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68–013 PDF 2011

S. Hrg. 112–123 

DIPLOMATIC SECURITY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 

FOR U.S. DIPLOMACY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, 

THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JUNE 29, 2011 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs 

( 

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(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

NICHOLAS A. ROSSI, Minority Staff Director 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

JOYCE WARD, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee 

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL 

WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

LISA M. POWELL, Staff Director, Majority 

JESSICA K. NAGASAKO, Professional Staff Member, Majority 

RAY CIARCIA, Legislative Fellow, Majority 

RACHEL WEAVER, Staff Director, Minority 

SEAN KENNEDY, Professional Staff Member, Minority 

AARON H. WOOLF, Chief Clerk 

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C O N T E N T S 

Opening statement: Page 

Senator Akaka .................................................................................................. 1 

WITNESSES 

TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2011 

Hon. Eric J. Boswell, Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security, U.S. Department of State ................................................................................................. 3 

Jess T. Ford, Director, International Affairs and Trade, U.S. Government 

Accountability Office ............................................................................................ 5 

Susan R. Johnson, President, American Foreign Service Association ................ 20 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Hon. Boswell, Eric J.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 3 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 27 

Ford, Jess T.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 37 

Johnson, Susan R.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 20 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 48 

APPENDIX 

Background .............................................................................................................. 52 

Questions and responses submitted for the record from: 

Mr. Boswell ....................................................................................................... 60 

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DIPLOMATIC SECURITY AND ITS 

IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. DIPLOMACY 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011 

U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT

MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K. Akaka, 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Akaka. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA 

Senator AKAKA. I call this hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the 

District of Columbia to order. I want to say aloha and welcome to 

our witnesses. Thank you so much for being here today. 

This Subcommittee held a hearing in 2009 to examine staffing 

and management challenges at the State Department’s Diplomatic 

Security Bureau (DS) which protects State Department employees 

and property worldwide. Today’s hearing will build on the previous 

hearing, as well as examine the results of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) review of diplomatic security training challenges. 

Since the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, the 

Bureau’s mission has expanded dramatically to meet the State Department’s evolving security needs. With our military planning to 

withdraw its remaining 50,000 troops from Iraq by the year’s end, 

diplomatic security will face an unprecedented challenge. 

The Bureau will be responsible for many security and protective 

functions now performed by the military such as clearing improvised explosive devices and defending a U.S. post against rocket 

and mortar attacks. 

In addition, the Bureau is expected to implement a State Department recommendation to provide high threat awareness training to 

all employees in both high and critical threat posts. This would require the Bureau to train 10,000 employees per year, five times the 

number for 2010. The Bureau’s responsibilities will continue to expand with the planned troop reductions in Afghanistan. 

As we deploy more civilian Federal employees to support democratic reform and self-governance in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other 

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high threat areas, it is very critical that Diplomatic Security have 

the training, resources, and support needed to protect them. 

The Government Accountability Office report released today 

makes clear that DS is doing a remarkable job preparing its people 

to provide robust security in an unpredictable environment. But I 

do want to highlight a major concern that GAO raises. 

GAO’s report finds that diplomatic security training facilities are 

inadequate. The Bureau is using 16 different leased, rented, or borrowed facilities. In some of these sites, the Bureau’s training needs 

are not a priority, which increases costs and leads to training 

delays. Also, some facilities are too small or in need of repair. Although the Bureau is in the process of selecting a site to build a 

consolidated training facility, this will take years to complete. 

Another significant concern that I have, which I asked the Bureau to address today, is how it oversees its large contractor workforce. As Diplomatic Security provides security in more high threat 

areas, the Bureau grows increasingly reliant on contract staff. Contractors make up about 90 percent of its total workforce. This requires the Bureau to train its workforce and contract oversight in 

addition to physical and personal security. 

The 2007 Blackwater shooting that killed 17 Iraqi civilians while 

protecting a State convoy reminds us that DS contractors, particularly those acting as bodyguards, must be held to the highest 

standards for training and accountability because the stakes are 

tremendously high. 

I also look forward to hearing about what steps the Bureau has 

taken to address key issues raised at the Subcommittee’s 2009 

hearing. I am particularly interested in the Bureau’s progress in 

addressing language proficiency shortfalls and staffing gaps, balancing the need to provide strong security with carrying out the 

diplomatic mission, and improving its strategic planning, which is 

important for targeting limited resources in this budget climate. 

I know that Ambassador Boswell and his team are working hard 

to address these challenges. I look forward to hearing about the 

Bureau’s efforts, as well as discussing ways we can work together 

to move forward. I thank our witnesses for being here today to discuss these critical issues. 

I look forward to hearing from our first panel of witnesses and 

welcome them here today. Ambassador Eric Boswell, the Assistant 

Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, and Jess Ford, the Director of International Affairs and Trade at the Government Accountability Office. 

I understand that Mr. Ford is retiring on Friday after 38 years 

of Federal service, and this will be his last time testifying before 

this Subcommittee. Over the years, Mr. Ford has done extensive 

work on improving State Department operations and management 

of American embassies, and we certainly will miss him. The GAO 

informed us that you have testified before this Subcommittee more 

than any other GAO staffer. 

This Subcommittee has placed great value and trust in your 

work, and it is with great appreciation, Mr. Ford, that I say 

mahalo nui loa, thank you very much for your years of valuable 

service with GAO, and I wish you success in your future endeavors. 

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1The prepared statement of Mr. Boswell appears in the appendix on page 27. 

As you know, it is the custom of this Subcommittee to swear in 

all witnesses and I ask both of you to stand and raise your right 

hand. 

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give 

this Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth, so help you, God? 

Mr. BOSWELL. I do. 

Mr. FORD. I do. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Let it be noted for the record that 

the witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

Before we start, I want you to know that your full written statements will be made a part of the record, and I would also like to 

remind you to please limit your oral remarks to 5 minutes. 

Ambassador Boswell, it is always good to have you, please proceed with your statement. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ERIC J. BOSWELL,1 ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR DIPLOMATIC SECURITY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. BOSWELL. Thank you, Senator Akaka. I am honored to appear before you today. 

I would like to thank you and the Subcommittee Members for 

your continued support and interest in the Bureau of Diplomatic 

Security’s programs. This support enables Diplomatic Security to 

safeguard American diplomats and facilities for the conduct of U.S. 

foreign policy, while also maintaining our robust investigative programs which serve to protect the U.S. borders and our presence 

overseas. 

DS’s training program is at the core of our readiness to fulfill 

these missions. So with your permission, I will make a brief statement. As I have stated before this Subcommittee in the past, DS 

continues to provide the most secure environment possible for the 

conduct of America’s foreign policy. 

I must reiterate that the scope and scale of our responsibilities 

and authorities have grown immensely in response to emerging 

threats and security incidents. Significant resources are necessary 

if we are to meet the requirements of securing our diplomatic facilities in the extremely high threat environments of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Yemen, Mexico, as well as other dangerous 

locations worldwide. 

The Department now operates diplomatic missions in places 

where, in the past, we likely would have closed the post and evacuated all personnel when faced with similar threats. However, the 

need to conduct diplomacy in the post-September 11, 2001 environment is essential to our Nation’s security. 

To meet our challenges now and in the future, DS personnel and 

resources have grown and evolved. We are engaged in an intensive 

recruitment campaign. We have increased our outreach to colleges 

and universities with an eye toward building a professional service 

that reflects America’s diversity. 

As a result of our ambitious recruitment efforts, we have reduced 

our vacancy rate. This expansion has also changed the requireH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

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ments for training our people. DS training has progressed tremendously in the past several years. The GAO review of DS training 

accurately reflects the success of our Training Directorate despite 

the challenges we face. 

To ensure that the personnel we deploy are highly qualified, we 

carefully evaluate our training programs. By incorporating student 

feedback, we can offer the highest quality instruction to new and 

existing DS personnel. This evaluation process helps to verify that 

the training offered is relevant to the new realities of the Department’s mission. 

It also ensures that DS personnel are prepared to assume increasing security responsibilities in high threat and other challenging environments. However, as noted in the recent GAO report, 

existing DS training facilities and instructor resources are now at 

maximum student capacity and capabilities. A new Foreign Affairs 

Security Training Center (FASTC) would expand and improve the 

delivery of DS training for U.S. Government employees. 

Personnel serving in contingency zones must not only be trained 

and prepared to assume the increasing security responsibilities, but 

also have the necessary support services available to them both 

during and after their assignment to high-stress posts. 

The Department fully realizes that when one of its employees 

serves in a high-threat environment, the employee’s whole family 

serves with him or her in one form or another. A full array of services is available to these personnel and their families from medical 

doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and others. I want to assure 

the Subcommittee that we are paying attention to all personnel 

who have been or could be affected by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD), and addressing any issues early on to help those persons in need. 

The Department uses private security contractors (PSCs), to assist in meeting security staffing requirements in critical threat and 

non-permissive environments such as Iraq and Afghanistan. As a 

result of operational changes already implemented and reviewed 

during the conduct of the Department’s Quadrennial Diplomacy 

and Development Review (QDDR), the Department is able to provide proper management, oversight, and operational control of the 

PSCs it has deployed overseas. 

The Worldwide Protective Services (WPS) contract awarded in 

September 2010 incorporated essential lessons learned to ensure 

that PSCs contracted by the Department perform their activities in 

a professional, responsible, culturally sensitive, and cost-effective 

manner. 

DS continues to explore ways to provide innovative security blueprints to help implement our national foreign policy priorities. We 

must continue to develop a cadre of DS personnel who can think 

creatively to propose solutions, who can speak the language, and 

who can work closely and cooperatively with their embassy colleagues to succeed without sacrificing safety and security. 

In conclusion, I want to assure the Subcommittee that DS is fully 

prepared to provide the secure platform and environment the Department of State needs to meet the challenging diplomatic responsibilities we face in this ever-changing world. 

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1The prepared statement of Mr. Ford appears in the appendix on page 37. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear before 

you. With your continued support, we will ensure that diplomatic 

security remains a valuable and effective resource for protecting 

our people, our information, and our infrastructure around the 

world. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Ambassador, for your 

statement. Mr. Ford, please proceed with your statement. 

STATEMENT OF JESS T. FORD, DIRECTOR,1 INTERNATIONAL 

AFFAIRS AND TRADE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY 

OFFICE 

Mr. FORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to start by 

thanking you for your kind comments regarding my lengthy career 

at GAO. Thirty-eight years is a long time, but I am looking forward 

to retirement. 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss training efforts of the 

Bureau of Diplomatic Security at the State Department. My testimony is based on our report which is being released today. Diplomatic Security is responsible for the protection of people, information, and property at over 400 embassies, consulates, and domestic 

locations. 

And as we have reported in previous testimony, they have an expanded mission and they have had a significant growth in their 

budget and personnel over the last decade. Diplomatic Security 

trains its workforce and others to address a variety of threats, including crime, espionage, visa/passport fraud, technological intrusions, political violence, and terrorism. 

To meet its training needs, Diplomatic Security relies primarily 

on its training center, which is part of its Training Directorate, and 

it is the primary provider of diplomatic security training activities. 

Diplomatic Security’s training budget has grown steadily from Fiscal Year 2006 to 2010 from approximately $24 million to $70 million. 

Today I am going to talk a little bit about the two main issues 

in our report, the first having to do with the quality of Diplomatic 

Security’s training and the appropriateness of its training and the 

extent to which it ensures that training requirements are met; and 

second, I am going to talk a little bit about the challenges currently 

facing Diplomatic Security. 

We reported that DS has had to meet the challenge of training 

more personnel to perform additional duties, while still getting its 

agents, engineers, technicians, and other staff into the field where 

they are needed. DS has largely met this challenge by maintaining 

high standards for its training. 

Specifically, DS incorporated Federal Law Enforcement Training 

Accreditation (FLETA) standards into its operating procedures, and 

is the first government organization to be accredited by FLETA 

standards. 

Certain issues, however, have constrained the effectiveness of 

some DS training activities. In our report, we noted that DS lacks 

a comprehensive system to evaluate the overall effectiveness of 

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some of its training, particularly online training which is growing 

in significance in terms of activity there. 

Second, we said that DS has not been able to accurately track 

the overall training of all the people who take training. To some 

extent, this is an issue with non-State staff who have been training 

in certain courses that are required when they are stationed overseas in dangerous locations. We made a couple of recommendations 

to improve the systems and State has agreed with both of them. 

Our report also identifies other challenges facing DS. First, DS 

must train diplomatic security personnel to perform new missions 

in Iraq as they take over responsibilities that heretofore have been 

performed by the U.S. military. 

DS has had little or no experience in providing certain types of 

training activity that the military currently is responsible for, such 

as how to deal with downed aircraft, explosive ordnance disposal, 

and rocket and mortar countermeasures, among others. Because of 

this increased security responsibility, DS anticipates that it is 

going to have to rely heavily on contractors to carry out these types 

of responsibilities. 

DS officials noted that the additional training that will be needed 

will likely increase their need to put more people into the field. Any 

delays in finalizing State’s expanded mission in Iraq could also affect DS’s ability to develop and deliver any types of additional 

training. 

A second major challenge that we identified in our report has to 

do with the increasing requirements laid out in the State Department’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. In essence, the review calls for DS to significantly increase training for 

staff posted to more high threat and critical posts. 

The numbers in our report suggest that they would have to increase training from 23 to 178 posts, and that the number of students that might have to be trained for high-threat posts could increase, as you noted in your opening statement, from 2,000 to 

10,000. This would have significant implications for DS in terms of 

its budget and its training requirements. 

Finally, the issue that you identified in your statement and our 

third challenge in our report has to do with DS’s training facilities. 

Currently, they have a highly decentralized set of training facilities. You mentioned the 16 that we have in our report. 

We found that many of these are substandard and have a number of inadequacies. Our report details a number of examples 

where DS is unable to effectively deliver realistic training because 

of shortfalls in these facilities. 

Recognizing that these existing facilities are inadequate, DS has 

proposed establishing a consolidated training center. They are currently looking at two potential sites. They have been provided approximately $136 million to help develop these sites. However, it 

is unclear what the total cost of building such a site will be, and 

it is also uncertain when the site might be available. So we have 

some concerns in the short term about how DS is going to be able 

to meet this increasing mission. 

Mr. Chairman, I think I am going to stop here and answer any 

questions you might have. 

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Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Ford. I thank both 

of you for your statements. 

Let me start with a question for Ambassador Boswell. Ambassador, President Obama recently announced plans to withdraw 

33,000 troops from Afghanistan by next summer, and fully transition security responsibilities to the Afghan people by 2014. I support these plans and look forward to welcoming home our brave 

troops. 

As you know, many diplomats and Federal civilian employees 

will continue to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan after the troop withdrawals. I worry about the degree of risk we are asking them to 

undertake. 

What planning is underway to make sure that DS will be fully 

prepared to protect diplomats and U.S. civilian personnel in Iraq 

and Afghanistan as the military withdraws? 

Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Chairman, thank you for that question. We 

are engaged, we the Department of State and DS, are engaged in 

a marathon of planning. I think that is the right way to describe 

it. It is probably the planning for the transition in Iraq is probably 

the most complex planning effort ever undertaken by the State Department and perhaps one of the most complicated civilian planning efforts ever taken by the U.S. Government. 

We have been working on it for years. We think we have a very 

good planning structure set up and we think we have a good plan, 

and the short answer to your question, sir, is that I think we will 

be in a position to provide the security for our people in Iraq after 

December 31st of this year when all U.S. troops will be gone from 

the country. 

Having said that, as I said, it is a very complex and difficult 

task. We are going to be dramatically increasing the number of security personnel at posts in Iraq, and we will be increasing also the 

use of contractors, in part for some of the things you mentioned 

and Mr. Ford mentioned, certain functions and activities that are 

not mainstream Department of State functions, and where we are 

taking over functions now provided by the U.S. military. 

We think we have the structure in place to do it. I should make 

the point that combat operations in Iraq ceased over a year ago. 

U.S. military combat operations in Iraq ceased over a year ago. We 

have been providing security to our very large U.S. embassy in 

Bagdad for over a year without any assistance from the military 

beyond certain very specialized functions, and we expect to be able 

to continue to do that. 

You asked about Afghanistan, also, sir. Obviously, we are not 

there yet. There is not a transition yet. The President has just announced the beginning of a drawdown in Afghanistan. But I can assure you that we have learned a lot in the planning process for 

Iraq and we will apply those lessons in Afghanistan. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Ambassador, as the military withdraws from Iraq and later Afghanistan, DS will provide certain security and protective services that the military is performing now 

such as downed aircraft recovery and explosive ordnance disposal. 

However, the military provides many services such as intelligence 

collection and providing a visible deterrence in ways that DS cannot. 

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How will the loss of these important capabilities affect the way 

DS provides security in Iraq and Afghanistan? And is DS equipped 

to handle all of the functions it will be asked to assume? 

Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Chairman, I was in Iraq several years ago and 

the security situation in Iraq now, I think it is fair to say, is infinitely better than it was at the worst of times, 2005 to 2007. You 

are right, sir, in saying that certain key functions of the U.S. military will be absent. They cannot be replaced by DS, notably 

counter-rocket fire. There is not an offensive unit in DS. Some intelligence functions as well. 

As Iraq normalizes as a Nation, we are going to rely, as we do 

in most countries, on the Iraqi forces and the Iraqi police for these 

functions to the maximum extent that we can. 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Ford, in 2009, GAO recommended that State 

conduct a strategic review of Diplomatic Security’s mission, budget, 

and personnel as part of State’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. While State agreed with the recommendation, the 

QDDR did not include this strategic review. Will you please discuss 

how inadequate strategic planning may affect the DS operations? 

Mr. FORD. Yes, Mr. Chairman, let me respond to that. First of 

all, I can say that we were disappointed that the QDDR did not 

take a more strategic look at DS operations. Our 2009 report noted 

that DS has been required to expand the number of missions that 

it is asked to support by the Department overall and that they are 

often put into what I would characterize as a reactionary posture 

which we do not think is good from a planning point of view, and 

our goal of that 2009 report was that the Department would take 

a longer look at DS and come up with a more strategic way of assessing needs, resources, and requirements. 

I think I can say that our current report, which is focused on the 

training part of DS, suggests that there still seems, in my mind, 

to be a gap here. DS is certainly trying to respond to all the new 

missions that are laid on them. 

We just discussed the Iraq and Afghanistan situations that are 

coming up, and the fact that their training facilities are not up to 

speed. How they are going to be able to, at least in the short term, 

respond to the likely increased growth in training capability that 

they are going to have to develop. 

A lot of those kind of issues, in my mind, could have been included in a strategic review. So I think from our perspective, we 

still would like to see the Department take a broader view of DS 

in order to give them a little more lead time in figuring out what 

their needs are. 

I think certainly the issue of human capital, the capabilities of 

people to do contract oversight, those type of issues are the kind 

of issues that DS is going to be faced with over the next couple of 

years. The Department needs to, in our view, do a more comprehensive review of what they need. So as far as we are concerned, that recommendation has not been fully enacted by the Department. 

Senator AKAKA. Let me followup with a question to Ambassador 

Boswell. Ambassador, DS faces unprecedented challenges as it 

takes on new responsibilities in Iraq and Afghanistan while continuing to protect U.S. diplomats worldwide. To meet these chalH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

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lenges, DS must use its limited resources strategically. What steps 

has the Bureau taken to develop a strategic plan? 

Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Chairman, as a result of the recommendation 

in the GAO report—the GAO report of 2009 had basically two recommendations on strategic planning. One was the Department, as 

Mr. Ford has just said, should look at DS in a strategic manner. 

And the second one was that DS should improve its own strategic 

planning. 

I certainly agree with that. We have put together a strategic 

planning unit which is very closely linked to our budget process, 

and which I meet with every 6 months, and my senior leadership 

meets with much more often than that. It has been extremely helpful, in various ways, to the way we do our business and the way 

we look forward. And I think this is an initiative that is working 

successfully. 

In terms of the broader question that Mr. Ford just raised, we 

will certainly take that back with us again to the Department. The 

QDDR, which was Secretary Clinton’s signature initiative when 

she came to the Department, was a strategic review, but it was not 

a strategic review at DS. It was a strategic review overall and implementation of the various recommendations, including a couple 

that have been mentioned in testimony here, is ongoing. 

Senator AKAKA. Ambassador Boswell, DS performs many important roles in addition to protecting State Department employees 

and embassies, including providing protective details to foreign dignitaries and supporting security at international special events. 

In November, Hawaii will be hosting the Asian-Pacific Economic 

Cooperation (APEC) Leaders meeting. What plans does DS have in 

place to provide security and protective services at the APEC meeting? 

Mr. BOSWELL. Sir, DS is very extensively involved in the planning for APEC which, as you said, will take place this fall. It has 

been designated as a national security special event by the White 

House. The lead agency is the U.S. Secret Service which is appropriate given the number of heads of State that will be visiting. 

But DS will also have a major presence in Honolulu. We have a 

lot of protectees in association with the APEC meeting, foreign 

ministers, for example, and others, and we will be working—have 

been and will be working very, very closely with the Secret Service 

and the local authorities and other Federal agencies as well to have 

a good, successful, safe event. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

Mr. Ford, as I mentioned in my statement, GAO found that DS 

has inadequate training facilities. The Bureau currently uses 16 

different facilities for training, some of which are overcrowded or 

need repair. While DS has developed an interim training facility, 

your report suggests that it is not adequate to support all of the 

Bureau’s training needs, especially with the Iraq transition. 

Would you please elaborate on the effects of these inadequate 

training facilities? 

Mr. FORD. Yes. There are several issues that we identified in our 

report regarding the condition of the facilities. Some of them have 

to do with access—whether or not the Department can get access 

to certain types of training. 

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The one that we cited in our report had to do with heavy firearms training that they currently provide down at Quantico Marine 

Base, and the issue there is DS does not—because it is a Marine 

Base, they have to kind of schedule their training around the Marines’ needs, which does not necessarily always correspond to the 

needs and requirements of the Department. So there is an access 

issue that they have to address. 

Other facilities that we visited, they just are not realistic in 

terms of the type of structures that are there to carry out the type 

of training that DS is trying to provide to staff. It is really, in this 

case, I would call it a realism problem. 

In the report, we cite a case where they are trying to simulate 

conditions of entering a facility and how to enter it in a secure 

manner, and their training space did not have walls so they basically used tape on the floor to simulate where a wall would be. 

That is not very realistic. 

At other facilities where they train with light arms firearms, we 

found that some of the firearms lanes were not adequate to their 

needs. So there are some issues with regard to just the physical infrastructure and whether they have the capacity there to effectively 

carry out the type of training they need to carry out. 

And then the second issue, and the one I mentioned earlier, has 

to do with whether or not the facilities that are currently inadequate, whether they are going to be able to expand their training 

mission with all the new people that they have to train to do the 

Iraq and Afghanistan missions, and potentially the QDDR requirement, if they have to implement that fully, it is not clear to us 

whether the current facilities that they have will allow them to 

have that capacity to even do the training. So that is the second 

issue that we are concerned about. 

And then that third issue has to do with their goal of creating 

a consolidated training center; it’s years down the road before that 

facility may be up and running. So there is an interim period here 

where it is not clear to us whether DS will have the capabilities, 

with the current facilities that they have and the shortcomings 

they have, to be able to effectively carry out all the training they 

need to do. 

Senator AKAKA. Ambassador Boswell, I would like to hear from 

you on that issue as well. Will you please discuss how DS is coping 

with these challenges and how the Bureau will meet its expanding 

training needs until a consolidated facility is operational? 

Mr. BOSWELL. Yes, sir. Let me start by saying I completely agree 

with everything that Mr. Ford said, and I welcome that conclusion. 

In fact, I welcome all the conclusions of the GAO report, but particularly that one because that is close to our heart in DS. The 

problems he described are real. 

We have long needed and long sought a Foreign Affairs Security 

Training Center, as well call it. We have been in the process for 

years of trying to obtain such a facility. We have obtained startup 

funding for such a facility. We went through an extensive process 

with the General Services Administration (GSA), which is the U.S. 

Government’s real estate czar, with the General Services Administration to identify sites for such a facility within a reasonable distance of Washington, DC. 

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11 

We had a look of, I think, well over 40 possible—we solicited first 

interest from other government agencies, the private sector, et 

cetera, et cetera. We look at about 40 sites. I think it may have 

been a little bit more. We ended up, after a very long process with 

the GSA, settling on one particular site on the eastern shore of 

Maryland. 

Unfortunately, last year, that came a cropper, came a cropper because of local opposition to the site. It is one of the problems that 

we have. To do all the facilities, to do all the training that we have 

to do, we need a pretty large site and it is hard to find a large site 

that is appropriately configured within reasonable distance of 

Washington, DC. So we basically had to go back to the beginning 

and start over. 

This process is ongoing. We are closing in, I think you could say, 

on a site. We have had to change our criteria a little bit to permit 

us to look a little further out from Washington. 

That is a little bit of a problem for us because while it makes 

the choice, the selection of sites a little bit easier, it also means 

that since it is beyond simple driving range, that our trainees will 

have to overnight and that means the construction of dorms and 

other facilities, cafeterias, such things, so that adds a little bit to 

the cost. But we are closing in on a site and hope to have something to announce in the coming months. 

But we absolutely, absolutely require this site. As Mr. Ford has 

said, we are spread out over a range of facilities now, and the biggest problem we have with that, aside from the dispersal, is that 

we do not own any of these facilities. So we run into the problems 

that he described. These are joint use facilities. We are sort of tenants in some way and it causes a problem for us. 

I am going on a little too long, Mr. Chairman, but I want to cover 

the question. It is a long question. How do we do our training in 

the interim? We are years ago, even if we get a site. We are years 

ago from having a full-fledged training facility. And we are going 

to have to continue to do what we are doing and what Mr. Ford 

and the GAO saw. We are going to have to continue to make do 

flexibly and with some imagination with what we have. 

Now, as for the requirement and the recommendation in the 

QDDR, our Foreign Affairs Training Center be expanded well beyond what is offered now, that is a real conundrum for us. We 

would have to have a new facility to do that. We would simply not 

be able to do it without a new facility. 

There is a real question. The figure of expanding and the number 

of trainees from 2,000 to 10,000 is sort of an outer-outer figure. I 

cannot imagine that we would ever, even with a new facility, be 

training 10,000 people a year. We are working now with the Policy 

Planning staff of the State Department to decide what high-threat 

posts really should get this kind of training. 

Right now we give the training going to the war zones, Afghanistan and Pakistan—Afghanistan and Iraq, and we also give it to 

people going to Pakistan, to Yemen, to Sudan, and more recently, 

to the Mexican border posts which have become a much more dangerous place to work than in the past. We will certainly have to 

add some posts to that, which will bring up the numbers, but I do 

not think we are ever going to get to 10,000. 

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12 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Ambassador, in your testimony, you 

mentioned the implementation of specialized security immersion 

training costs for personnel assigned to Iraq. Will you please describe what this cost entails, including whether it involves foreign 

language training? 

Mr. BOSWELL. Sir, the FACT course, which is what you are talking about, is a course that is 5 days long. It does not address language training. It is a course that provides some skills to—it is not 

designed for DS agents. It is designed for regular government employees, Foreign Service people and those from other agencies who 

are going to high-threat areas. 

And it goes into such things as first aid, primary first aid. It goes 

into surveillance detection. It goes into how to drive a car in a 

high-threat area. It goes into—basically, it tries to prepare people 

for what they are going to encounter when they are in Iraq or Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Senator AKAKA. Ambassador Boswell, as you know, foreign language skills are critical to carrying out the diplomatic mission, including security operations. I am pleased that the percent of regional security officers (RSOs) who fulfill the language requirements for their positions has increased since 2009. Will you please 

discuss what actions State has taken or still plans to take to continue increasing language proficiency among RSOs? 

Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Chairman, I am very happy to answer that 

question. By way of background, I had this same job 10 years ago 

and 10 years ago, I can say that very, very few RSO positions overseas were language designated, which means required language 

training. I come back to the job after an absence of 10 years and 

I find that two-thirds of RSO positions are language designated, or 

something like two-thirds are language designated, and I think 

that is a very, very positive step in the right direction. 

I cannot tell you how valuable it is to see RSOs speaking the native language. I was just in Poland and watching my RSO there 

yammer away with his Polish counterparts in very fluent Polish. 

That is something we would not have seen 10 years ago. 

So I completely support language training for DS agents. GAO 

identified a problem a couple of years ago, as you mentioned, which 

was that too low a proportion of language-designated RSO positions 

overseas were filled by people who had not tested up to the required level of that language. 

As you said, Mr. Chairman, we are much improved in the ensuing 2 years. I think in 2009, it was 47 percent of positions were 

held by language qualified officers, which meant 53 percent were 

not. Now we are above 60 percent being filled. We are being extremely tough on language waivers, which is the way you go without the language, and we think those numbers are going way up 

and are going to continue to go way up. 

You have my personal commitment. I have made it to the Director-General of the Foreign Service who holds the whip hand over 

me on this, that we are going to do everything we possibly can to 

make sure that we have full language compliance. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for that commitment. 

Mr. Ford, as you stated in your testimony, GAO found weaknesses in the Bureau’s training systems such as not obtaining feedH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

13 

back from all training participants and not tracking all individuals 

who receive training. Please elaborate on why these weaknesses 

are important and how they may affect the Bureau’s training. 

Mr. FORD. A couple issues here. Well, first of all, to answer your 

question regarding why it is important to get feedback on training, 

I mean, at the end of the day, one of your quality assessments is 

whether or not the people that have the training find it useful in 

their jobs. 

You need to know that so when you design or make any modifications to your training programs, you know what kind of changes 

to make instead of just guessing what works and what does not. 

So that is not unique to the State Department. That is a requirement that any training program ought to have. 

Our concern really had to do with the systems that DS and the 

Department use to track feedback that they get on certain types of 

training, and to also track training requirements of people who 

have taken training to make sure that they have the requirements 

and they are meeting them when they are supposed to. 

The current systems in place I would characterize as relatively 

ad hoc in the sense that they are using sort of like what I would 

personally use, spreadsheets to try to keep track of people versus 

an actual training management system that can track real time information, both in terms of getting feedback and also tracking requirements. 

The Department is aware of this. DS talked to us about some efforts that they are currently discussing with the Foreign Service 

Institute (FSI) to use their tracking system. At the time we issued 

the report, I do not know if that had been resolved yet, but there 

was the potential that the FSI system could be a vehicle to help 

come up with a more systematic way of tracking requirements. 

On the feedback loop, the issue there is a little more difficult because DS is increasingly using online training. It is a little difficult 

to track people who are going online just to know whether or not 

they have completed the training. 

So it is an area in which we think some improvement could be 

made in the systems, and in both of these cases, we considered 

these recommendations to be management improvements versus 

cases of major deficiency. We do not think that is the case, but we 

do think that they need to have a more systematic process. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

Ambassador Boswell, you testified that DS is working with 

State’s Foreign Service Institute on a learning management system 

to provide tracking and feedback collection for training. Please 

elaborate on this plan. What capabilities do you expect to obtain 

from this system, and when do you expect these improvements to 

be completed? 

Mr. BOSWELL. Senator, Mr. Chairman, let me say first that we 

are grateful to the GAO for pointing out these things. I think both 

recommendations regarding followup and feedback are good recommendations, and as Mr. Ford said, we are working on them. 

But let me say also, right from the top, that we do get feedback. 

We do constantly evaluate our training, particularly our highthreat training or the training for the combat zones. We could do 

better, but we do it. For example, our FACT training course which 

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14 

we were just discussing, the 5-day course, has been modified several times in response to suggestions from people going through it, 

suggestions from the field. 

We send a team from training every year to the combat zones 

with the sole mission of evaluating the training by interviewing the 

people that do get trained and are now at posts. We have made a 

number of significant changes since then as a result of that. 

We are working with the Foreign Service Institute to resolve 

some of the systematic tracking problems and feedback problems. 

The feedback problems, largely, have to do with problems getting 

feedback from folks, as Mr. Ford said, I think in his statement, 

folks from other agencies that cannot feed into our systems easily. 

We are looking to find a way around that and we are still working on it. I am sure we are going to be able to resolve it. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Ambassador, DS relies heavily on 

contractors to conduct its mission. Contractors represent over 92 

percent of its workforce. Has DS conducted strategic workforce 

planning to determine whether the current workforce balance is appropriate? And will DS reassess this balance as its mission changes 

and expands? 

Mr. BOSWELL. Sir, if I could clarify? The contractors you are talking about are largely, largely static guards at U.S. embassies overseas. We use contracts for static guards at every embassy. They are 

almost, without exception, contracts with local firms or direct hire 

of contractors that are local nationals. 

The part of our contracting that has been controversial has been 

the use of contractors in the war zones where they are not largely 

local hires. We have had to go to third country and Americans because of difficulties vetting the local population in the war zones. 

So of the contractor population that you just mentioned, the vast 

majority are in Paris or Cape Verde protecting our embassies. That 

is appropriate. It has been the way we have protected our embassies for years and I do not think we are going to change that. 

In Iraq and Afghanistan, we have not been able to go with that 

model for the reasons that I mentioned. The use of contractors, security contractors, and let us specify that we are talking about security contractors. The use of security contractors in those zones 

has been reviewed both internally in the Department extremely extensively, and also by outside organizations, notably the Commission on Wartime Contracting, which has been meeting continuous, 

which is a congressional commission which has been meeting for a 

year-and-a-half, at least. 

I went to Iraq myself years ago, in 2007, in the wake of the horrible incident involving Blackwater contractors at Nisour Square 

which resulted in the deaths of a large number of innocent Iraqi 

civilians. I was sent not to investigate that. I was not a State Department employee at the time. I was part of a small group of socalled experts, outside experts that was brought in to look at how 

the State Department provides security in the war zone. 

And one of the things we looked at was whether the use of contractors was the appropriate way to deal with it given all the circumstances, and we determined that there really was no reasonable alternative to the use of contractors, and every commission 

that I have ever heard of and every outside expert that we have 

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ever consulted has come to the same conclusion. So I do not see a 

radical change in that. 

What I do hope, what I sincerely hope, Mr. Chairman, is that as 

things become more normal in Iraq over the years, and as things 

eventually, hopefully become more normal in Afghanistan, that we 

can revert to the use of local nationals for these functions. 

We have started doing that in Iraq and we are being careful 

about doing it. We have Iraqi nationals integrated into our security 

forces in the north, in Erbil. That is the Kurdish area in the north, 

and we hope, ultimately, to be able to continue to do that and expand that to other sections. 

Senator AKAKA. Ambassador, two separate 2009 reports by 

State’s Inspector General (IG) revealed that regional security officers were not receiving adequate training to prepare them for their 

contract oversight responsibilities. The IG also reported that contract oversight may not receive sufficient attention among the 

many responsibilities RSOs must fulfill. What is DS doing to address these issues? 

Mr. BOSWELL. Sir, before I answer that question, let me correct 

something or clarify something I said in response to your last question, which is, I said contractors are used for local guard functions, 

static guard functions around the world, which is true. We also 

have a much smaller number of directly locally engaged staff, in 

other words, not contractors, that do that function. But it is a minority. Let us put it that way. 

In terms of contract oversight, I think it is fair to say that if DS 

agents were not aware when they joined Diplomatic Security that 

they were going to become experts on contract oversight, they are 

now aware of it. It is a major function of our agents overseas. 

I think out of, for example, the hundred-and-some-plus DS 

agents that will be in Iraq at the beginning of 2012 when security 

responsibilities transfer over to us or when the military responsibilities transfer over to us, I think about 80 of them will be doing contract oversight. They will be overseeing the contract forces, the contract guards and the bodyguards. 

I should explain. There are two kinds of guards. One is the static 

guards and the other are what we call protective security details 

(PSD). These are the bodyguards, the movement people that travel 

in the motorcades, in fact, run the motorcades. 

Our agents are getting extensive in-service training on contract 

oversight. Agents are contracting officer representatives at post 

overseas. They are assisted by other agents who are assistant contracting officer representatives. We also have another category of 

oversight of government technical monitors, which essentially are 

co-located with the guard camps, either physically co-located or 

visit them constantly and irregularly to make sure that things are 

well on the guard camps, and to assist the contracting officer’s representatives in oversight of the contract. 

The training is, as I say, very extensive and continuous and the 

on-the-job training is also very important. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Ambassador, in response to shortcomings in contractor oversight, DS has created a new cadre of security protective specialists. What policies and training are in place 

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to make sure that these specialists can conduct effective oversight 

of security contractors? 

Mr. BOSWELL. Sir, that is closely linked to the answer I gave you 

to the previous question. Our security protective specialists are a 

new kind of specialist in DS, in the State Department. They were 

started as a pilot program and rapidly evolved into a very significant DS—rapidly evolved away from a pilot to a full-fledged functioning DS program. 

Special Protective Specialist (SPS), as they are called, are not 

full-fledged DS agents. DS agents are law enforcement people and 

they had 4 years of training, or largely 4 years of training, before 

they ever go overseas. And they do not only protective functions 

that we have been talking about here, but law enforcement functions, criminal investigations. They have badges, they have arrest 

powers, this sort of thing. 

Security protective specialists are there solely to exercise direction and oversight of the contract guards during movements. In the 

wake of the Nisour Square incident, the commission that I was 

part of, or the committee that I was part of, we made 30 or 40 recommendations, almost all of which—I think all but one—were 

adopted by the State Department. 

And one of the most important ones was that every motorcade— 

and nobody moves in Iraq without being in a motorcade of some 

sort. Every motorcade which is manned by contractors would have 

a DS agent in operational control of the motorcade. 

All of a sudden it required the Department to hire a bunch more 

DS agents. It caused some of the other problems that you have 

touched on in the past, including the gaps in language training and 

things like that, because we had to get agents, a large number of 

agents, to Iraq and Afghanistan as well, to do this function. 

Now we have hired or we have created this specialty so that it 

is not DS agents themselves, in many cases, that are doing this 

oversight. It is the security protective specialist contractors—not 

contractors—security protective specialists that do the operational 

direction. 

Now, I have to clarify. They have nothing to do with contract administration. They are directing the motorcades. They are not contracting officer representatives or anything like that. They are simply in charge of the movements. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you Ambassador. 

Mr. Ford, I would like to give you an opportunity as well to comment on the steps DS is taking to strengthen contract oversight. 

In your view, what best practices should DS consider to effectively 

manage a large contractor workforce? 

Mr. FORD. Mr. Chairman, I have a couple of comments I would 

like to make. First, GAO currently has an ongoing engagement specifically looking at this issue with regard to contract oversight in 

Iraq. That team is in the early stages of the review, so I am not 

in a position to comment directly about what we are finding there. 

I can comment a little bit more generically about the types of elements that should be considered in overseeing contractors in general, particularly in this area. Most of these are pretty well known, 

the first one having to do with having a strategic planning concept 

of how you are going to use these contractors, whether or not you 

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have the right skill sets, making a decision between whether or not 

these should be government positions verus non-government positions. 

There are some situations when you really do not want to have 

a contractor acting in a governmental role. GAO has reported on 

that in several instances in the past. 

The issue of oversight capacity is one that comes up frequently 

in GAO reviews, in general, and in relation to contractors. Risk 

management principles, we frequently have commented on the 

need to ensure that we are making the right kind of decisions in 

terms of the environments that we are going to be asking contractors to work in, and also that we have oversight mechanisms to 

deal with them. The issue regarding mobility in a dangerous place, 

obviously, it would be a risk mitigation issue that needs to be examined. 

And then finally, I think the issue of having adequate staff resources to effectively oversee a large contracting contingent is critical. If you do not have enough people to conduct the oversight 

function, oftentimes the problems crop up. We find that time and 

again in the work we do on contracting. 

So those type of elements need to be put in place. I think the 

Ambassador has touched on many of them in his comments. And 

so, the real issue is whether those elements are going to be all put 

in place in a timely basis, because the military is going to be out 

by the end of the year. I think that is a critical issue that we hope 

will be addressed, and our team is currently studying this issue. 

Hopefully we will be able to share more details on how the Department is responding to this problem. 

Senator AKAKA. Ambassador, in 2009, GAO found that approximately one-third of Diplomatic Security’s domestic officers were operating with a vacancy rate of 25 percent or even higher. What are 

the current vacancy rates within DS for both domestic officers and 

overseas posts? And what steps is DS taking to address its staffing 

shortfall? 

Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Chairman, we are very grateful to the Congress for the support that we have had over the years, and particularly since September 11, 2001 and the great expand at the beginning of the intervention in Iraq. The support we have had from the 

Congress on a budgetary side, as all the testimony has shown so 

far, DS has dramatically expanded in size, dramatically expanded 

in size to go with dramatically expanded responsibilities. 

We have an active recruiting campaign going on. We are going 

to be able to meet our recruiting goals for DS agents. We have 

never really had a problem with that. This is an attractive career 

to many people, a prestigious career to many people, and so we do 

not have problems attracting recruits. 

In fact, one of the strong impressions I have from having been 

away for 10 years is the quality of the agents is even higher than 

it was. And I am very, very pleased with that. 

We also had some recruiting shortfalls in certain areas. We have 

largely, I think, resolved them. The SPS area, which I was just 

talking about, I really, frankly, I was very worried that we would 

be able to attract the number of people to that specialty. These are 

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limited career appointments that we are talking about. But we expect to be able to fulfill our quota, if you like. 

We also had some shortfalls on the engineering side. That is a 

very important part of DS. And we think we are going to be up to 

speed on that one as well. There is a sub-category of engineering 

called security technical specialist. We still have some work to do 

on that. 

Our overall vacancy rate is 9 percent, which I think is an entirely defensible rate. I have to tell you, Mr. Chairman, that anybody that goes to our field offices in the States is often struck by 

the number of empty desks in those field offices. That is not due 

to a vacancy rate. 

That is because our agents are in the field and really represent— 

I mean, we tell all agents when they come into DS not to have the 

wedding anniversary in September, not to have any children born 

in September, because everybody is going to be at the U.N. General 

Assembly, everybody in DS, by the hundreds, is going to be at the 

U.N. General Assembly and that is just what we do for that month. 

So they come out of the field offices and you see a lot of empty 

desks. But we are rather satisfied with our—I think we are satisfied with our vacancy rate right now. 

Senator AKAKA. Ambassador, I am pleased that State and DS are 

taking steps to better support employees and their families when 

officers serve in high-threat posts, such as raising awareness of 

psychological health issues and establishing peer support groups. 

This will be especially important as more employees serve in socalled conflict zones. How is State and DS assessing the effectiveness of these efforts to make sure they meet the needs of employees 

and their families? 

Mr. BOSWELL. Sir, this is an assessment that is done by DS and 

the Office of Medical Services and the Director-General of the Foreign Service as well. We have only been in combat zones since 

2003, but in those 7 years, we have acquired a considerable amount 

of experience with employees working in zones of conflict. 

As I mentioned in my opening statement, we have learned a lot 

from the military who do this extremely well, as you know, sir. And 

we provide our employees with, I would say, a full menu of services, medical, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other qualified medical personnel providing support. But we go well beyond 

that. 

We have, for example, in DS, a peer support group, a peer to 

peer support group, agents working with agents to provide support 

for those coming out of the combat zones. We have a program—we 

the Department—has a program that mandates a high-threat outbrief, if you like, of anybody coming out of the combat zones, at 

which problems can be flagged and dealt with. 

It is a very different experience for a Diplomatic Security agent 

to serve in Iraq supervising a motorcade, and then going on to be 

an RSO in Finland. So there is a cultural and emotional and jobtype shift that goes on, and those folks have to adjust to a very different kind of environment and we help them to do that. 

We also give a heads-up to the embassies that are gaining these 

folks, that they have to be aware of certain issues, and I think we 

do a good job of that. We include it as part of Ambassadors’ trainH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

19 

ing, that they will be having people that come out of the war zones 

and they need to be aware of that. So I think we do everything that 

we can in that regard. 

Senator AKAKA. I certainly appreciate all of your responses. I 

have a final question for you, Ambassador Boswell, and then I will 

give Mr. Ford an opportunity to make final comments. 

Ambassador, providing a secure environment for the diplomatic 

mission, especially in high-threat areas, requires significant resources. However, the current funding environment has created a 

great deal of uncertainty. What risks and tradeoffs would DS have 

to make if the Bureau were not provided consistent funding? 

Mr. BOSWELL. That is a crucial question, Mr. Chairman. It certainly is. And you are absolutely right that funding has not been 

certain or secure. We are in an extremely difficult funding environment now in the United States, a financial environment in the 

United States, and the discussion in the Congress about our budget 

have been extremely active, to put it mildly. 

But the point I want to make, I think, is that we have been looking at our numbers extremely carefully. The people that sit behind 

me here are part of that, in fact, the backbone of that team. And 

we have scrubbed our numbers very carefully and we are confident, 

with the budget numbers that we have put forward. 

If we do not get the kind of funding from the Congress that we 

need to do what we have to do in Iraq, or what we would like to 

do in Iraq, we will simply have to do less in Iraq. The point I want 

to make here is that nobody in the State Department, nobody in 

the leadership in the State Department, has ever asked me to compromise on security. They have asked me to look at my numbers, 

but they have never asked me to do with less security than I feel 

comfortable with. 

In other words, if we get less funding, we will do fewer things. 

We had originally planned, for example, to open four consulates in 

Iraq. That is down to two. The other ones are still in sort of a suspended animation depending on where the funding comes from. I 

have never been asked to compromise on the security I provide to 

any of those. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you so much for your response. 

Mr. Ford, would you like to make any final statements? 

Mr. FORD. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think your last question is a 

good one because I think the government, as a whole, is going to 

be having to address this issue of the fiscal problems in this country and our ability to conduct missions that we are asking all agencies to conduct overseas. 

I think I would echo the concerns raised by the Ambassador, that 

there is a tradeoff. When you are talking about security, DS’s role 

is really protecting other U.S. officials overseas in these countries. 

And so, to the extent that resources may not be available to conduct their security, it really has a major impact on our ability to 

conduct foreign policy and foreign affairs. 

So I think that is the challenge that the Department of State is, 

I guess, trying to come to grips with now and is likely going to 

have to come to grips with in the next couple of years. We would 

like to see a little more strategic thinking on this issue versus reaction. I do not think it is fair to DS to have to react to a situation 

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1The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson appears in the appendix on page 48. 

when it could have maybe been pre-planned in advance so that 

they can come up with contingencies. 

I am sure that they have to deal with this every day and I am 

sure they do a fine job of it, but the Department as a whole, in my 

mind, needs to be more forthright, I guess, in coming up with what 

the contingencies are going to be if we do not get the resources. So 

I think this is going to be a challenge that the Department is going 

to be faced with in the next several years along with the rest of 

the Federal Government. 

I am hopeful that they will take it seriously because the security, 

as the Ambassador has mentioned, is probably the most important 

mission that DS has in these dangerous environments that we are 

asking our people to work in. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Ford. Again, I want 

to wish you well in your future. 

Ambassador, thank you so much for your work. Your service to 

our country has been great. I want to be as helpful as I can supporting the Bureau to fulfil its mission. Again, I thank you both for 

being here today. Your testimony, your responses have been valuable and will certainly help us in our work here in the U.S. Senate. 

So thank you and aloha to you. 

Now I would like to call our second panel. I want to welcome 

Susan Johnson, President of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA). It is the custom, as you know, to swear in our witnesses, so will you please rise and raise your right hand? 

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give 

the Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth, so help you, God? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I do. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. It will be noted in the record that 

the witness answered in the affirmative. 

Before I start, I want you to know that your full statement will 

be made part of the record, and I would also like to remind you 

to please limit your oral remarks to 5 minutes. Ms. Johnson, please 

proceed with your statement. 

STATEMENT OF SUSAN JOHNSON,1 PRESIDENT, AMERICAN 

FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The American Foreign 

Service Association (AFSA) welcomes the opportunity to speak before this Subcommittee on the subject of diplomatic security and its 

implications for U.S. diplomacy. And let me say at the outset that 

the diplomatic security agents that I have had the privilege to work 

with in my postings have been highly professional and competent 

and AFSA has high regard for the dedication of DS and their 

record on security issues. 

In an increasingly complex and dangerous global environment in 

which foreign policy and the Foreign Service are required to operate as our Nation’s first line of defense, the need to ensure the 

safety and security of our Foreign Service personnel cannot be 

over-emphasized. The challenge assumes particular gravity with 

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the expanding requirement for Foreign Service missions, personnel, 

and programs in conflict zones. 

The June 2011 Government Accountability Office report on Diplomatic Security and critical challenges to its training efforts identifying some systemic weaknesses or gaps in the structure and substance of our Diplomatic Security training, particularly looking forward, recommended that the Department of State enhance Diplomatic Security training center course evaluation and tracking capabilities, and develop an action plan to address proposed increases 

in high-threat training. 

It is not clear to us whether the current training programs are 

well designed to meet the challenges of the expanded mission, especially in Iraq, or whether Diplomatic Security will have the flexibility it needs to deal with poorly performing security contracts or 

other problems, and to respond quickly and creatively to unpredictable developments or new situations on the ground. 

The January 31 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report on 

Iraq, the Transition from a Military Mission to a Civilian-Led Effort, addresses the challenges of this expanded mission. Given the 

unprecedented size and complexity of the diplomatic mission in 

Iraq, currently projected to encompass some 17,000 individuals at 

15 different sites, the report raises questions about the availability 

of resources and whether the mission in Iraq can be implemented 

without the support of the U.S. military. 

In addition, the recent OIG report on Department of State planning for the transition to a civilian-led mission in Iraq notes that 

while effective planning mechanisms are in place, key decisions remain unresolved and some plans are not finalized. It also points to 

the problematic security environment, poor contractor performance, 

and Iraqi government reluctance at all levels to assume responsibility for reconstruction projects. 

AFSA does not currently have sufficient information about the 

scope of the U.S. mission in Iraq, but both as a professional association and the union representing the Foreign Service, it is our responsibility to seek answers to many of the fundamental questions 

that have been raised. 

According to GAO figures, the total number of Diplomatic Security agents deployed worldwide is about 720. Does DS have adequate resources and numbers to manage the approximately 39,000 

security contractors worldwide effectively, including those for Iraq? 

As U.S. forces draw down in Iraq, does the transition plan assume 

that the Iraqi government and its military forces are ready, able, 

or even willing to support and protect the U.S. civilian mission? 

Given that December 31, 2011 is the hard deadline for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces, is transition planning sufficiently advanced and adequately prepared? Are the Federal law enforcement 

training standards adhered to by the Diplomatic Security training 

center sufficient to meet the risks and dangers in Iraq? Is the 

course content of DS training for DS agents and other Foreign 

Service personnel being adapted to changing realities of how diplomacy is being conducted today in dangerous environments? 

Finally, is the Iraq transition plan right sized? Are its various 

elements correctly balanced for maximum effectiveness? Simply 

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22 

put, is this plan realistic and sustainable, and if so, are the preparations in place, including training? 

The American Foreign Service has a long and honorable tradition 

of serving wherever and whenever it is called upon to do so whatever the conditions. However, our political and Department of State 

leadership are responsible for providing security for those we send 

into harm’s way to carry out our diplomatic missions. We hope that 

the Subcommittee will examine the Iraq plan closely and ask hard 

questions about the assumptions upon which it is based. 

I would like to thank you again for the opportunity to testify 

today. AFSA greatly values your long-standing support of initiatives to enhance diplomatic readiness of our civilian foreign affairs 

agencies. Thank you, sir. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Ms. Johnson, for your 

statement. Ms. Johnson, as the military withdraws from Iraq, and 

later Afghanistan, State’s presence is growing. DS will provide an 

unprecedented level of security and protective services that the 

military is performing now such as downed aircraft recovery and 

explosive ordnance disposal. You raised concerns about whether the 

mission is compatible with the resources available. 

What resources and personnel are needed, and what more should 

State be doing to prepare to effectively address this security environment? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you for that question, sir. Based on what 

AFSA has been told, the State Department is doing its best to plan 

and prepare in a context of uncertainties at home and in Iraq and 

Afghanistan and have undertaken an unprecedented planning effort. That said, because of these uncertainties, both at home and 

on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, AFSA is concerned in two 

broad areas. You have asked many questions about them and they 

have been addressed to a certain extent already. 

One of them is in the area of contracting and the need for more 

what I will call contracting training across the board in all of our 

foreign affairs agencies, not just in the oversight, but from negotiating the initial contracts to administering, managing, and overseeing them, and not just for DS, but also for other parts of the 

State Department that would be responsible for overseeing and 

managing contracts for life support systems and other things that 

we are now contracting out when we undertake missions of this 

size and scope and complexity. 

As has been noted, I think, followed in the press and in many 

reports, there have been a number of weaknesses identified in contracting overall and the performance. So we believe that a great 

deal more training has to take place in this area, but that calls for 

resources and that gets us back to the problem that we have focused in on. 

Another area that we think is important would be contingency 

planning in the event that the host governments cannot or will not 

deliver as expected. In our planning for Iraq, we are expecting the 

Iraqi government to provide a number of functions that the U.S. 

military provided in the past and that DS has said they will not 

be undertaking. What happens if the Iraqi government cannot or 

will not deliver those services? What is our Plan B? 

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23 

Senator AKAKA. Let me followup with this question, Ms. Johnson. 

Do you believe all of the tasks being transferred from the U.S. military to DS’s law enforcement and security core are appropriate? In 

other words, are there tasks that DS is being asked to undertake 

that should be performed by non-combat military troops? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, I was pleased to hear Assistant Secretary 

Boswell, Ambassador Boswell testify about some of the things that 

DS is doing to meet the requirements of this vastly expanded mission, and I certainly give them all credit for the efforts that they 

are making. 

However, AFSA would like to hear more open discussion about 

the pros and cons and the implications of the State Department’s 

taking on security responsibilities for large scale civilian diplomatic 

and development missions in conflict zones where the capabilities 

of the host government remain unclear. We think this is an area 

that really needs to have more attention, so we certainly welcome 

your efforts in this area, and those of other parts of Congress and 

other organizations to look at this question. 

We have a related question, which is not clear to us yet and that 

relates to what specific tasks that the U.S. military was performing 

and that DS will not be performing. Do we now expect the Iraqi 

government, police, or armed forces to perform these tasks? Do we 

believe that they are ready, willing, and able to do so, and if so, 

on what evidence do we base that belief? That is a question that 

we have that we would like to see and hear answers to. 

Senator AKAKA. Yes. Well—— 

Ms. JOHNSON. So I guess the short answer is, I do not know, but 

we are a little bit skeptical and we would like to be reassured. 

Senator AKAKA. Yes. Well, I hope so as well. Ms. Johnson, the 

State Department is operating in extremely complex and dangerous 

environments, situations where in the past State Department 

would have evacuated. What additional steps should DS take to 

make sure it is well-positioned to meet current and future training 

needs for evolving security threats? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, from AFSA’s perspective, there are two elements here. One is the need that the GAO and I think your Committee has focused on for some time along with some other Committees, which is the need for more and better strategic planning 

by the State Department as a whole and by its various sub-elements, if you want to put it that way. And we certainly support 

that and would like to see it. 

For that reason, we certainly welcome Secretary Clinton’s initiative of the QDDR, and we hope that now that we have been 

through the first iteration of that process that will continue to be 

refined and adjusted and provide a framework for better and more 

consistent strategic planning as a whole by the Department of 

State, and also bringing its various parts more into—synchronize 

them better. 

But to do all this, and a big part of all this, is that we need the 

resources to have the people required and we need more and better 

training, professional education and training that focuses on some 

over-the-horizon-issues, and that means a ‘‘training float’’ sufficient 

personnel to have people in training without undermining the caH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

24 

pacity of our embassies and missions overseas to meet their responsibilities. 

We talk a great deal about training and we have policies that put 

forward training objectives. But if we do not have the personnel required for a training float, which would allow us to send people to 

training without negatively impacting on those vacancy rates and 

other things that you were mentioning, and on real needs in the 

field, a great deal of that training does not happen. 

The other part of that, in addition to a float, is that our training 

and professional education needs to be tied more closely to assignment and particularly promotion. There have to be real incentives 

built in and real requirements built in for people to do training. So 

it comes back to a resource question and we have talked about the 

very tight fiscal, financial, and resource environment that we are 

in. So it is a challenge. 

Senator AKAKA. Yes. Ms. Johnson, GAO’s report on DS identified 

the challenges of balancing security with State’s diplomatic mission. Do you believe progress has been made to achieve this balance? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I think the security mission balance issue is, and 

has been, a very important one for AFSA, and the issue goes far 

beyond DS itself. They are only one party involved in finding this 

balance. DS’s mission is security. They are dedicated to it and I 

think they try to lay out what their needs and requirements are. 

Diplomatic leadership needs to address the diplomatic goals and 

what is or is not achievable under different levels of security constraints, and be realistic and open about this. So the QDDR has 

identified the security mission balance as an issue that needs more 

attention and discussion. We have not yet seen that process get underway, or if it has, we have not been privy to it. 

But it remains a continuing issue of concern for AFSA and we 

are not convinced that the right balance has been achieved yet. 

Senator AKAKA. Ms. Johnson, as more DS officers serve in conflict zones, State must be prepared to address the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder and other challenges associated with hazardous and high-stress tours of duty. What steps should State take 

to support DS’s officers who return from service at high-threat 

posts? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, that is a difficult question and I am glad 

that you asked it also of Assistant Secretary Boswell and I certainly defer to him on several of the things that DS is doing. I do 

know that State is well-aware of this problem, not just for DS 

agents, but for other Foreign Service personnel serving, particularly repeatedly, in high-threat posts. 

It is not easy to resolve. All of our people are exposed to danger. 

So far, with the exception of the mandatory out-brief, it depends on 

the individual. It is up to the individual to voluntarily seek out 

help, and that means some do, but many do not for various reasons. In particular, for DS agents, the perceived costs of doing so, 

in seeking out help, may be high, such as the suspension or temporary suspension of their credentials, their LEAP pay and other 

things. 

So there may be a number of built-in reasons why people are reluctant to seek out the help. But in the Department, as AmbasH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

25 

sador Boswell mentioned, DS has a peer support group which supports fellow agents and we welcome that and commend it. And the 

Department has an active employee counseling service and a contract with Life Care to provide a range of support services for all 

State Department personnel. 

But we are venturing into new territory here and I think we are 

trying to explore, together with other elements of our Federal Government, military, National Guard, what is the answer and how 

can these problems be addressed. 

Senator AKAKA. Ms. Johnson, the families of DS officers deployed 

to dangerous locations also face stress and hardships associated 

with having a loved one in harm’s way. What services should State 

provide to support the families of DS officers deployed to highthreat posts? 

Ms. JOHNSON. From AFSA’s perspective, all of our people and 

members, DS and non-DS, are exposed to dangers, and when it 

comes to Department support for families who are very much affected by this, we believe that all families should have access to the 

same support. As I mentioned earlier, the Department is well 

aware of this and is trying to grapple with it. 

I think the fundamental issue right now is to find a way of encouraging more people to voluntarily reach out. There may be some 

ways that the Department could get the resources to proactively 

reach out to families, as well as employees, at least to offer them 

counseling or other services that might help them cope with the 

hardships and the dangers and the stresses involved with these 

kinds of situations. 

So we would favor that, if the Department could do it, but we 

do not have the answer to that. We would like to see, and I believe 

we are working with the Department to try to come up with, effective ways of providing support for people who are under stress from 

service in high-threat posts. 

Senator AKAKA. Yes. Well, Ms. Johnson, would you like to provide any final thoughts on what we have discussed? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, there was one element that I mentioned and 

I will just offer another thought on it. It has to do with more flexibility for DS to deal with unforeseen circumstances that might 

arise. 

I think this is just coming from our sense, as we have watched 

this now over the years for our military as well as our diplomatic 

personnel, that when called upon to operate in uncertain, dangerous, high-risk environments, agility, nimbleness, flexibility become critical, and that means having contingency funding or resources; Plan B and Plan C. 

We are not clear on what short-term options DS has if a contractor who is providing critical security is not performing. Then I 

suppose the Iraqi government is the Plan B. But what if that is not 

forthcoming? The military had a depth of resource for emergency 

that it could call upon, but in this new situation that might not be 

there. So what is the plan? 

Senator AKAKA. Yes. Well, these are some of the challenges that 

we have to work on. Through this hearing we are trying to determine weaknesses that we can strengthen that will help our mission. As discussed earlier there have been so many changes and so 

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many things that remain uncertain, so it is important that we conduct strategic planning, and have contingency plans to deal with 

potential changes. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Yes, sir. 

Senator AKAKA. I appreciate you being here today Ms. Johnson. 

The reason why we wanted to hear from you is to hear from those 

who have had experience in this area and who may see it from a 

different view and give us a different slant of possible solutions 

that may help us in providing the security our country needs. 

So I thank you very much for being here and helping us with 

your valuable information and look forward to continuing to work 

with you. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you, sir, and we appreciate the opportunity 

to, as you say, bring a different perspective because our perspective 

is from where we sit, each of us, and we are seeing a different 

angle on this than our colleagues in the State Department. We 

think both are valuable to you. So we certainly appreciate the work 

that you and your Subcommittee are doing and your staff. 

Senator AKAKA. Well, thank you very much. 

I would like to thank you and our other witnesses here. It is 

clear to me that the Diplomatic Security Bureau has made great 

progress in meeting the demands of its expanding responsibilities. 

However, more work remains. Many of the concerns and recommendations discussed today are dependent on making sure that 

the resources provided to DS match the scope of the vital mission. 

The success of U.S. foreign policy and the lives of the brave men 

and women who promote it in some of the world’s most dangerous 

places depends on a robust Diplomatic Security committed to working with State and stakeholders like AFSA to enhance diplomatic 

security readiness. We hope we can provide some solutions toward 

these uncertainties. 

The hearing record will be open for 2 weeks for additional statements or questions that Members may have. So this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:19 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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