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THE PRESIDENT’S MANAGEMENT AGENDA:

RIGHTSIZING THE U.S. PRESENCE ABROAD

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 7, 2003

Serial No. 108–21

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS BELL, Texas

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

PETER SIRH, Staff Director

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Deputy Staff Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHILIP M. SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DAN BURTON, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

TOM LANTOS, California

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

CHRIS BELL, Texas

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

LAWRENCE J. HALLORAN, Staff Director and Counsel

THOMAS COSTA, Professional Staff Member

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on April 7, 2003 ................................................................................ 1

Statement of:

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

General Accounting Office; Ambassador Ruth A. Davis, Director General, U.S. Department of State; Major General Charles E. Williams,

retired, Director, Overseas Buildings Office, U.S. Department of State;

Richard Nygard, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Management, U.S.

Agency for International Development; Ambassador Anne Sigmund,

Acting Inspector General, U.S. Department of State; and William Itoh,

Acting Deputy Inspector General, U.S. Department of State ................... 8

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Davis, Ambassador Ruth A., Director General, U.S. Department of State,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 40

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

General Accounting Office, prepared statement of .................................... 12

Nygard, Richard, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Management, U.S.

Agency for International Development, prepared statement of ................ 65

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 3

Sigmund, Ambassador Anne, Acting Inspector General, U.S. Department

of State, prepared statement of ................................................................... 70

Williams, Major General Charles E., retired, Director, Overseas Buildings

Office, U.S. Department of State, prepared statement of .......................... 51

(1)

THE PRESIDENT’S MANAGEMENT AGENDA:

RIGHTSIZING THE U.S. PRESENCE ABROAD

MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2003

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING

THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:05 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Shays

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays, Duncan, Kucinich, and

Ruppersberger.

Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and counsel; R.

Nicholas Palarino, Phd., senior policy advisor; Thomas Costa, professional staff member; Robert A. Briggs, clerk; David Rapallo, minority counsel; Earley Green, minority chief clerk; and Jean Gosa,

minority assistant clerk.

Mr. SHAYS. A quorum being present, the subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations

hearing entitled, ‘‘The President’s Management Agenda,

Rightsizing the U.S. Presence Abroad’’ is called to order.

After the guns stop firing, the battle for freedom, peace and security in Iraq and throughout the world will continue to be waged

with words and ideas.

Success in that global arena will be determined by the size, scope

and skill of the U.S. diplomatic presence abroad. Today, America’s

diplomatic front lines are staffed by more than 60,000 people, representing up to 40 Federal agencies working at 260 embassies and

consulates worldwide.

But that overseas posture appears to be the product of cold war

habits and bureaucratic inertia rather than any systematic effort

to put the right people in the right places to advance U.S. interests.

Currently, no one can even say with any accuracy how many executive branch employees are posted at foreign missions. No common accounting system measures the true cost of international activities by so many different Federal agencies and programs.

Ambassadors have little more than titulary authority to manage

the comings and goings of nonState Department personnel.

Many embassies are not safe and new buildings are being built

without reliable projections of how many people will have to work

there. The President’s Management Agenda calls for a rightsized

overseas presence to better shape, focus and secure the work of

U.S. citizens and foreign nationals abroad.

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Today we continue our assessment of how aggressively and effectively the State Department and the Office of Management and

Budget are pursuing this important initiative. Last year at the subcommittee’s request, the General Accounting Office [GAO], undertook a series of studies to assess rightsizing efforts. To rationalize

and standardize decisionmaking, GAO developed an analytic

framework that gives priority to security, mission and cost considerations.

In two new reports released today, GAO recommends broader application of that framework and an improved process to derive the

staffing projections upon which new embassy designs are based.

More than a decade after the cold war, 5 years after terrorist targeted our embassies in Africa and 18 months since the attacks of

September 11th, we still lack a systematic approach to determine

who will be tasked to project U.S. ideals and policies into a more

dynamic, more dangerous world.

International economic political military and cultural alignments

are changing rapidly. The size and skill of U.S. diplomatic engagements must change with them. Sitting as one panel, all our witnesses this afternoon share one goal, a rightsized U.S. presence

abroad that puts the right people with the right skills in secure facilities throughout the world. We truly appreciate their time, their

dedication and their expertise, and we look forward to their testimony, the dialog that will take place among them and with us, as

well as Members of Congress.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Kucinich, thank you for being here, the ranking

member.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon. Let me welcome our witnesses. Glad you could be with us

today, and I want to begin by expressing my appreciation for the

men and women who serve this country, not only in the Armed

Forces but those who serve in the diplomatic corps at the many

missions around the world.

Mr. Chairman, the idea of rightsizing is sound. We should determine goals and priorities; discern needed resources and implement

an efficient plan while balancing costs and security concerns.

The State Department, indeed all agencies that utilize embassy

space should rightsize. Not to do so would squander valuable resources.

But the concept of rightsizing is also broad. It forces us to ask

whether this country is adequately supporting our international

diplomatic corps in performing their critical mission. Recently,

we’ve seen the dramatic impact diplomacy can make on this country’s security when successful diplomacy has the potential to work

wonders. In the wake of September 11th, Secretary of State Colin

Powell assembled one of the largest coalitions in modern times,

challenging terrorism in Afghanistan.

When diplomacy fails, however, it can have dire consequences. As

we all know, the United Nations rejected the President’s arguments for military action against Iraq. As a result, the President

chose to launch this Nation on new and perilous course of action,

embarking on a unilateral and unprovoked military attack without

the support of the Security Council. Predictably, a majority of the

world’s nations do not support the President’s action.

Part of this—the question is no doubt philosophical, what value

does this administration place on the support of the international

community, and part of the question is also resources. Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would like to provide some context. The President’s budget for fiscal year 2004 proposes $9.8 billion

for the State Department. This includes operations and maintenance for all embassies, consulates and missions in every country.

The President’s budget proposes $379.9 billion for the Defense Department. In other words, the Defense Department will receive

more than 38 times as much as the State Department, and this

does not include about $63 billion in additional spending in the

supplemental appropriations bill to pay for the first installment of

the war in Iraq.

If you combined that amount, the Pentagon gets about 45 times

as much as the State Department. As another example, the State

Department has proposed $16 billion over the next 20 years to construct new embassies and secure existing U.S. structures around

the world. Next year they are seeking a relatively modest $890 million for new building construction.

Yet the Defense Department expects to pay more than $60 billion

for about 200 F–22 aircraft. Next year alone, the Pentagon will

spend nearly $8.7 billion, almost the entire budget of the State Department, just on missile defense programs.

Consider the irony. The U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the

ABM treaty, a successful product of diplomacy. To spend almost

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the entire annual State Department budget, an amount equal to

the entire annual State Department budget, on a so-called missile

defense system that has not been tested to work under realistic

conditions. Some estimates for that system top $200 billion.

In contrast, Mr. Chairman, allow me to point out the findings of

the overseas presence advisory board whose report we will be discussing today.

The panel noted the gap between our Nation’s goals and resources it provides its overseas operations. The world’s most powerful Nation does not provide adequate security to its overseas personnel. The overseas facilities are the wealthiest Nation in history

are often overcrowded, deteriorating and even shabby.

In addition to capital deficiencies, the panel also noted

insufficiencies in staffing. Morale has suffered under staffing

forces, many to work extensive overtime hours. Junior officers are

often required to do back to back consular tours on the visa line.

However the Bureau is unable to hire additional people to address

workload problems, because of funding limitations that strict employment ceilings.

The panel made its conclusions in stark terms. The condition of

U.S. posts, it said and missions abroad is unacceptable. The panel

fears that our overseas presence is perilously close to the point of

system failure.

Mr. Chairman, as this committee goes forward, I would point out

that rightsizing is not statement as reducing, trimming or consolidating. Although each of these may occur. A true commitment to

rightsizing includes a commitment to the men and women serving

this Nation and risking their lives abroad.

In my opinion, rightsizing must also include a broad aggressive

new commitment to substantially greater funding, not just for security, but also for pay, for benefits, for training, recruitment, stateof-the-art communications, modern facilities, all of which are critical components of the essential diplomatic mission of the United

States.

It is time to recapitalize our international relations force.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank the witnesses.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward

to the testimony today. In this global environment and in our current international climate, we need to make sure that our mission

abroad has the resources and adequate personnel to address any of

the issues that may arise. Now, this is a new time, and we must

and we will face the challenges abroad. And you’re going to be a

major part of it.

Our overseas mission is one of the most vital functions of the

Federal Government. We need to make sure that we have the right

number of persons stationed at specific areas. We have to make

sure that they have the right technical, knowledge and expertise to

address concerns in their designated assignments.

There are many concerns and issues with U.S. presence abroad.

It is my understanding that there is some difficulty in determining

the number of personnel abroad, and it is even harder to determine

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the cost involved, and we need to make sure that our mission

abroad has the personnel to do their jobs effectively.

Now, I know the administration has tasked the OMB with

rightsizing the U.S. presence abroad. And I like the word

‘‘rightsizing.’’ I think a lot of times our personnel in government

are always concerned that any type of restructuring is downsizing.

It is more rightsizing and getting the right people in the right positions.

Now, hopefully, this will provide for rightsizing action taken by

the administration and to make sure that we have the adequate

personnel. There is not one formula, or there is not one solution

that can be applied to every situation. For example, in one country,

we may need some narcotic specialists, and field agents, while in

another country we may need a more cultural specialist.

One issue that we should be concerned about, though, is security

for our personnel. I know that—I was with a group that was

briefed by Secretary Powell. I was very impressed with the presentation. Talked about the—taking care of working with the infrastructure and a lot of our areas abroad and our embassies that it

is needed, and it has been a long time coming. And I think that

is the right step.

A few years ago, two of our advocate embassies were attacked.

Again we have to make sure what we focus on the issue of security.

And since then, we have started work to help secure our facilities

in all of these foreign nations.

With the current war, I hope that our personnel have the protections that are necessary to keep them and their families safe. U.S.

mission abroad is nuanced and faces serious real threats. Hopefully

in today’s hearing, we’re going to get better insight into what is

happening with U.S. staffing abroad. Again, Mr. Chairman, thank

you for calling this hearing.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

At this time let me just take care of some housekeeping. I ask

unanimous consent that all members of the subcommittee may be

permitted to place an opening statement in the record, and that the

record remain open for 3 days for that purpose. Without objection,

so ordered.

I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted

to include their written statements in the record. Without objection, so ordered.

I’ll announce the panel, and then I’ll swear them in.

Mr. Jess T. Ford, Director, International Affairs and Trade Division, U.S. General Accounting Office. The honorable Ambassador

Ruth A. Davis, Director General, U.S. Department of State. The

honorable Major General Charles E. Williams, retired, Director,

Overseas Buildings Office, U.S. Department of State. Mr. Richard

Nygard, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Management, U.S.

Agency for International Development. The honorable Ambassador

Anne Sigmund, Acting Inspector General, U.S. Department of

State. And the honorable William. Itoh, Acting Deputy Inspector

General, U.S. Department of State.

Let me state at the outset that we could have divided this in two

panels. We could have divided it into 3 panels. We put you all together. Six is what we can fit on this table, because we do want

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the exchange of dialog. And I have a feeling that we probably

aren’t going to disagree on too many things here, maybe, but I

doubt it. But it would be healthy to have you respond to questions,

and then if someone has answered a question and you want to

qualify it or say how you agree or disagree with some new answer,

that would be helpful as well.

At this point, if you would stand and raise your right hands, we’ll

swear you in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Note for the record that all of our witnesses responded in the affirmative. And I think we have you by the order

I read, also in line here. So we can just go that way. And we’ll just

start with you, Mr. Ford.

As you know, we do 5 minutes, and then we give you another 5

minutes. So the light will be green and then red and then it will

go to green. But as close to the 5 minutes you can be would be

helpful. But we wait a minute you to put on the word and publicly

the things that you feel you need to. So we’re happy to do a little

listening. All right? Mr. Ford.

STATEMENTS OF JESS T. FORD, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL

AFFAIRS AND TRADE DIVISION, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING

OFFICE; AMBASSADOR RUTH A. DAVIS, DIRECTOR GENERAL,

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE; MAJOR GENERAL CHARLES E.

WILLIAMS, RETIRED, DIRECTOR, OVERSEAS BUILDINGS OFFICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE; RICHARD NYGARD, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR MANAGEMENT, U.S.

AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; AMBASSADOR ANNE SIGMUND, ACTING INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE; AND WILLIAM ITOH, ACTING DEPUTY INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. FORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. I’m pleased to be here today to discuss GAO’s work on

rightsizing the overseas presence, that is, deciding the number and

types of personnel that should be assigned to our embassies and

consulates. U.S. overseas presence is significant, with more than

60,000 Americans and foreign nationals in over 260 posts overseas.

Because of the security threats facing many of our embassies,

which are heightened due to the current war in Iraq, as well as

changes in foreign aid policy, missions and priorities and the high

cost of maintaining our significant presence, this effort is vitally

important.

Today I will discuss three reports which we have issued on

rightsizing issues, since I testified before this subcommittee last

May, two of which are being released today.

These reports describe the rightsizing framework that we developed last year, the results of applying the framework in developing

countries, and the process that is used to project staffing levels for

new embassy construction and the proposals to share construction

costs among U.S. agencies.

In July 2002, we presented a rightsizing framework that provides

a systematic approach for assessing overseas work force size. The

framework is a set of questions designed to link staffing levels to

three critical elements of overseas diplomatic operations. Missions

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and priorities, physical and technical security and the cost of operations.

The framework also provides rightsizing options that decisionmakers could consider to adjust embassy staffing levels. In our report we recommended that OMB use it as a basis for assessing

staffing levels as part of the administration’s rightsizing initiative.

According to OMB, they are using this framework as part of their

ongoing study of staffing in embassies and consulates in Europe

and Eurasia.

Following our report in July and in response to your request, we

examined whether our framework could be applied to U.S. embassy

in developing countries. Today we are issuing a report on this

work. Our analysis of three embassies that we have visited in West

Africa indicates that the rightsizing framework can be applied in

that environment. We found that if embassies used our framework

to complete a full and comprehensive analysis of their services and

their support to other embassies, then staffing levels could possibly

be adjusted at some of the region’s posts.

For example, we report that possible rightsizing actions that

could be taken at three posts include regionalizing certain operations and exploring outsourcing of some support services.

Based on our work, it is clear that our framework has broad applications and that it provides a logical and common sense approach to systematically considering rightsizing issues in both developed and developing countries.

We are recommending that OMB, in coordination with the State

Department, expand the use of our framework in assessing staffing

levels at all U.S. embassies and consulates.

We are also recommending that the State Department include

the framework as part of its mission performance planning process.

Today we are also issuing a report that demonstrates how the

lack of a systematic process for determining staffing requirements

can have serious repercussions in State Department’s embassy construction program. The State Department has embarked on a

multi-year, multibillion dollar facility replacement program. State

plans to build new facilities at about a 185 locations around the

world and an estimated cost of $16 billion. The size and cost of

these facilities depend on staffing projections that U.S. embassies

develop.

Based on our analysis of 14 posts where State plans to build new

embassy compounds, we found that agencies are not developing

staffing projections using a systematic approach or a comprehensive rightsizing analyses. Officials at the post we visited approached the processes in different ways. For example, some of the

better posts solicited inputs from all agencies and held several

meetings at a high level to discuss future needs, while other embassies developed requirements without serious effort or review.

Although embassies play a key role in the projection process, the

State Department headquarters officials did not provide embassies

with much formal guidance on the factors that they should consider

when setting requirements, nor did they stress the importance of

accurate projections.

Moreover, at each of the posts that we visited, we found little or

no documentation to show that staff had compiled a comprehensive

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assessment of the numbers and types of people they would need in

the year to which the compound was to be completed. In fact, a

failure to account for recent growth in current staffing levels at one

embassy we visited led to final projections that were too low and

may result in significant overcrowding in the new facility.

Further complicating the process is the frequent turnover of embassy personnel who did not maintain documentation on projection

exercises or the factors they considered when developing projections.

Finally, the staffing projections are not consistently vetted in all

the agencies headquarters.

Building secure and modern facilities for the thousands of U.S.

Government employees working overseas is extremely important

and will require a significant investment. However, without a systematic process, the U.S. Government risks building wrong-sized

facilities, which could lead to security concerns, additional costs

and other inefficiencies and overcrowding.

To help ensure that the U.S. Government builds rightsized facilities, we are recommending that the State Department adopt a

more disciplined and systematic process for projecting staffing requirements. State has indicated that it plans to implement their

recommendations.

The report also discusses the administration’s plan to require

agencies to pay a greater share of costs associated with our overseas presence. Currently, most U.S. agencies are not required to

fund capital improvements to overseas facilities. While we have not

analyzed the cost-sharing proposals in detail, the concept of agencies paying a fair share of costs has the potential to put more incentive in carefully rightsizing the staffing needs.

OMB is working with State and other agencies through an interagency committee to develop a cost sharing mechanism that would

provide more discipline when determining U.S. Government overseas staffing needs.

The administration is committed to implementing greater cost

sharing among agencies that use overseas facilities, because it believes that if agencies pay a portion of costs commensurate with

their overseas presence, they will think more carefully before posting people overseas.

There are numerous issues that will need to be resolved for the

cost sharing program to be successful, such as how to best structure the program, how changes will be determined, and how payments will be made.

Mr. Chairman, the concept of rightsizing is as important today

as it was following the bombings of our embassies 5 years ago. The

key elements of our rightsizing framework, security, mission cost

and rightsizing options, need to be considered collectively to determine embassy staffing and decisionmakers need to be looking for

alternative ways of conducting business.

Our work in the past year has further demonstrated the feasibility of achieving a systematic and comprehensive approach. Such

approach can have substantial payoffs if OMB, State and other

agencies operating overseas support it.

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I believe we all recognize that to be successful, rightsizing will

be a long-term effort requiring the commitment of all agencies operating overseas.

I’m encouraged that the momentum for developing a meaningful

approach to rightsizing continues. Both the State Department and

OMB have endorsed our rightsizing framework and are working together with other agencies to improve the process.

Our recommendations to support this process in our reports

issued today should help ensure that this momentum continues.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. I’ll be happy to answer any questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Mr. Ford.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ford follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Ambassador Davis.

Ms. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. I don’t think your mic is on. I never looked. Does a

light come on when they’re on?

Ms. DAVIS. It is on now? Can you hear me?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Ms. DAVIS. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and other

members of the subcommittee——

Mr. SHAYS. You’ve got a great smile. Nice way to start out my

day.

Ms. DAVIS. I’m very happy to be here. I’m happy for your interest. I’m really very pleased, as I said, to participate in this hearing

on the President’s Management Agenda: Rightsizing the U.S. Presence Abroad. The Department of State welcomed the decision to include rightsizing as one of the initiatives of the President’s Management Agenda. We’re working very closely with the Office of

Management and Budget as it leads the inner agency effort to

move the initiative forward, and we are committed to working with

OMB in the development and implementation of a successful

rightsized initiative.

The General Accounting Office has kept us informed of the status

of its rightsizing work, including the rightsizing framework that it

has developed. GAO has stated that rightsizing means aligning the

number and location of staff assigned overseas with foreign policy

priorities and security and other constraints. GAO notes that

rightsizing may result in the addition or reduction of staff or in a

change in the mix of staff at a given embassy or consulate.

We agree with that. We do not believe that the rightsizing necessarily means—we don’t agree that rightsizing necessarily means

downsizing. Quite the contrary. We’re in the second year of increased hiring with our Diplomatic Readiness Initiative [DRI]. DRI

was launched by the Secretary of State with congressional support

to address the serious staffing gaps created during the 1990’s when

we hired under attrition. This initiative seeks to strengthen our

U.S. diplomatic corps with almost 1,200 new-hires beyond attrition,

and we are grateful for your support.

These new positions will allow us to fill unmet needs overseas

and to provide for enough personnel to respond to crises and to go

to training without leaving staffing gaps.

The DRI is therefore a part of our efforts to have the right sized

State Department staffing overseas to meet our mission requirements. GAO lists 3 elements as part of its rightsizing framework.

Security, mission and cost. We strongly believe that the top priority

is without question mission. The first question that must be asked

before all others is whether the United States has a compelling

reason to be in a particular location.

If the answer is yes, then it may be necessary to place personnel

there, even in the face of serious security concerns or excessive

cost.

As an example, the opening of the U.S. embassy in Kabul Afghanistan. But if we’re going to have people overseas, we must ensure their security as best as we can and at the lowest possible

cost.

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Mission requirements can change, as you well know, and we

have a dynamic system to respond to these changes.

Now, let me address what the department is ultimately responsible for, our own staffing overseas and how we manage our overseas presence. Rightsizing is an ongoing process. We continually review changing priorities and emerging issues and make staffing

changes between regions or between functions, reallocating people

so that higher priority needs are met. We have done this recently

by putting more people overseas in consular sections to meet increased border security needs, post and regions have moved resources to meet the priority counterterrorism mission at the expense of lesser priorities. Sometimes we can accomplish this without strain, because other requirements are in decline. But oftentimes we pull people to address new issues while old ones still

exist.

With the increased staffing under the DRI, we will have a better

capacity to respond without leaving day-to-day work neglected. Ultimately rightsizing of the State Department staffing is accomplished through our strategic planning and budgeting process and

is supported by our work force planning process. Chiefs of mission

have the primary responsibility for deciding U.S. staffing in their

missions. They are in the best position to make decisions on staffing needs that accurately reflect U.S. foreign policy priorities. Their

mission performance plans cover the policy objectives of the entire

mission, including all other agencies.

The Department’s regional bureau’s review and use these mission plans to prioritize and justify position requirements in support

of strategic goals. Bureaus request any additional staffing in their

performance plans at an interagency annual senior policy and resource review chaired by the deputy secretary.

To assist the department’s leadership in assessing staffing needs

and requests, we have the overseas staffing model ESOM. This

work force planning tool identifies the staffing requirements at

overseas posts based on specific categories and criteria and provides a comparative assessment of posts. The OSM evaluates each

post rationally, using key work load and host country factors. We

use the results of the OSM as a baseline in assessing staffing needs

and then add to our assessment the recent changes in foreign policy requirements that are not captured in the model such as the

changes needed for staffing in Kabul.

The new-hires under the diplomatic readiness initiative are being

placed overseas based largely on needs identified in the OSM. The

department’s senior leadership makes final decisions on the department’s staffing requirements and hiring plans based on emerging

priorities, funding potential, overseas staffing model projections as

well as the senior reviews. This ensures that staffing decisions are

made in support of mission requirements. We believe that the

strong linkage between strategic priorities and resource decisions

with senior management involvement ensures our ability to meet

our mission.

Other important factors in our strategic planning process include

the use of local-hires, security, staff reallocation to meet crises and

regionalization. Maintaining a safe environment overseas is a top

priority for the Secretary of State. So we look for ways to ensure

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that we are not doing functions overseas that would be better done

in the United States or via regional centers.

The Department of State has looked at administrative, consular

and certain policy functions in various regions, and we have regionalized some of these functions. We’ve put people in more centralized locations, either overseas or in the United States from which

they now support multiple posts. This regionalization is consistent

with both our rightsizing efforts and the principle of universality.

While we maintain universality of our embassies, many functions

can be managed regionally. State makes extensive use of regional

offices with regional centers in U.S. locations such as Charleston,

SC, Fort Lauderdale, FL, and Portsmouth, NH, and at major overseas hubs such as Frankfurt and Bangkok. All of these considerations, mission security cost are part of our decisions on overseas

staffing.

Let me close by saying that we are working with OMB on its

rightsizing effort as part of the President’s Management Agenda.

We believe that it is the appropriate mechanism to further study

this issue. Thank you for your interest in this issue and for your

support of our overseas presence. And I welcome any questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Ambassador.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Davis follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Just so I’m clear, when we talk of the director general, does that make you head of the Foreign Service and in charge

of all personnel for——

Ms. DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS [continuing]. The Department of State?

Ms. DAVIS. For the Department of State. I’m the Director General of the Foreign Service and the Director of Human Resources,

which includes all personnel in the Department of State.

Mr. SHAYS. The term director general is used only in your case

or are there——

Ms. DAVIS. Yes. There is only one director general.

Mr. SHAYS. It’s a great title.

OK. General.

General WILLIAMS. Thank you, Chairman Shays and other members of the subcommittee, for this opportunity to discuss with you

the role of the overseas buildings operations [OBO], in implementing the President’s Management Agenda directive toward

rightsizing the U.S. presence abroad.

The OBO mission reshaped by the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, it was reinforced by the September 11th events, is to accelerate construction

of new facilities that can satisfy the Department’s stringent security requirements and provide domestic—provide our diplomatic

personnel with safe, secure and functional office and residential environment.

Rightsizing the U.S. presence overseas will help OBO ensure

that we have the right facilities in place to conduct the effective

U.S. foreign policy.

As you know, Congress and the executive branch have identified

the overseas building operations in the State Department as the

single property management for diplomatic consular and other related civilian support properties of the United States overseas.

I want to take the opportunity now to thank the Congress for its

recent effort, in reinforcing this single manager role as recommended by the GAO.

When I joined Secretary Powell’s transition team early on in December 2000 to evaluate the Department’s overseas facilities status

and program, I reviewed the Inman Report, the Crowe Report, the

overseas presence advisory panel report and anything else I could

get my hands on, because the files were quite hefty.

All of these reports in summary basically said the same thing,

we were experiencing facilities overseas that were unsafe, many of

them, many not secure, and of course, overcrowded. And as a result

of that, we were creating in presenting a very negative image for

our country.

Our government currently employs about 60,000 people represented from 30 or so agencies at those 260 overseas posts. The

Diplomatic Security Bureau of the Department has concluded that

at least 160 of these posts do not meet current security standards

and should be replaced by new embassy compounds.

Over the last 2 years, we have already seen significant successes

in being able to bring on board a program that would attack this

problem. We have had successes in cutting costs. We have put in

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place standard embassy designs. We have an integrated design review process, and we have put our program on a fast track.

In the 19—I’m sorry. In the fiscal year 2002 awards, we presented savings of $65 million, and we also anticipate substantial

savings in 2003 by using best practices.

Let me briefly address the reforms that we have put in place to

manage this program. First of all, Mr. Chairman, and members, I

would like to report that we now have developed a capacity to manage at least $1.8 billion of work per year. We obviously had a closeout year last year at $1.75. We have increased the contractor pool

from 3 contractors 2 years ago participating in our work to 15. This

gives us a tremendous capacity to move forward.

We have restructured the entire organization around a resultsbased operational concept, and this is yielding us tremendous results.

We have set up a systematic process now for gathering information for our long-range plan. This was the first strategic document

that we put in place during the first 6 months of our tenure. This

plan now guides our program over a 6-year period.

It is currently in its second year of being, and it is causing a very

good framework and a road map to accomplish our work.

We have also established an industry advisory panel. Nine members from industry advises us on a quarterly basis on the best practices from industry. We have chartered an interagency facilities

council to facilitate the interaction among the agencies who operate

and do business in our platforms. We have also put in place, as I

mentioned before, standard designs so that now we can move very

quickly with the process. We reduced the time from the traditional

41⁄2 to 2 years for construction. And we have an integrated process

for all of the vetting partners.

We are getting results, Mr. Chairman, and members, and to that

extent, the Congress has responded and provided us with some additional funds, not all that we would like to have. As I mentioned,

the capacity is at $1.8, and we have a program which is slightly

under $1 billion this year. But I do want to report that we have

22 new embassy complexes underway. We’ll be cutting the ribbon

this year for the first time for eight new complexes. The average

for our Department through many, many years, at as far as we can

research, show the maximum of 2 per year.

We have opened the facilities in Tunis. We have opened facilities

in Dar es Salaam, both our embassy and our USAID facility. Also

in Nairobi. We are planning, in the next couple of months, to open

facilities in Istanbul, Zagreb, Croatia; Abu Dhabi in the Emirates,

Sao Paulo in Brazil, etc. So we’ll have 8 new openings this year,

in much the same way we’ll have 10 groundbreakings as well. So

we are getting results, and things are moving along very nicely for

us.

Also we have have launched a new initiative. This new initiative

is cost sharing. This was highlighted in the overseas presence advisory panel, at that time referred to as a rent surcharge-type of program. This cost sharing program will allow those participating tenants to pay a cost associated with the type seat that they would

be requesting from the State Department.

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We think, Mr. Chairman and committee, that a combination of

the introduction of standard designs where we have parametrically

built a building size to control costs and we’ve significantly reduced

the time for delivery and linked to this new initiative of cost sharing will serve as a very good path forward for our colleagues to connect the rightsizing methodology too.

Again, I appreciate the opportunity of appearing before you, and

I look forward to answering any of your questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, General Williams.

[The prepared statement of General Williams follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Nygard.

Mr. NYGARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I’m pleased to appear before you today

to discuss the efforts of the U.S. Agency for International——

Mr. SHAYS. Can you move the mic a little closer to you?

Mr. NYGARD. Sure. To assure the number of U.S. staff deployed

overseas is the right number to assure effective and efficient planning and management of programs.

We have reviewed the three criteria proposed by the General Accounting Office for determining overseas staffing levels. We agree

with them, and we’ve been using them in setting our field staffing

levels, though perhaps not in a fully systematic way.

USAID is a critical instrument of U.S. foreign policy. The Agency

carries out development, transitional and humanitarian assistance

programs in more than 150 countries and maintains some 70 bilateral and regional field missions abroad.

We have found that a significant field presence is key to the success of our program. There are two main reasons for our overseas

presence: Influence and oversight. Our overseas employees understand the capacity of our programs and the needs of the countries

in which they work, and their presence helps assure successful results. Their presence also promotes programmatic and financial accountability. Our people oversee the work being done by contractors and grantees who implement their programs.

The main determinants of USAID’s overseas presence are effective program management, or mission, and cost. Security has also

taken on increased importance in recent years and will be a major

factor in the future. The Agency has been rightsizing its overseas

presence for many years. Number of U.S. direct-hire staff posted

overseas by our Agency has fallen from 1,256 in 1990 to 687 as of

last September 30th, despite level or rising assistance levels worldwide and the expansion of USAID operates to 27 countries in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in the past 13 years.

Individual country missions are therefore significantly smaller

than they were 15 years ago. USAID has taken a number of measures to keep the costs of our overseas presence to a minimum. We

work with the Department of State and other overseas agencies of

the U.S. Government to provide common administrative services

through the International Combined Administrative Service System. ICASS has proved very effective for allocating costs fairly

among users, and all agencies are working to make it a stronger

tool for efficiency as well.

USAID is currently providing ICASS services to other agencies

at nine posts where it is cost effective to do so. We provide certain

services, contracts, finance and legal, through regional offices in

some parts of the world. We use modern information technology to

facilitate both voice and data communications among our field missions, USAID headquarters and the offices of our contractors and

grantees.

We utilize our Foreign Service national staffs in recipient countries for professional, as well as support work, reducing the costs

of many functions without sacrificing quality. And we have closed

down USAID in countries where our work has been completed.

Over the past 5 years, overseas missions in Poland, the Czech ReVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:49 Sep 29, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87701.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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public, Slovakia and the Baltic republics has been closed as programs in those countries ended.

An area where the factors of cost and security come together is

that of office space for our field missions. USAID must assure that

our overseas staff work in the safest possible environment.

Consistent with the Secure Embassy and Counterterrorism Act of

1999, the Agency seeks to collocate with embassies wherever possible. At present, we are collocated in less than half of our overseas

posts. We haved worked closely with General Williams and his office over the past 2 years to assure that USAID is an active participant in the Department of State’s worldwide building program.

Our fiscal 2003 appropriation provides funding for a USAID

building on the embassy compound in Nairobi. We will continue to

work with State and with the Congress to assure that safe and secure facilities are provided for our overseas staff.

USAID is also undertaking a number of additional steps related

to overseas rightsizing, including the following. We are updating

our financial procurement and other business processes to be many

efficient and effective, increase the provision of services regionally

and adopt common information technology and process approaches

worldwide.

We’re exploring with the Department of State the extent to

which our financial systems and operations can be integrated.

An initial study has demonstrated the feasibility of at least partial integration. Next steps will include determining the specifics of

putting portions of our systems together.

We’re developing a template, or model, for a standard overseas

USAID mission to permit the optimum allocation of what will continue to be limited human resources to best fulfill our mission. And

we’re finalizing a comprehensive human capital plan that will describe the specific core competencies needed by overseas staff for effective and efficient Agency operations, and the steps that must be

taken such as recruitment and training to produce these competencies.

As you’re aware, Mr. Chairman, President Bush has stipulated

that the rightsizing of overseas official U.S. presence will be a part

of his management agenda. We look forward to building on our efforts to date, working with the Office of Management and Budget,

the Department of State and other overseas agencies to find broad,

lasting approaches to assuring the most effective overseas presence.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. I’ll be happy to respond to any questions the committee may have.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Nygard.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nygard follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. We’ll now hear from the acting Inspector General,

Ms. Sigmund.

Ms. SIGMUND. Mr. Chairman, members of this subcommittee,

thank you for the opportunity this afternoon to comment on the

Department’s rightsizing initiatives. The Department has made

real progress in its rightsizing of its overseas posts. The Bureau of

Overseas Buildings Operations has introduced significant improvements in planning and management that bring transparency and

sound business practices to the construction of suitable and safe facilities for U.S. Government personnel overseas.

The Department is defining more systematically personnel requirements through its overseas staffing model and working with

geographic bureaus energetically to rightsize embassies.

The Department should be commended for aggressively recruiting much-needed Foreign Service staff under its diplomatic readiness initiative.

Acknowledging the sacrifices that staff and their families make

in serving in many parts of the world, the Department is looking

for creative ways to mitigate the hardships of service at some posts

where staffing gaps often exacerbate already difficult conditions.

The emphasis the Department is placing on rightsizing today,

however, cannot immediately resolve problems that are the result

of inadequate planning in earlier years, insufficient resources or inherently difficult environments which can change from benign to

dangerous overnight.

Of the 48 embassies we inspected since January 2002, we found

a number of posts to be rightsized in terms of staff. Among them

are Oslo, Helsinki, Stockholm, Freetown, Monrovia and Abidjan.

However, we also found embassies with deteriorating buildings

without setback and key positions unfilled or staffed by officers

committed but without the necessary experience and sometimes supervision always to do their jobs well.

In addition, since January 2002, we completed 49 security inspections. Only nine posts had sufficient setback; 40 did not.

We found inadequate staffing, lack of work space and unsafe facilities to be acute in Africa and in the new independent states. In

Nigeria, for example, Embassy Abuja suffers from an inability to

fill many mid-level positions. This was true in 1993 and 1997 when

we inspected Nigeria. It was still true in 2002 when we returned.

At the same time, U.S. Government agencies are placing a greater priority on Nigeria with a concomitant increase in programs.

The embassy does not have the staff or infrastructure to support

this expansion.

The NSDD–38 process is an important tool for rightsizing. However, we find that some agencies lose sight of NSDD–38 in their

haste to implement programs. The assignment of advisers directly

to host government entities or back to back temporary duty personnel circumvents NSDD–38 and undermines the efforts of chiefs of

mission to rightsize.

To take Nigeria once more, much of the growth of Embassy

Abuja and the consulate in Lagos have been the result of added positions from other U.S. Government agencies. A number of these

new positions are currently listed as temporary and are not subject

to the NSDD–38 review.

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The Department is developing regional support centers to alleviate staffing and administrative problems at some posts. Consolidated services out of Frankfurt are directed to the Balkans and the

NIS and out of Florida for the embassies of Latin America are

proving to be effective mechanisms for supporting posts, particularly those where staffing gaps and lack of administrative experience have a negative impact on operations.

Frankfurt is also beginning to provide valuable consular support

for African posts. In recent inspections of Port of Spain, Georgetown and Paramaribo, OIG found that all three receive excellent

support from the Florida center that is mitigating the negative effects of staffing gaps.

I would also note that in keeping with OPAP’S support for phasing out of the financial services center in Paris and moving its

functions to Charleston, the Department expects to complete the

project this year, at which time Charleston will provide financial

services to 84 posts previously serviced by FCS Paris.

Finally, I would like to comment briefly on GAO’s proposed

framework for rightsizing. The framework provides a clear articulation of criteria that should be considered in determining mission

size. The Department has begun to incorporate rightsizing guidelines in its mission performance plan process. I want, however, to

introduce a cautionary note. Although not implicit in the framework, there is the potential for drift in staffing size. The staffing

of an embassy should not become only a reflection of the agencies

that can afford to be there. Mission and the national interest are

critical in defining the most effective personnel profile for an embassy in any given country.

Policy objectives must be clearly defined and agreed to by all. Important to remember, too, is that no building, regardless of the resources and planning it represents, can ever be completely safe.

The security of an embassy is not merely the sum of protections a

building can provide, but the totality of programs, procedures, and

host-country relationships that embassy management uses to supplement the physical limitations of its building. In the last analysis, some degree of risk will always remain.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am happy to respond to your questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Ms. Sigmund.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Sigmund follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. At this time, we will invite William Itoh to comment,

and then we will have a little dialog and kind of get at this stuff.

I am going to be questioning whether my staff is telling me the

truth, so you all are going to get in the middle of a little internal

fight here.

Mr. Itoh.

Mr. ITOH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee.

I appreciate the opportunity to join you today. As a member and

executive secretary of the Overseas Presence Advisory Panel, I am

pleased to give you my personal perspective on recent efforts to respond to the issues that we highlighted in our report. I want to emphasize that I am speaking today in my OPAP role, not as the Acting Deputy Inspector General.

At the time of the release of the OPAP report, we emphasized

the need to consider our recommendations in their entirety. We

recognized, however, that in an election year and in the transition

to a new administration, we could not realistically expect a wholesale adoption of our proposals.

A number of our recommendations relating to security, human

resources, information and communications technology, consular

services, administrative services, and Ambassadorial authority

were embraced by the Department. The Department continues to

work toward full implementation of many of those recommendations.

OPAP’s recommendations on the management and financing of

overseas facilities called for the creation of a new government corporation, the Overseas Facilities Authority. We envisioned the OFA

as an organization following private sector practices which could

manage the construction and operation of our facilities overseas

with costs allocated proportionately to all agencies. Linking facilities costs to staffing decisions would not only create a more equitable means for sharing those costs, but could also reinforce our efforts on rightsizing by identifying for each agency the real costs of

assigning personnel overseas.

The OPAP proposal on overseas facilities generated a great deal

of discussion, and the Department did not accept our recommendation on the creation of a new OFA. However, with the arrival of

Secretary Powell, the Secretary agreed to seek solutions to the

many issues we raised, short of creating a new entity outside of the

Department.

As a result, FBO was taken out of the Bureau of Administration

and restructured as the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations in

May 2001. Under the direction of General Williams, OBO has

moved to become a more results-based organization run on private

sector lines. OBO has developed a 5-year capital program plan that

provides long-term planning for the construction of new facilities,

and security upgrades for many existing facilities.

I believe that much has been accomplished to implement the

OPAP recommendations which should address the deficiencies that

we found in the past.

In addition to our proposals regarding facilities overseas, our

OPAP recommendations on rightsizing generated considerable debate within the Department. OPAP found that there was no overall

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system to link the size and composition of our missions to the primary foreign policy goals of those missions.

While the International Affairs Strategic Plan outlined executive

branch goals and foreign policy, actual decisions on Agency staffing

overseas seemed coincidental to the goals stated. The Mission Performance Plan, required of each embassy, received little feedback

from Washington, and was almost irrelevant to the allocation of resources. The NSDD–38 process seemed to be broken. Staffing decisions appeared to be largely based on the success of various agencies in obtaining the necessary support from Congress for additional positions abroad.

OPAP recommended that a permanent interagency committee be

created by the President and chaired by the Secretary of State to

establish the criteria to be used in determining the size and composition of our overseas missions. The committee would determine

appropriate staffing levels at all of our embassies based on an understanding of our foreign policy objectives. This was to clearly link

mission size to mission objectives and was meant to be a dynamic

process making adjustments as necessary.

We used the term rightsizing to describe the proper allocation of

resources to mission objectives, but we caution that rightsizing and

downsizing were not necessarily synonymous. In some cases, we

would have to increase staffing levels at some posts to reflect

changing circumstances, while reducing staff elsewhere. We believed, however, that real savings could accrue to the government

over time if rightsizing were embraced along with many other recommendations to improve our operations abroad, including proper

cost allocations by Agency, safer and better facilities, improved

communications, consolidation of certain administrative functions,

and improved human resource practices including training.

At the time of the release of the OPAP report in November 1999,

the Department did not accept the principle recommendation

among our proposals for rightsizing, namely, the creation of an

interagency panel on rightsizing to be established by the President.

However, the panel at the time believed that any serious effort

at rightsizing could only come through a process initiated by the

White House that clearly had the President’s strong support. The

rightsizing recommendations of OPAP were included in the report

of the Independent Task Force on State Department Reform published in January 2001 and conveyed to the incoming administration of President Bush. In August 2001, the President’s Management Agenda was released, and included rightsizing as a major

goal of the administration with OMB leading an effort to establish

a comprehensive overseas staffing allocation process.

The White House, through OMB, has established an interagency

working group to look at overseas presence issues, starting with

fundamental questions such as the real costs associated with having personnel overseas. OMB’s role in the budget process gives it

leverage in using budget levels to force agencies to provide justification for positions overseas.

Within the Department of State, an effort is under way to address rightsizing by using a strategic planning framework and by

improvements into the Mission Performance Plan and Bureau Performance Plan process.

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The Department and USAID are committed to complete a joint

strategic plan by June 2003. Elements of strategic human capital

planning and embassy rightsize planning are included in the draft

2004 to 2009 Strategic Plan, as well as in the MPPs and the BPPs.

With the new Strategic Plan and a much more rigorous MPP and

BPP process, we will have in place the foundations for an effective

means of linking resource allocations to policy objectives.

From an OPAP perspective, what still needs to be done is to create a rightsizing process that clearly applies to all agencies overseas. It is my judgment that we also need to do a better job of looking at long-term trends and developments, and to make that part

of a process of defining our foreign policy goals.

The International Affairs Strategic Plan, last issued in 2000,

should be updated and should reflect the views of all agencies operating overseas. Once such a comprehensive state of foreign policies

goals is established, there should be a coherent process to make responsible allocations of resources across all agency lines. That is

the essence of our OPAP recommendation on rightsizing.

I am encouraged that many of the OPAP conclusions and recommendations on overseas presence and rightsizing have been accepted, though by any assessment, we still have far to go. As the

Agency traditionally responsible for shaping and executing our foreign policy abroad, the State Department must continue to demonstrate a strong interest in making any process of rightsizing an

effective one.

Other agencies must see it in their own interests to carry out

their specific functions as part of an effective country team. The

White House must bear ultimate responsibility for making any

rightsizing process work across agency lines.

Finally, Congress will have an important contribution to make as

you consider the proposals that will come before you as we try to

establish a more effective process for shaping our overseas presence.

Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Mr. Itoh.

I think this is a huge issue. I think we had, you know, some pretty long presentation, and it seems like it is a lot of numbers and

formulas and so on. But, for me, going to an embassy and seeing

such dedicated workers, but looking at their facilities just from the

standpoint of security, we pack people in. They are practically in

hallways in some places. And then we have to have places for them

all to live. I was amazed—amazed may be a strong word. I was

very surprised to realize how we break down—how few in the State

Department are actually—how few people in our embassies are actually in the State Department, and I am looking for that, for the—

it was 39 percent.

Ms. DAVIS. It is about one-third, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Yeah. It just blows me away, and then Defense is 40

percent. I notice Transportation, 1 percent, and Treasury and so

on.

In May 2001, we had a hearing on rightsizing, and we had the

tenants. You know what I mean by tenants?

Ms. DAVIS. Other agencies.

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Mr. SHAYS. Other agencies. That’s kind of what State Department feels it’s like. It’s a tenant for all the other agencies.

So let me just ask in terms of—and not that these missions

aren’t important. But let me just ask you in terms of cost, and I

will start with you Mr. Ford.

Is it likely that if you were able to attach the true cost to every

person who is assigned to an embassy and the payment had to be

made by the Department that sent them there? Is it likely that we

might see less people in some of our facilities? In other words, all

the costs, not just the salary; the staff support, the facility, and if

it is a U.S. Government facility, the cost of that facility. And security? All the things added to it, their housing.

Mr. FORD. As far as I know, there is nobody in the government

who knows what those costs are. OMB is in the process of trying

to identify costs for all of the tenants as was mentioned earlier at

overseas posts. I noticed in their statement for the record they had

some very interesting numbers for—at different costs for individuals in the same Agency.

For example, I think they had the FBI, they showed the cost of

an FBI agent in three different locations, and the costs varied—I

don’t have their statement here in front of me—but as much as a

couple hundred thousand dollars, which indicates to me that either

the estimates aren’t very good or the FBI needs to take a hard look

at how it assigns its people, since, if they have an agent at one

place that costs three times as much as another, they may not

want to make that kind of investment.

But the bottom line is, the overall costs by an agency overseas,

as far as I know, is not known, and I know that that is one of the

key objectives of the OMB project. I don’t know where they are

with it right now in terms of whether they feel like they can give

hard numbers, but I think that’s one of the first things you need

to find out before you make the right kind of decisions about who

you are going to assign overseas.

Mr. SHAYS. Ms. Sigmund, do you have anything to add to the

comments that were made by Mr. Ford?

Ms. SIGMUND. With respect to costs?

Mr. SHAYS. Yeah. He didn’t really answer the one question I

asked though. If you were able to determine the full costs, would

it be likely that some of those individuals sent overseas, that the

departments might send less? And that’s the question that Mr.

Ford began. Yes or no? You don’t know?

Mr. FORD. I can’t speak for the executive branch, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. No. You’re not hearing my question.

Mr. FORD. You want to know if they would send——

Mr. SHAYS. The answer, is a free service overutilized? And the

answer is yes. So, to the determination of a free service. No, it’s

just by just the actual laws of it.

Ms. SIGMUND. Of course, it’s difficult to say concretely, but I’m

assuming that it would certainly be an influential factor in

rightsizing on the part of other agencies.

Mr. SHAYS. I guess what I’m—with our formulas and the concept

that we would look at the cost and the mission and security, we

look at all three of those. It would just strike me that one of the

things we could do pretty quickly is determine costs, and at least

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make sure that the cost is borne not by the State Department but

borne by the tenants who go there. And it would strike me that we

would probably need some—you would probably see some right

then some contraction.

You wanted to make another comment, Ms. Sigmund?

Ms. SIGMUND. Well, only that there are processes at work in the

embassy itself that assign various administrative costs. They are

not perfect, but they do attempt to distribute and share costs.

I think part of the problem, if I understand it, is that the formula that different agencies use is different in calculating those

costs. And so I think that, for example, some in Washington, administrative costs are attached to the cost of serving overseas. I

think there has to be agreement among all of the participants on

a standard formulation of what would be counted in those costs.

Mr. SHAYS. The Department of Defense cannot pass an audit.

There are over $1 trillion, $1.7 trillion of basically points that—of

transactions that aren’t auditable. It blows me away, and we are

working on it, but would someone explain to me why the State Department—we use as the number 260 the number of missions. I

want to know. It is just too neat, 260, 60,000 people overseas.

Ms. Davis, I’m sorry, I have not been properly addressing you.

Ambassador Davis, Ambassador Sigmund, and Ambassador Itoh, I

apologize.

Ms. DAVIS. Actually, the number that I was using is about 263.

Mr. SHAYS. 263. OK. That’s the number we’re going to use here.

How about the number of employees overseas?

Ms. DAVIS. The number of employees we use, the number of direct American-hire employees is about 19,000. That’s Americans

across the board, not just for State Department, but the number of

employees, total, that we use overseas is about 46,000.

Mr. SHAYS. And those are——

Ms. DAVIS. That includes direct-hire Americans, it includes foreign-service Nationals, and it includes personal-service contractors

and others.

Mr. SHAYS. Why has it taken so long to agree on a common set

of criteria for rightsizing? What’s the dispute, and who’s involved

in this dispute?

Ms. DAVIS. Sir, it’s—when you talk about rightsizing, I guess you

have to talk about it in two parts.

There is no dispute in terms of rightsizing within the State Department, but the difficulty I suppose is the rightsizing in terms of

the other agencies. And I believe that the problem has been that

there has not been sufficient interest to get the job done, and I believe that the interest is there now.

For instance, rightsizing is now a part of the President’s agenda,

and that gives an impetus to really, focusing much more on the actual process of rightsizing.

Mr. SHAYS. And obviously a focus of the Secretary’s.

Ms. DAVIS. Yes. Most definitely.

Mr. SHAYS. Because when he was before the Budget Committee,

he was very clear about his support.

We’ve had a little bit of trouble getting GAO to get information

from State, and I’d like to know. Mission and Bureaucratic Program Plans are an important part of planning documents, which

82

State talks about as key to rightsizing. And what I’m told is that

GAO has had difficulty getting these from State because State lawyers assert the program plans are predecisional.

Is this being resolved, and can I be pretty comfortable that GAO

is going to get this information from now on? Is this striking you

out of the blue here?

Ms. DAVIS. Excuse me. Just a second.

Sir, you are correct. We will have to take this discussion back to

the Under Secretary for management, and I will get you an answer.

Mr. SHAYS. Yeah. We’ve had a little bit of trouble getting information out of State. And in order for us to do our job, and when

we ask GAO or the Inspector General to do certain things, we

would really like, before the next year and a half, to really make

a dent, a significant dent in this problem. And I think you would

as well. And we could work I think better as a team.

Mr. Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

To Ambassador Sigmund, do you believe the Department has all

the resources it needs right now to secure its overseas facilities?

Ms. SIGMUND. I think that the Department today is better positioned than it has been in previous years. I think it still needs

more resources, yes.

Mr. KUCINICH. Now, your description of the U.S. post in Nigeria.

Ms. SIGMUND. Yes.

Mr. KUCINICH. I found it troubling. In fact, a staffer from our

committee entered the Foreign Service, and her first post was in

Nigeria. She had some extremely troubling accounts of working

there, both in terms of security and insufficient staffing.

Do you think additional resources could be used throughout the

world to enhance security?

Ms. SIGMUND. Yes, sir. I do.

Mr. KUCINICH. Even if we are not talking about building new facilities, couldn’t many posts use significant upgrades that could be

done more quickly than, let’s say building?

Ms. SIGMUND. I think it’s important for the Department to put

in place processes and plans to use additional resources wisely.

And I think it’s—it is doing that now.

Mr. KUCINICH. In your testimony, you state that rightsizing cannot resolve all the problems we have today. Specifically, you cite insufficient resources. Where could Congress most quickly and effectively bring about additional resources?

Ms. SIGMUND. I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand your question.

Mr. KUCINICH. At what point—do you have any specific recommendations for the Congress about what resources should be

brought to bear?

Ms. SIGMUND. I think in my statement I was referring to previous years when, in fact, staffing shortages were allowed to develop. Decisions were taken, for example, in the 1990’s to compensate for budget shortfalls by not hiring, so that hiring levels

went lower than attrition. It’s in those areas that I was referring

to, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you.

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Mr. Ford, you state on page 19 of your written testimony that

maintaining our overseas presence is, ‘‘An enormous expense, particularly with current budget deficits.’’ I was surprised to hear this,

in part, because the current budget deficits did not begin until the

President and this Congress passed a tax cut which primarily benefited those in the top bracket. I was also surprised because I think

the State Department budget—it’s my own opinion—was an absolute bargain when you compare it to the Defense Department budget, which I did in my statement.

Do you have any thoughts about the disparity between the

money that this country spends on the Department of Defense and

the Department of State? And do you ever think that maybe if we

spent more money in the Department of State, we may not have

to spend as much in the Department of Defense?

Mr. FORD. I don’t think GAO has a view on that. I mean, you

know, we want the money that is going to be spent to be spent efficiently. That’s the bottom line. Whether it’s spent by DOD or State

Department or anybody else in the Federal Government.

Mr. KUCINICH. Ambassador Davis.

Ms. DAVIS. Sir, we always welcome additional resources, such as

the resources that we got for the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative.

I think that this is an instance that I can happily, happily cite that

the Congress has been extraordinarily supportive of the State Department. And we have shown that we have utilized those resources properly and are continuing to show that we are utilizing

resources properly.

So we appreciate increased resources with our increased responsibilities in the world.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Ambassador.

To Ambassador Itoh. I am glad you are here to represent the

Overseas Presence Advisory Panel, a panel that does a significant

amount of work. I’d like to ask you to focus on one aspect of this

work, which you refer to in your testimony, the question of overall

resource and staffing.

According to the report, the panel noted the gap between our Nation’s goals and the resources it provides its overseas operations.

The world’s most powerful nation does not provide adequate security to its overseas personnel. Despite its leadership in developing

and deploying technology, U.S. overseas facilities lack a common

Internet and e-mail communications network. The overseas facilities of the wealthiest nation in history are often overcrowded, deteriorating, and even shabby.

Ambassador Itoh, from what we have heard here today, it sounds

like the panel’s conclusion that the Nation’s overseas presence is

essentially severely undercapitalized still holds. Is that right?

Mr. ITOH. I think that members of the panel—and I have communicated with several of them before I came here to testify today

in order to try to speak on their behalf and not just from my personal impressions—I think members of the panel are generally encouraged by a number of trends that they have seen.

Back at the time when we were actually writing the report, we

consulted with a number of Members of Congress. During that particular process Members of Congress made the point that, yes, they

recognized that the Department of State did not have adequate reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:49 Sep 29, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00087 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87701.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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sources, but they also argued that when given money in the past,

on occasion the Department of State did not spend those resources

wisely. So one of the messages we brought back as a panel to the

Department was that we needed to make a commitment within the

Department to reform.

So it wasn’t just an issue of resources. We could argue that if you

made a commitment to reform practices in the Department of State

to try to improve how we allocate these resources that we do get,

we would actually improve the ability to make that argument to

get additional resources.

One of the areas where I think we are most encouraged is the

overseas facilities issue. At the time of the OPAP report, we recognized that there were serious deficiencies in many of our overseas

missions, and yet the rate at which we were able to address those

deficiencies in our current strategy under FBO was totally inadequate. It would take us 10 or 20 years in order to get just the embassies that were critically deficient in security to—come up to

speed. And that’s one——

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Ambassador.

I want to ask, I was struck by the panel’s conclusion which was

made in harsh terms, said: The condition of U.S. posts in missions

abroad is unacceptable. The panel fears that our overseas presence

is perilously close to the point of system failure. And you stated:

New resources will be needed for security, technology, and training

to upgrade facilities. In some countries where the bilateral relationship has become more important, additional posts may be needed

to enhance the American presence or to meet new challenges.

Where do you think we are in terms of getting overseas facilities

up to minimum acceptable levels?

Mr. ITOH. I think that one of the areas which has been a success

story in terms of our recommendations and in terms of the Department and administration’s response is what OBO is doing now. It

really does meet the requirements and the goals of our panel at

this particular time.

Likewise, on personnel resources, this is another area where we

argued that there should be additional resources for the Department, because we were seeing staffing gaps and lots of problems

as a result of inadequate in-flows of new Foreign Service officers.

And, as Ambassador Davis indicated, the diplomatic readiness initiative has been supported by the Congress. We on the panel argued that we needed 10 or 15 ‘‘percent training float’’—I don’t

think we are quite there yet—in order to be able to train the people

that we think need to come into the Foreign Service and also move

upwards in terms of the management skills.

I think in terms of all three of those issues that you mentioned,

starting with facilities, human resources terms and information

technology, we have made considerable progress. We haven’t gotten

there yet in terms of the unclassified communications technology,

but we certainly are in much, much better shape than we were in

1999.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. And thank you, sir, for your patience. Mr.

Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Thank you, yes. It was a good committee.

85

I know there’s some questions you can’t ask, and we would like

to get into more detail, but I think overall my impression of the

committee is that we are starting—there is a beginning of a reform.

I think before you can start a reform, you have to have support

from the top. And you’ve discussed that, and you have stated today

that the President and Secretary Powell—and I know I feel strongly that Secretary Powell is supporting, just based on some of the

briefings that we have had.

I think part of what I see here is, the first thing, you have different agencies and there is always a problem with interagency, be

it cooperation or different systems or whatever. But what we need

to do, I think, from an international point of view, based on what

I’m hearing today, is set up a system that is going to work and a

system that will develop accountability. You are never going to get

to the next level until you have accountability of what you’re doing

and to be able to justify the expenses.

And I agree with you, Mr. Ford, that right now there is still not

that system in place. And that it needs to be if you are going to

get the support to spend the money. And yet we have got to do it

quickly, because I think we can all agree, after we hopefully win

this war, you are going to have more burden on you than ever. And

you have got to be able to perform that mission, have the right people in the right place and the right facilities to do the job.

Now, let me just ask you a couple questions just to try to get to

the system arena. No. 1. Do we have a data base on personnel? Is

there any—I mean, just forget just State Department as an example. I don’t see how we can manage without having information.

And with the technology that exists here today, do we have a data

base about where, how many overseas personnel we have, what

they are doing? And can we tie in to find out how we can judge

their performance? Does that exist at all? I don’t care who asks the

question. Maybe I should ask you, and then I’ll ask Mr. Ford.

Mr. FORD. For all of the agencies that are over seas, I’m not

aware of any centralized data base.

I know the State Department has probably the best data base

that is available. And if I had to go there to—if I had to go and

get that answer, I’d probably go to Ruth and ask her if they have

that information.

But in terms of all of the presence overseas, I don’t know if the

State Department data base has that or not. I’d have to defer to

her on that.

Ms. DAVIS. This is a problem. It is a problem that is being

worked on. Let me give you some elements, however.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Including some security problems that

might exist because of that data base?

Ms. DAVIS. No. It’s a problem that we haven’t pulled together all

of the various technical applications that we have. For example,

this is another one that we have to look at in two forms. First of

all, how many State personnel do we have overseas? And, second,

how many other Agency personnel?

In terms of the other Agency personnel, we do have some read

on the number of full-time, direct-hire personnel, and we have that

under the NSDD–38 process. We keep relatively good records on

that. The problem being that we have more people than the people

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who are direct hire. We have, as I said, we have contractors, we

have Foreign Service nationals, we have people who are hired on

personal services contracts. And so we don’t have one data base

that captures all of these people.

Now, ICASS captures some of that data. We have a personnel

system called GEMS that captures the data for the State Department. We also now have a new system called the Post Profile system, which is a central data base, a new central data base at our

post that has the information about a direct hire as well as FSNs

and other personnel.

What I’m trying to say is, that we have got a lot of strands out

there, and we need to develop a system to consolidate and to pull

it all together, so that we can get the information that we need.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Let me ask you this question about your

mission.

It seems to me the two areas of reform that you need to get a

better hold on are who is there and what they’re doing and how

they’re performing from accountability.

We also need to look at the facilities’ end capital, so to speak,

and to develop the planning techniques as far as what do we need

from a security, from an intelligence point of view, and from a communications point of view, to make sure that we are looking down

the road.

Now, do we have a committee? I guess Mr. Itoh, you might

maybe answer this question. I believe—I have always felt very

strongly that if you are going to get the information on what you

need, you go to the front line. I mean, managers sometimes get in

the way of doing business. And are we asking the users, the front

line throughout, where the needs are as it relates not only to now

but maybe down to the future on the capital ends?

And I know Secretary Powell is looking at this and is trying to

get it moving, so to speak. Even the amount of money that is being

put in, it seems very, very small because it is over a 15-year period,

I think, $16 billion. Is it a 15-year period or 20-year period? Are

we addressing that and looking and talking to front line about

what we need from a facilities point of view? And, where do you

think we are right now, and what do we need?

Mr. ITOH. I’ll have to defer to General Williams. But just as a

general observation, I think that what the Department has done

since the time of our report is to try to strengthen the planning

process. And that is, to come up with a strategic plan that they are

working on right now, and also the MPP, the Mission Performance

Plans, and the BPP, Bureau Performance Plans, which require the

missions to take a careful look at what their policy objectives are

and identity what resources they require, both in terms of human

resources and also physical resources, obviously, to try to protect

those personnel over time.

As far as the panel is concerned, one of the things that we pointed out is the fact that we needed a long-term comprehensive set

of foreign policy goals that all of the agencies agreed to. What we

have right now is something called International Affairs Strategic

Plan, which actually is out of date as it does not reflect this administration’s interests.

87

This strategic plan was issued in 2000, and it was an overarching set of objectives, foreign policy objectives, for all U.S. Government agencies overseas. Our panel position was that we need

to continue to have a document like that, and not just a strategic

plan that basically represents the views of the State Department

with some other agencies, but an overarching plan for all agencies,

and then try to project your requirements both in personnel and in

physical security over time.

I’ve always thought that the military does a reasonably good job

of planning, because with force projection requirements and alsin

the procurement of weapons systems, they’re really required to look

10 years or 20 years down the road. I’m afraid that we at the State

Department and other foreign policy agencies don’t tend to have

those kind of far horizons. I think that’s one of the things that we

should do.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. And we should implement it then. I mean,

I agree with you. And we need to start implementing.

I think my time is almost up, but the gentleman——

Mr. WILLIAMS. If you would allow me.

I would just like to speak specifically the facilities side of it. One

of the first tasks that Secretary Powell and I agreed upon at the

early part of 2001 is that we needed a strategic capital plan, which

was never in existence.

We prepared this during the first 120 days of 2001, had it ready

for publication, and put it into the system the early part of the next

year. This plan captured all of our expected work and requirements

over the next 6 years. It’s a roadmap. It guides us. It has a priority.

Everyone understands it. The Ambassadors have it. Members of

our committees here in the Congress, OMB, and also the Secretary.

So it puts us all on the same page. We know exactly what we are

asking for and what the project is expected to cost and how it will

be executed4.

In addition to that, we zero-based every post—every post, and

policed-up all of the deferred maintenance which had never been

done before. We put that in a data base in our operation. So, that’s

valued, for example, today at about $700 million of about deferred

maintenance. So, that coupled with the 160 or so buildings or new

embassies that we need to apply new capital to is the program that

we are currently executing. And we update these plans and this

data base on a continuous basis.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Just a conclusion. I think that what I’m

seeing and hearing so far, the first thing, I think you have a good

leader and that’s the first prerequisite to management. You have

good people, and that’s the second. And then you have to give them

their mission and hold them accountable for performance and also

give the resources.

I think the one area that I think we need work on here is to be

able to put together the assistance based on the technology that we

have today and to pull that together so that we can then analyze

where we need to go. Because, as performance goes up, cost goes

down, and that cost can go right back into your operation to increase the moneys that we need to do the things that we need to

help you down the road. Thank you.

88

Mr. SHAYS. I’d just like to note the presence of Mr. Tierney from

Massachusetts, who has been very involved in this issue. And also

point out the last questioner, while he’s a new member, serves on

the Intelligence Committee and obviously is getting some insights

into this—probably learning more than you wanted to know.

I want to kind of feel a little more comfortable about what we

are doing with this panel, because you all are wonderful resources

here, and we’ve got six of you.

Mr. Ford, your perspective is that we basically asked you to task

this issue of rightsizing from our perspective, and you have done

that quite well and you continue to do.

Ms. Davis, my sense is that you are in charge of this whole issue

of rightsizing as it relates to personnel primarily.

Ms. DAVIS. Yes. In the State Department.

Mr. SHAYS. In the State Department. As well, General Williams,

in the State Department. You are focused on the building sides of

this whole issue of rightsizing.

And Mr. Nygard, you are here, I think, primarily because you are

a part of the State Department. We made you that, AID, and I

think there is probably some tension in terms of whether you

should be in your own separate place or part of State, and that’s

something that’s worked out by powers higher than you. But I

would be interested to know how you see AID and where it should

be, so I’m going to come to you first in my questioning.

And Ambassador Sigmund, you are here as your role as Inspector

General. Your people do a lot of post or mission visits. Is that correct?

Ms. SIGMUND. That’s correct, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. And you’re looking to see, you know, are things working. Even forgetting rightsizing, how are things going. You’re kind

of doing the audit. You are making, you are viewing the sites and

you’re looking at it from the standpoint of rightsizing.

Ms. SIGMUND. That’s correct. In fact, we have made rightsizing

one of the issues that we look at now at every post.

Mr. SHAYS. And Ambassador Itoh, you are here primarily, obviously, as part of Inspector General, but because of your being on

the President’s Advisory Panel. That’s kind of the perspective. So

when I ask you some questions, I want you to all feel free to jump

in from your perspective.

Mr. Nygard, if you would tell me, how is AID doing by State?

You have, for instance, a huge presence in South Africa. Huge is

a strong word. You have a very large presence. Is it the intent of

the State Department to kind of consider you as embassy employees and put you there? Are they saying we’re going to send you into

the field a little bit?

What can you tell me about that?

Mr. NYGARD. Well, I can tell you that in general, and in South

Africa in particular—South Africa is one of our largest missions; I

think we have 15 direct-hire Americans there.

So, huge is a relative term, but we also have a lot of the other

categories of employees that Ambassador Davis was talking about,

personal-services contractors, Foreign-Service nationals. I think

these days, post-1990’s, both the law and common sense tell us that

89

we should be collocated with the Department of State wherever

possible, largely for security reasons.

Obviously, AID goes back a long way. We started out as part of

State. In 1979 we were separated from State, and for the past 4

years we have been back a part of State. We have always been,

however, an instrument of U.S. foreign policy and see ourselves

very much as part of the Secretary’s team. We have some preferences on the part of individuals within AID that they’d rather be

outside, but I think our policy is clearly that we want to be part

of State’s operation overseas.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes, sir.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Chairman Shays, if I could just chime in from the

facilities side. You are absolutely right. USAID has a very large

presence in Africa. The two facilities that we just opened, which we

are very proud of, Dar es Salam in Tanzania, one of the largest

USAID facilities we have in recent times, was just opened at the

same time conjunctively with our new embassy opening.

We have plans but not the funds sorted out for Nairobi. We did

site work on the grounds, and we are waiting now just simply for

the funds, and we will do the same thing in Nairobi.

We have a similar situation—these are new facility I’m talking

about—in Kampala, Uganda, which was built over a year and a

half ago. We have site-prepped the grounds and landscaped and

masterplanned for a USAID facility, again waiting on funds. Six

other locations in Africa. South Africa, a new consulate going in

Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

Mr. SHAYS. But that are part of a compound?

Mr. WILLIAMS. These are separate buildings.

Mr. SHAYS. In the compound? Or——

Mr. WILLIAMS. On the compound with us.

Mr. SHAYS. See, I would think—and Mr. Nygard, you can tell

me—as a former Peace Corps volunteer, we were obviously attempting to do right by the countries that we served.

We knew that we were American citizens who were bringing the

ideals of our great country overseas and respecting the culture of

the people we were serving in, but we didn’t think of ourselves as

in a sense an instrument of our Foreign Policy. And there would

be a desire on the part of Peace Corps volunteers to be with the

men and women and children and so on that—the host country

folks, to be among them. I would think that the culture and idea

is somewhat similar.

Mr. NYGARD. I think the culture is somewhat similar, Mr. Chairman. I think we’ll probably find that almost a majority of our Foreign Service officers are former Peace Corps volunteers. So they

have the same background that you do in that respect.

However, I mentioned in my prepared statement that the size of

our overseas direct-hire staff, now, is just slightly more than half

of what it was 13 years ago. The result in part is that AID is not

really implementing programs. In other words our people, are not

out in the field as much as they used to be 15, 20 years ago, perhaps when you were overseas.

Mr. SHAYS. And so it’s the indigenous folk.

Mr. NYGARD. I beg your pardon?

90

Mr. SHAYS. It’s indigenous people that are there, basically the

host-country nationals that are basically carrying out the work?

Mr. NYGARD. We have a good number of indigenous host-country

private and voluntary organizations and firms. We also have a good

number of U.S. universities, PVO’s, contractors, companies working

for us——

Mr. SHAYS. Contractors.

Mr. NYGARD. Contractors. Who generally are not co-located with

us. One difference that we have from the embassy lately is that our

interests, as you say, is primarily in dealing with the people. Our

needs for security in terms of classified information are much less

than those of the State Department.

That is what bodes in terms of perhaps having a separate building in some cases on the embassy compound. And we’ve worked

very closely with General Williams and his staff to see the cases

where we can do that.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just be clear, Ambassador Davis. When I hear

the number 46,000 total, 19,000 American citizens, is that correct?

Ms. DAVIS. Sir, I was saying 19,000, it represents the number of

U.S. direct hire. That includes the other agencies as well.

Mr. SHAYS. Right. You anticipated my question. But does it also

include contractors?

Ms. DAVIS. No. Only U.S. direct hire.

Mr. SHAYS. And so whose obligation and security wise—and

housing wise we don’t have a challenge. Is that right, General? We

don’t have to house the contractors?

Mr. WILLIAMS. No.

Mr. SHAYS. But in terms of security, obviously American citizens

that have to be——

Ms. DAVIS. Falls under the responsibility of the Chief of Mission.

Mr. SHAYS. Right. But not your responsibility as head of personnel?

Ms. DAVIS. The security? No.

Mr. SHAYS. Yeah. The focus—well, even the contract. You don’t

interface directly or have control over the contractors?

Ms. DAVIS. No.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Ms. DAVIS. No.

Mr. SHAYS. I want to say Ms. Davis, Ambassador Davis, you kind

of won my heart early on by your answer to one of my questions:

Why has it taken so long to agree on a common set of criteria for

rightsizing? I love honest, succinct answers: It wasn’t a priority, it

is now. And that explains a lot. It got rid of a lot of questions I

wanted to ask you after that, I would like to know, why should

State incorporate the GAO rightsizing framework into its Mission

Performance Plan? That would be open, I guess, to you and the

General.

Ms. DAVIS. First of all, I would like to say that we obviously have

reviewed the plan, and we find it very useful. We find that it addresses with the three basic legs, which is: Mission, security, and

cost. It addresses issues that we are very interested in, and it also

addresses issues that our Chiefs of Missions just generally do address. Consequently, we have taken a look at the framework and

have utilized it to a certain extent in our Mission Program Plan.

91

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say, for our business, getting the seat number right from the beginning is really

what drives the size.

Mr. SHAYS. Getting the what? I’m sorry.

Mr. WILLIAMS. The seat. The presence number. Getting the number of personnel that’s going to be served at a particular post is absolutely paramount for our business, because it drives the size of

the building which ultimately drives the budget.

So we are very interested in getting the number of the population that is anticipated to be served rights in the beginning, so

that we can size and build a building correctly. Our formula today

is to build to the rightsize, and also build in some growth percentages so that, over time, if there are some tweaks to that number,

we can do that. So we are very interested in the whole issue of

rightsizing.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Would you explain to me how the State plans

to implement the GAO criteria? In other words, accepting it is one

thing, how does it get implemented?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, first of all, we would hope once the plan is

put in place we would use the results of this plan to ensure that

we—as I said—do that front end planning correctly, get in the

types and number of seats, whether they are unclassified or classified correct, so that we can size and build the building correctly.

Mr. SHAYS. Ambassador Davis, how would we be implementing

the GAO criteria? What would be a concrete way that you are

starting to do that?

Ms. DAVIS. We have included some of the elements in our Mission Performance Plan. A number of Chiefs of Missions have taken

a look at the framework, and they have said that, as a matter of

fact, it encompasses many of the issues that they have talked about

and studied in terms of developing the Mission Program Plan in

any event.

I think that what we are doing is our Resource Management bureau is taking a look at how it might be better incorporated into

the planning process.

Mr. SHAYS. How do we—and maybe Mr. Ford you would want to

jump in. How do you integrate the cost of security in the mission

between the tenants, for lack of another name, and the State Department? In other words, I can see the State Department using

this as a basis for their own allocation, but the 19,000 employees

include more than State. Correct? Ambassador Davis.

Ms. DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. And so you technically have about how much control

over—of the 19, only a third are approximately your State Department, you clearly have direct control over them. Describe to me

now what kind of control you would have on the two-thirds that

aren’t State.

Ms. DAVIS. OK. Sir, the Chief of Mission has a responsibility as

designated to the Chief of Mission by the President of the United

States in the President’s letter of instructions.

Mr. SHAYS. And we have a few Presidents—we have a few Presidents that have made that point.

Ms. DAVIS. Yes.

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Mr. SHAYS. But we don’t really have an example yet that it’s

been implemented, that part of it, control by State over the tenants

in a sense. In theory, it’s there. In practice, it’s not.

Ms. DAVIS. In theory it is there. The chief of mission is charged

with working with the various——

Mr. SHAYS. I know that. I visited with too many Ambassadors

and chiefs of missions, and they all make it very clear that in theory that is true, but, in fact, they don’t have day-to-day control.

They might have general——

Ms. DAVIS. That is correct.

Mr. SHAYS. They don’t know what they are doing. They don’t

know why they are there in some cases. You know, if we’re being—

in the spirit that you answered my question, you know, they don’t

know why they’re there. They assume that they’re doing some

good, and they know in many cases they are. There’s interaction

with State Department individuals and non-State. They interact,

but there’s no master plan where the Ambassador says, this is really great for my mission.

Ms. DAVIS. I guess there are two issues here, sir. No. 1, it would

be better if the Ambassadors were able to get on the NSDD–38

process earlier in the game. In many instances when people are assigned—when agencies wish to put new positions at the mission,

they have already run the request by OMB, and they’ve already received the funding for the position. So the chief of mission doesn’t

have very much say-so at that late stage of the game.

The other thing is that the chief of mission would benefit a great

deal if the chief of mission were able to designate that funding

from various programs from agencies be utilized, sort of the crossjurisdictional possibility of utilizing funding.

Mr. SHAYS. One of the things that I saw and my staff saw as well

was the fact that some of the tenants had greater resources than

others.

Ms. DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. So they could do things that their counterparts in

State couldn’t do and——

Ms. DAVIS. And the chief of mission does not have the authority

to say that if you have a healthy—more healthy amount of funds

than another agency or another program, then you can’t tell another agency that you’re going to reprogram some of those funds.

That’s the problem.

Mr. SHAYS. So my question was to you. Does the chief of mission

have the tools to properly rightsize his or her post? The answer, I

think, from your answers is no. I didn’t ask the question, but you

basically have answered that.

And what I would want to know is what authority does the chief

of mission have to have to prevent new staff from coming on post?

Ms. DAVIS. The authority is there. The authority is there in the

President’s letter and in the law, but in practice what happens is

that the chief of mission gets involved in the process at a later

date, once a number of decisions are already made back in Washington.

What the chief of mission needs is to be involved in the process

right up front. When agencies start to discuss new positions, before

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they get the OK of OMB and before they are included in the budgets, chiefs of missions should be consulted.

Mr. SHAYS. Would it be fair to say that a chief of mission has

the ability to remove someone from post who is State Department,

but really does not have the authority to move someone who is a

tenant?

Ms. DAVIS. Oh, you mean in terms of the position or in terms of

the person?

Mr. SHAYS. I have 400 employees in the embassy. I’m the Ambassador.

Ms. DAVIS. Uh-huh.

Mr. SHAYS. One-third are State. Two-thirds are non-State. They

are good government officials. They are Treasury. They are FBI.

They are Transportation. They are Agriculture. They are Justice

folks. They are Commerce. OK. They’re all there. Do I have the

ability to say that we don’t need any of these individuals and ask

them to leave?

Ms. DAVIS. NSDD–38 actually does provide for the reduction of—

the process through which a chief of mission would go to reduce the

staff at another agency.

Mr. SHAYS. Can you cite an example where you know this authority has been used?

Ms. DAVIS. To reduce the staff? No, I cannot.

Mr. SHAYS. Ambassador Itoh, tell me—this dialog that I’m having right now, tell me how you react to it, that we’re having with

this——

Mr. ITOH. Well, Mr. Chairman, in my prepared remarks, I think

I gave you a fairly upbeat assessment as an OPAP panel member

in terms of how well our recommendations across the board, have

been accepted, and certainly exceeded our expectations in many

areas. But I think one of the areas where we’ve been disappointed

is in rightsizing. As I suggested, I think that getting OMB involved

is certainly a good thing, and the State Department certainly is

taking this process much, much more seriously.

Mr. SHAYS. If I could interrupt you just for a second, I mean,

OMB would strike me as being key, because they basically have

budgetary oversight over all departments.

Mr. ITOH. That’s correct, and the fact that the administration has

chosen for OMB to get involved, I think, is a good development for

that reason. But our original OPAP recommendation was the creation of a committee which would be created by the President of

the United States and chaired by the Secretary of State, with all

of the major foreign policy agencies represented in this committee,

to review all staffing requirements worldwide and to determine appropriate levels of staffing and link those appropriate levels of

staffing directly to the international affairs strategic plan. That

was our goal.

We still feel like anything short of that probably is not going to

work, because much of what we’ve been talking about here is

rightsizing, but only involving the Department of State and maybe

a few other agencies that are willing to go along in the process. But

ultimately I would think that the process that we described back

in 1999, that the NSDD–38 structure was basically flawed or was

not working properly at that time, has not really changed funVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:49 Sep 29, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00097 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87701.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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damentally. We do have a much stronger letter from the President

in terms of underscoring chief of mission authority, but I think in

practical terms, rightsizing is really not going to work unless

you’ve got the authority from the very top, and judgments taken at

the very top, to determine what overseas our staffing should be.

I should just cite the example from my 3 years in Thailand. Certain agencies did not have a successful time in terms of going to

the Appropriations Committee and getting resources, and specifically the State Department, USAID and USIS, we found that staffing numbers went down considerably during that period of time.

On the other hand, law enforcement agencies were quite successful in making the argument to their committees that by stationing

people overseas, you were actually serving the best interest of the

American people by having those resources overseas.

So from an NSDD–38 perspective, and in my role as Ambassador, it was very, very difficult for us to assess those particular

requests.

Mr. SHAYS. You were an ambassador for how long in Thailand?

Mr. ITOH. Three years in Thailand.

Mr. SHAYS. And about how many of your—at the mission were

State Department employees there? About a third or——

Mr. ITOH. We had—at one point we had 570 authorized positions,

of which State Department had approximately 35 percent of those

positions.

Mr. SHAYS. Now, is it fair to say that you knew you had direct

control over that 35 percent, but that the others you were more in

a negotiating role?

Mr. ITOH. Well, I don’t think negotiating role is quite it. I think

it depends a lot on the individual Ambassador, and you are the

President’s representative and not just the State Department’s representative. But much of how it works on a practical basis is the

relationship that an ambassador establishes with the heads of the

different agencies at post, and I think Bangkok is a good example

of how you do get fairly good interagency cooperation on U.S. foreign policy goals such as counternarcotics.

On the other hand, it is very, very clear that since we don’t have

budget control over the other agencies that send their personnel to

post, you really don’t ultimately have control over the numbers.

You can make tactical arguments back and forth, but the reality

is that agencies that are able to make the case in terms of mission,

and are able to fund their positions overseas, are the ones that are

going to put their people overseas.

Mr. SHAYS. So you might have DEA officials, and they are

doing—and I think it’s important for the record to note they’re

doing very important roles; for instance, dealing with illegal drugs,

Treasury, illegal financing, commerce, promoting businesses, all of

those are noble. But did you feel intuitively that you had the right

combination, or did you feel that it was sometimes weighted toward

certain areas and not enough in other areas?

Mr. ITOH. Well, I think that what disturbed me was the fact that

while at that point we had arguably the second or third largest

U.S. embassy operating overseas, because we did a lot of functional

regional operations out of Bangkok, what was happening was that

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over time a lot of the tools of foreign policy that were engaging

with the public at large in Thailand were being cut back.

For example, 2 years before I arrived at post, we cut two of our

consulates, in Songkhla down south and in Udon in the north. We

also closed USAID’s bilateral mission in 1995, and in 1996 we went

ahead and closed the regional mission. We also closed our Cultural

Affairs Office in Chiang Mai. We also cut half of our U.S.-based

USIS information service people in the embassy in Bangkok.

Mr. SHAYS. USIS is——

Mr. ITOH. U.S. Information Agency Personnel.

Mr. SHAYS. Right. But is that under the State Department?

Mr. ITOH. Well, at that point they were not. My point is, is that

at a time when we were actually increasing law enforcement and

intelligence-gathering activities in Thailand, all of which were totally understandable and something that I supported, nonetheless

decisions were made in Washington, largely on budgetary reasons,

to cut personnel in individual agencies that could not sustain their

presence overseas. So the end result was that after a 4 or 5-year

period, we had a much different profile in Thailand than we started out with. And I would also argue that——

Mr. SHAYS. And that is in spite of the fact that they weren’t paying the true costs.

Mr. ITOH. That’s true.

Mr. SHAYS. And so if they were paying the true—I believe in the

concept of opportunity costs. I mean, you do one thing. And you

give up doing something else. And I do think cost is an important

factor in how much you value that activity. But at any rate, even

then given what we were doing in budgets, you were seeing some

reductions.

Mr. ITOH. Well, part of that, of course, is the function, as I suggested, of some agencies being more successful than others. At that

time the State Department was not doing well, and so one of the

arguments for closing our consulates and, in fact, reducing some of

our reporting positions, had to do with other priorities as we were

opening posts elsewhere.

So we ended up having after 4 or 5 years, I think, a much different kind of an embassy in terms of where our priorities were.

I guess the argument I would make about relating staffing to a

strategic plan is that I’m not entirely sure that we ended up where

our overall foreign policy interests are best served. Yet for a whole

variety of reasons, that’s what we ended up with, a much, much

different kind of embassy than we started 5 years before.

Mr. SHAYS. Anybody want to jump in before I get to another—

I won’t keep you much longer. Anybody want to comment on what

we talked about in the last few minutes?

How have staffing levels changed since the attacks on September

11th overseas?

Ms. DAVIS. There have been some changes, and basically those

changes are in the increase of other agencies overseas. The State

Department has grown as well, but the numbers—there’s not been

any sort of uncontrollable growth, I’d say, because the numbers

have stayed pretty stable. But the increase basically has been in

other agencies overseas because of issues such as the focus on

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counterterrorism, because of increasing demands on our consular

service for our border security and those types of issues.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m going to conclude when I do and ask what the

biggest obstacle is for rightsizing. And I’d like each of you to be

able to tell me what you think the biggest obstacles are. So I’d just

like you to think about that.

But let me—before I do that, I’d like to talk about the whole

issue of cost. Excuse me. I would like to first have some of you describe to me the tension between mission and security, and maybe,

General Williams, you could do this.

When you get in a dialog, when you look in an embassy, is your

first focus mission, or is your first focus security or what?

Mr. WILLIAMS. First of all, the foremost concern in our mind is

to build a secure facility for the number of people that we have

been told will occupy the facility. So our focus is to make absolutely

certain that the number that we provide in this secure facility is

right and then focus on doing a secure building.

Ms. DAVIS. I think the first focus would be on mission, because

if the mission does not fit into the priorities and the goals and objectives of U.S. foreign policy, then we don’t get as far as the security. So for me I think that mission is actually the first.

Mr. SHAYS. And then a higher power will resolve the differences,

right?

It’s fair to say, General, that there are some facilities that are

extraordinarily vulnerable, and it’s no secret. They are right along

major streets.

Mr. WILLIAMS. That is correct.

Mr. SHAYS. It makes me think when I’ve had dialog with some

of my constituents, as threatened as they feel and as concerned as

first responders are, there’s no question that in terms of a priority,

we still have a significant way to go with our embassies. Is that

not true?

Mr. WILLIAMS. That is correct. And, Congressman Shays, I would

just add this in. I travel an awful lot, and when we encounter a

particular facility that obviously is in harm’s way from a security

standpoint, we feel it’s our duty to come back and point this out

to our regional bureaus to make certain that we’re looking at this

in a holistic way. And there is dialog, and I might point out it’s

healthy dialog, that is taking place. So I think it’s working quite

well.

The CHAIRMAN. I’m going to try to finish up in the next 15 minutes.

Let me just be clear. We talked about costs. I’d like to—I’d like

to just make sure we have a little bit of a dialog about it. I’d like

to know what the unresolved issues in cost-sharing proposals, what

are the unresolved issues?

Mr. WILLIAMS. As it stands now, this—quite frankly I’m glad

to——

Mr. SHAYS. And I’m throwing this up to everybody, and I’m

happy to have you gentlemen jump in.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I’m happy to get to this one, Mr. Chairman, because I frankly believe that this gives us the best opportunity, I

think, to help the chief of mission and our Department get the

rightsizing, because if a tenant knows that before new additions or

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initial personnel are sent to a particular post, there’s a cost-sharing

mechanism in place, this makes the process ordered from the very

beginning. And one of the reasons now I think that it’s a little difficult to control is because the only effort involved here is to make

a request, and we think that this cost-sharing issue will do two

things. No. 1, it will put more money in the coffer to allow us to

move ahead and build facilities quicker and get out of harm’s way

and get this matter behind us that was identified——

Mr. SHAYS. Why do you think it would be quicker?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Pardon me, sir?

Mr. SHAYS. Why do you think it would be quicker?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, because if we’re able to implement the costsharing along the lines that we have suggested, the additional

funds that would be generated as a function of a tenant paying a

prorated share receipt and the type receipt, this would generate

more available funds per year in order to apply to the new embassy

construction.

Mr. SHAYS. Anybody else want to jump in?

Mr. FORD. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr.——

Mr. FORD. Ford, yeah.

I think some of the issues is the devil is in the details. I think

there’s a lot of unresolved issues based on what we’ve heard from

discussions with the General and with OMB on issues of how

you’re going to calculate cost-sharing, whether or not the tenants

will be able to secure funding from the various funding agencies

here and in Congress, the differentials in costs between, say, classified space and unclassified space. So there’s a lot of details to this

that I think are going to have to be worked out in order to create

an incentive for everybody to sign up to this.

Mr. SHAYS. And is this, in a sense, almost buying a space in a

condominium, or, in other words, once they’ve paid this cost, does

that entitle them to use this space indefinitely even if they don’t

need it? Or do they sell it? How does that work?

Mr. FORD. I think that is a possibility. We did some work recently with the Department of Agriculture in which they felt that

some residences that they had lived in for many, many, many years

should be managed by them instead of General Williams, and so

I think it’s a possibility that if someone feels like, hey, I paid my

fair share, therefore it’s my place, I can stay there forever, I think

that is an issue.

Mr. SHAYS. And that is not a healthy issue. It’s easier for us to

allocate cost in rented space; is that correct?

Mr. WILLIAMS. That is correct.

Mr. SHAYS. So why can’t we just determine the square footage

based on capital and just charge them a rent?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well——

Mr. SHAYS. I just think if you start getting them to pay the capital costs, you end up with some challenges in the future.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, we have looked at this, Mr. Chairman, very,

very hard. We’ve had the support and the advice of our industry

advisory panel which helps us along these lines, and they suggested very strongly that we stay away from the rent type of concept and deal with a sharing formula that was very simple to imVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:49 Sep 29, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00101 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87701.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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plement on seats. If you require—in the case of USAID—a certain

type of space which would be an unclassified space primarily in the

USAID situation, it’s only fair to charge USAID for what they’re

really buying, and that’s an unclassified seat.

On the other hand, if the Department of Defense, my old world,

require classified space, and most of them do, then you pay a prorated share for that.

Mr. SHAYS. That part I understand, I truly understand, but I—

and I don’t want to have to spend the time of the hearing to really—it’s just a question that we won’t probably resolve now. I just—

it seems to me having these various departments and agencies almost have ownership creates problems in the future and takes

away even more—takes away even more control from State.

I would—maybe I could just ask our Inspector General to comment, or maybe even AID would like to comment based on past experience, or Mr. Ambassador Itoh. Does it make sense to try to

have them capitalize the cost, or does it make—and to basically feel

like they’ve bought a part of the facility, or does it make better

sense to have them be paying a cost of what would be a square

footage cost in any other building?

Mr. ITOH. Actually, in the OPAP recommendations, we actually

recommended both. We thought that there should be rent, in other

words, a situation similar to what GSA does domestically in the

United States, and that there also should be an assessment for future capital construction, particularly to meet the security requirements that we were faced with in this building campaign.

The other interesting point in our discussions is that we felt that

by moving these costs to all of the agencies with personnel overseas, that in fact they would then have to go to all of their subcommittees to make the case that the costs associated with their

presence overseas was going to be considerably more than it had

been in the past, and we thought that was a good thing, because

it would actually involve a broader sector of the Congress, an effort

to understand exactly what all these agencies——

Mr. SHAYS. But what you’re describing is, to me, making sure we

identify the true costs and have them pay the true costs.

Let me ask each of you what has been, in your judgment, the

largest obstacle to meaningful rightsizing in the Federal Government? Why don’t I start with you, Ambassador Itoh.

Mr. ITOH. Well, I think to me the answer is really leadership and

the commitment of leadership to be able to accomplish this. This

is not an easy task, particularly the rightsizing concept, and I must

say that while we did come together with a suggestion that there

be an interagency committee on rightsizing created by the President, and chaired by the Secretary of State, getting that to a point

in reality, we all recognize, is a very, very difficult undertaking.

But I think what needs to be done is just as in the State Department, I think the Secretary of State and certainly General Williams have demonstrated that the engagement of the leadership at

the very top on management issues like this really makes the difference. I’m a little worried, quite frankly about what happens if

General Williams decides to leave us any time soon, because I hope

that what we’ve been able to create under his leadership can be

sustained over time. I think the point is——

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Mr. SHAYS. Not to knock heads together.

Mr. ITOH. Exactly.

But the point is I think it takes a commitment of leadership at

the very top to be able to accomplish these very, very difficult undertakings.

Ms. SIGMUND. I also think that Ambassador Davis was correct in

that rightsizing has to be made a priority. I think in principle our

chiefs of mission have been empowered to engage in rightsizing

through the NSDD–38 process, but in practice they haven’t been,

and all too often we find that through the use of TDY processes or

through assigning Americans directly to a host government entity,

that NSDD rightsizing instrument is weakened considerably. All

too often Ambassadors get last-minute notification that personnel

will be arriving, and it’s a tradeoff at that point between implementing important programs or refusing personnel who have been

identified as being in the national interest, and that’s a lot of pressure to put on an ambassador. He needs to be in the process at the

beginning, and he needs to be truly empowered to make those

rightsizing decisions.

Mr. SHAYS. If I had said he, my wife would have questioned me

right away. So it was really fun for me to have that opportunity.

Thank you.

Mr. Nygard.

Mr. NYGARD. I would say leadership, too, Mr. Chairman. I guess

it’s not so much the case with USAID, but for the other Cabinet

agencies who are overseas, who belive their missions are different

from that of the Department of State. I think the exercise that

OMB is now going to be going through on rightsizing that will involve not only the Department and us, but the other agencies as

well will bring a new equality or equity, if you will, to the

rightsizing process. And the fact that the administration has taken

this one on and is prepared to run with it, I think, gives us the

first hope that it really will be a priority, as Ambassador Davis

said earlier. That’s been the problem.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Without question, Chairman, it’s leadership and

the general acceptance of reality. We simply have to do something

different and pronounced that will allow us to get out of this fix.

Ms. DAVIS. I would agree with all of my colleagues. I would simply add that I think one of the blocks to appropriate rightsizing is

the attitude that rightsizing means downsizing, and that is a dangerous proposition. Rightsizing does not, as the counsel said earlier

in his presentation, mean downsizing.

Mr. SHAYS. I figured out why I have an affection for you, Ambassador and General, because my first contact with the State Department, I felt they spoke in tongues. And I can actually understand

what you men and women are saying to me, which is wonderful.

I hope it spreads.

Mr. Ford.

Mr. FORD. I’m with everyone else on the panel. I think you have

to have leadership, you have to have commitment, and we’ve got

to create some incentives for all of the agencies that post people

overseas to want to do this. And I think that’s going to be the big

hurdle, because the Ambassadors clearly don’t have the wherewithal or the interest in pursuing this, and unless we get somebody

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at a fairly high level, be it the Secretary of State or OMB, to really

force this issue and make it sustained—because I’m afraid, you

know, these things can come and go, there’s not a sustained level

of effort here—then I’m afraid that the fruits of labor are not going

to carry—be carried on in this program.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m very impressed with all of you and feel we’re very

fortunate as a country to have your service. So I thank you for

that. I’d allow you to—encourage you to make any closing comment. Is there anything that we need to put on the record we

haven’t put on the record that you feel should be put on the record?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I would just like to leave, Mr. Chairman, with one

point, because it’s very significant and has so much linkage to this

difficult situation and discussion we have had today.

I think the fact that we have worked hard and put in place with

great support from our Secretary of State—he’s been leading the

battle here—to put in place a framework now, framework for our

government to get out of this situation that the OPAP so rightly

pointed out, that we try our very best to make this go.

I will commit to work as hard as I can, as I’ve done for the last

2 years, to try to point this in the proper direction. It’s a lot of work

to be done, and I appreciate the support of the Congress to date,

and I hope that we can continue to have the support to stay the

course.

Mr. SHAYS. Any other comments?

Well, the promise is if we do it right, we may have more or less

people working, but they will—we will have used our resources better. We’ll be better focused. We’ll be better able to protect them,

and the mission of our government will make a lot more sense. It’s

clearly a task that we should all want to do, and I think that we

are seeing that leadership, and we are seeing that priority being

given. And we’re also seeing it being backed up with, I think, very

outstanding employees who want to make it work.

So with that, we will adjourn this hearing. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 3:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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