Secretary Blinken has reportedly ordered an internal review of the Afghanistan evacuation. Who has been tasked to do the review? Wait, he did not ask the Deputy Secretary for Management or the Acting Under Secretary for Management to do it, did he?
Or the OIG? The OIG has seen what the State Department overlords can do to the entity and its personnel. While the overlords are not the same, we doubt that folks can shake that nightmare quickly. The State Department still does not have a Senate confirmed Inspector General. After what the previous administration did to the OIG and Steve Linick, you’d think that the Biden Administration would work quickly to fill that position. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
Also if this debacle is causing seasoned employees to consider leaving the Service, you’d want to know, right?
We do think that the GAO should conduct this review; after all, part of its mandate is the evaluation of operations and performance. The GAO undertakes work through congressional requests, so let’s go ahead, let’s write to our favorite reps so GAO can get tasked with looking under the rugs.
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State officials told us leaders can't blame botched Afghan withdrawal only on bad intel
“There was a general consensus that Kabul would fall … And it was inevitably going to lead to panic.
"So I don’t think it was an intelligence failure. I think it was a management failure.”
— Natasha Korecki (@natashakorecki) November 17, 2021
Blinken orders internal reviews of the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan https://t.co/CWq0JF5alo
— Bloomberg (@business) October 27, 2021
“It feels at times as bad as questioning a 30-year career,” said Annie Pforzheimer, a retired career diplomat who served as acting deputy assistant secretary of state for Afghanistan until 2019. “I’m furious. I feel helpless.”
Our story: https://t.co/tnrJVZgK5R— Robbie Gramer (@RobbieGramer) August 17, 2021