in your thoughts about this kind of engagement, if you have any, 

as we go forward today; and I look forward to hearing your testimony. 

Thank you very much. Yield back. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Pitts. 

Well, we have finally reached——

Mr. ACKERMAN. Almost. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Ackerman just came in. Well, Mr. Ackerman is recognized, from New York. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I thank the Chairman very much. 

I would like to welcome Secretary Hughes. Congratulations on 

your assignment. We have a lot of confidence in your ability. You 

are going to have to work very hard. 

I also am one of those that believe that we have squandered our 

reputation because of many of the policies of the Administration. 

Your job is big. It is not going to be easy to clean up after the elephants. 

I do wish that, using the access that you have to the White 

House, that you would also spend some time with the background 

of an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, that you try 

to bring some sanity to some of the policies that we have so that 

we don’t have to appear to be as arrogant as we have been to the 

rest of the world during the rest of the term of this Administration. 

And I want to congratulate you and welcome you again to the Committee. 

Yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

I am very pleased to welcome to our Committee Karen Hughes, 

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. 

She has been an advisor to President Bush for many years, and 

now in her role in the State Department she leads efforts to improve America’s dialog with the world. 

Thanks for being with us today, Ms. Hughes, and please proceed 

with your prepared testimony. Your full statement will be made a 

part of the record, but I am told the totality of your statement is 

about 10 minutes, and because you have had to endure the slings 

and arrows of outrageous Members of Congress, please proceed 

with a 10-minute summary. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE KAREN P. HUGHES, UNDER 

SECRETARY OF STATE, OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY 

FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Ms. HUGHES. Thank you, Chairman Hyde, Ranking Member Lantos, and Members of this distinguished Committee. 

We have already heard here this morning the healthy spirit of 

debate and disagreement that I think is a model for the rest of the 

world. 

First of all, I hope I can speak for all of us in expressing the 

deepest sympathies of America to the people of Jordan and our horror and outrage at the terrible terror attacks there yesterday. We 

16

have been once again reminded of the stakes and what we are up 

against, people who are willing to even kill innocent Jordanians attending a wedding. We will work together with countries and people throughout this world to defeat this threat. 

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to talk about 

a subject we all care deeply about, and that is America’s dialogue 

with the world. When I accepted this challenging new role, I promised to reinvigorate America’s public diplomacy efforts. I have been 

on the job now for 87 days. I am known as a high-energy person, 

and I suspect on many of those days my staff thinks I have reinvigorated a little too vigorously, given our growing list of new and expanded projects. 

We have a lot under way. We have much more to do. We are just 

beginning, and our work is critically important. In today’s world of 

instant communications across much of the globe, America’s dialogue with foreign publics is essential to a successful foreign policy 

and to our national security. 

President Bush recognized its vital importance when he said 

public diplomacy is a job for all of us—for Ambassadors, for Foreign 

Service officers, for Cabinet officials, for Members of Congress, as 

well as for our public diplomacy professionals. 

Public diplomacy is neither Democratic nor Republican but 

American, and I am very conscious of that. Along with every Member of this Committee, the President recognizes that the global and 

generational challenge we face is, at its core, a contest of ideas and 

values. As the President said recently, by standing for the hope 

and freedom of others, we make our own freedom more secure. 

All our efforts are guided by three strategic imperatives that I 

talk about in every speech and remind my staff of every day. First, 

that America must continue to offer a positive vision of hope and 

opportunity to people throughout the world, a vision that is rooted 

in our enduring commitment to freedom. We promote the fundamental rights of free speech and assembly, the freedom to worship, 

limits on the power of the state, the rule of law, rights for women 

and minorities, not because we seek copies of America’s democracy 

but because we believe these are universal human rights of men 

and women everywhere. 

Our second strategic imperative is to isolate and marginalize violent extremists and undermine their efforts to exploit religion to rationalize their acts of terror. We must work to amplify a clear message from people of every nationality and faith that no injustice, no 

wrong, no matter how legitimate, can ever justify the murder of innocent people. 

We must stress that the victims of terrorist violence today, as the 

victims yesterday in Jordan, are people of every nationality, ethnic 

group and religious faith, and that most of the people being targeted and murdered by terrorists and insurgents in Iraq today are 

innocent Muslims. 

We must contrast the society that people of goodwill around the 

world are working toward—an expanding circle of freedom and opportunity, where diversity is respected and celebrated—with the 

kind of society the terrorists seek—a restrictive, repressive conformity that we witnessed in Afghanistan under the Taliban when 

women were virtual prisoners in their homes and little girls 

17

weren’t allowed to go to school or learn to read. I don’t believe that 

is the type of life most people throughout the world want for themselves and their families, and I think it is very important that we 

always draw that contrast. 

Our third strategic imperative is to foster a sense of common interests and common values between Americans and people across 

our world. We share so much. People the world over want education and better lives for our children. People everywhere want to 

live in security. We all want jobs and opportunity and the chance 

to advance in life. 

As we foster these common interests and values, our approach 

must be humble. I am mindful that public diplomacy, as several of 

you mentioned, is a dialogue, as much about listening as it is about 

speaking. That is why my early trips abroad have been styled as 

listening tours. I tell our Embassies I want to reach out to people 

who may have never met an American Government official before. 

I am listening, and then I am reporting back to the President, to 

Secretary Rice, to other senior officials, so that what I hear is 

taken into account as we develop and communicate our Government policy. 

President Bush is asking Cabinet secretaries and other high-level 

officials to reach out to foreign publics during their travels, and I 

want to encourage and urge all the Members of this Committee 

and all the Members of Congress to do the same, and I know many 

of you do as you travel around the world, and to participate in 

interviews with local television stations and local media as you 

travel. Our Embassies want to work with you and help to arrange 

that to help us reach broader foreign audiences. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to highlight several of the other specific initiatives we are pursuing through tactics that I call the four 

E’s: Engage, Exchange, Educate and Empower. 

As the Chairman noted in his opening statement, we must engage more vigorously, explaining and advocating our policies in 

ways that are fast, accurate and authoritative. We have set up already a new rapid response center at the State Department. It 

monitors global news and issues a one-page report each morning 

with alerts as needed so that busy policymakers focus not only on 

the news environment in Washington or America but also on what 

is affecting people’s lives throughout our world. This has already 

proven to be an effective early warning system that helps us respond quickly to misinformation or emerging stories. 

We are asking our Ambassadors and public affairs officers to 

speak out much more aggressively on major issues, to do more 

speeches and television interviews and to attend more conferences. 

My office is providing tools and guidance to help them do so in 

ways that are clear, concise and coordinated. 

We are proceeding with plans to set up regional public diplomacy 

platforms to expand our television presence. In today’s world, our 

setup tends to be country specific. Yet much of the news media now 

is regional, so we need to have that regional presence throughout 

the world. It will also help us to make programs such as our speaker’s bureau more strategic and effective. 

We are at work on a technology initiative to make greater use 

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saging—which they used recently in Indonesia to communicate government policy—to help amplify our message and make it relevant 

to younger audiences. 

Our second E is exchanges, which many foreign policy professionals regard as the single most effective public diplomacy tool of 

our country over the last 50 years. We are increasing exchanges, 

making them more strategic and working to amplify the exchange 

experience through creative uses of media such as a program we 

have underway now, a radio program in Indonesia that has an audience of more than 1 million and is currently chronicling the 

American experience of two Indonesian students who are on an exchange program in Colorado. 

We are focusing on key groups that are influential within their 

own societies and vital to our interests, among them teachers, journalists, religious leaders, women and young people. 

We are creating new public-private partnerships. Dina Powell, 

who serves as my deputy and is also the Assistant Secretary for 

Educational and Cultural Affairs, is a leader in all of these efforts. 

Earlier this week, in California, she announced a new program, the 

Fortune/State Department Women Entrepreneurship Internship. 

This will give emerging women business leaders from across the 

world the opportunity to participate in 3-week internship programs 

during which they will work with and learn from senior executives 

in America’s Fortune 500 companies. 

On the third E, education, we have already redirected money to 

expand one of our most effective and eagerly sought programs, 

English language teaching. Learning English gives young people a 

skill they want, a skill that directly improves their own opportunities and potential in life, while also opening an important window 

on our values, and we plan to make teaching English a priority. 

Americans must also educate ourselves to be better citizens of 

the world. I am working with Secretary Rice on a strategic languages initiative to encourage more American students to study 

languages of the future, languages such as Chinese and Arabic. 

In January, we will convene a University Presidents Summit. 

America now faces competition for foreign students. We have to be 

more effective in encouraging them to come here, and we have to 

work to dispel lingering misperceptions from the months and years 

after September 11 when there were delays in receiving student 

visas. We have made great improvements in overcoming those, and 

we want young people to know we welcome them and want them 

to come to America. 

Our fourth pillar, empowerment, recognizes that the voices of 

government officials are not always the most powerful nor the most 

credible voices to deliver the anti-terrorist message. This is one 

reason I have spent a great deal of time reaching out to the Muslim-American community, traveling to Muslim majority countries 

and meeting with both political and religious leaders who advocate 

respect for people of different faiths and greater interfaith dialogue 

and understanding. A Muslim has far more credibility to say that 

Islam does not allow the murder of innocents than I do as a government official or Christian woman. 

I am also working to empower our best natural resource, our fellow Americans. My very first trip, I traveled with two citizen amVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:37 May 16, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\111005\24516.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
19

bassadors, one a teacher from Wisconsin. I had never met him before, but during my confirmation hearings, Senator Russ Feingold 

talked to me about his belief in citizen ambassadors, and he recommended a citizen from Wisconsin, a teacher named Bill O’Brien, 

and a graduate student here in Washington, Kareema Dauod. I 

wish you could have witnessed the powerful connections those two 

American citizens were able to make. We are building on that 

start, and we plan to create a robust program to help our citizens 

share their skills and their stories with people across the world. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to close with three initiatives that 

are helping us to accomplish all these goals. 

First, we are integrating policy and public diplomacy at the State 

Department. Several of you made the point that public diplomacy 

is about policy, and I agree. Because with policy, what we are talking about is affecting people’s lives, and that is what our policies 

do, and that is what public diplomacy is all about. I say it is people 

driven. 

Either I or a member of my staff participate in Secretary Rice’s 

key policymaking meetings, from partnering with the Palestinian 

Authority as they develop institutions to planning for avian flu. 

From the day of the devastating earthquake in Pakistan and the 

flooding in Guatemala, America’s response has been formulated 

with public diplomacy at the planning table. 

Next week, I will travel to Pakistan with key business leaders 

who President Bush recruited to lead a significant private sector 

fund-raising effort because it is the right thing to do and because 

it also demonstrates the compassion and generosity that are at the 

heart of who we are as a great country. 

Second, we have relaunched the interagency strategic communications process. I lead a high-level group of policy and communications professionals who come together, and we are at work on 

specific plans to further the freedom agenda and win the war of 

ideas. I am also working with Andrew Natsios and visiting USAID 

projects as I travel abroad to highlight the many ways that the 

American people are helping people throughout the world to improve their lives, from immediate help in times of disaster and crisis, to long-term development of stronger economies and civil society institutions. 

Third, we are reinvigorating public diplomacy as a strong, rewarding career path within the State Department. We are working 

to restore management links that were severed during the USIA 

merger. We have elevated public diplomacy in the regional bureaus, adding a deputy assistant secretary who dual reports to the 

head of the bureau and to me, which gives me a senior management team and also direct management links into the regional bureaus, and through them, the field. 

We are making public diplomacy a part of every officer’s job description and developing ways to evaluate and reward success. In 

fact, we are instituting a culture of results throughout the broader 

public diplomacy community, and we have already acted to restructure our evaluation unit to base it on the successful model that is 

used currently in our educational and cultural affairs division. 

If some of these ideas sound a little familiar, they are. We took 

the best thinking from the more than 30 different reports that have 

20

been written over the last several years about America’s public diplomacy. Many foreign policy and public diplomacy experts gave 

very generously of their time to develop these recommendations, 

and we are now working to implement them. 

I want to highlight one that I have not yet mentioned that I discussed recently with Congressman Lantos. He mentioned it briefly. 

Many of these reports recommended creating some sort of private 

foundation for public diplomacy to strengthen our partnership with 

the private sector and to bring in and encourage some of those who 

might not want to work directly with the Government. This foundation could do a number of things, from making grants available to 

produce quality television programs and making them available to 

the multiplying number of satellite television stations across the 

world, to funding translations of great works of literature, to working to increase interfaith dialogue and understanding. I have a 

working team that is looking at this proposal, and I believe it has 

the potential to make a long-term difference for America’s public 

diplomacy. 

All of this work is just a beginning, but I am very proud of what 

a great team of people has been able to set in motion in a very 

short period of time. I welcome the ideas and expertise from Members of this Committee. I look forward to working with you and all 

of our partners in the United States Congress. 

Thank you for your time and attention, and I look forward to 

your questions. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hughes follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE KAREN P. HUGHES, UNDER SECRETARY OF

STATE, OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Thank you, Chairman Hyde, Ranking Member Lantos, distinguished members of 

this committee. 

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to discuss a subject we all care 

deeply about: America’s dialogue with the world. When I accepted this challenging 

new role, I promised to reinvigorate America’s public diplomacy efforts. I’ve been on 

the job now for 87 days—and I suspect that on many of them, our staff thinks I’ve 

reinvigorated a little too vigorously given our growing list of new or expanded 

projects. 

We have a lot underway, we’re just beginning and our work is critically important. In today’s world of instant communications across much of the globe, America’s 

dialogue with foreign publics is essential to a successful foreign policy and to our 

national security. 

President Bush recognized its vital importance when he said public diplomacy is 

a job for all of us—ambassadors, foreign service officers, Cabinet officials, members 

of Congress as well as our public diplomacy professionals. Along with every member 

of this committee, the President recognizes that the global and generational challenge we face is at its core a contest of ideas and values. As the President said recently, ‘‘By standing for the hope and freedom of others, we make our own freedom 

more secure.’’

All my efforts are guided by three strategic imperatives. First, that America must 

offer a positive vision of hope and opportunity to people throughout the world, a vision rooted in our enduring commitment to freedom. We promote the fundamental 

rights of free speech and assembly, freedom to worship as one chooses, rights for 

women and minorities, the rule of law, limits on the power of the state not because 

we seek copies of American democracy—but because these are the universal human 

rights of all people, men and women, everywhere. 

Our second strategic imperative is to isolate and marginalize violent extremists, 

and undermine their efforts to exploit religion to rationalize their acts of terror. We 

must work to amplify a clear message from people of every nationality and faith: 

21

That no injustice, no wrong—no matter how legitimate—can ever justify the murder 

of innocents. We must stress that the victims of terrorist violence today are people 

of every nationality, ethnic group and religious faith, and that most of the people 

being targeted and killed by terrorists and insurgents in Iraq are innocent Muslims. 

We must contrast the society that people of good will around the world are working 

toward—an expanding circle of freedom and opportunity where diversity is respected and celebrated—with the kind of society the terrorists seek—a restrictive, 

repressive conformity. We witnessed that society in Afghanistan under Taliban rule 

when women were virtual prisoners in their homes and little girls couldn’t go to 

school or even learn to read. I don’t believe that’s the type of life most people 

throughout our world want for themselves and their families and it’s important that 

we make that contrast. 

Our third strategic imperative is to foster a sense of common interests and common values between Americans and people of different countries, cultures and faiths 

across our world. We share so much. People the world over want education and better lives for our children, people everywhere want to live in security, we all want 

jobs and economic opportunity. 

As we foster these common interests and values, our approach must be humble. 

Public diplomacy is a dialogue, as much about listening as it is about speaking. 

That’s why my early trips have been styled as listening tours. I tell our embassies 

that I want to reach out to people who may have never met an American government official before, I’m listening and reporting back to the President, Secretary 

Rice and other senior officials so that what I hear is taken into account as we develop and communicate public policies. President Bush is asking Cabinet Secretaries 

and other high level officials to reach out to foreign publics during their travels and 

I hope members of Congress will do so as well—and participate in local television 

and newspaper interviews to help us reach broader foreign audiences. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to highlight several of the other specific initiatives 

we are pursuing through tactics that I call the four ‘‘E’s:’’ Engage, Exchange, Educate and Empower. 

We must engage more aggressively, explaining and advocating our policies in 

ways that are fast, accurate and authoritative. We have set up a new rapid response 

office at the state department. It monitors global news and issues a one page report 

each morning with alerts as needed so that busy policy makers focus not only on 

the news environment in Washington or America, but also around the world. This 

has already proven to be an effective early warning system that helps us respond 

quickly to misinformation or emerging stories. We are asking ambassadors and public affairs officers to speak out on major issues, to do more speeches and television 

interviews, and my office is providing tools and guidance to help them do so in ways 

that are clear, concise and coordinated. We’re proceeding with plans to set up regional public diplomacy platforms to expand our television presence, and make programs such as our speaker’s bureau more targeted and strategic. We are at work 

on a technology initiative to make greater use of web chats, graphics, streaming 

video perhaps even text messaging to help amplify our message and make it relevant to younger audiences. 

Our second ‘‘E’’ is exchanges, which many foreign policy professionals regard as 

the single most successful public diplomacy initiative of the past 50 years. We are 

increasing exchanges, making them more strategic and working to amplify the exchange experience through creative use of media such as a radio program in Indonesia—with an audience of more than a million—that is currently chronicling the 

American experience of two Indonesian students studying in Colorado. 

We are focusing on key groups that are influential within their own societies and 

vital to our interests—among them, religious leaders, teachers, journalists, women. 

We are creating new public private partnerships. Dina Powell, who serves as assistant secretary for educational and cultural affairs, also serves as my deputy and 

is a leader in all our efforts. Earlier this week, she announced a new program we 

have created: the Fortune/State Department Women Entrepreneurship Internship. 

This program will give emerging women business leaders from around the world the 

opportunity to participate in three-week internships during which they will work 

with and learn from senior executives in Fortune 500 companies. 

On the third ‘‘E,’’ education, we have redirected money to expand one of our most 

effective and eagerly sought programs, English language teaching. Learning English 

gives young people a skill they want, a skill that improve their opportunities in life, 

while also opening an important window on our values—and we plan to make 

English teaching a priority. 

Americans must also educate themselves to be better citizens of the world—and 

so I am working with Secretary Rice on a strategic languages initiative to encourage 

more American students to study languages such as Chinese and Arabic. 

22

In January, we will convene a University President’s Summit. America now faces 

competition from many other countries to attract foreign students. We must be more 

effective in encouraging them to come here, and we have to work to dispel lingering 

perceptions from the year after September 11th about students visas. We’ve made 

great improvement in overcoming delays and we want young people across the 

world to know we welcome them and want them to come to America. 

Our fourth pillar, empowerment, recognizes that the voices of government officials 

are not always the most powerful nor the most credible voices to deliver the antiterrorist message. This is one reason I have spent a great deal of time reaching out 

to Muslim Americans, traveling to Muslim-majority countries and meeting with both 

political and religious leaders who advocate respect for people of different faiths and 

greater inter-faith dialogue and understanding. A Muslim has far more credibility 

to say that Islam does not allow the murder of innocents than I do. 

I’m also working to empower our best natural resource: our fellow Americans. My 

very first trip, I traveled with two citizen ambassadors, a teacher from Wisconsin 

named Bill O’Brien and a graduate student here in Washington, Kareema Dauod 

and I wish you could have witnessed the powerful connections they were able to 

make. We are building on that start and plan to create a robust program to help 

our citizens share their skills and stories with people across the world. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to close with three initiatives that are helping us accomplish all these goals. 

First, we are integrating policy and public diplomacy at the State Department. Either I or a member of my staff participate in Secretary Rice’s key policymaking 

meetings, from partnering with the Palestinian Authority as they develop institutions to planning for avian flu. From the day of the devastating earthquake in Pakistan and the flooding in Guatemala, America’s response has been formulated with 

public diplomacy at the planning table. Next week, I will travel to Pakistan with 

key business leaders that President Bush recruited to lead a significant private 

fundraising effort because it is the right thing to do—and it also demonstrates the 

generosity and compassion that are at the heart of our great country. 

Second, we have relaunched the interagency strategic communications process. I 

lead a high level group of policy and communications professionals. We have already 

had several productive meetings and are at work on specific plans to further the 

freedom agenda and win the war of ideas. I’m also working with Andrew Natsios 

and visiting USAID projects as I travel to highlight the many ways the American 

people are helping people throughout the world to improve their lives—from immediate help in times of disaster and crisis, to long-term development of stronger 

economies and civil society institutions. 

Third, we are reinvigorating public diplomacy as a strong, rewarding career path 

within the state department. We are working to restore the management links that 

were severed during the USIA merger. We have elevated public diplomacy in the 

regional bureaus, adding a deputy assistant secretary who dual reports to the head 

of the bureau and to me, giving me direct links with the bureaus and field operation. We are making public diplomacy a part of every officer’s job description and 

developing ways to evaluate and reward success. We are instituting a culture of results—we are restructuring the evaluation of all of our programs, based on the successful model used in our educational and cultural affairs division. 

If some of these ideas seem familiar, they are. We took the best thinking from 

more than 30 groups over the last several years that reviewed America’s public diplomacy and made recommendations to improve it. Many foreign policy and public 

diplomacy experts gave generously of their time to develop these proposals and we 

are acting to implement them. I want to highlight one that I have not yet mentioned 

that I discussed recently with Congressman Lantos. Many of the reports recommended creating some sort of private foundation for public diplomacy to strengthen our partnership with the private sector and to encourage those who might not 

want to work directly with government to get involved. This foundation could do a 

number of things: make grants to produce quality television programming and make 

it available to the multiplying number of local and regional television stations 

across the world; fund translations of great works of literature; work to increase 

interfaith knowledge and understanding. I have a working team looking at this idea 

and believe it has the potential to make a long-term difference for America’s public 

diplomacy. 

All of this work is just a beginning, but I am very proud of what a great team 

of people has set in motion in a very short time. I welcome ideas and expertise from 

members of this committee and all our partners in the United States Congress. 

Thank you and I look forward to your questions.

Chairman HYDE. Thank you very much, Ms. Hughes. 

23

I very seldom take time myself to ask questions, but I am going 

to this time, but I, too, will be brief. 

I just want to comment that everything about America in the 

world is not bleak. We have many friends. 

On a recent codel, we talked to the Foreign Minister of Greece, 

the President of Ukraine and the Prime Minister of Estonia, and 

they launched into lengthy, heartfelt and unsolicited praise for the 

United States and its indispensable role in rebuilding Europe and 

defending freedom in the post-World War II world. We stopped at 

Gdan ́ sk, where they were celebrating the 25th anniversary of the 

founding of Solidarity, and Lech Walesa talked to us in Polish, but 

I could understand two words he uttered: Ronald Reagan. So I 

think we have a great story to tell. 

The emphasis on unity also must take into account the nature 

of democracy, which is a robust debate. So we are going to always 

have robust debate, as long as we have a healthy two-Party system. I have an intuition that if President Bush were to have nominated a resurrected Abraham Lincoln to the Supreme Court, the 

senior Senator from New York would be unimpressed. 

In any event, I want to thank you, and I repeat what I said with 

more emphasis and fervor, you are the ideal person for this job. 

Ms. HUGHES. Thank you so much. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Lantos. 

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and let me 

commend our distinguished witness for an excellent statement. 

When Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman joined Frank Wolf 

and myself in introducing the Advanced Democracy Act, in a very 

fundamental sense, we were attempting to implement the key aspects of the President’s second inaugural speech. This is his hopedfor legacy. It is a legacy that all Americans share, and we thought 

that our legislation would be a way of moving it forward. 

Thanks to the Chairman’s support, the House incorporated our 

legislation in the State Department Authorization Act. The Senate 

has not yet acted. I would very much like to encourage you, Madam 

Secretary, to talk to Senator Lugar, because this legislation would 

make our Embassies abroad active participants in your very complex and very difficult task. 

In the quarter century I have been in Congress, I have visited 

Embassies which are doing exactly what our legislation is calling 

for. Every single member of the Embassy staff is out speaking 

about the United States. But there are Embassies, beginning with 

the Ambassador, which really are just doing very second-rate jobs 

along these lines. Unless there is legislative support behind your 

effort to energize our Embassies, I don’t think we will have them 

reach their potential. 

I would like to raise a couple of questions with respect to dramatically enhanced educational exchange programs. As you know, 

during the last year-and-a-half, I visited Libya five times. We now 

have over a generation of total lack of contact with Libya. We 

haven’t had a Libyan student at our universities for about a quarter century. 

When I talked repeatedly to one of Qaddafi’s most trusted people, 

the head of his Secret Service, he displayed a remarkable knowledge of the United States, and it became obvious he was a gradVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:37 May 16, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\111005\24516.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
24

uate of the University of Michigan. The Prime Minister of Libya, 

who also understands us quite well, has his Ph.D. from Tufts. We 

now have a whole generation of Libyan leadership with zero experience in the United States. 

I simply can’t urge you strongly enough to work on both the visa 

issues and on the general question of educational exchange, because while some of these people who spent years here turn out to 

be hostile to us, most do not. Most understand the fundamental 

values of this society. 

I also would like to ask you to expand a bit on a program that 

I know you strongly support and implement, mainly multiplying 

the American outposts abroad. It seems to me that one-person operations, as we established in Cluj, Romania—that the State Department fought tooth and nail under Warren Christopher, and finally they were forced into implementing—and it has been an enormously successful undertaking. And the establishment of a mini-office in the Kosovo capital of Pristina, are all doing an enormous 

amount of good work for us. I would be grateful if you would comment on what your plans are on these outposts. 

Ms. HUGHES. Thank you very much, Congressman. I couldn’t 

agree more about making our Embassies active participants, out 

speaking, and that is a change in the culture of the State Department. 

Traditional diplomacy is viewed as government-to-government. 

One of our diplomats would carry a message to a comparablyranked diplomat from another country, and that exchange would be 

very quiet and not very public, traditionally. 

But as part of Secretary Rice’s vision of transformational diplomacy—and in this age of instant communication, of satellite television, today’s age of information is far different than the public diplomacy challenge we faced during the Cold War. At that time, we 

were trying to get information into societies that were largely 

closed, and most of the people were hungry for that information. 

Today, in many parts of the world, we are in an information explosion. You have so many satellite televisions from which to choose, 

and you can get on the Internet in an instant and find all kinds 

of sources of news and information, some credible and some not. 

So I think in this age of information, it is extremely important 

that all of our people, all of our Embassies, not just the Ambassadors and not just the public diplomacy professionals, but everyone who works within an Embassy, that they communicate on our 

behalf to foreign publics and with foreign publics. 

So that makes it my job then to help provide them the training 

and tools necessary to do so, and we are going to be looking at the 

training programs at the State Department to make sure that, in 

the future, we are able to give people the skills that they need to 

be able to accomplish and achieve that. 

We are also going to begin making public diplomacy a factor in 

evaluations. When you measure things, they tend to improve, and 

if people know they are going to be measured and rewarded when 

they reach out to foreign publics, that can help change what in the 

past has been a risk-averse culture in terms of that outreach. 

Second, on exchanges, you are absolutely right. It is striking as 

you travel around the world and meet leaders how many of them 

25

were educated in the United States of America and, therefore, how 

many of them have an understanding of our country and of our 

people and of our values. I think that is very important for the future, and that is why I am a big believer—as I first took this job 

and reached out to people with a great deal of experience in public 

diplomacy, I met with a number of foreign Ambassadors and a 

number of different groups, many of whom had done extensive 

analysis of public diplomacy, and almost universally they told me 

that they thought the most effective program that we had done 

over the course of the last 50 years was in fact our exchange programs. 

That is another reason it is so important that we compete for 

students, because 30 years from now, I want the person who sits 

here as she travels or he travels around the world on behalf of our 

country to be able to meet with people who have been educated in 

America and who therefore understand our country very well. 

Third, in terms of expanding our presence beyond capital cities, 

I agree with you, that is very important. Of course, we do have 

some resource issues, but I think that we can certainly look at how 

we deploy people. You and I talked about, for example, Indonesia, 

which is spread across such a large geographical area. It is very 

hard for a public diplomacy person in the capital to reach out to 

someone on one of the further islands. 

Ed Morrow, whom you quoted earlier, once famously said that 

public diplomacy is about the last 3 feet, and that is the last 3 feet 

between you and another person as you make that personal connection. So that is something we will work very hard to foster and also 

encourage our people in Embassies to get out more across countries. 

We do face security challenges in today’s world. As you know, it 

has become harder and harder as we work to secure our Embassies 

for our people to reach out, and we have had to work on some creative ways to do that. I am proud to report that the State Department has developed some innovative ways to do that by placing an 

American presence. For example, when I was in Malaysia, I toured 

a very successful program called the American Corner—it is the 

Lincoln Corner, they call it in Malaysia actually—but it places an 

American presence, a small American library, in the case of Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur. It was in the Malaysia city library, and so 

someone who walks into the Malaysia library has a chance to walk 

by the America section and take a look at some of our history and 

some of our literature and some of our magazines. And it was a 

very impressive little corner. So we have had to work on creative 

ways to establish that presence, and we will continue to do so. 

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Paul of Texas. 

Mr. PAUL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Earlier, many Members mentioned the connection between the 

policy, and, of course, our image overseas, and you even referred 

to in your remarks about integrating policy and public diplomacy. 

But the mere integration, I don’t know whether it would be quite 

enough because it is the policy itself that might make the difference. 

26

But I share that concern and I share a concern that our image 

has changed so much, because, in the year 2000, we as a Party, you 

know, talked about a foreign policy that was opposed to nationbuilding. We didn’t want to be the world policeman. We criticized 

that, and we wanted a more humble foreign policy. 

I don’t think today we are going to solve the problem of policy. 

I don’t want to dwell on the issue of policy as much as the perception of our policy, which is really what counts. Even if we are above 

reproach on our intentions about what we want to do around the 

world, it probably doesn’t matter if the interpretation is that we 

are crusaders, the images that we have already seen about torture, 

and there could be secret prisons. All of these things, I cannot see 

how we can overcome that because the perceptions have been portrayed. So I don’t think it is just policy, although obviously they are 

connected. 

I wouldn’t mind if you commented on that, but I have one specific question that has to do with funding. There was a recent article in the Boston Globe that said that the Bush Administration has 

devoted $670 million this year to the public relations efforts by Ambassador Hughes. 

Ms. HUGHES. What was that figure? 

Mr. PAUL. $670 million. I tried to check this out, and I haven’t 

been able to. If you can tell me today, fine. If not, maybe you can 

follow up. I would like to know how much we spend and what 

budget it comes from, because today we are dealing with budgets 

on the House Floor, and we are trying to pick away a dollar here 

and a dollar there, and I would like to know about that. 

Also, do you know whether or not whatever amounts we are 

spending, how much of it goes to any private public relations firms? 

Do we use public relations firms in the work you are doing? 

Ms. HUGHES. Let me comment, first of all, on our funding. Our 2005 funding was a total of $670 million. That is divided into two 

accounts. One is for the general public diplomacy area; and the second, that amount was for public diplomacy specifically, $315 million; and for education and cultural affairs, which is in a separate 

part of the budget but is also in the public diplomacy purview, that 

amount is $355 million, for a total of $670 million. 

The current conference report for 2006 is recommending an increase in that amount. I will note that all of the 30 reports, I believe, that were done on public diplomacy recommended increases 

in our expenditures, specifically in a lot of different areas, specifically in the area I mentioned as a priority area, and that is of exchanges. The 2006 conference report as it stands today does have 

an increase for exchange program funding of about 20 percent. The 

overall budget increase recommended is about 14 percent. So that 

is the status of the specific funding issues. 

Let me talk just generally about the issue you raise about antiAmericanism, about——

Mr. PAUL. May I interrupt you? Does any of the money go to the 

private PR firms? 

Ms. HUGHES. I am not aware of any private public relations 

firms that we use. We do use contractors in several areas. We use 

contractors to prepare publications that help publicize our policies. 

For example, we have a very nice publication that has just come 

27

out, an electronic journal called, See You in the USA, which seeks 

to encourage people to come to our country, which we think is an 

important thing to do, because once they come here, it helps to 

open their minds about America. They see what we are really like. 

They see that Americans are hardworking people, who are people 

that value family and faith and very much have values very similar 

to theirs. We use contract employees for things such as language 

translation to translate our statements and policies into a number 

of different languages. 

But I would be glad to check for you and find out whether any 

of that work is done with a firm or not, because we do have a number of contract employees that we contract out, which we think is 

an efficient way to handle some of those preparations of publications and reports. 

[The information referred to follows:]

WRITTEN RESPONSE RECEIVED FROM THE HONORABLE KAREN P. HUGHES, UNDER

SECRETARY OF STATE, OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, TO QUESTION ASKED DURING

THE HEARING BY THE HONORABLE RON PAUL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS

FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

The bureaus that report to the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy have infrequently contracted with private firms for a few special projects. For example, the 

Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) had a contract in FY05 to develop 

a marketing strategy to make the ECA alumni Web site more useful and appealing 

for ECA alumni. There are, at present, two open contracts. One, in the Bureau of 

International Information Programs (IIP), is a contract signed in 2003 to design and 

complete a marketing campaign to promote the HI magazine brand and secure advertising pages for the magazine. The other, in the Bureau of Public Affairs (PA), 

is a contract signed in 2002 for print, radio and television advertising in targeted 

markets for the Shared Futures program. The remaining funds in this contract, 

which concludes in February 2006, are currently being used to pay for sewing machines for micro enterprises and backpacks containing information for use in 

schools; these materials are distributed in association with cultural exchange programs.

Ms. HUGHES. We also work through our exchange programs with 

a large number of NGOs, nongovernmental organizations, who help 

to administer our exchange programs. But I will be glad to check 

on that, Congressman, and get back to you with specifics. 

On the second part of your question, let me talk about a couple 

of broad things. First of all, obviously during the campaign of 2000, 

none of us—it is very interesting, I traveled the country with the 

President. I watched as he answered thousands, literally, of questions in debates and from journalists, and I recall him being asked 

about the Taliban only once and never being asked about al-Qaeda. 

Yet less than 9 months later, we found ourselves involved in a war 

with them after a horrific attack on our homeland on September 

11th. 

I know many of you were here in Washington, as I was, and we 

remember the horror of that day. And we had to look at our country’s national security in the new light of September 11 and recognize that we were, as well-reminded again so tragically yesterday 

in Jordan, that civilized people and nations throughout the world 

are engaged in a very difficult war against extremist terrorists who 

want to inflict violence against people who disagree with them. And 

their stated intention they have said: They want to kill Americans; 

they want to kill Jews; they want to kill Muslims who don’t agree 

28

with them. So we are engaged in a very, very different time in the 

aftermath of September 11. 

You mentioned the detainee issue. Let me make it very clear 

what our policy is regarding detainees. We treat detainees humanely, in compliance with our laws, in compliance with our values, and we treat them consistent with the principles of the Geneva Convention. 

Now, we have seen some horrible crimes, and all of us Americans 

were sickened by those pictures from Abu Ghraib, just as people 

around the world were sickened by those pictures from Abu 

Ghraib, and they don’t represent the actions of the vast majority 

of our men and women in America, any more than the horrific beheadings being carried out by terrorists represent the thinking of 

the vast majority of people around the world. 

Those were criminal acts that were committed at Abu Ghraib, 

and as often is the case, the crimes got a lot more attention than 

the punishment. But I think it is important for the American people and the world to know that more than 20, I believe 25, people 

have been reprimanded, sentenced, tried or held responsible in one 

way or another for what occurred at Abu Ghraib, including the individual that we saw in most of the pictures, many of the pictures, 

who has been sentenced to 10 years in the penitentiary for those 

crimes. Another was sentenced to 8 years. Another was sentenced 

to 3 years. A number were reprimanded. The commanding general 

was removed from command and later demoted in rank. 

So democracies are not perfect, but we hold people accountable. 

I do think it is important to note it was a United States soldier 

who saw what was going on and thought it was wrong. And he was 

right that it was wrong, and he brought it to light. And it was investigated, and those responsible have been punished. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Berman. 

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Madam Secretary, I would like to get your response to three 

points: There are a number—I am told by people who know that 

we have a number of American schools, particularly in major cities 

in the Arab world, the students are primarily children of American 

diplomats, children of American Government contractors, children 

of American businessmen and children of elites in Arab societies 

and Arab countries, children of wealthy, successful business and 

government officials in those countries. 

Those schools have room for additional students. Joe Knollenberg 

and I, based on this information, introduced legislation and secured 

an earmark in this year’s Foreign Operations Bill to create a scholarship program for the promising children of middle- and workingclass Arab students in other countries as well to attend those 

schools. It is very little cost. The schools are there. There is room 

in the schools and the facilities. It is an investment in the longterm exposure of people coming from a broader class than now use 

these schools, schools that feature a Western-style educational environment, a premium on development of critical thinking and analytical skills, an exposure to American values. 

We have had some problems inside the State Department and 

with the MEPI Administration in getting a commitment to use 

these funds. I think they are one small part of a long-term investVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:37 May 16, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\111005\24516.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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ment in a successful program, and I would like to encourage your 

support for that. 

Secondly, Alhurra, our Middle East satellite TV station, often 

has a difficult time to get United States officials to go on the air 

and comment on the important issues of the day. With that in 

mind, I am interested in your views of the place of Alhurra in advancing U.S. public diplomacy objectives. Is Alhurra the preferred 

satellite TV vehicle for U.S. Government engagement with Arab 

viewers? Is it just one among equals with Aljazeera, al Arabia and 

the others? I would be interested in your views on that. 

Finally, I am told that one or more times you have expressed 

support for certain fatwas that condemn religious edicts by Muslim 

scholars that condemn terrorism. Obviously, those fatwas are useful. But critics short of endorsing fatwas say this is a dangerous 

game to get into. For instance, in Egypt, Sheikh Tantawi, who I 

had a chance to meet with at Al-Azhar—I believe you met with him 

as well—he gave a very strong edict against terrorism, but he exempts from that attacks and killings of soldiers in occupation situations like we are in in Iraq. 

You made some wonderful statements regarding freedom and 

promotion of democracy in your testimony. Rules that are developed through democratically-elected institutions and become laws 

are, I think, something that we want to promote. That ocean of 

edicts, getting in to starting to judge certain fatwas and whether 

they are good or not, gets to be troublesome. I just throw that out 

to you to hear your thoughts and any reaction if you have it. 

Thank you. 

Ms. HUGHES. Congressman, let me start with that last point. It 

is a point well taken. One of the things I am working to do, though, 

is to amplify the voices of those, particularly in the Muslim community, who are willing to speak out and condemn acts of terror. 

As I mentioned, I was at the White House after September 11, 

and at that time, frankly, it was very difficult to get voices within 

the Muslim world to speak out, to condemn the use of terror as a 

tactic, even terror against innocents. 

After the London bombings, we saw a number of voices that 

began to speak up and say that the use of terror against innocents 

was not permissible in Islam. Again, I think the fact that those are 

voices of Muslim clerics, that those are voices issued through 

fatwas, which are viewed as important rulings within the world of 

Islam, that we think that is important to amplify those voices, so 

that this is not just America saying that acts of terror against innocents are bad, these are voices within Islam that are saying that 

acts of terror are bad. 

We had, I think what you are referring to, what I highlighted, 

was a fatwa that had been issued by a group of Muslim-Americans 

and was unveiled at an Islamic Society of North America meeting. 

That doesn’t mean we always agree with all of the views represented by those who are speaking up, but I think it is important 

that we speak up together as a world community with people of different faiths and different countries who are willing to join us and 

say the murder of innocents is not acceptable. So I think that is 

an important thing to highlight. 

30

Your first point on American schools, I believe, and I have asked 

about this program once before, I believe you are referring to a program that would basically fund scholarships for students to attend 

those schools. I think in theory that is a very good idea. 

I did ask MEPI about that and was told that the tuition costs 

were very high compared to comparable costs at other schools and 

that that was one of the problems. But I will be glad to look into 

that further. Because during my work in Afghanistan—I will relate 

a story—I had a group of visitors from Afghanistan who came to 

Washington on an exchange program, and I invited them to come 

to Texas because I wanted them to see a part of the country in addition to Washington. 

They came to my home in Texas, and I was talking with a couple 

of the women, and I asked where their children went to school. One 

of them said, ‘‘Oh, my child goes to the French school.’’ Another one 

of them said, ‘‘My child goes to the German school.’’ I thought, well, 

those children are being exposed to positive experiences about 

those countries. Why aren’t they going to an American school? 

So I checked into it and found that actually our Ambassador at 

the time, Zal Khalilzad, who is now our Ambassador in Iraq, had 

attended an American school in Afghanistan. It had been shut 

down some time ago, and I believe it is now reopened. And I do 

agree with the point in principle that reaching out to lower-income 

people who might not otherwise have an opportunity to be exposed 

to America and having them attend American schools would be a 

good idea, and maybe there is a way for us to work more closely 

with those schools. And I will look again into those costs. I believe 

someone wrote a column about this at some point, and I inquired 

about it and was told actually the tuition costs were high. But I 

will be glad to check and get back to you on that. 

[The information referred to follows:]

WRITTEN RESPONSE RECEIVED FROM THE HONORABLE KAREN P. HUGHES, UNDER

SECRETARY OF STATE, OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, TO QUESTION ASKED DURING

THE HEARING BY THE HONORABLE HOWARD L. BERMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

I have looked into this, and I understand that MEPI is developing a plan to implement a scholarship program for students in the Middle East and North Africa with 

American institutions of basic and higher education in the region. Congressional 

committees of jurisdiction will receive notification of this plan after it is approved 

by the Deputy Secretary.

Ms. HUGHES. Third, about Alhurra, as a communicator, I believe 

it is important to reach out to a lot of different mediums and a lot 

of different stations. For example, there has been some debate 

about whether Administration spokesmen should appear on 

Alhurra, given the fact that frequently the reporting is inflammatory and not always very objective. I am a communicator. 

Alhurra reaches a huge audience. Therefore, I feel if we are not 

present on that station, if we are not making our case on that station, we are missing an opportunity to communicate with a whole 

lot of people. So I think it is important. I did an interview——

Mr. BERMAN. That inflammatory station——

Ms. HUGHES. I am sorry, Aljazeera. Did I say Alhurra? I meant 

to say Aljazeera. I apologize. I misspoke. 

31

I believe it is important to Aljazeera, which frequently the Administration, and I know Members of this Congress, I am sure, object to because the reporting on Aljazeera is frequently wrong and 

based on rumor and innuendo and not based on fact, based on misinformation, and we continue to complain when that takes place. 

But I think it is important for our spokesmen, and we have aggressively tried to step up the presence of our spokesmen on that 

station, because I think it is important that the vast audience that 

Aljazeera reaches hear from us. 

I have met with Ambassador after Ambassador and talked with 

them about public diplomacy in their country, and I will say, what 

are you doing about public diplomacy? Well, we have worked this 

newspaper or that newspaper. And I will say oh, do people in your 

country get most of the news from the newspaper? They say, no, 

they get it from Aljazeera. So I say, what are you doing about 

Aljazeera? Well, it is located in another country. 

Well, that is why I think it is very important, and that is the 

reason I am looking at the idea of a regional platform to put Arabic 

speakers on to Aljazeera. 

With that said, on Alhurra, yes, I think it is important that we 

make our spokespeople available for Alhurra. As you know, the 

Broadcasting Board of Governors is a separate Federal agency. I sit 

on that board as a representative of the State Department to ensure strategic coordination, to give them input into our policy and 

our strategic priorities, the three strategic priorities, for example, 

that I shared with you this morning. 

There is a firewall that prevents me as a State Department employee from interfering or recommending or making any judgments 

about the news operation of Alhurra and many other, all other U.S. 

broadcasting initiatives, other than the editorials that are done by 

Voice of America, which are specifically required to be editorials 

that reflect U.S. Government policy. 

I do think, however, given that firewall, despite that firewall, 

there are opportunities for some synergy, and I have been trying, 

as I have attended the first couple of meetings that I have been to 

of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, to make some recommendations. 

For example, we do all these exchange programs. We bring 10 

clerics from Jordan to the United States, a program that we did not 

do too long ago, and they have an opportunity to see what our 

country is like and to visit and go see synagogues and mosques and 

churches in America. 

Why should that experience be limited to those 10 people? Why 

wouldn’t it make sense for our American-Arabic language television 

station, Alhurra, to cover that exchange, to do a documentary about 

that exchange program and therefore share it with a much wider 

audience? 

I think we can do things like that in a way that does not breach 

the firewall, and I would hope it makes both programs, both public 

diplomacy and our broadcasting efforts, more effective. I am looking for ways that we can do things like that. 

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Burton of Indiana. 

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

32

I have to say, Madam Secretary, you are a very impressive lady, 

and your knowledge and scope of knowledge is very impressive. 

You have talked about a lot of public diplomacy involving countries 

across the seas. 

I am Chairman of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, and 

I am very concerned about what is going on in Central and South 

America. I believe if we don’t have the right diplomatic attitude 

and take the right steps, in the next few years, we could have a 

conflict or conflicts down there that would be very, very destabilizing for the entire hemisphere. I think it is extremely important. I met with President Chavez a couple of times, once in Caracas and once in New York, and I listened to his speech the other 

day to the big gathering down there at the Conference of the Americas, and one of the things that he said in the closing remarks was 

something about that they should continue to further the goals of 

Che Guevara. He also said on a number of occasions that he is an 

enemy of the United States. 

I talked with leaders throughout Central and part of Latin America, and I intend to see as many as I can. And they are all very 

concerned about the oil money that he is getting and how it is 

being used to potentially undermine their governments. They will 

all tell you the same thing; it is happening, and they are very concerned about it. 

So I would just like to divert your attention from the Middle East 

and overseas and Africa and so forth to South and Central America 

and ask, what steps you and the Administration intend to take to 

deal with that from a diplomatic standpoint? Because a lot of the 

rhetoric going on, emanating primarily from Cuba, Nicaragua and 

Venezuela, is very anti-American and very, very caustic. I think 

that is an area that really needs attention, and you can be a great 

help in that regard. 

Ms. HUGHES. Congressman, as a Texan, our friends in Latin 

America are very, very important. As a Texan, I know that. I also 

spent some of my early years growing up living in Panama, which 

is where I learned just a little bit of Spanish. I understand it a lot 

better than I speak, so I hope I don’t destroy the beautiful language. But I think it is important that Americans try to show respect and appreciation for the wonderful languages of different 

countries. 

I agree with you that public diplomacy—although some of the 

media reports frequently focus on the Muslim world, and it is a 

very important part of public diplomacy—public diplomacy, though, 

involves the entire world. And our friends in this hemisphere are 

very important. In fact, the President, when I talked with him 

about this job, underscored for me the importance of reaching out 

to Latin America, and I plan to travel there. I was initially hoping 

to do so this month, but I think it is going to now be right after 

the first of the year. But I look forward to traveling there. 

There are some loud voices in Latin America that are trying to 

stir up anti-Americanism. I think there also is a very broad consensus that has emerged over a period of numerous summits and 

a series of meetings between leaders of America and Latin American and Central American and Caribbean countries, a consensus 

that favors free trade and free markets and economic integration. 

33

And we believe that those are the paths to a better life, a more 

hopeful life for the people of Latin America. That is what we are 

all working toward. 

We recognize we want to nurture the democracies of Latin America, and I think our public diplomacy can be very, very important 

to that effort. Our Ambassador in Venezuela works very hard to 

reach out to the people of Venezuela. We did an innovative baseball 

exchange program where we brought an American baseball player, 

who I believe is from Venezuela, and brought some young baseball 

players from Venezuela to America. We are trying to foster citizen 

exchanges. 

In Latin America, we have a very successful program called Binational Centers, where we teach English language classes within 

institutions that are hosted by the host country. So it is a unique 

partnership between America and the host country and also gives 

young people a skill that is very highly desired. And I understand 

that we have waiting lists in many of those programs, and we 

would like to be able to expand those programs, because they have 

been very, very successful in building bridges of cooperation. We 

also have a number of American Corners in Latin America. 

So I think your point is very well taken that we need to work 

to foster the democracies there, to foster our partnerships with our 

neighbors in this hemisphere, and that is very important to our 

work. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Schiff of California. 

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Hughes, I, like my colleagues on the Committee, feel 

that you have one of the most important jobs in the U.S. Government right now and certainly one of the most difficult. I wanted to 

ask you about the work prior to your appointment by your predecessors, Margaret Tutwiler and Charlotte Beers. Those efforts had 

little success in improving our image overseas. 

I am not asking you—I don’t want you to comment on them personally. I know they did their very best. But nonetheless, we didn’t 

advance the ball much under your predecessors, and I wonder if 

you can share some thoughts about why you feel those prior efforts 

were unsuccessful and what lessons we can draw from that experience. What will you be doing that is different in kind than your 

predecessors did that is more likely to have a successful outcome 

in changing our image and the perception of America abroad? 

Ms. HUGHES. Well, let me make a couple points to that. One is 

that, by its nature, a lot of what we are doing is very long term. 

So I want to disagree a little that those efforts were unsuccessful. 

I feel that there were a number of programs actually that were 

started that have the potential over the long run to be very successful for our country. 

Both Charlotte Beers and Margaret Tutwiler, in the aftermath of 

September 11, moved to try to make our exchanges directed more 

to young people, particularly the young people who might not otherwise have the opportunity to come to America. 

There was a very successful program started called YES, which 

brings high school students, low-income, underprivileged high 

school students from different Muslim world countries to America, 

34

people who would otherwise probably never have the opportunity 

to see our country for themselves. 

I am a big believer that one of the most important things we can 

do is bring people here. We want open minds. We want people to 

have open minds, to come here and see for themselves, because we 

believe when they do, their opinions of our country will be forever 

changed. So, who knows? One of those young high school students, 

I happened to meet with a group of them last summer, one of those 

young high school students might one day be a leader of a country 

that is instrumental to America and to our foreign policy and to 

our standing in the world. So I think some of these programs take 

years. 

I am under no illusions of what I will be able to do in the little 

more than 3 years remaining in this Administration. So I am very 

mindful. One of the things I am trying to do, and I can’t speak to 

whether my predecessors did or not, but I am trying to look at, how 

can we put in place institutions that will make a difference over 

the long-term? 

For example, how can we better train our Ambassadors and our 

Foreign Service officers? How can we attract the best and the 

brightest and make it clear that public diplomacy, communicating 

American policies and ideals and values is the job of all of us, and 

give them the tools over the long run to do a better job at that? 

Mr. SCHIFF. Can I interrupt for one question? These initiatives 

I think are all very important, but they probably raise an issue 

that has come up in the Committee in the form of comments from 

our colleagues. How much of the problem that we face is the result 

of our policies, and how much is a result of our communication? 

Some of our policies aren’t going to change and shouldn’t change, 

and they may be unpopular, and we are just going to have to deal 

with that. 

Some of our policies may be giving rise to legitimate antipathy. 

Our close relationship with authoritarian regimes in parts of the 

world has caused a criticism that we support dictators who are 

friendly to us; we only oppose dictators that are unfriendly to us. 

How much of those issues do you think are poisoning the environment you have to work in? How much do you get pushed back 

when you travel around, particularly the Middle East, about our 

support for less than democratic governments or those that abuse 

the rights of their own people? 

Ms. HUGHES. Let me make a couple of points on that, Congressman. When I traveled to the Middle East, I think the two areas 

that I heard the most about were Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian 

issue. 

In the case of Iraq, I recognize that many countries and many 

people, many people in our own country, disagreed with our decision to go into Iraq. But when I talk with people, I think there is 

general agreement that, given where we are today in Iraq, what 

should happen next—there is general agreement that it is important for our country to continue to help Iraq emerge as a united 

and a stable democracy. So I think there is broad agreement about 

what we are doing to try to stay in Iraq and work to help that 

country become united and stable and democratic. 

35

On the Israeli-Palestinian issue, there is a feeling in the Middle 

East that I heard over and over again that we favor Israel over the 

Palestinians, and yet our policy is that the United States of America supports the creation of a Palestinian State that could live sideby-side in peace and security with Israel. 

So one of the recommendations that I made when I came back 

from our trip is, to the extent we can be seen working in partnership with the Palestinian Authority to develop the institutions that 

will allow that state that we do support to emerge, that I think 

that could be a very effective way for us in the Middle East region. 

People there are somewhat suspicious of words. They want to see 

actions. I think those actions are both in keeping with our policy 

and will be good for our public diplomacy. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Leach of Iowa. 

Mr. LEACH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me just say, at the end of your opening statement, you made 

a reference to citizen diplomacy, and several times more recently 

in your statement, you talked about exchanges. I think that is very 

thoughtful. 

Often in this town there is an assumption that relations between 

States are government-to-government, but actually a lot of the tone 

is set by American citizens, whether they are business people or 

artists or students or scholars. At the government level, there is obviously no substitute for good policy. At the non-government level, 

I don’t think there is a substitute for using our greatest asset, 

which is our citizens. 

To put a focus on this is something that I think is a great challenge. I would like to note, in my State, in the City of Des Moines, 

there is a real effort to establish a citizen diplomacy center. I hope 

you look at that. 

In Iowa City, a town I represent, a group of scholars have developed a rather extraordinary way to use very small local servers to 

put millions of books on, and they have approached the city American Corner aspect of USAID, and it has gotten a very sympathetic 

review. I hope you pay attention to this. It is a way to expand geometrically the types of things that can be offered in these American 

Corners. 

I would caution a little bit on the policy of your last comment 

that everything you hear is that people want us to stay for a prolonged period of time. I don’t hear that from anyone anywhere. The 

notion of overstaying is something that you should be thinking seriously about. Once these elections are held this December—not to 

use that as a basis for—a drawdown of troops and an upgrade of 

assistance of a nonmilitary variety is something that I think should 

be the goal of the United States of America. Overstaying militarily 

in an occupation is the one thing that could produce catastrophic 

consequences. I know that there is a feeling in this Administration 

that they want to stay for a long period of time, and I really think 

that is going to have to be reviewed. 

Ms. HUGHES. Congressman, if I said stay, I think I misspoke. 

Succeed was what I intended to say. It is important that we succeed, because obviously all of us want our men and women in uniform to come home as quickly as possible. And I agree with you 

that people throughout the region, people in Iraq do. But they don’t 

36

want us to come home before Iraq is capable of defending itself 

against this terrorist and insurgent threat. As the President has 

said, we want to stay as long as necessary and not 1 day longer. 

Mr. LEACH. I appreciate that clarification, although we all should 

understand that the occupation itself becomes an incentive for terrorism and we can get involved in a Catch-22. But let me just turn 

to the—very quickly, I think there is a diplomacy aspect dealing 

with the Congress. We are responsible, as you are responsible, for 

visa policy. It has become irrationally tough and I think that this 

is something that you ought to take a personal responsibility to 

deal with us and within the Department about. If we don’t have 

the right kind of people that come into our country that want to 

come for student exchanges, we are really doing counterproductive 

things. 

Secondly, I would like to discuss minorly, because we had an aspect on the House Floor, if we are going to support public diplomacy we have got to support diplomacy. Supporting diplomacy 

means supporting the United States Department of State and that 

means in a budgetary sense as well as in a philosophical sense, and 

we have got to be very careful about not having enough resources 

in your department as we move in a world where diplomacy is 

going to matter a lot, public and nonpublic, and I am very concerned on our budget at this moment in time, and I wonder if you 

would like to comment on that. 

Ms. HUGHES. Well, thank you. On the area of visa policy I agree 

it is very important. I just recently returned from a Chiefs of Mission conference with our Chiefs of Mission in Asia and they identified the whole visa issue and treatment of visitors to our country 

as one of their biggest challenges that they face on a daily basis. 

I will be glad to get involved in that personally. Secretary Rice is 

also very involved in that personally. She is working with Secretary Chertoff on that issue and, as I said, we have made significant improvements. 

I know in 2002 and into 2003 we were still experiencing very 

long delays as we instituted special screening programs. In many 

cases, particularly in the cases of student visas, we have managed 

to improve that substantially. In fact, in a lot of countries, I believe 

probably the majority of countries, most students are now able to 

get an appointment within a day or 2 and get the visa very shortly 

thereafter. We have improved, but we need to improve more and 

we also face a big challenge as we work to protect this country, and 

no one wants to be the one who makes a mistake and lets in someone who is going to attack our citizens, and so I am very mindful 

of that. 

On the other hand, it is very important that we remain a welcoming country. I was overseas in a low-income neighborhood in 

Turkey and a young man looked at me and said, ‘‘Does the Statue 

of Liberty still face out?’’ I said of course. We still are a welcoming 

country, we want people to come to our country, we welcome people 

to America and I think it is important that all of us as government 

officials, as airport screeners, as customs officials, that all of us respect that you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, 

and we need to say welcome to people that we greet at our airports, 

37

even if we do need to screen them or look a second time at their 

visa. 

Chairman HYDE. Ambassador Watson of California. 

Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to throw 

some thoughts together and because of lack of time, you can answer them all as a group. Number one, in my travels around the 

globe we are seen, and I have heard this, as starting a war against 

Islam, and so you can comment on that when I finish. 

What do you make of the debate between the President and the 

Vice President relative to torture? 

And as I understand, in the eighties, Congressman Stokes put a 

provision in the foreign policy bill that we identify at the HUCUs 

(historically black colleges), students who are the best and brightest, and you did mention that term, bring them to the State Department, train them so they could go into diplomacy, and I think 

it is a good idea because there are people of color talking to people 

of color. So I just want to make that point. 

And then I raised this issue last year with someone from the Department of Defense, and I said there sounds to me like we are 

doing nation-building and we are planning on occupation. I would 

like you to comment on what is the message in Iraq and who 

should talk about when we plan we will get out of there as soon 

as we have accomplished the mission. Well, 2 years ago the President said, ‘‘Mission accomplished.’’ So how do you feel about the 

thought that we are doing nation-building in Iraq and it looks like 

we are going to have a long-term occupation there? 

These are my questions. You can throw them all into one response. I thank you so very much for listening and for your patience. Thank you. 

Ms. HUGHES. Thank you so much. I am glad you brought up that 

first point because I do think it is something that we struggle with, 

making it very clear that the war against terror is a war against 

violent extremists who are trying to hijack a religion, not against 

the vast majority of people of faith and peace who are Muslims, 

and that is one of the reasons I was at the White House in the days 

after September 11th when the President visited a mosque to try 

to make that point very clearly that we—this was not in any way 

a war that involved people of the Muslim faith but this was a war 

against terrorists and violent extremists. And that goes back to the 

point I made earlier about why it is so important that we encourage Muslims themselves to speak up and to speak out and that we 

help to amplify and empower their voices. And that is why I tried 

to reach out to the Muslim-American community, because I think 

they can be a very important bridge in that effort as we make that 

case across the world. 

It is also the reason it was great to have a young Muslim-American with us as a citizen ambassador in the Middle East. You 

should have seen the young people flock to her and ask her what 

is it like to be a Muslim in America and her talk about how freely 

she was able to practice her faith and how welcoming Americans 

were and how people reached out to her in the aftermath of September 11th. 

So I think that is a very important message that we have to repeat again and again and again, and one of the points that I hear 

38

frequently is that as Americans we need to work to foster greater 

understanding and interfaith dialogue among people of different 

faiths within our own country. That is something I am working on 

here at home as well. We had maybe 2 weeks ago at the State Department a fascinating panel discussion on traditions in Islamic 

culture, and we did that as an education experience for our own 

employees and also to set an example for other workplaces and 

other cities and other communities, that we hope they will foster 

similar programs to encourage greater dialogue and understanding 

between people who practice different faiths. 

Second, you mentioned the debate regarding detainee policy. All 

the members of our Administration are working very hard to protect this country and to fulfill our responsibility to live up to its 

laws and uphold our values in our treatment of detainees, and we 

had before I left the Administration back in 2002 and we continue 

to have discussions, debates, thoughtful deliberations as to how we 

can best do that. It is a very important issue—it is a very challenging issue because we are facing something we have never faced 

before. We are facing stateless terrorists who do not wear the uniform of a state. All our international law was developed under the 

premise that two armies would confront each other and yet we face 

these stateless terrorists who don’t wear a uniform, who don’t conform to any rules, and we are trying to treat them under rules 

when they are not parties to any international treaties and they 

don’t respect any boundaries or rules of international law. 

Again, the policy is that all detainees will be treated humanely, 

in compliance with our laws, with our Constitution, with our values, and consistent with the principles of our international treaty 

obligations and the standards of Geneva. I recently saw an interview by General Peter Pace, who is the Chairman of our Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, the senior ranking person in uniform, and I want 

to quote him because I think it is important that the world hear 

clearly, and unequivocally know, what the policy of the United 

States is. And this is General Peter Pace:

‘‘I can tell you categorically that any maltreatment of any detainees by U.S. forces or coalition forces is totally unacceptable, 

that our orders have and will continue to be that we will treat 

everyone in our charge humanely and with respect. And that 

is the policy of our country and of the United States of America.’’

Ms. WATSON. Would you speak specifically about torture? Because the discussions about torture, and the President said, do not 

eliminate options. So it is like a double message going. I hear that 

message but it is torture that the debate is about and you have the 

Vice President saying one thing and the President saying another 

and the President is saying he is going to veto legislation if it 

comes to him. 

Ms. HUGHES. I believe you are referring to a specific piece of legislation, and the Administration has issued a statement of Administration policy on that legislation. I can only repeat to you what 

our Commander-in-Chief and President of the United States has 

said—we do not and will not condone torture. I don’t know how to 

say it any more unequivocally than that. 

39

You asked about our message in Iraq, and I want to challenge 

the word that I have heard several times here this morning—occupation. Our forces are in Iraq today supporting the democraticallyelected Government of Iraq. I hear that word used around the 

world. It is interesting to me, one of the things I heard on my travels. I believe there is a disconnect between what the rest of the 

world looks at when they look at Iraq and what the people of Iraq 

are saying, at least the ones I have talked with and according to 

public opinion surveys about what they are saying. The rest of the 

world, and I understand that no one likes war, no one likes—we 

all hate to see the bombings and the violence and the security situation in Iraq—and it is important to know what is happening in 

Iraq today. Terrorists and insurgents are engaged in the indiscriminate murder of fellow Iraqis, fellow Muslims. That is what is 

happening in Iraq today. United States forces are there trying to 

help the elected Government of Iraq to emerge as a stable and 

united and democratic country. 

I think what I hear when I travel is people look at Iraq and see 

the chaos there, the violence there, and I think they somehow get 

a conclusion that somehow the people of Iraq are not better off 

today than they were under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Yet when 

I sit down and ask Iraqis, ‘‘Are you better off, do you think your 

life is better today than it was under Saddam Hussein?,’’ I have 

never once had any one of them tell me anything other than, ‘‘Yes, 

we are better off, we are glad that Saddam Hussein is no longer 

in power.’’

I sat at the White House last week and watched a group of Iraqi 

women meet with the President, and this is the thing television 

cameras don’t see because it was a private meeting and these 

women wanted to tell the President—each one of them—thank you, 

thank you for my family. One of them said my mother wanted me 

to please tell you thank you, Mr. President, she never thought in 

her lifetime we would be free from Saddam Hussein. 

I think it is important that we work hard to make sure that the 

American people and people throughout the world hear more from 

the people of Iraq about how they feel about the future of their own 

country. We saw it when they turned out in those huge numbers 

to vote in the face of threats of terror and even death. We saw it 

when they turned out again to vote for their Constitution. And I 

think it is important that we help them do a better job of making 

their feelings known to the rest of the world and to the American 

people. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Royce of California. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Would you yield to me? 

Mr. ROYCE. I certainly will. 

Chairman HYDE. My good friend, Ms. Watson, the Ambassador, 

used the phrase ‘‘nation-building’’ and I know that is a pejorative 

phrase in these discussions, but when 60 percent of the eligible voters come out under threat of being shot by snipers or bombed by 

terrorists to vote, that is an enormous victory for democracy and 

it shows they have hope, that they would risk their lives to cast 

a vote to pass, adopt a Constitution. If that is nation-building, we 

need more of it. Thank you, Mr. Royce. 

40

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I found 

some of the opening statements, especially critiques of United 

States tax and social policy of interest as we got underway with 

our hearing, and these statements actually come at the same time 

that France, with a system that is the polar opposite of ours in 

terms of the role of the state and the economy, is suffering from 

domestic violence and is specifically suffering from riots that are 

unprecedented in recent French history in terms of the scope, and 

this goes to the issue of perception among certain young Muslims 

in France. But as you know, this week over 6,000 cars were 

burned, over 200 towns and villages were attacked, many churches 

and many shops, and many public schools were burned in France. 

And what is interesting to me about the argument is that France 

has created a system where it does have a high level of social 

spending, it does have very high taxes. It spends a fortune on its 

social cohesion plan that is specifically addressed at trying to find 

jobs in the inner city, a part of the problem in France is the unemployment is over 20 percent for youth throughout France. So it is 

higher than that in these immigrant communities, but France tries 

to deal with this. The population in North Africa is going to double 

in the next years and a huge percent of that population comes to 

Paris and other major French cities and so they have a plan to try 

with their social cohesion plan to face the unemployment problems 

that come about as a result of the unemployment and also with 

public expenditures. They have a cradle to the grave program, with 

welfare payments and public housing and everything else, and yet 

at the end of the day, with a social policy that is far to the left of 

ours in terms of the magnitude of public expenditure, they still 

have this perception problem. 

So I go back to those initial opening statements. It is true that 

we are divided here on the question of policies which are going to 

come up this week where we are going to try to hold the spending 

to 6 percent growth increase per year, and we are going to try to 

keep from raising the capital gains rates from 15 percent to 25 percent. That is a debate that is going on. But I don’t—it seems to me 

that those policies have helped create a situation where we created 

37 million jobs, where Europe created 4 million in the same time 

frame, and I am not altogether certain that the level of spending 

on social policy in the United States is a source of resentment overseas as put forward in that thesis. And I would like to give you the 

opportunity to respond to some of these criticisms that it is our domestic policies that are problematic overseas. 

Ms. HUGHES. Well, Congressman, I think I certainly have a big 

challenge to talk about in our foreign policy so I am not sure I 

want to add domestic policies as well, although I think your points 

are very interesting ones and I certainly feel that our economy is 

strong and growing, that our policies have been a big factor in that 

success. 

The situation in France is a very difficult one and we have seen, 

obviously, difficult situations, similar situations in our own country. We stand with the people and the Government of France as 

they work to restore order and to try to put an end to the violence, 

which is, I know what we all want, and as they seek to address 

some of the concerns that have apparently prompted it. 

41

Mr. ROYCE. Let me also say that I would like to point out that 

Tom Dine, who served at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, very capably for many, many years, just stepped down and I know that 

this Committee, Under Secretary Hughes, wishes him well and I 

certainly hope to see a capable and professional successor for him. 

The radios are a key tool and he understood that well. 

I would like to raise a point because we had a hearing before the 

Subcommittee on Terrorism, which I chaired, and one of the witnesses spoke of what he called the emergence of a virtual Caliphate 

on the Internet. And this has been the basis of concern given that 

this broadens the reach of al-Qaeda and similar terrorist organizations, but it also broadens the reach of just propaganda in general, 

a relentless source of propaganda that gives only one viewpoint, 

and I wanted to ask how we can combat this battle on the Internet. 

I am very interested in your views on that. 

Ms. HUGHES. Well, it is a huge battle and you are right, it is a 

relentless barrage of propaganda, of information, it is an important 

source of information but it also can be—we are faced with a situation where not only can terrorists communicate under the radar 

screen and very quickly and easily, but also they can spread lies 

and misinformation the same way, and it is difficult. I told someone it reminds me of the little childhood pop-up game where you 

knock one thing down and another one pops up. 

So it is a big challenge. We do have an interagency working 

group that is looking at issues of the terrorists’ use of the Internet 

and seeking to challenge that use. I believe one of the things we 

need to look at is providing good content, good information. One of 

the good things about the Internet is people who are able to get on 

the Internet and look can decide for themselves. They do have access. 

One of the battles we are fighting in this war of ideas is against 

closed minds. We want to open minds. And I think the Internet can 

be a tool in helping open minds as well. It does allow a lot of access 

to information and education. We have been very successful in our 

International Information Programs Bureau at hosting Web sites 

and getting information into societies that have been closed in 

other ways. For example, we have a very successful Chinese-language Web site and although China sometimes attempts to block 

the information, we are finding that it gets out because people pick 

it up and post it on Chinese-language Web sites within China, so 

it can also be a source of fostering our democratic values, and I 

think we just need to be aggressive and creative and that is one 

of the reasons I have convened a technology group to work together. In fact, we are trying to make that one of the core missions 

of the IIP Bureau—to look at technology to become a mecca for 

technology for the government so that we can use it in positive 

ways to foster our values and principles and to confront some of the 

hate and the propaganda that it also allows to spread across the 

world. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Wexler of Florida. 

Mr. WEXLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I could ask that we 

just focus on Indonesia for a moment, knowing that you visited 

there recently, and ask you as a result of your trip, what specific 

opportunities do you think that we may have? My impression, and 

42

I am by no means an expert, but my impression is, in the context 

of Indonesia, we are faced with an opportunity of historic proportions, the largest Muslim country in the world, a democraticallyelected President for the first time. I believe more people voted in 

the Indonesian elections for President than did our own. My impression of President Yudhoyono is that—and I don’t want to exaggerate, but when I had the opportunity to sit with him and listen 

to him, I thought I was listening to an Indonesian Thomas Jefferson in terms of his vision for democracy in his country and undoubtedly he has all of the domestic problems that many leaders 

of countries have. But this is a leader that to me appeared to be 

somebody totally committed to democracy, a patriot of his country 

in the greatest sense, a democrat in the most important of ways, 

and somebody who has great respect for the United States of America and was a beneficiary or recipient of interaction in his younger 

years in American programs and yet—and this is not a criticism of 

the Administration in any way because I think the Congress is far 

behind the Administration in terms of an enlightened policy with 

Indonesia—and I am just curious as a result of your visit there and 

visiting Aceh, which when I visited there I think it was my proudest moment as an American to learn of the extraordinarily positive 

role the American military played after the tsunami. Knowing the 

goodwill that exists as a result of what America did after the tsunami, I respectfully ask you what plans you have to recommend to 

the President and to the State Department in the short term what 

we do with Indonesia. 

And if I could just make a respectful observation in listening to 

how you respond on the issue of Iraq, and I say this as somebody 

who has a respectful but different view of current affairs there, my 

fear is, and I have no desire to engage in a debate at this point, 

but my fear is that so much of your good work will be undermined 

if so much of your focus is either by choice or by necessity having 

to continually argue the merits of American policy in Iraq to people 

who, whether we agree or disagree, largely the die has been cast, 

fundamentally disagree with our policy. 

And what I have found, obviously not in your position of importance, but sometimes the best way to respond to people who fundamentally disagree with what we are doing in Iraq is to at least 

point out the fairness of the totality of American policy toward 

what they perceive as uniquely Muslim interests or people of the 

Muslim faith and how they have been harmed in historical events. 

What I have found is, if people are going to criticize us in Iraq, at 

least give us credit, us meaning the United States of America, for 

along with France helping to support the sovereignty of the people 

in Lebanon versus the Syrian occupation. If they are going to criticize the Iraq War II, at least give us credit for the Gulf War I. If 

they are going to criticize us for anti-Muslim policies in Iraq, if 

that is how they perceive it, then at least give us credit for being 

the only country to stand up against Milosevic essentially and lead 

the effort to hopefully benefit at that time and pursue the justice 

of Milosevic now. And we don’t get credit for being really the singular voice for, outside of Europe, promoting Turkey’s entry into 

the European Union. 

43

And when they ask you or criticize you with respect to the 

Israeli/Palestinian conflict and America’s too close association with 

Israel, I think it is fair to point out whether they agree or disagree, 

what has their country done to support the Palestinian people? And 

too often the most affluent of Muslim nations have done little or 

nothing to support the Palestinian people and you rightfully point 

out the President, to his credit, from the Rose Garden announced 

that it was the policy of the United States to support a state for 

the Palestinian people. I have mixed my messages and that is probably the worst thing people can do from this point, and I apologize 

for that. 

Ms. HUGHES. Well, I think those are great points and I will—I 

think that is a very important point that we frequently fail—we 

tend to get the finger of blame when someone disagrees, but fail—

good news does not ever travel as fast as bad news and we fail to 

get credit for a lot of the very good things we have done on behalf 

of Muslims and Arabs and on behalf of the Palestinians and others, 

and so I think that is a very good point and I will be mindful of 

that and try to make that case. 

On Indonesia I agree with you, we discussed it before I traveled 

and my trip only reinforced my belief that Indonesia is at a time 

of incredible opportunity for our partnership with them. We have 

a very good Ambassador there who is committed to making a difference. You are right about their election. I joked when I was 

there that it is not often a Texan goes someplace—and being from 

Texas we are used to things being big—and realizes Indonesia is 

three times as big as my home State of Texas. And they had the 

largest single election day in the history of the world when they 

had that huge turnout for the Presidential election. 

It is a very important country, and I do agree that—I want to 

tell you about a couple of interesting things that I did there. I went 

to an event, I think the Embassy was, frankly, a little worried 

about it, but I had read an article about a young rock band there 

that one of their songs—the lead singer is a young man named 

Donnie—and one of his songs talks about Islam being a religion of 

peace, not a religion of terror, and it seemed to me that that directly reinforced the message that we want people around the 

world to hear and to concur with. And so through a member of my 

staff we reached out to the Embassy, and they said Karen wants 

to meet with this rock star. They were a little surprised, I think, 

but we had this wonderful neighborhood event in this neighborhood 

community, where the volunteers have come together and reclaimed this low-income neighborhood from gangs. These young 

boys who played in a neighborhood band, probably 10 or 12 years 

old—when Donnie showed up it was interesting—the moderator 

asked if they knew who the President was—some of them did—but 

they all knew who this Donnie was. And he sang with them as they 

played their instruments, and it was just a wonderful event and a 

reminder that we need to be innovative as we look at America’s 

public diplomacy. If there are voices that appeal to young people 

like this rock band that share our basic message, that we need to 

reach out to those voices, and so that was a wonderful event. 

And in Aceh I was, as you said, very, very proud of our country. 

I am also very encouraged that the effects will be long-term, not 

44

just short-term, because I met with some young people, a group of 

about 12 young students who are going to be coming to the United 

States on Fulbright Scholarships that were made possible by President Bush’s and President Clinton’s private sector fundraising efforts, and this one young man told me that he is going to come to 

America to a school because the two Presidents arranged it for 

their home States, and he is going to come to Texas and study 

English, and he is doing that as a tribute to the university professor who taught him English who was killed in the tsunami. And 

he is going to come here, get his Master’s in English, go back to 

Indonesia and teach English in that same school. 

I think that is a wonderful investment in human capital that will 

pay off over the long term that we are making in Indonesia. So I 

agree with you that it is a moment of great opportunity and that 

is the message that I brought back to our Administration. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. First 

of all, let me associate myself with remarks of Mr. Wexler and congratulate him for his activism on this Committee. He is playing a 

very significant and positive role and I know that is not going to 

make him popular with the other Members of this Committee on 

that side of the aisle, but I find him to be a very positive force and 

he has chosen to be active about Indonesia, which is what we 

should do as Members, find where we can play a positive role and 

be active in that area, and I have certainly listened to his recommendations myself and congratulate him for the points he made 

today and associate myself with them. 

I would like to be—actually, one of my strongest campaign slogans when I ran the very first time was, vote for Dana, at least 

he is not a lawyer, and what I am is actually a wordsmith. I was 

a writer by profession before I became involved in this congressional situation. I would just like to mention one word being bandied around here, and that is there is a mistaken impression that 

insurgency and terrorism are the same thing, and attacks on noncombatants is terrorism or people who achieve those goals, no matter who is committing that act, and that terrorism is always wrong 

and we should condemn that. Insurgency, however, is not necessarily wrong. When people attack troops, even if it is our troops, 

insurgency is not terrorism. Insurgency is wrong when people attack our troops in Iraq because the people using insurgency in that 

regard are trying to install an Islamo-Fascist or some other dictatorship in Iraq. That is why it is wrong for those people to attack 

our people in an insurgency-type operation. It is always wrong for 

people in Iraq, those people who are attacking civilians in Iraq, to 

do so because that is terrorism. I think that we need to look at our 

words when we are talking about that and, being in communication, I thought you would appreciate that observation. 

We defeated communism, it was a great threat to our way of life, 

to the Western world. We relegated it to the ash heap of history, 

as Ronald Reagan said, through military might. We needed that, 

but basically what won the Cold War was a battle of ideas. We 

never had that all-out fight with communism, thank goodness, because we won the war of ideas. The war against radical Islam will 

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where with Muslim people. We shouldn’t because Muslim people by 

and large reject radical Islam in the same way that people who 

lived under communism rejected communism, and it was our ability to reach out to them which saved the world from a conflagration 

that would have been so destructive it is beyond imagination. 

So your job is incredibly pivotal in reaching out to those people 

who live in Islamic societies. In reaching out to those people, I 

would agree that positive values, treating people humanely, women 

being treated equally, and democracy and honest government are 

good objectives that we can share with them. 

I think that in this battle I would like to disagree with one of 

my colleagues who mentioned you to be cautious about fatwas and 

using fatwas on our side. Fatwas are a method of—systematic 

method of—analyzing things for Muslim people that helps them 

guide and determine what is right and wrong. And to the degree 

that Muslims are issuing fatwas that are on our side, we should 

be working with those Muslims that see the moral imperative of 

having a good relationship with the West and in fact share our values for democracy and treating people decently. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to put for the record one of these 

fatwas, which is a comment by the Free Muslims Against Terrorism, which was issued after the Spanish act of terrorism. I 

would like to put that into the record at this point. 

Chairman HYDE. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And with that 

said, I would like to end this with—and also when we work on trying to influence those people in the Muslim world, my admonition 

to you is that we go to their language and we start using words 

in their perspective that reflect to them. We shouldn’t be calling 

the radical Islam’s war on the West their holy war, we should be 

calling it an unholy war, and there are words in their language 

that would suggest that, and instead of calling people martyrs, we 

should be calling them people who are misguided and people who 

are being manipulated by radicals, et cetera, and challenging the 

idea in their language whether or not someone who murders innocent people is going to go to Paradise. 

This is the type of intellectual argument that we need to conduct, 

and I would just suggest to you, as I mentioned in my opening 

statement, I wish you good luck in those efforts. Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentlelady from California, Ms. Lee. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Madam Secretary, for your forthrightness; it is good to see you here and you 

do have quite a challenging job. A couple of things I would like to 

say, again with all due respect, first of all, I was always taught, 

like you were and all of us were, that honesty is really the best policy. When we say that we are not occupying Iraq and when we go 

through an effort to revise history, and quite frankly it almost 

sounds like this is what is taking place now, that the rest of the 

world is not going to listen or embrace our public diplomacy effort 

because they know that we are not being honest. We went to war 

and we misled this country and the world, saying there were weapons of mass destruction. We knew then, like the world knows now, 

and our country, that that was not the case, that we invaded, we 

occupied and, yes, I am very delighted that the elections came out 

the way that they came out and applaud the Iraqi people. But over 

2,000 of our young men and women have died, countless Iraqi civilians, and we need to talk about how in the world in a very honest 

way we can communicate many of the facts of this without being 

seen as being disingenuous because when we are seen that way we 

lose. 

Secondly, the 9–11 Commission, like many investigative bodies, 

proved, demonstrated, documented that there was no connection 

between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Now Iraq is a hotbed for 

terrorists and the world knows that and our country is less safe as 

a result. How do we—in your job it has got to be very difficult. How 

do you deny that or confirm that? We know that Iraq was not the 

War on Terror and the world knows that. 

Finally, let me just say with regard to the Sudan, this country 

declared genocide as being the stated policy and we all are very 

committed to ending the genocide, the countless deaths of those civilians. On the other hand we are beginning to cozy up to the Sudanese Government, allowing them to have a lobbyist, engaging in 

discussions with them. On one hand genocide is taking place as our 

policy, but on the other hand we are doing just the opposite to undercut what could be the beginning of the end of the genocide taking place. And so I don’t see how in the world you can do your job 

when on one hand we say we disagree with torture, yet on the 

52

other hand we have Administration officials saying, well, we don’t 

support efforts to say as our policy torture is wrong. 

So how do you deal with those contradictions and the appearances of our country being very disingenuous in many of the efforts 

that we are undertaking? 

Ms. HUGHES. Well, with all due respect, I do agree that honesty 

is our best policy and I just have to respectfully disagree. I think 

it is very important that all of us guard our words, and I object 

strongly to your use of the word ‘‘misled’’ because based on everything I know, and I was involved in some of this—I had left the 

White House but I was still actively engaged—based on everything 

I know, and based on all the bipartisan commissions which have 

looked at the evidence and the intelligence, the President and his 

Administration based their decisions on the facts and the best intelligence that they had available to them at the time, just as 

Members of this Body, both Democrats and Republicans, based 

their decisions on the best evidence and information they had 

available to them at the time in authorizing the use of force in 

Iraq. And I think it is very important that the world not hear 

words like ‘‘misled’’ when in fact the bipartisan Robb-Silverman investigation found there was no misuse of intelligence, that some of 

the intelligence was in fact wrong, but that the Administration 

used the facts and the intelligence that it had available to them at 

the time. 

I will also point out that September 11th occurred before the 

United States of America went into Iraq, and so the threat of terror 

in this world, the growing threat of al-Qaeda and terror and 

operatives around the world, the camps in Afghanistan that have 

trained thousands of terrorists, all existed before the United States 

made a decision in our own national security interest to go into 

Iraq. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Weller. Not here. 

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. Just to follow up on what Ambassador Hughes was talking about, the precooked intelligence and 

whether we manufactured the evidence, we just had a very interesting and a very helpful discussion in this very Committee just a 

few hours ago on this very issue, and I think that the evidence is 

very strong and the Chairman was so eloquent in quoting all of the 

reports and all of the investigations that had gone into this theory 

about precooked conditions, and he read off not only the number 

of investigations but the number of statements made by Democrats 

alike and previous Administrations about Saddam Hussein’s capabilities. And so there was no misinformation, there was no distortion of the truth, and the investigations speak very loudly for themselves. 

But I wanted to ask you, Madam Ambassador, about the failure 

of states such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Lebanon to take terrorist broadcast stations such as Hezbollah, Al-Manar, off the air, 

and are they not in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 

1624, which just recently passed, and it calls on all states to cooperate in addressing terrorism and specifically called for countries 

to prohibit by law incitement to violence and terrorist acts, and are 

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cently passed Security Council resolution and requiring its full 

compliance? 

And also, my last question is about public diplomacy and if there 

are different objectives that we are pursuing in the Muslim world 

versus the non-Muslim world, and if so, do you in your capacity intend to develop strategies that are directly tied to those areas and 

to those parts of the world, different strategies, different tactics, 

different programs tailored to the Muslim world so that—I agree 

with you—we have a good story to tell? What is shameful about 

helping the Iraqi people get to free elections, an incredible achievement, write a Constitution, incredible steps that they have undertaken in just a little bit of time and what has happened in Afghanistan, we have nothing to apologize for. 

My stepson serves as a Marine officer in Iraq. He flies F–18’s. 

He understands his mission, he wants the support of the U.S. community, but also of the international community to understand 

what the mission of our brave men and women in uniform is 

throughout the world. And I wanted to know about the regional 

and counter specific strategies for the Muslim world. 

Thank you, Madam Ambassador. 

Ms. HUGHES. Thank you so much. You inquired about Al-Manar. 

It was placed on the terrorism exclusion list in December 2004 and 

it is a very high priority for us and we have been working it very 

aggressively. In fact, through our work in diplomatic channels we 

have managed to have it removed from seven satellite providers in 

Europe, Asia and Latin America. Now it continues to be broadcast 

on ArabSat and NileSat, and that is something that I brought up 

at the most senior levels with leaders in Egypt and Saudi Arabia 

during my visit there. All of us will continue to work on this issue 

because we believe it is very important, and as I said, it has been 

designated and we are looking for additional things that we can do, 

and it remains a top priority. 

In terms of strategies for the Muslim world and the broader 

world, a few points. First of all, as you well know, the Muslim 

world is not monolithic—it is very different in very different places. 

One of the benefits of the State Department’s structure is that we 

are able to take a menu of best practices and things that work well, 

share ideas, and then the Embassy and the public diplomacy and 

public affairs staff within each Embassy are able to tailor those for 

specific countries, and often it is very different. 

For example, I was recently at a Chiefs of Mission conference 

and we were talking about whether working with the diasporas 

would be effective. One country said that would be terrific, another 

said no, they would resent it. So it is very different, as you well 

know, in different places. 

What I am trying to do is come up with broad strategies on big 

issues that affect everyone. Obviously there are big issues of policy 

that everyone in the world is going to look at. There are incidents 

that happen that we need to rapidly respond to and they affect the 

entire world. Then there are some that are country specific or region specific and so we are trying to work on those at all levels. 

This is one of the things we really want to foster. We had a discussion at our last Chiefs of Mission conference among the people 

in different countries that have large Muslim populations, about 

54

what is effective in reaching out to clerics and teachers, what kind 

of exchange programs might be best, what is successful in terms 

of identifying and empowering mainstream voices of Islam—in 

order to share those ideas while having the flexibility to let each 

country team work on the programs that make most sense for that 

country, and that is exactly what we will try to do. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you again for your service. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. You are welcome. Mr. Ackerman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much. The Chairman was indeed very eloquent at our meeting yesterday and I am sure there 

would have been many Democrats who would have also possibly 

been not as eloquent, but eloquent, had they had the opportunity 

to speak and had the debate not been surreptitiously ended by a 

Party-line vote by the majority. 

I want to talk to the—first, I want to thank you for bringing up 

NileSat and ArabSat, and thank you for responding to the letter 

that we wrote to you, but the fact remains that they are still on 

the exclusion list and not yet on the terrorist list, and I just want 

to ask you to encourage the Secretary in her consultation with the 

Secretary of the Treasury to put them on that list. They are a poisonous organization. 

My question: People in countries such as within the Middle East 

are very smart; people in the street, they are smart. They have 

lived under some pretty difficult dictatorships in many instances 

and they know the difference between policy and policy. They know 

the difference when their government tells them and tells the 

world what the policy is and then actually what they actually do 

and what they actually carry out. The question really is one of 

marketing and how we sell the United States, as is your responsibility to help out with, how we sell that responsibility to different 

places within the world. We can have the President and we can 

have General Pace stating that the policy of torture is unacceptable, so that is the policy. The policy is unacceptable. But what is 

the policy, what is the policy that the people in the street see, people who are not necessarily wordsmiths but people who live under 

those policies and see what is actually going on? Stating that it is 

unacceptable and stopping it are two different policies. One is just 

words and one is actual deeds. 

Where do we go when there are reports about the United States 

engaging in torture that are rampant throughout the world and 

here in our own press, when there are reports just this week of secret detention facilities run by the U.S. all over the globe, where 

the Vice President of this great Nation is lobbying the Senate to 

get a special exemption to allow the CIA to officially torture detainees. Don’t these things all contribute to the hobbling of the effort 

and the mission upon which you have embarked? 

Ms. HUGHES. A couple of things, Congressman. First of all, you 

refer to a newspaper report about a matter that, under the law, I 

am not allowed as a government official to discuss, whether or not 

it exists or, if not, I am just not allowed to discuss that issue as 

a matter of our law and my responsibilities——

Mr. ACKERMAN. Understood. 

55

Ms. HUGHES. The detainee issue more broadly is a challenge. It 

is a public diplomacy challenge and a policy challenge, and it is a 

challenge that we have wrestled with because, as I discussed earlier, it is very difficult. We have never been faced before with dealing with a group of people who have been on the battlefield trying 

to kill our soldiers or who are terrorists committed to trying to kill 

as many innocent Americans as they possibly can, and yet don’t 

wear the uniform of any country, don’t honor any international 

treaty, don’t respect any rule of law. And so this is a difficult challenge, and I think one of the things that has not been given much 

attention in this debate is, what about our men and women in uniform who are over there in Iraq? 

I read every morning the list of the names of those who have 

given their lives and say a prayer for their families, and as I read 

those names I think about the fact that they have captured these 

detainees once and should they ever have to face them twice, which 

is possible once we have captured these detainees on the battlefield, our military has worked very hard to treat them fairly. 

Congressman Wexler, I thought, made a great point earlier when 

he talked about, let’s look at the other side of things, let’s look at 

the ways that others treat us, let’s contrast that to the way we 

treat our detainees humanely. Those in Guantanamo are given culturally appropriate meals, they are allowed the opportunity to worship, they are given the Koran, they are given medical care and 

treatment. Let us contrast that with the way our enemies treat 

their prisoners. They have beheaded them, and I am sorry if that 

sounds blunt, but those are the facts. There is no justice, no rule 

of law, no compliance with any international standards. Our policy 

again, I can’t state it——

Mr. ACKERMAN. We are not arguing that and you are absolutely 

right and Mr. Wexler was certainly well acclaimed here by both 

sides of the aisle in making those points and he was absolutely 

right and Mr. Rohrabacher was right and others. There is no disagreement there. But the image of the United States is based on 

not just myth but when a myth and the facts that aren’t true are 

underscored by abnormalities such as Abu Ghraib and other things 

that happen, that magnifies it and gives credence to the belief out 

on the street, and these things, without going into any security 

areas, which I appreciate that you can’t comment on, there are people within the Administration who are asking that torture be allowed. I mean this lends credence to all of that, whether it is true 

or not. We don’t have to get into that. But it certainly lends credence and gives that a tremendous amount of gravitas so people 

have something to hold on to and say, you see that, the United 

States is indeed the bad country that we say. That hurts the effort 

that we are all engaged in and which you are spearheading. 

Ms. HUGHES. This is, as I said, a challenging issue for both public diplomacy and for policy. I will point out that again, in the case 

of Abu Ghraib and the case of other horrific instances, that it was 

an American soldier who reported that, and that people have been 

held accountable. 

We are not perfect, but our democracy is accountable and officials have to come before Members of Congress and answer questions about our policies. We debate them, the public finds out about 

56

them, they are covered extensively in the news media, and, I think, 

the world. Again in the case of some of the horrible abuses such 

as those at Abu Ghraib, we saw a lot more about the crime than 

we did about the punishment and it is important for people to 

know that those engaged in those crimes were punished and 

brought to justice. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. Mr. McCaul. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Madam Secretary, 

thank you for being here; it is nice to see a fellow Texan. Congratulations on your new position. I can’t think of anybody better suited, 

better qualified for what you are doing right now. I know you have 

many challenges. 

Personally, I think we have made great progress in this War on 

Terror, and I think it is important we stay the course. The challenges are broad. This War on Terror, in my view, is going to be 

a long-term struggle. I think your position is perhaps the most important position in the Administration because to ultimately win 

this War on Terror we need to win the war of ideology. 

We saw in 1979 an extremist movement take place in Iran and 

in Afghanistan that haunts us today. The Wahhabism in Saudi 

Arabia, this idea that jihad is an acceptable practice. I was recently 

in Jordan on a homeland security congressional delegation and we 

actually stayed in the Four Seasons Hotel which was bombed, as 

you know, yesterday. We met with the King, he said there are good 

Muslims and there are bad Muslims, and our approach is to get the 

bad Muslims. But he had another idea that I wanted to share and 

get your comments on. I think it goes to winning this sort of public 

relations challenge, if you will. 

He said that he met with the top 12 Imams in the region. As you 

know, bin Laden is not a true cleric, but he issues fatwas. They 

have the force and effect of law to his followers. But a lot disagree 

with what he is saying. In my view, to get the religious community, 

the clerics who don’t believe that violence is an acceptable practice 

on board issuing their fatwas, denouncing the violence would be a 

really effective way to challenge that. He, I think, offered a little 

bit of hope. He said he got the top 12 Imams and issued fatwas denouncing the violence in the region. 

He even talked about the idea of sort of a summit comparable 

to a G–8 type conference to get the religious clerics together and 

to show the region that this is not the true religion of Mohammed, 

that this is a perversion, and this is not acceptable. 

So, having said that, I am sure this is not new to you, but I 

wanted to get your comments on that. 

Ms. HUGHES. Congressman, I agree it is very important, and 

King Abdullah has been a leader in this effort. I see one of my 

most important jobs as helping to amplify those voices of mainstream Muslims and Muslim clerics who speak out and say that 

the murder of innocents is not condoned by Islam. 

We are beginning to see progress on this. I concur. I shared earlier with the Committee that in the immediate aftermath of September 11, it was very difficult to find voices to state that. After 

the London bombings, more and more people began to speak up. I 

noted recently that the Ulama in Morocco—I saw a news report—

57

that it had issued a statement in response to the kidnapping of two 

Moroccans in Iraq that was a very strong statement that quoted 

the Koran, condemned this action, said that al-Qaeda had claimed 

to have tried and sentenced these Moroccans, and issued a very 

strong statement calling them ‘‘apostates’’ and saying that Islam 

did not allow anything like this type of activity. 

So we are beginning to see voices speak up. I think it is very important. One of the things that I can do is to help foster those and 

communicate those and amplify those when voices speak up in the 

Muslim community. 

Mr. MCCAUL. We also visited Egypt and Morocco and Israel. But 

I think, in my view, this is a vocal minority. I think the mainstream Muslim community denounced this. So I think we have 

them on our side. If we can channel that in the right direction, I 

think we will be successful. 

Thank you so much for being here. 

Chairman HYDE. Last, but not least, Mr. Payne of New Jersey. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know we were supposed to be out of here at 1:30. I really 

commend you for not cutting me off because you know my normal 

trend of thought, and it would have been just if you had cut me 

off. So I appreciate your allowing me to say what I have to say. You 

are a real gentleman. 

First of all, I would just like to mention, as you disagreed with 

the gentlewoman from California where you said that the Administration did not mislead the American people, I know that you had 

a very strong group, the WHIG (White House Iraq Group), made 

up of the best minds in the Administration, and they came up with 

the fact that it was time to have a preemptive strike. 

Now, we knew that Saddam Hussein—we had the no-fly zone. 

We had done away with all of their surface-to-air defense. He could 

not go in. He could not go out. Iraqis could not go in or out, but 

we had the inspectors there, Hans Blix and the inspectors, and at 

that time, as we know, Saddam Hussein had violated the resolution from the UN that said the inspectors should be able to go anywhere. He finally, knowing that he had no weapons of mass destruction and had no biological and chemical weapons, then said, 

okay, Hans Blix, the inspectors, you can go wherever you want to 

go. 

However, the Administration ordered the inspectors out. Time 

was up. And you also said in your comment, in your testimony, 

that no one likes war. There is no question about that. 

However, I wonder why there was the rush to war when we had 

options. Because once you get into war, it is hard to get out of war. 

We are seeing that. We hear estimates, if we are really going to 

stay until the job is done, a decade at minimum. Over 2,000 United 

States troops gone; 50,000 Iraqis dead. They say they are better off 

without Saddam. Of course, 30,000 to 50,000 of them are dead. 

They are not better off. 

But the whole question of the preemptive strike, the rush to war, 

when we had an option. I was one who said we should go into Afghanistan, take all of the forces that we have. Al-Qaeda, Osama 

bin Laden went on television and said, I went into the World Trade 

Center. A third of the victims were from New Jersey, many from 

58

my District, they go through from Newark to New York on that 

path, and they were people I knew, friends of mine. I said, we 

should go and get the al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and if we 

have to take 500,000 United States troops to go through every 

mountain in Afghanistan, let’s go and get Osama bin Laden and alQaeda, who attacked our country. 

Did we do that? No. We went into Iraq. Well, he is a bad leader. 

There is no question about that. But I think if we would have 

eliminated Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, there would not have 

been the new, even probably more dangerous, al-Qaeda wing that 

is in Iraq now, and there was absolutely no al-Qaeda or extremists 

in Iraq other than Saddam, because he didn’t want competition, 

and now it is the place where everybody goes to get trained. Are 

we better off? I don’t think so. 

The question about rushing to war and going into the other place 

when we could have and should have gotten the perpetrators who 

rained death and destruction—one of my constituents was a flight 

attendant. I still visit her children. She switched with a friend. The 

plane left Newark. She is dead. Her family is disrupted. So it is 

very personal to a lot of us. 

For us to have pulled out the UN inspectors to say that time is 

up really bothered me tremendously, because of the situation we 

are currently in. 

I just want to say briefly, too, that I think your job—and I do 

commend you for your ability. I have looked at your resume, and 

you come highly qualified, so they really have, I guess, the best 

person the Administration could have at this time, and that is a 

real compliment to your ability. But how do we have Article 98 

where we take friends like Barbados, who loves America, and say, 

unless you sign this bilateral Article 98 that says that the International Criminal Court may never—you will have a bilateral 

agreement that you will not cooperate with the International 

Criminal Court, people like Barbados and Bolivia, Costa Rica, 

where our retirees go, they have been cut off from assistance from 

the United States because we are twisting their arm, and they are 

saying, I don’t want to sign Article 98. 

How are we influencing people and making friends when we are 

telling them, if you don’t sign this, we are cutting off military cooperation, and then we are going to really cut off other assistance? 

Kenya is the only country in the world where the United States 

military can fly in without even informing, just a call we are coming in. It was very important in the Somali situation. As a matter 

of fact, even then they didn’t have to ask. 

Chairman HYDE. Would the gentleman permit the witness to answer? 

Mr. PAYNE. Let me just say that Kenya, the only country in the 

world that has this agreement with the United States that any of 

our aircraft can fly there, has now been cut off from military assistance or cooperation or friendship because they say that we don’t 

believe Article 98 is wrong, so I guess my question is that behavior 

like this, how are we going to—these are our friends. How are we 

going to keep our friends and try to influence our enemies that we 

are all right when we have policies that are just so counterproductive? I don’t even want to get into the—because my time is 

59

up—into the camps and all those other things, the Geneva Convention. 

I just wonder, it seems to me to be an oxymoron. 

Ms. HUGHES. Well, thank you very much, Congressman. We do 

work on a multilateral and bilateral and strong basis with our 

friends and allies across the world. That does not always mean that 

we agree on proposals of international treaties, that those are always in our best interests, and the President has to look at them 

and make a determination as to whether a proposed treaty is or 

is not in our best interests, for example, of our servicemen and 

women who are serving across the world. 

I will make every effort to reach out and work with you, and I 

look forward to working with you and Congresswoman Lee. I think 

we just have a basic disagreement about the situation in Iraq. I 

was in the White House after September 11. We had to look at the 

threats in the world, in the new light of September 11. When we 

did, the biggest threat was that terrorists who had obviously been 

arming and training and disbursing around the world for years 

would somehow be able to access weapons of mass destruction that 

we, at that time, thought that Saddam Hussein had, that all the 

intelligence at that time told us that he had, that we knew that 

he had used in the past. 

I have to dispute the use of the word ‘‘rush.’’ We had been at this 

for more than a decade. Saddam had consistently refused to comply 

with his international obligations. Iraq was the only place in the 

world that was regularly shooting at our airplanes, trying to enforce the no-fly zones. We had tried the carrot of Oil-for-Food, the 

stick of sanctions, and so the feeling was very strong—and I remember sitting on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly. I remember also the time when the world said the President 

won’t go to the United Nations General Assembly. He is just going 

to go off on his own. He didn’t. He came to the Congress. He went 

to the United Nations General Assembly and got a unanimous resolution telling Saddam to comply or else. You know all that history. 

So we just have a disagreement. 

I do believe that when we succeed in Iraq the people of Iraq will 

be better off, that the security of America will be better off and 

that we will have made progress toward greater peace in our world. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you very much. 

I would just add parenthetically, I hope we never agree to the 

International Criminal Court. How can we send our soldiers overseas on a mission and tell them they are not protected by our Constitution; they are not entitled to due process or equal protection? 

That is an American thing. If they are subject to this international 

court, you deprive them of those protections. So I am not ready to 

do that. 

In any event, you have persisted in yeoman-like fashion. You 

came in here with a great reputation, and you leave with it twice 

followed enhanced. Thank you very much. 

The Committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:45 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(61)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

RESPONSES FROM THE HONORABLE KAREN P. HUGHES, UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE, 

OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE

HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE

STATE OF NEW JERSEY AND VICE CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Question: 

Have you considered visiting Muslim community leaders in Europe? 

Response: 

I have made it a priority to engage Muslim community leaders, both in the United 

States and around the world. During my first few weeks at the State Department, 

I met with a number of American Muslim community leaders. I also attended the 

Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) conference in Chicago in September, where 

I met with several prominent British Muslims. They echoed your views on the energy and diversity of European Muslim communities, and the role responsible Muslim leaders can play in fostering a sense of common values between the West and 

predominantly Muslim countries. We seek to empower those who speak out against 

terror and champion the cause of religious freedom and toleration. I have made it 

a priority during my travels to reach out to such diverse voices. For example, I met 

with Muslim leaders in Turkey on my first overseas trip, and most recently met 

with Muslim leaders in Germany during my visit in Berlin. 

STATEMENT SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY MR. ALLEN ROSENSHINE, BDA BOARD

MEMBER & CHAIRMAN, BBDO WORLDWIDE

‘‘BUILDING NEW BRIDGES TO THE WORLD’’

As an advertising executive who has led a global network of agencies and helped 

forge the strategies and communications of many iconic American brands for almost 

two decades, I find our nation greatly in need of new leadership in managing our 

reputation among the people of the world. America has so much good to offer but 

we make too little of it and too often pursue policies that make us difficult if not 

impossible to appreciate. 

And this is not the fault of a particular political party or administration. It is a 

collective failure that has gone on too long and puts our future in jeopardy. Public 

diplomacy is not just about the policy. It is about how we engage each and every 

day with the world. The deterioration of America’s standing in the world is a threat 

not only to our national security but to our broader economic security and competitive edge. 

The appointment of Karen Hughes to a high-ranking public diplomacy post is a 

positive step. However, along with my fellow board members of Business for Diplomatic Action, I believe that the private sector must harness its resources and creativity in order to take the lead and mount a credible public diplomacy offensive 

to help restore the respect and even admiration that we have enjoyed in the past. 

From all that we know and have learned in our global listening efforts, the federal 

government is not a credible messenger to the world. Efforts such as ours should 

be leveraged by the US Government to encourage and engage the private sector in 

a broad-based way towards public diplomacy goals that work in parallel with government efforts. 

62

This summer, BDA assembled an internal team to develop a comprehensive vision 

statement for our effort. The enclosed statement embodies our collective passion and 

hope for the future. 

Building New Bridges to the World 

Since the birth of our nation, America has been devoted to the principles that (1) 

people should be allowed the greatest possible individual liberty consistent with the 

need to live in a communal society, (2) we are governed by laws administered with 

equal and consistent justice for every citizen, and (3) our government acts through 

the will of the people who decide through the democracy of free elections who will 

lead us. 

America is that simple. And that complex. 

We have learned that it is not easy to always adhere to these concepts, balancing 

their idealistic hope with the reality of the vagaries and often conflicting demands 

of human nature. We know our record has not been perfect. But when we have 

strayed from our beliefs, we have always worked our way back. 

Liberty, justice, and the democracy of representative government are what we 

stand for, what we want the world to see in us, and what we wish for all mankind. 

But it cannot happen because we say so. It cannot happen because we have the 

power to impose our will. It cannot happen unless the world wants it to. It cannot 

happen unless we build the bridges that bring America closer to the world, and the 

world closer to America. Our vision of an America understood, respected, and believed can only be achieved by an America willing to understand, respect, and convince. 

As difficult as it is to govern just ourselves and find solutions to our own socioeconomic problems, it is that much more complicated for America to be both a citizen and a leader in today’s world. We must work not only with those who believe 

in and admire us but also with people who view us with mistrust or even hatred. 

We must accept as reality even what we know is irrational in order to cope with 

it. We must consider compromise when our instincts are to remain unyielding. We 

must enhance our well established and still appreciated tradition of sharing our 

wealth, our power, and our success for the benefit of others. We must build more 

such bridges to more of the world, crossing them ourselves so that we might better 

listen and hear while inviting the world to cross over to us so that they might better 

experience the fundamental truths of America. 

It is to this end that Business for Diplomatic Action enlists leaders in business 

and communications, as two of the most powerful and potentially effective forces in 

guiding how America is and will be seen around the world. Our goal is to work on 

issues that we believe affect people’s beliefs about us, subjects such as (1) the social 

and economic consequences of globalization, (2) the impact on other countries of the 

entertainment and popular culture we export, and (3) the personality of our nation 

as seen in the American people working and visiting abroad. And while we are not 

associated with or supported by the U.S. government, we will encourage and endorse any administration’s effort that can lead to building new bridges to the 

world—bridges that will be good for business, good for America, and good for the 

world. 

This is the America that Business for Diplomatic Action would have the world 

perceive—a nation striving to perfect its own commitments to liberty, justice, and 

democracy while working in partnership with the rest of the world to provide both 

the hope and the realities of a better life for people everywhere. 

Is this just our dream alone or does the world share it? Do we have both the will 

and the resources to make it happen? In a world as diverse, as difficult, and in fact 

as fragile as ours has become, is it even possible? 

What America has accomplished in its relatively short history should leave no 

doubt about our answer. As a people, we have shown our resolve, our commitment, 

and our determination to meet such challenges at home and abroad, time and again. 

In this new time, we will do so again. And we believe it must be the business community supported by the communications industry that leads the way.

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