Monthly Archives: June 2014

A Blackwater Warning Before the Nisour Square Shooting and the State Dept’s Non-Response

June 30, 2014 By in Diplomatic Security, Foreign Service, FSOs, Govt Documents, Huh? News, Leadership and Management, Org Life, Realities of the FS, Security, Staffing the FS, State Department, Top Ranks, U.S. Missions, US Embassy Baghdad, War Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

— Domani Spero
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A James Risen  scoop over in NYT on how a warning on Blackwater in Iraq prior to the 2007 Nisour Square shooting that killed 17 civilians was ignored by the State Department. Quick excerpt:

State Department investigators arrived in Baghdad on Aug. 1, 2007, to begin a monthlong review of Blackwater’s operations, the situation became volatile. Internal State Department documents, which were turned over to plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Blackwater that was unrelated to the Nisour Square shooting, provide details of what happened.

It did not take long for the two-man investigative team — Mr. Richter, a Diplomatic Security special agent, and Donald Thomas Jr., a State Department management analyst — to discover a long list of contract violations by Blackwater.
[…]
The armored vehicles Blackwater used to protect American diplomats were poorly maintained and deteriorating, and the investigators found that four drunk guards had commandeered one heavily armored, $180,000 vehicle to drive to a private party, and crashed into a concrete barrier.
[…]
The investigators concluded that Blackwater was getting away with such conduct because embassy personnel had gotten too close to the contractor.
[…]
The next day, the two men met with Daniel Carroll, Blackwater’s project manager in Iraq, to discuss the investigation, including a complaint over food quality and sanitary conditions at a cafeteria in Blackwater’s compound. Mr. Carroll barked that Mr. Richter could not tell him what to do about his cafeteria, Mr. Richter’s report said. The Blackwater official went on to threaten the agent and say he would not face any consequences, according to Mr. Richter’s later account.

Mr. Carroll said “that he could kill me at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,” Mr. Richter wrote in a memo to senior State Department officials in Washington. He noted that Mr. Carroll had formerly served with Navy SEAL Team 6, an elite unit.
[…]
On Oct. 5, 2007, just as the State Department and Blackwater were being rocked by scandal in the aftermath of Nisour Square, State Department officials finally responded to Mr. Richter’s August warning about Blackwater. They took statements from Mr. Richter and Mr. Thomas about their accusations of a threat by Mr. Carroll, but took no further action.

Condoleezza Rice, then the secretary of state, named a special panel to examine the Nisour Square episode and recommend reforms, but the panel never interviewed Mr. Richter or Mr. Thomas.

Patrick Kennedy, the State Department official who led the special panel, told reporters on Oct. 23, 2007, that the panel had not found any communications from the embassy in Baghdad before the Nisour Square shooting that raised concerns about contractor conduct.

“We interviewed a large number of individuals,” Mr. Kennedy said. “We did not find any, I think, significant pattern of incidents that had not — that the embassy had suppressed in any way.”

Read in full Mr. Risen’s piece, Before Shooting in Iraq, a Warning on Blackwater.

Click here for text of the teleconference call on October 23, 2007 with then State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack and Ambassador Patrick F. Kennedy on the Report of the Secretary of State’s Panel on Personal Protective Services in Iraq. The Q and A below:

QUESTION: Hi, this is Brian Bennett from Time magazine. I’m wondering in these reviews — why this review wasn’t done earlier, complaints about contractor conduct have been relayed to Ambassador Khalilzad, tocharge d’affaires Margaret Scobey, to Ambassador Crocker. And I’m wondering if in looking into this you had found any communiqus that have gone out of the Embassy into main State in the months prior to the September 16th incident about concerns about contractor conduct and why wasn’t – why it took an event like September 16th for these concerns to be addressed?

AMBASSADOR KENNEDY: We — when you look through the report you’ll see that we interviewed a large number — large number of individuals. We did not find any, I think, significant pattern of incidents that had not — that the Embassy had suppressed in any way. No one told us that they had — that they had made reports to the Embassy that had been suppressed.

 

Also see the  Implementation of Recommendations from the Secretary of State’s Report on Personal Protective Service Details

We found the Panel’s 2007 report (see below).  The Panel was composed of Eric Boswell, George Joulwan, J. Stapleton Roy and Patrick F. Kennedy.  Appended at the end of the report are the list of interviewees, which includes the acting RSO named in the NYT report. It does not, however, include the names of  the Blackwater project manager, or  Jean C. Richter, the Diplomatic Security special agent nor Donald Thomas Jr., the State Department management analyst.  According to the NYT, Mr. Richter and Mr. Thomas declined to comment for its article.

Mr. Richter’s report that the private security firm’s manager there had threatened to kill him, an episode that  occurred just weeks before Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square is available here via NYT.    We note also that Ambassador Kennedy was appointed Under Secretary of State for Management (M)  on November 6, 2007. Prior to assuming his position as “M,” he was Director of the Office of Management Policy, Rightsizing, and Innovation (M/PRI) from May 2007.

Read the Secretary of State’s Report on Personal Protective Service Details from 2007:

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The Cautionary Tale of Raymond Maxwell: When the Bureaucracy Bites, Who Gets The Blame?

June 30, 2014 By in Controversies, FSOs, Govt Documents, Grievance, Hall of Shame, Hillary Clinton, John F. Kerry, Leadership and Management, Lessons, Org Culture, Org Life, Public Service, Realities of the FS, Retirement, Spectacular, State Department Tags: , , , , , ,

— Domani Spero
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Last week, we posted a Snapshot: State Dept Key Offices With Security and Related Admin Responsibilities and wondered why Raymond Maxwell’s former office as Deputy Assistant Secretary at the NEA Bureau did not get an organizational box. Our readers here may recall that Mr. Maxwell was one of the bureaucratic casualties of Benghazi.  Diplomatic Security officials Eric Boswell, Charlene Lamb, Steve Bultrowicz and NEA official, Raymond Maxwell were placed on paid administrative leave on December 19, 2012 following the release of the ARB Benghazi Report. On August 20, 2013, all four officials were ordered to return to duty. Mr. Maxwell officially retired from the State Department on November 30, 2013. Prior to his retirement he filed a grievance case with HR where it was denied and appealed the case to the Foreign Service Grievance Board where it was considered “moot and thus denied in its entirety.”

Our blog post last week, also received the following comment from Mr. Maxwell:

“[M]y grievance was found to have no merit by HR, and earlier this month, the FSGB found that the State Department made no errors in the way I was removed from my position, shamed and humiliated in the press, and placed on admin leave for nine months, Further, the FSGB found that I was not entitled to the public apology I sought in my grievance because I had retired. I have two options now. I can spend a great deal of money suing the Department in local courts, or I can let it go and move on with my life. My choice of the latter option neither erases the Department’s culpability in a poorly planned and shoddily executed damage control exercise, nor protects future foreign service officers from experiencing a similar fate. There is no expectation of due process for employees at State, no right to privacy, and no right to discovery.”

We spent the weekend hunting down Mr. Maxwell’s grievance case online; grievants’ names are redacted from the FSGB cases online. When we finally found it, we requested and was granted Mr. Maxwell’s permission to post it online.

The Maxwell case teaches us a few hard lessons from the bureaucracy and none of them any good. One, when you fight city hall, you eventually get the privilege to leave the premises. Two, when you’re run over by a truckload of crap, it’s best to play dead; when you don’t, a bigger truckload of crap is certain to run you over a second or third time to make sure you won’t know which crap to deal with first. But perhaps, the most disappointing lesson of all — all the good people involved in this shameful treatment of a public servant  — were just doing … just doing their jobs and playing their roles in the proper functioning of the service. No one stop and said, wait a minute …. They tell themselves this was such a  sad, sad case; they feel sorry for how “Ray” was treated. It’s like when stuff happens, or when it falls — se cayó. No one specific person made it happen; the Building made them do it. The deciding officials apparently thought, “This was not an easy matter with an easy and obvious resolution.” Here — have a drink, it’ll make you feel better about looking the other away.  See he was “fired” but he wasn’t really fired.  He was prevented from entering his old office, and then not really. Had he kept quiet and did not write those poems …who knows, ey …

We’re embedding two documents below –1) Maxwell’s FSGB case, also available online here (pdf); and 2) an excerpt from the Oversight Committee report that focused on Mr. Maxwell’s  alleged “fault” over Benghazi. Just pray that this never happens to you.

 

 

Below excerpted from the House Oversight Committee report on ARB Benghazi:

 

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US Embassy Peru: The Ghost of Ambassador Past

June 27, 2014 By in Ambassadors, Career Employees, Foreign Service, FSOs, Govt Documents, Leadership and Management, Realities of the FS, Staffing the FS, State Department, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , , , ,

— Domani Spero
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State/OIG recently posted its inspection report of the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru with 30 recommendations and 33 informal recommendations. The inspection took place in Washington, DC, between January 6 and February 4, 2014, and in Lima, Peru, between February 5 and March 4, 2014. Ambassador Gene Christy (team leader), Leslie Gerson (deputy team leader), Thomas Allsbury, Laurent Charbonnet, Eric Chavera, Leo Hession, Tracey Keiter, Keith Powell, Ashea Riley, Richard Sypher, Alexandra Vega, Steven White, Roman Zawada, and Barbara Zigli conducted the inspection.

According to the OIG report, Peru is the world’s largest producer of cocaine and the second largest cultivator of coca. The current Peruvian administration has reportedly elevated combatting narcotics production and trafficking to a “national security” priority. Embassy Lima’s priorities are “to support the Government of Peru to defeat narcotics and terrorist organizations; increase trade, investment, economic growth, and social development; and protect the country’s unique environmental resources.”

Mission Peru is a large operation with more than 900 employees as of December 2013. Post is headed by Chargé d’Affaires Michael J. Fitzpatrick who arrived in August 2011 and Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Jeffrey M. Hovenier who arrived in July 2011.  The name of the previous ambassador, a career FSO who previously served as ambassador at another WHA post was politely omitted from the report.

On June 19, 2014, career diplomat, Brian Nichols was confirmed by the Senate as the next ambassador to Peru.  This is his first ambassadorial appointment.  He was previously DCM at US Embassy Bogota and the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. He served at Embassy Lima as a first tour officer in 1989. We hope he can pull this mission together. Pardon me?  The mission doesn’t need to be pulled together, just the Front Office?

Below are some of its key judgments from the IG report:

  •  In the past 3 years, Embassy Lima registered many successes in building a strategic United States-Peru partnership, particularly in counternarcotics, trade promotion, security, law enforcement, good governance, and development.
  • The political and economic sections produce relevant and high-quality reporting that is instrumental to Washington policy making.
  • The previous Ambassador put into place many processes and practices that had a negative effect on embassy morale. The chargé d’affaires and acting deputy chief of mission hesitated for months to make changes to improve the mission’s working environment but began to do so recently.
  • The public affairs section should establish clearer priorities and exert stronger missionwide leadership on long-term public diplomacy planning.
  • The management section can improve its generally good service by emphasizing communication with other agencies and offices that rely on the procurement, motor pool, and travel units.
  • The consular workload is growing steadily, and section leadership needs to improve work flow, efficiency, officer training, and the warden system.

Leadership Style, Morale and Paperwork Gone Nuts

  • Embassy Lima did not have a Senate-confirmed ambassador in place at the time of the inspection. After the previous Ambassador’s departure in September 2013, the deputy chief of mission (DCM) became chargé d’affaires, and the head of the mission’s international narcotics and law enforcement affairs (INL) section became acting DCM. Under the previous Ambassador, the mission convinced the Department and highest levels of the U.S. Government to work with President Humala, [REDACTED] (b) (5). Working closely with Peruvian Government, business, and civil society leaders, the mission racked up successes in the pursuit of counternarcotics and antiterrorism goals, in advancing trade growth under the bilateral trade agreement, and in building a strategic partnership. The chargé and acting DCM have sustained this momentum.
  • Initially, the chargé and acting DCM adopted caretaker roles in anticipation of the Ambassador-designate’s quick arrival. Neither of them felt empowered to make significant changes, nor did they want to adopt changes only to make additional ones or reverse others after the new Ambassador’s arrival. By November 2013, they realized their new leadership duties would extend for an indeterminate period.
  • Unfortunately, the previous Ambassador’s policy successes were overshadowed within the mission by a leadership style that negatively affected morale. Uncertain about their tenures and in some cases not fully aware of the effects of the previous Ambassador’s leadership style, the chargé and acting DCM kept in place most internal processes and a few problematic behaviors. Some of these continued to damage internal communications and morale. For example, many mission staff reported that the former Ambassador occasionally criticized and belittled certain section chiefs and agency heads in front of their peers. Onerous and excessive paperwork processes impeded communication. The amount of time and energy required to move memoranda through the front office, as well as insistence on letter-perfect products—even for materials intended solely for internal use—discouraged initiative and information sharing.
  • Mission staff noted front office reliance on a group of trusted mission leaders. Others not in the favored category were more likely to receive attention to weaknesses rather than strengths or potential. The President’s letter of instruction to chiefs of mission states that one of the Ambassador’s most important jobs is “to take care of our diplomatic personnel and to ensure that they have the tools they need to support your efforts.” Other Department guidance speaks to the role of Ambassadors and DCMs in establishing a productive workplace. The impact of the negative environment and uneven attention paid to human capital development is evident in lower-than-average scores for mission morale in pre-inspection surveys.
  • Mission staff told inspectors they had expected the caretaker leaders to eliminate some of the worst practices and processes of the previous 3 years. Comments to the OIG team indicated that those expectations were unmet. Mission staff evaluations of the chargé’s and acting DCM’s management and leadership skills were significantly below the averages of other recently inspected chiefs of mission and DCMs. By hesitating to make immediate changes, particularly in workflow and decisionmaking, the chargé and acting DCM became targets for employees’ frustrations. The OIG team counseled and encouraged mission leaders to institute some changes in behaviors and practices. Near the inspection’s end, the chargé acknowledged leadership shortcomings to the country team and began instituting welcome changes.
  • In addition, many staff members remarked that the atmosphere at meetings detracted from communication. Public criticism, excessive demand for detail, and primary focus on front office activities stifled information sharing and initiative taking among country team members. Some participants restricted their communication during country team meetings, because new ideas usually generated taskings and the attendant, onerous paperwork requirements. Paperwork served as a barrier to communication, not a facilitator, and stymied the kinds of informal communication and quick, issue-focused meetings common in most embassies. Even before the inspection, the chargé and acting DCM increased their access to mission staff. During the inspection, the chargé announced that the front office would relax requirements for information memoranda and welcome more casual, on-the-spot conversations to facilitate decisionmaking.
  • To manage the intense paperwork requirements under the former Ambassador, the mission established an informal staff assistant position that drew consular section and USAID first- and second-tour (FAST) employees to the front office for 3-month rotations. Staffing the position put pressure on both the consular section and the USAID mission, especially when they were shorthanded. Moreover, short rotations forced mission staff to adapt to a series of new staff assistants, who were learning on the job. In 2012, the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs denied the embassy’s request to establish a full-time staff assistant position. The OIG team discussed with the chargé how other similarly sized missions have relied successfully on experienced Foreign Service office management specialists to take on staff assistant duties.

 

One Mission, Kinda

  • In 2011, the Secretary of Defense appointed a new senior Defense officer and Defense attaché  (SDO/DATT) and designated him as the principal Department of Defense (DOD) official at the embassy and his representative to the Ambassador and Government of Peru. The previous Ambassador dealt separately and equally with the mission’s several different DOD elements and sometimes excluded the SDO/DATT from meetings with other DOD components. Recently, the mission prepared a briefing book for the Ambassador-designate. The coordinator of the process tasked each DOD element for separate briefing papers. Failure to recognize the Secretary of Defense’s designation of a SDO/DATT contravened the instruction of the Deputy Secretary of State and disempowered the SDO/DATT.
  • Under the former Ambassador, the Foreign Commercial Service, Foreign Agricultural Service, and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service attachés routed written communications through the economic counselor. In some cases, they believed they were required to report to the front office through him. That practice was still in effect at the time of the inspection. These procedures diminish the attachés’ ability to represent their respective agencies.

 

Feeding the Fish

  • Public Affairs:  The public affairs section runs an extensive set of programs tied to mission themes, but the public affairs officer has been unable to exert strong missionwide leadership on long-term public diplomacy planning. Several factors contributed to this situation–an intimidating atmosphere in embassy meetings resulting in a hesitancy to take ownership of strategic messaging, distractions caused by time-consuming front office demands, and a dearth of experienced officers in the section.
  • Consular:  Consular managers are approachable and emphasize teamwork, but they have not uniformly provided the strategic thinking, procedural guidance, and surge capacity that the section needed to be optimally effective. The consul general and the visa chief have dedicated so much effort responding to detailed front office requests for information that they have not paid enough attention to daily operations. Even absent front office demands, their hands-off management style has prevented them from identifying procedural efficiencies, providing training and feedback for nonimmigrant visa interviewing officers, and modeling interview techniques.The consul general and the visa chief rarely adjudicate visa applications, except for high-profile or referral cases. A recent cable (13 STATE 153746) reminded posts that consular managers are expected to do some interviewing themselves. Not only does the lack of hands-on participation contribute to the long hours that the more junior staff has to spend interviewing, this remoteness from actual processing undermines their credibility as experts. It also reduces the opportunities for management to train new personnel and to identify potential interview technique and workflow efficiencies.
  • EEO: Although grievance procedures are displayed on some chancery bulletin boards, many locally employed staff indicated that they are unfamiliar with their rights under the program and reluctant to voice their concerns. The former Ambassador’s aloofness with regard to locally employed staff and their awareness of the impact of some of her behaviors on American supervisors has also affected willingness to raise workplace issues.

 

We should note that Embassy Lima has 29 First and Second Tour (FAST) employees.  This includes Foreign Service FSOs, specialists and FAST USAID mission staff.   Which is to say that their first or second tour exposure to an embassy environment now includes a leadership style that negatively affected mission morale, experience with ineffective communication, intense “paperworking,” dedicated feeding of the front office and if “lucky,” experience as the preferred “golden children”of mission leaders.

We highlight for scrutiny the chiefs of mission leadership and management of our diplomatic mission in these OIG reports because we believe they are leaders by example. For good or bad.  They can make or break a post.  Most importantly for career ambassadors — even the poorly performing ones have been known to be thrown quietly into the State Department’s Recycle Program.  Before you know it, you see him or her again at other posts providing leadership and management expertise, interpersonal skills and um … creativity — to the point where post needs a misery differential.

Probably the most impressive item in this report is that the previous ambassador departed post reportedly in September 2013 and four months later during the IG inspection, her ghost still haunted embassy operation.  Since she’s not even named in this report, there is no danger that this OIG report would merit a mention in her Certificate of Competency the next time she is nominated for a chief of mission position.

Oh, you think things will get better?

According to the GAO, the OIG is  supposed to inspect each overseas post once every 5 years; however, due to resource constraints, the OIG Office of Inspections has not done so. Thanks Congress!  The OIG Office of Inspections has conducted inspections in an average of 24 countries per year (including all constituent posts within each country) in fiscal years 2010 through 2013. Given their limited resources, according to OIG officials, they have prioritized higher-risk posts — which probably means more NEA, SCA, AF and less EAP, EUR, WHA post inspections.

As well, State/OIG had terminated its “report cards” for ambassadors and senior officials at inspected diplomatic missions. So inspections are only conducted maybe once every five years. And if post does get inspected, the OIG no longer issue its Inspector’s Evaluation Reports  (IER) for any deficient  performance by chief of mission, dcm or other senior officials. (see IERs: We’re Not Doing ‘Em Anymore, We’re Doing Something Better — Oh, Smashing, Groovy!).

So — enjoy the gummy bites!

gummy-bears-o

Gummy Bears by Dentt42 via GIFsoup.com

 

Related item:

-06/30/14   Inspection of Embassy Lima, Peru (ISP-I-14-12A)  [465 Kb]

 

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We’re Sending This ‘We Meant Well’ Career Diplomat as Ambassador to Qatar

June 27, 2014 By in Ambassadors, Diplomatic History, Foreign Service, FSOs, Govt Documents, Leadership and Management, Org Culture, Realities of the FS, Staffing the FS, State Department, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , , ,

— Domani Spero
[twitter-follow screen_name=’Diplopundit’ ]

 

This week, we blogged about the former AFSA presidents asking the Senate to postpone consideration of FSO Dana Shell Smith’s nomination as ambassador to Qatar until the Foreign Service Grievance Board (FSGB) has made a decision in the case related to Ms. Smith and Susan Johnson, another senior FSO and the immediate past president of the organization (see Former AFSA Presidents to SFRC: Delay Approval for FSO Dana Smith as Qatar Ambassador).

On the same day, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) cleared Ms. Smith’s nomination for the Senate’s full vote.  We’ve covered these nominations long enough to understand that the Senate seldom ever listen to the concerns of constituents unless they are aligned to the senators’ self-interest or their pet items.

  • In 2012, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) announced his intent to oppose the nominees for WHA, including the nominee for Ecuador, Adam Namm due to what he called this Administration’s policy towards Latin America defined by “appeasement, weakness and the alienation of our allies.”  He was eventually confirmed.
  • On December 15, 2011, 36 conservative foreign policy experts have written to ranking senators to plead for the confirmation of Matthew Bryza as ambassador to Azerbaijan to no avail. WaPo  nominated two senators, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) who placed a hold on the Bryza nomination with the Most Craven Election-Year Pandering at the Expense of the National Interest Award.  Ambassador Bryza eventually quit the Foreign Service and became the Director of the International Centre for Defence Studies in Tallinn, Estonia.
  • In April this year, fifteen former presidents of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA)wrote a letter to Senate leaders calling for the rejection of three nominees for ambassadorships: George Tsunis (Norway); Colleen Bell (Hungary) and Noah Mamet (Argentina).  All these nominees have now been endorsed by the SFRC and are awaiting full Senate vote. The only nomination that could potentially be in real trouble is Tsunis. Minnesota Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken have said they oppose his nomination.  Apparently, every member of the Minnesota U.S. House delegation signed  a letter to President Obama asking him to rescind his nomination of GeorgeTsunis as ambassador to Norway.  Why Minnesota? It is home to the largest Norwegian-American population in the United States.So is this nomination dead?  Nope. If the Democrats in the Senate vote for Tsunis without the Klobuchar and Franken votes, he could still get a simple majority, all that’s required for the confirmation. Correction (h/t Mike D:  Senators Tim Johnson (D-SD) is on the record here opposing the Tsunis nomination.  Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) said she, too, will not support the Tsunis nomination. So if all the Democrats in the Senate  minus the four senators vote in favor of the Tsunis nomination, that’ll be 49 votes, two vote short of a simple majority.  Let’s see what happens.

So, back to Ms. Smith, the State Department nominee as ambassador to Qatar. We think she will eventually be confirmed.  Her ‘Certificate of Competency” posted online says:

Dana Shell Smith, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, currently serves as Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the Department of State. Known as a linguistic, cultural and policy expert on the Middle East, she understands the region well and can effectively present major U.S. policy issues to diverse audiences. Her leadership, management and public affairs expertise, as well as her interpersonal skills and creativity, will enable her to advance bilateral relations with the Government of Qatar, an important U.S. partner in managing the problems of the Middle East.

Dang! That is impressive but it missed an important accomplishment.

Until her nomination as Ambassador to Qatar, Dana Smith Ms. Smith served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Public Affairs (2011-2014).  Does that ring a bell?  Oh, how quickly we forget. Ms. Smith was the PA official who told Peter Van Buren’s book publisher, Macmillan, that the Department has “recently concluded that two pages of the book manuscript we have seen contain unauthorized disclosures of classified information” in We Meant Well. (See “Classified” Information Contained in We Meant Well – It’s a Slam Dunk, Baby!).

What did she actually tell MacMillan?  Let’s take a look:

 

Screen Shot 2014-06-25

click here to see entire letter (pdf)

 

This boo! strategy may be creative but also oh, so…. so… amateurish. Who thought Macmillan would buy this scaredy tactic?  Perhaps they should have threatened to buy all the copies and burn them all.  The really funny ha!ha! part about this is despite the charge that the book contained “unauthorized disclosures of classified information” the formal State Department charges filed against Mr. Van Buren did not mention this and he was officially retired with full benefits. (See  After a Year of Serious Roars and Growls, State Dept Officially Retires FSO-Non Grata Peter Van Buren).

We Meant Well is now on second edition on paperback and hardback.  We understand that the book is also used as a text at colleges and at various US military schools but not/not at the Foreign Service Institute.  This past April, Mr. Van Buren also published his new book, Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99Percent. As Iraq falls apart, we thought we’d check on Mr. Van Buren. He told us there is no truth to the rumor that he will retitle WMW to “I Told You So.”

This is an old story, of course, that folks would like to forget.  Dirty laundry aired so publicly, ugh!  So most people have moved on, got awards, promotions, moved houses, new jobs, and sometimes, they may even end up as ambassador to places where people express dissent only in whispers and always off the record.

Perfection in the universe.

 

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Confirmations: Stuart Jones (Iraq), Robert Beecroft (Egypt), Thomas P. Kelly III (Djibouti

June 26, 2014 By in Ambassadors, Confirmations, Congress, FSOs, Iraq, Staffing the FS, U.S. Missions, US Embassy Baghdad, US Embassy Egypt Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

— Domani Spero
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That did not take long.  On June 25, the SFRC cleared President Obama’s nominees for Iraq and Egypt.  Today, the U.S. Senate confirmed the nominees for those two posts:

Stuart E. Jones, of Virginia, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Iraq; Confirmed: 93-0

Robert Stephen Beecroft, of California, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Arab Republic of Egypt (voice vote)

Yesterday, the Senate also confirmed the nomination of our next ambassador to Djibouti:

Thomas P. Kelly III, of California, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Djibouti.

 

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Snapshot: State Dept Key Offices With Security and Related Admin Responsibilities

June 26, 2014 By in Diplomatic Security, FSOs, Govt Documents, Leadership and Management, Realities of the FS, Security, State Department, Top Ranks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

— Domani Spero
[twitter-follow screen_name=’Diplopundit’ ]

 

Via GAO

Screen Shot 2014-06-26

Extracted from DIPLOMATIC SECURITY | Overseas Facilities May Face Greater Risks Due to Gaps in Security-Related Activities, Standards, and Policies – GAO-14-655 June 2014 (click on image for larger view)

This is an excellent infographic but alas, we could not locate  former NEA DAS Raymond Maxwell’s office in this organizational chart.

 

Related post:

 

 

 

 

 

 

SFRC Clears Ambassadorial Nominees for South Korea, Honduras, Qatar, Egypt, Iraq, Vietnam, Algeria

June 25, 2014 By in Ambassadors, Appointments, Foreign Service, FSOs, Nominations, Obama, Political Appointees, SFRC Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

— Domani Spero
[twitter-follow screen_name=’Diplopundit’ ]

 

On June 24, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) cleared the nominations of the following nominees as ambassadors to South Korea, Honduras, Qatar, Egypt, Iraq, Vietnam, and Algeria. It also cleared the nomination for the next Director of the Office of Foreign Missions.  The nominees will now join the long list of Obama nominees awaiting their confirmation.

 

Argentina: Noah Bryson Mamet, of California, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Argentine Republic.
– Mamet, Noah – Republic of Argentina (pdf via State/FOIA)

South Korea: Mark William Lippert, of Ohio, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Korea

–Lippert, Mark – Republic of Korea – 05-2014

Honduras: James D. Nealon, of New Hampshire, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Honduras.
–Nealon, James D – Republic of Honduras – 05-2014

Qatar: Dana Shell Smith, of Virginia, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the State of Qatar.
–Smith, Dana S – State of Qatar – 05-2014

Egypt: Robert Stephen Beecroft, of California, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Arab Republic of Egypt
–Beecroft, Robert S – Arab Republic of Egypt – 05-2014

Iraq: Stuart E. Jones, of Virginia, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Career Minister, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Iraq.
–Jones, Stuart E – Republic of Iraq – 05-2014

Vietnam: Theodore G. Osius III, of Maryland, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
–Osius, George O, III – Socialist Republic of Vietnam – 05-2014

Algeria: Joan A. Polaschik, of Virginia, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria.
–Polaschik, Joan A – Democratic Republic of Algeria – 05-2014

Gentry O. Smith, of North Carolina, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Director of the Office of Foreign Missions, and to have the rank of Ambassador during his tenure of service, vice Eric J. Boswell, resigned.
– President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts – May 1, 2014

 

We imagine that Ambassador Jones (to Iraq) and Ambassador Beecroft (Egypt) could get their full Senate vote ahead of a very large pack of nominees. But the Senate being what it is these days, it’s hard to even guess how fast the Senators could tie their shoes. In any case, Ambassador Beecroft is apparently back in Baghdad after  a short stop in D.C. for his  confirmation hearing.  We are hoping that the nominees will not have to wait 300 days for their confirmation. To-date, the nominee for U.S. ambassador to Lesotho, a career FSO has waited 315 days for Senate confirmation. The nominees slated as chiefs of mission to Niger, Cameroon, Timor-Leste and Palau, all career FSOs have waited 326 days for their full Senate vote.

The clock appears to be broken in the Senate, but everywhere else, the world marches on.

 

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Former AFSA Presidents to SFRC: Delay Approval for FSO Dana Smith as Qatar Ambassador

June 24, 2014 By in Ambassadors, Career Employees, Congress, Foreign Service, FSOs, Grievance, Nominations, Realities of the FS, SFRC, Staffing the FS, State Department, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

— Domani Spero
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Eleven former presidents of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), the professional association of the United States Foreign Service have written to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) requesting that the Committee postpone consideration of FSO Dana Shell Smith’s nomination as ambassador to Qatar until the Foreign Service Grievance Board (FSGB) has made a decision in the case related to Ms. Smith and another senior FSO, Susan Johnson.  Ms. Johnson, the immediate former president of AFSA served two terms from 2009-2013.

The letter says that the former AFSA presidents, which includes seven former ambassadors, “firmly believe that Ms. Smith  has not demonstrated the judgment or temperament to shoulder the responsibilities of Chief of Mission.” 

Ouchy!

It adds that “Ms. Smith’s actions are central to a formal Grievance brought against the Department of State by Ms. Susan R. Johnson, also a Senior Foreign Service Officer and President of AFSA at the time she co-authored an op-ed that stimulated negative Department reaction.”

image via cspan

Excerpt from the letter:

 Ms. Smith and Ms. Valerie C. Fowler, then Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary respectively, misusing their official positions and authority over senior assignments and career advancement in order to convey personal views, authored a factually incorrect letter-petition sent through State Department e mail to other FSOs in senior positions, publicly attacking Ms. Johnson on an ad hominem basis for the op-ed she co-authored about the declining role of the Foreign Service.

Senior levels of the Department declined to acknowledge the behavior of Ms. Smith and Ms. Fowler as improper, unprofessional and unprecedented.    Instead the Department condoned the impropriety and compounded the Grievance by nominating one of authors of the ad hominem letter to the senior Foreign Service promotion board which reviewed and did not recommend Ms. Johnson for promotion.   This nomination, the letter-petition and the Department’s inaction may have tainted the board and denied Ms. Johnson a fair promotion review.  Individually and collectively, these actions send a chilling message that speaking out about or questioning personnel policies that lead to the weakening of the Foreign Service as a professional cadre may put careers at risk.

Valerie C. Fowler named above is now the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs in the R Bureau. PDASes do not need Senate confirmations. As an aside, have you noticed that the R Bureau now has 15 senior officials, all non-career appointees except for five FSOs?

According to her LinkedIn profile, Ms. Johnson is currently a senior fellow at the Academy of American Diplomacy where she is working on the latest AAD study-report on strengthening Foreign Service professionalism. The April 2013 op-ed referred to in the letter to the Senate is online at WaPo (see “Presidents are breaking the U.S. Foreign Service).” That op-ed piece was authored by Ms. Johnson who was then AFSA president, Ronald E. Neumann, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, and  Thomas R. Pickering, a former undersecretary of state, and chairman of the AAD board.

The Senate letter was from the following former AFSA presidents: Ambassador Thomas Boyatt, Ambassador William Harrop, Ambassador Alphonse La Porta, Ambassador Theodore Eliot, Ambassador Dennis Hays,  Ambassador J. Anthony Holmes, Ambassador John Limbert, and senior  FSOs F. Allen “Tex” Harris, Theodore Wilkinson, Marshall Adair, and Kenneth Bleakley. Their letter specifically requests that consideration be postponed “until the Foreign Service Grievance Board has made a decision in the case and forwarded the file to the Committee.”

WaPo’s Federal Eye has additional details of this “family” feud:

State did not permit interviews with Smith and Fowler. Doug Frantz,  an assistant secretary of state, said the letter asking the committee to delay action on Smith “contained errors.”  He noted that Johnson’s grievance “was filed subsequent to Ms. Smith’s nomination.” He added that Johnson could have requested Fowler’s recusal from the board, but did not.

Though the letter from Smith, Fowler and the others to Johnson was sent by government e-mail, Frantz said it “was intended to be a private communication from AFSA members to the head of their association.” It’s not private now.

We should note that Douglas Frantz was appointed Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Public Affairs in 2013. Prior to Ms. Smith’s nomination as ambassador to Qatar, she was Mr. Frantz’s top deputy as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Public Affairs (2011-2014).

Also, the average time for consideration of a Foreign Service grievance from time of  filing to a Board decision was 41 weeks in 2011 and 33 weeks in 2012.

This could take a whole tour …

Or … maybe not.

Today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) cleared Ms. Smith’s nomination for the Senate’s full vote.  Unless a Senate hold suddenly materialize, we anticipate that this nominee and a whole slew of ambassadorial nominees will be confirmed as Congress runs off to its summer vacation in August.

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New Embassy Mexico City Estimated to Cost $350-$450M Now More Pricey At $763 Million

June 24, 2014 By in Budget, Congress, Contractors, New Embassy, State Department, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , ,

— Domani Spero
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On June 20, 2014, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City announced the 50thanniversary of the building of the chancery in Mexico
City´s  Reforma Avenue. According to Embassy Mexico City, the building began in 1960 during the Kennedy Administration and under then Ambassador Thomas Mann. The building reportedly cost 5 million dollars and in 1964 became the second largest U.S. embassy in the world.

In 2011, the State Department solicitation on fedbiz announced that the New Embassy Compound (NEC) in Mexico City, Mexico will be a design-bid-build project estimated to cost between $350 million and $450 million.

The new Embassy compound will be constructed on U.S. Government-owned property located in the Nuevo Polanco neighborhood of Mexico City. It will be in the range of 40,000-45,000 gross square meters in area and will include a new Chancery, General Services Office/support buildings, parking structures, Marine Security Guard Quarters, and vehicular/pedestrian screening facilities.

In 2012, the estimated construction cost was $450 – $500 million.

In November 2013, FP’s The Cable reported that the State Department “has quietly reversed course, saying its initial solicitation to industry is “cancelled in its entirety” because plans have been altered. The State Department did not explain why in its announcement, but said a new, future solicitation to industry for the project “is under acquisition review.” (See State Department Quietly Reverses Course On Its $500 Million Mexican Embassy).

Yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee’s draft report on the fiscal 2015 State and foreign aid spending bill notes that the new construction cost estimate of NEC Mexico City is now at $763,500,000.  The following is the section of the Committee draft report on the new embassy that will soon join our list of most expensive embassies in the world:

Enhanced notification requirements.—The  Congressional Budget Justification for Department of State Operations, Fiscal Year 2015 estimates the cost for construction of the New Embassy Compound in Mexico City, Mexico at $763,500,000. The Committee is troubled that this is an escalation in cost of more than 38 percent in the two years since the initial estimate was provided. Cost increases of this magnitude, as well as reports of other new embassy project cost escalations, are of great concern to the Committee. Accordingly, in order to enhance the oversight of new construction projects, the Committee recommendation modifies and expands section 7004(d) of the bill to require that all notifications for the purchase of land and for the award of construction contracts be subject to the regular notification procedures of, and prior approval by, the Committees on Appropriations.

Notifications made pursuant to section 7004(d) shall include the following information, at a minimum: (1) the location and size of the property to be acquired, including the proximity to existing United States diplomatic facilities and host government ministries; (2) the justification of need for acquiring the property and construction of new facilities; (3) the total projected cost of the project delineated by site acquisition, project development, design/construction, and any other relevant costs; (4) any unique requirements of the project which may drive up the cost of the project, such as consular workload, legal environment, physical and/or security requirements, and seismic capabilities; (5) any religious, cultural, or political factors which may affect the cost, location, or construction timeline; (6) the current and projected number of desks, agency presence, and the projected number of United States direct hire staff, Locally Engaged Staff, and Third Country Nationals; (7) the current and projected number of beds, if applicable; (8) the most recent rightsizing analysis; and (9) a justification for exceeding the staffing projections of such rightsizing analysis, if applicable.

Additionally, the Committee directs the Department of State to carefully review the design and cost of the Mexico City new embassy compound and to provide updated design plans and options for reducing the cost of the facility to the Committees on Appropriations prior to the obligation of additional funds for this project from funds made available in this Act or prior Acts.

 

In 2013, State/OBO awarded the New U.S. Embassy Mexico City project to Tod Williams Billie Tsien/ Davis Brody Bond Architects and Planners Joint Venture. It is listed as a capital program project for FY2015 (pdf).

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Confirmations: Nichols, Wells, Nix-Hines, Harper, La Lime, Moreno

June 24, 2014 By in Ambassadors, Confirmations, Congress, Govt Documents, Nominations, State Department, U.S. Missions, UN, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

— Domani Spero
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The Senate confirmations of President Obama’s nominees continue at a turtle’s pace.  Here are the following State Department nominees who made it through the confirmation process so far. The nominees for non-embassy positions do not appear to have their Certificate of Demonstrated Competence per Foreign Service Act, Section 304(a)(4 posted online. 

June 19, 2014

Brian A. Nichols, of Rhode Island, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Peru.

– Certificate via State/FOIA (pdf)

June 16, 2014

Alice G. Wells, of Washington, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service,  Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of  the United States of America to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

–Wells, Alice G – Kingdom of Jordan – 04-2014

June 12, 2014

Crystal Nix-Hines, of California, for the rank of Ambassador during her tenure of service as the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

June 3, 2013

Keith M. Harper, of Maryland, for the rank of Ambassador during his tenure of service as United States Representative to the UN Human Rights Council.

May 15, 2014

Helen Meagher La Lime, of the District of Columbia, a Career Member of the Senior  Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and  Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Angola.

– Certificate via State/FOIA (pdf)

May 14, 2014

Carlos Roberto Moreno, of California, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Belize.

– Certificate via State/FOIA (pdf)

 

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