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Description
[The following are excerpts of the statement presented to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Washington, D.C., February 7, 2007.]
I would define the objective of transformational diplomacy this way: to work with our many partners around the world to build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that will respond to the needs of their people and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system ... We must transform old diplomatic institutions to serve new diplomatic purposes, and we must empower our people to practice transformational diplomacy.
Dr. Condoleezza Rice
United States Secretary of State
I look forward to continue working with Congress, closely and across party lines, to ensure that America's diplomacy, and the courageous individuals who undertake it, have the necessary resources to protect our national security, advance our democratic ideals, and improve people's lives throughout the world. With these duties we also reaffirm our responsibility to the American people: to be the best possible stewards of their hard-earned dollars.
President Bush's fiscal year (FY) 2008 International Affairs Budget for the Department of State (DOS), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign affairs agencies totals $36.2 billion. The President's budget also requests $6 billion in supplemental funding for FY 2007 to support urgent requirements that are not funded in the annual budget. This supplemental request includes $1.18 billion for additional operating costs of the DoS and other agencies. It also includes $4.81 billion to meet urgent new foreign assistance needs in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon, as well as peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance in Sudan, Somalia, and other countries in need. In addition, the Administration is requesting $3.3 billion in war supplemental funding in FY 2008, $1.37 for foreign assistance and $1.93 billion for DoS operations, to support emergency requirements in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This money is a fundamental investment in our national security. More than five years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, America remains engaged in a Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), but it is a war of a totally new and different kind. We face a long confrontation, in which military strength is important to our success, but is not sufficient. The defining feature of our world today is its interdependence. The security of the American people depends on the stability and the success of foreign societies. If governments cannot, or choose not, to meet their responsibilities as sovereign states, then every country in the world is threatened. The President believes that, in today's world, the defense of our country depends on the close integration of our multilateral diplomacy, our development efforts, and our support for human rights and democratic institutions. That is why President Bush, in his budget, designates the DoS as a national security agency.
We must recognize that our foreign service, our civil service, and our foreign service nationals are performing a vital national security role; often in difficult and dangerous posts, far away from their friends and families, and in many cases, shoulder to shoulder with our men and women in uniform. We are asking our civilians to do far more than just manage an existing international order; we are charging them with helping foreign citizens and their governments to transform their countries to move them toward peace, freedom, prosperity, and social justice.
This is the national security mission of our DoS today, which we have referred to as transformational diplomacy. To succeed in this critical work for the American people, we are making important changes to our department's organization, both in terms of the roles our people are playing and how we are revolutionizing our approach to foreign assistance. This is the foundation of our budget, and I would like to briefly review these important changes.
Transforming the Department of State
Faced with new challenges to our country, President Bush has initiated major reforms to bring our institutions of national security into the 21st century. Now it is the DoS's turn. With the support of Congress, we are moving our people off the front lines of the last century, in the capitals of Europe and here in Washington, and into the critical posts of this new century in Asia, and Africa, and the Middle East, and here in the Americas. Last year, we reprogrammed 200 positions for this purpose; we are set to reposition 80 more. At the same time, we are moving more of our people out of our embassies and into the field, so they can engage and work not only with governments but with the people of the nations in which they serve. We are making every necessary change, giving our diplomatic corps better training, better tools and technology, and more language skills to empower them to meet this challenge.
We realize that resources are tight, so in all that we do, we seek to be good stewards of the taxpayers' money. That is why, last year, I created the position of Director of United States Foreign Assistance, which Randy Tobias now occupies. He serves concurrently as the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, and in these dual roles, helps to bring unified leadership to our foreign assistance resources. Our goal for this budget was unprecedented: the strategic alignment of our foreign assistance with our foreign policy goals.
The budget represents the first joint effort of the DoS and USAID, working together, to align resources strategically in order to accomplish key national security and development goals with maximum efficiency and fiscal responsibility. To that end, we allocated our resources on the basis of shared goals, established common definitions for our foreign assistance programs, and common... |
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