The Foreign Service Journal, December 2003

12 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 3 New Salvos in the Public Diplomacy Debate Three new reports issued in September and October challenge the status quo in U.S. public diplomacy. Acknowledging expanded efforts by both the White House and the State Department, the Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored Task Force on Public Diplomacy, the congressionally mandated U.S. Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World and the General Accounting Office are unanimous in declaring the initiatives inadequate. Each report offers its own set of observations and proposals to raise the direction and coordination of pub- lic diplomacy to the executive level, while retaining the State Department as the lead agency for enacting policy. Both the CFR task force and the U.S. Advisory Group view the Bush admin- istration’s White House Office of Global Communications as a tactical unit within a new, strategic frame- work. The GAO report recommends a strengthening of training for Foreign Service officers in foreign languages and public diplomacy. All three reports can be accessed online at the U.S. Information Agency Alumni Association Web site ( w ww. p ublicdiplomacy.org/#debate ). Better Late Than Never! New arrivals to Paul Bremer’s staff in Baghdad carry a CD-ROM version of the State Department’s 13-volume “Future of Iraq Project,” New York Times correspondents Eric Schmitt and Joel Brinkley reported Oct. 19 ( w ww.nytimes.com ). “It’s our bible coming out here,” one senior official in Baghdad told the reporters, who state that “the work is now being relied on heavily as occupation forces struggle to impose stability in Iraq.” No wonder. The State Depart- ment study predicted many of the problems that have bedeviled occupa- tion forces for the past eight months, from the widespread looting and may- hem that immediately followed the Hussein government’s downfall to the severely decrepit state of electrical and water infrastructure — neither of which was anticipated by the Pentagon. The State Department project report predicted problems if the Iraqi Army was disbanded quickly — a step L. Paul Bremer III took — and rec- ommended that jobs be found for demobilized troops to avoid having them turn against allied forces, as some are believed to have done. Similarly, the project report noted the potential to use Iraq’s television and radio capabilities to promote the goals of a post-Hussein Iraq, an opportunity many say the occupation has bungled so far. Details from the State Department report, which though unclassified was not intended for public distribution, have come to light since it was deliv- ered to Congress in response to requests from several committees. Though the study began in April 2002, and involved more than 200 Iraqi lawyers, engineers, business people and other experts working in 17 groups on different topics, the DOD office initially charged with rebuilding Iraq wasn’t aware of it until late February 2003, less than a month before the conflict began. When General Jay Garner’s recon- struction office attempted to recruit project overseer State Department official Tom Warrick — “We had few experts on Iraq on the staff,” an aide to Garner told the reporters — the appointment was blocked by top Pentagon officials. “It was mostly ignored,” one senior defense official admitted to the New York Times , referring to the project report. “State has good ideas and a feel for the political landscape, but they’re bad at implementing anything. Defense, on the other hand, is excel- lent at logistical stuff, but has blinders when it comes to policy. We needed to blend these two together.” Senior legislators criticized the Bush administration for not fully incorporating the State Department information. “Had we done more C YBERNOTES T he great reservoir of pro-American good will that has existed in the world since World War II … is now very low. The one great mistake that America made in those 58 years [since World War II] … was we tried to do something alone. That was Vietnam. — Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., in a speech at the Gallup Organization World Conference in Omaha, Neb., Oct. 21, w ww.washingtonpost.com