UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: Good morning everyone, and welcome to the
Secretary of State’s Town Hall meeting. Just one brief technical
reminder. This session is being broadcast not only on the State
Department’s internal closed circuit system, BNET, but also is being
broadcast by a number of networks, so please always be diplomatic –
(laughter) – in your questions and in your performance. And with that,
briefly, it gives me great personal and professional pleasure to
introduce the Secretary of State, the honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Madam Secretary. (Applause.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, thank you very much, Pat, and I am
delighted to be with all of you again this morning. On the way down the
hall I saw the overflow crowd, so I want to greet them. They’re
clustered around some of the TV screens out there. It’s wonderful to
have this opportunity so soon in the new year to speak with you
face-to-face, to have a chance to bring you up to date and also answer
questions. It also an opportunity to understand the full seating
capacity of the Dean Acheson Auditorium – (laughter) – and I’m afraid
test the fire marshal’s patience.
Many more people than even the very large crowd gathered here and out
in the hall have contributed to the work that we are doing together.
There is so much to talk about. I wish I could be here for days, and we
could bring in shifts of people, but there’s much work to be done of
which you are essential partners. I do want to thank Kerry O’Conner and
Molly Moran for their great work running the Sounding Board. (Applause.)
And they’re giving everyone here in the State Department a chance to
ask questions.
I’m also looking forward to going over to USAID, and I see Deputy
Administrator Don Steinberg. I know Raj Shah is out of town, or we would
have tried to piggyback them on the same day, Don, but we’re going to
get a date very soon. Because it is appropriate for us to have this
chance to kind of catch up and look forward.
And it is also so fitting that we would be meeting here in an
auditorium named for Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who cautioned us –
and I quote – “always remember that the future comes one day at a
time.” And despite the daunting challenges and the extraordinary
opportunities that we confront, it is that one day at a time, one step
in front of the next that really gets us where we’re heading.
In that spirit, I want to update you on the implementation of the
first QDDR, the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, which we
launched in this room just over a year ago. Our goals remain the same:
to strengthen State and USAID as we continue to strive to work better,
faster, and smarter in the 21st century. During his State of the Union
address this week, President Obama spoke about the essential role that
America still plays in spreading peace and prosperity around the world.
Well, that was music to my ears, and I hope also to yours.
The State Department and USAID are critical to maintaining and
extending American leadership, and we will be, in the future, called
upon to do more, in more places, more frequently, and most likely with
fewer resources. The goals of the QDDR, therefore, are even more
imperative in times of tight budget constraints. We must show – it’s up
to us to show the American people and their representatives in Congress
that every dollar given to the State Department and USAID is a wise and
effective investment in advancing the values, the interests, and the
security of the United States of America.
Now, over – yes, I agree with that. (Applause.) (Laughter.)
Over the past year, I have been so gratified to see how individual
bureaus, missions, and posts have applied the underlying principles of
the QDDR. I’m seeing more interagency cooperation, people breaking down
work silos, tapping institutional capacity wherever it exists. And we’re
also making great progress on the four main lines of activity that we
identified in the QDDR process: adapting our diplomacy to new threats
and opportunities; transforming our development to deliver results;
strengthening our capacity to prevent and respond to conflict and
crisis; and working smarter by improving our approaches to planning,
procurement, and personnel.
And let me just briefly share with you some of the progress we’ve
made in each of these areas. First, adapting our diplomacy for the 21
st
century. We are empowering our chiefs of mission, our ambassadors, as
interagency CEOs and making sure to include their perspective whenever a
decision touches their country and their responsibilities within it.
Ambassadors now regularly participate in high-level interagency policy
making discussions with Washington via video conference. And they help
formally evaluate employees from other agencies as part of our whole of
government approach.
We also created a home for all of our experts on one of the defining
challenges of our time: energy. For too long, energy was the second,
third, or forth priority for several different offices. Now, the new
Bureau of Energy Resources is our single point of contact on all energy
issues. ENR is already working in close coordination with the Department
of Energy to keep energy markets stable as we implement sanctions on
Iran and to lead our global strategy with the UN to achieve sustainable
energy for all. And ENR taps skill sets from across the government –
from Treasury, Commerce, Interior, among others – to run the Energy
Governance and Capacity Initiative, which is helping countries use their
own energy resources transparently to actually benefit their own
citizens. (Applause.)
We also reconceived the role of the under secretary for global
affairs, now known as the under secretary for civilian security,
democracy and human rights. We wanted to focus on those areas, civilian
security and the other essential elements of building safe, fair, and
just societies. We erased the organizational distinctions between what
was once viewed as hard power and soft power, the kind of security
concerns with a hard edge, in order to look more comprehensively and in
depth at an integrated and ultimately more effective approach.
Now, counterterrorism and police training programs work alongside
those that defend human rights, promote opportunities for young people,
combat trafficking-in-persons. In other words, we are bringing a
360-degree approach to people protection that addresses both the root
causes of insecurity and its immediate threats. Working closely with
regional bureaus, the new J family works to make sure a government’s
first obligation is to its own people; that government institutions,
including courts, police forces, and others that affect everyday life
are rooted in the rule of law and respect for human rights; that
refugees are protected from persecution; that the voice of young people
is heard and respected; and individuals are protected from the excesses
of government.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, a country emerging
from decades of conflict, the J family is working closely with the
Africa Bureau to create the environment for more stability and security,
working to prevent sexual and gender-based violence, break the link
between conflict minerals and violence, support democratic institutions
that can promote lasting peace, and achieve accountability for the
atrocities that have been committed against innocents.
We have also elevated the Counterterrorism Office to a full bureau
that will help us build an international counterterrorism network that
is as nimble and adaptive as our adversaries. The CT Bureau is
undermining extremists’ attempts to find new recruits, and shrinking the
space available to al-Qaida and its affiliates by increasing the
capacity of our partners to combat terrorism on their own.
Now, we also launched a new center – to deal with countering violent
extremism – within the State Department, and I attended the inaugural
meeting just yesterday and saw the interagency in full splendor as I sat
between Danny Benjamin and Ann Stock and Ambassador Richard LeBaron,
and across from representatives from DOD, CIA, DNI, you name it. Because
it makes no sense for us to be trying to combat violent extremism, have
expertise in the CIA, expertise in DOD, expertise across our government
that is siloed in ways we don’t even know what each other is doing. So
we’re trying to break down those bureaucratic barriers.
We’ve also launched – (applause) – as an American initiative, along
with our partners around the world, the Global Counterterrorism Forum to
strengthen civilian-led counterterrorism efforts and further bridge the
divide between security and development. And in addition, we’ve taken
many other steps, one in particular – establishing a coordinator for
cyber issues that is going to be increasingly important to us in order
to respond quickly to 21
st century threats.
Second, along with the great leadership of Dr. Raj Shah, we are
transforming our approach to development. We’ve made a long-term
commitment to rebuilding USAID as the world’s premier development
agency. Under the USAID forward reform agenda, we’ve strengthened AID’s
capacity to elevate development as a pillar of civilian power. We’ve
built up the Policy, Planning, and Learning Bureau, and I especially
liked that initiative, because we need to be constantly a learning
organism – what can we do better, what can we learn from others. It is
now a thought leader on development; adopting an outstanding system for
monitoring and evaluating our work around the world; reinvigorating our
investments in science, technology and innovation; and stepping up our
focus on democracy, human rights, and governance.
We’re also consolidating our administrative services when it makes
sense from a business and operations perspective. It no longer makes
sense in a world of constrained resources in countries to have separate
warehouses for State Department and AID. We need efficiencies. We need
economies of scale. And we’re working through all of that. Pat Kennedy
and his great M team is really helping. And as promised, we launched a
foreign assistance dashboard at
www.foreignassistance.gov.
That lets anyone in the world with an internet connection to see where
we are investing and how much, and I will be discussing this in greater
details at the USAID town hall. (Applause.) It’s also nice to be able to
refer our own inquiries that still people think we spend 20 percent of
the U.S. Government’s budget on development to tell them to go to the
foreignassistance.gov and actually get a little evidence-based reality
going here. (Laughter.)
Third, because we recognize that it’s more important than ever to
address the problems of fragile states, we are strengthening our
capacity to prevent and respond to crisis. We rolled out our new
Conflict and Stabilization Operations Bureau. And in the past year, CSO
has deployed more than 175 Civilian Response Corps members to hotspots
in more than 30 countries around the world. They come from nine
different agencies and bureaus, including USAID, which has expanded its
own work in this area. They’re working everywhere from Afghanistan to
South Sudan to Timor-Leste, often in some of the most remote and least
governed places on earth. They can be found camped alongside special
forces, sleeping under mosquito nets in campsites hacked out of the
jungle by machete, eating MREs, hitching rides in the back of pickups to
meet with local leaders – not the common image of a diplomat. But they
are among the hundreds of State and USAID employees practicing a
tradecraft that now lives at the intersection of diplomacy, development,
and security.
And finally – (applause) – we are doing everything we can to work
smarter by improving our approaches to planning, procurement, and
personnel. For example, we have overhauled the way State and USAID go
about setting goals and developing long-term plans. For the first time,
strategic planning and resource planning are separate and sequential
processes. Now as obvious as it may seem to all of us here today, we now
set our goals before we determine funding rather than doing everything
all at once, and we’re simplifying those processes to relieve
unnecessary burdens.
In the press of the budget and the incredible pressure that comes on
everyone every year, and especially last year and this year, it seemed
to make sense in the past that we just tried to do everything at once –
how much could we get, what could we do it for. What we have found in
our engagement with OMB and in our engagement with the Hill, that if
we’ve done our planning first and we have the rationales behind what we
are asking for, we will be more successful. We will make the case to
both the OMB budgeteers and the appropriations committees on the Hill.
It helps us focus our resources on highest priorities.
And we’re also investing in our most important asset, namely all of
you and your colleagues. We set up new training through FSI to better
prepare our staff for the demands of 21st century diplomacy. We’ve
created multiple new courses designed to emphasize priorities identified
in the QDDR, including training in development assistance, multilateral
diplomacy, and social media best practices. We want to make sure every
person at State and USAID has the skills and resources necessary to do
your job.
We also want to tap all the talent and expertise of our Civil
Service. (Applause.) Last year, we developed a department-wide survey of
civil servants and, by popular demand, launched a pilot program for
civil servants to deploy overseas. Posts will obviously benefit from
having skilled civil servants fill out their team, and the participants
will gain greater experience about life at posts and a new set of
responsibilities. If the program proves successful, we will look to
expand it to more people and more posts.
Now, these are just a handful of the steps we have taken in the last
year. There are many, many more stories of the QDDR in action. We’ve
been tracking them on the website qddr.state.gov. I encourage each of
you to go there to check up on the progress we’ve made, to share your
ideas about how to make this first-ever QDDR real in your office.
And as we look ahead at the coming year, we need to keep up this
momentum. Now, I know it isn’t easy. There is just a lot to do every
single day. It’s hard to be inventing a new airplane when you’re up in
the air. But we are really together demonstrating how it’s done. Large
bureaucracies, like large organizations anywhere, can often resist
change because it’s new, it disrupts the orderly flow of the routines
that have been already established, and it might be tempting to just sit
and wait in the hope that a change will pass you by. But instead, so
many of you have embraced the QDDR and the ideas behind it, and I want
to thank each and every one of you who have been involved in the
process. If you’re still working to implement the guidance, I encourage
you to keep pushing forward.
Now, many of the projects we’ve already started will need follow-up
actions in the coming months. So we will also be defining the next set
of projects to take on. And I really invite all of you – we really
welcome your ideas about how to bring these changes into reality,
because implementing the QDDR should not be an extra task on top of your
real day job; it should be part of that job, and it should provide
transformative thinking and tools to help you work better. And aside
from the big institutional changes we’re making, I want the QDDR to do
something else – encourage all employees at every level to really think
hard to kind of dream big about what more we can do on behalf of our
country.
For more than half a century, the world has benefited from
exceptional American leadership, and an international system that was
designed and implemented by talented and dedicated employees here at
State and USAID. The sources of America’s power are enduring and durable
– our values, our global vision, our productivity, our ingenuity, our
incredible demographic diversity – but none of these advantages is a
birthright. Every generation of Americans has to reestablish their
legitimacy and credibility and has to re-imagine how America will be
going forward. So let’s nurture those values, let’s keep making the
tough choices, and let’s be sure we are part of securing American
leadership well into this century.
Now I will be happy to take your questions. There are two microphones
already set up in the audience. We’ve received a lot of interesting
questions through the Sounding Board. We’re not going to have time to
answer all of them, so I’ll take a few online questions submitted from
overseas posts today. I understand that we will take a few from the
Sounding Board moderator, who’s merged a few of the questions,
apparently, so I could respond more directly to all of you. And I
promise that all the thoughtful questions that you took the time to ask,
which I don’t get to right now, will be answered either on the Sounding
Board or the QDDR site.
So with that, Pat, we should begin. (Applause.)
QUESTION: Madam Secretary, thank you so much for being here.
My name is Kathleen Corey, and I work at FSI. Many of us are very
involved in working on QDDR-related projects, and we’re very excited
about the document and want it to stay. So my question is: What is the
Department doing to institutionalize the QDDR so that regardless of who
is Secretary of State or regardless of which administration is in power,
that the QDDR will remain a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy? Thank
you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first of all, thank you for your work
at FSI and for your work on implementing the QDDR. We are hoping that
it will prove itself so that no matter who comes next, not only in
position, but in all of the positions of leadership throughout State and
AID, will see it as the tool that it is. The Defense Department has
been doing this for years, and it has really advantaged them.
That’s how I first thought of it, because I served on the Armed
Services Committee in the Senate, and every four years, the Defense
Department would come up with this really slick, well manufactured
brochure and filled with pages and PowerPoints – you know how they are
so good at that. (Laughter.) And it’s just – I mean, it just was
daunting to see, because it just laid out, well, here’s what we want,
and here’s how we’re going to get it. And we had nothing like that from
State or AID. In fact, if you ask Jack Lew, who has gone from D here to
OMB, now will become Chief of Staff for President Obama, he said it was
always so easy because State would come in with their priorities, AID
would come in with different priorities, you could set one against the
other, and so the end result was that we got less than we should have
gotten.
So I don’t like that as an operating principle. So we decided to
launch the first QDDR. We are expecting it to be legislated, because I
think that the Congress – our authorizing committees and appropriating
subcommittees – found it really useful, because they used to come into
meetings and all the DOD appropriators would have their stacks of stuff
from DOD, and our guys would have a little piece of paper with somebody
called me and told me I needed to do this. So – (laughter) – we think
it, on the merits, should be continued, and if it’s legislated, it will
be continued. So that’s how we see it.
Yes.
UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: (Inaudible) question from the field with the Sounding Board, please.
MODERATOR: Thank you, Madam Secretary. The first question from
the Sounding Board comes from Michelle Nichols in Kabul. She wants to
know: What will the footprint of the Department be in Afghanistan as we
progress through transition?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, that’s a very good question. And just
about 10 days or so ago, I called our team in Afghanistan, had a
conference call with many, many of the really extraordinary people
serving there – not just from State and AID, but from our whole
government – and we are going through that process now to evaluate as
the transition continues in Afghanistan and the military footprint draws
down and transitioning areas are transferred to Afghan lead. Our
civilian mission will have to shift its focus from stabilization and
support to the military to long-term development and building Afghan
capacity.
We have over 450 civilians right now embedded in nearly 80 locations
with the military, primarily U.S., but also NATO-ISAF forces. We will be
gradually consolidating – our present thinking is – into four enduring
State-led locations. And our staffing will be drawn down as the military
draws down. We will have to be really thoughtful about how we
reconfigure our mission in Kabul and around the country. That process is
just beginning.
So Michelle, I would welcome your insight and input as well as those
of others serving with you. Ambassador Ryan Crocker runs a great mission
in Kabul, so he is and his team is very much focused on this. But it is
a work in progress, because we don’t know all the details about exactly
how the transition to Afghan-led security will occur. But we’re
starting that work right now.
QUESTION: Madam Secretary, I’m on the board of Executive Women
at State. Fewer women are applying for senior positions in the
Department and women at every level are having difficulty with
maternity, childcare, and eldercare issues, and some are resigning.
Workplace flexibility options are inconsistent from office to office.
How can Executive Women at State and other concerned affinity groups
work with you to help address these problems before you leave? Thank
you. (Applause.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, this is matter of great concern to
me, because obviously balancing family and work responsibilities is
challenging, and the challenge falls disproportionately on women in the
workplace. And it’s no longer just a question of one’s children. It’s
also one’s aging relatives who are often part of the care giving
responsibilities that are assumed. And I really want to do more on this
this year.
I think we’ve got a variety of policies in place that are trying to
make the Department a more family-friendly work environment. I know some
of you have raised on the Sounding Board and through your chains, here,
the question about more telework. Pat and I have talked about this. We
have to determine which positions are eligible and which aren’t. A lot
of the classified and confidential work can’t be outsourced, so to
speak, to telework. So we are looking at that, we will continue to look
at it, and we will try to support as much expansion of it as is
possible. But I don't want to overpromise, because there are inherent
challenges.
We also have a policy that provides for alternative work schedules.
We support job-sharing when it has been worked out with the office and
the person willing to share the job with you. We have two daycare
facilities, we’re about to have a third, one at FSI, one at SA-1, and
then one at a new building that is being revamped and ready for CA. We
need more capacity. Everybody knows that, and we’re exploring everything
we can do. I also have been made aware of the desire for more lactation
rooms. I think we’ve added numbers to that, and we are in the process
of trying to develop a policy to increase the numbers.
And I think there is a lot that is practical and, again, maybe
apparently small steps but which could make a big difference in an
individual’s ability to balance family and work. So I hope that you will
keep really stretching the envelope on this. Obviously on our – for our
LGBT community, we’ve really broken through and done a lot in terms of
improving family-related policies. So we’re very sensitive to this.
We’ll try to do as much as we can within the confines of the kind of
specific constraints that we have to work with.
So keep the ideas coming and keep encouraging talented women to move
up the ranks. We don’t want there to be any stagnation in numbers. There
should be no glass ceiling or any other kind of ceiling that prevents
women from going forward in so far as we can make the work environment
successful for you. So we’ll keep working on that. (Applause.)
QUESTION: Good morning, Madam Secretary. My name is Doris
McBryde. I am in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs. As you
know, even though there are some agencies that are growing, we ourselves
are not the only agency that’s facing difficulty in terms of resources.
You mentioned earlier, for example, the Department of Energy as well.
You didn’t mention the Department of Commerce are among the agencies
that we work with closely that are having resource issues. And I’m
wondering what your thoughts are about that and how that affects their
ability to engage in diplomacy with us overseas.
SECRETARY CLINTON: That is a really good question, because we
have worked hard to make the case for State and AID resources. And I’m
knocking on wood, but we’ve done better than many would have ever
expected because we’ve been really focused on making the Congress
understand that all the things they want done, like increase the numbers
of people processing visas in China and Brazil and shorten the time,
takes money and takes people.
But it’s harder for us to make the interagency argument about our
colleagues. We do work closely with Commerce, with Energy, with USDA.
You go across our government; we now have representatives from so many
different agencies in country under chief of mission authority. So we do
have to help our colleagues in other parts of the government understand
the role that they play in our 21
st century statecraft. And
that’s particularly true in E, because in order to practice what we do
call economic statecraft, we want a team. We want the American team out
there working for us.
And I think that it’s going to be challenging because the number of
positions that Commerce is able to fund, for example, in the Arab Spring
region has dropped. And so we’ve been scrambling to try to help
Commerce keep personnel experts in North Africa so they can work with us
in order to be able to promote economic opportunity. In a globalized
world like the one we’re in, the tools of foreign policy are not just
within this Department or even development just within USAID. And so we
have to be smarter about how we make a broader case. And so it’s a very
good question.
One of the reasons we consolidated what we did inside E was to try to
get everything in one place so that we’re more effective in putting
forth our positions. And then from that, I hope we can in this new
alignment of economic growth, energy, and the environment be more
effective in working with our colleagues across the government. But it’s
a challenge, and I appreciate you for raising it.
MODERATOR: Madam Secretary, this next question is probably one
of the most discussed topics on the Sounding Board. Todd Schwartz asks:
Are there are steps that can be taken to accelerate the upgrade of
Internet Explorer on Department systems? (Laughter.) (Applause.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: I remember the first time I did a town
hall, and I think I was asked about this. I hope you agree we’ve made
progress. We continue to make progress. We know how important this is
for all of you. As I recall – it seems so long ago – but three years or
so ago we really didn’t – we really were not in the 21
st century; let me put it that way. But under great leadership from Pat and our team, we have made progress.
So today I’m happy to announce – (laughter) – we really do read the
Sounding Board – (laughter) – that Google Chrome will be deployed
worldwide on February 14
th – (applause) – that’s my Valentine’s present to all of you. (Laughter.) Internet Explorer 8 will be deployed on March 20
th – (applause) – and for more details you can go to State cable 7330, which officially announced this January 25
th.
Now, Google Chrome is intended to be an optional browser. It may not
work with all the Department internet sites or applications, but we
believe it will greatly improve the accessibility and performance with
external sites. Internet Explorer 8 has been tested with Department
enterprise applications; it’s precisely this sort of quality control
testing that delays the deployment of newer versions of Explorer. Pat’s
informed me that it’s the assessment of our incredible, crack
information systems team that will skip Internet Explorer 9 completely
and deploy Internet Explorer 10 on or before February of next year. So
we’re moving, moving, moving, and we appreciate the constant prodding,
prodding, prodding – (laughter) – that we get from the Sounding Board.
QUESTION: Good morning, Madam Secretary. My name is Virginia
Benninghoff. I work in IIP in the Office of European Affairs, and I have
a question on our foreign policy, if I may.
Regarding the atrocities that happened in the beginning of the 20
th
century that some would label the Armenian genocide, I am wondering why
it is that we do not recognize it as such, and if it has to do with our
classification of what a genocide is, or more to do with our
relationship with Turkey. And given the recent legislation that was
passed by lawmakers in France criminalizing the denial of the Armenian
genocide, whether – what our stance is on that? My understanding is that
Under Secretary Sherman was there recently, and I wondered if that came
up and what our position is. Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first, one of our great strengths is
we do not criminalize speech. People can say nearly anything they
choose, and they do, in our country. (Applause.) And so other countries,
including close friends and allies like France, have different
standards, different histories, but we are, I hope, never going to go
down that path to criminalize speech.
I think it’s fair to say that this has always been viewed, and I
think properly so, as a matter of historical debate and conclusions
rather than political. And I think that is the right posture for the
United States Government to be in, because whatever the terrible event
might be or the high emotions that it represents, to try to use
government power to resolve historical issues, I think, opens a door
that is a very dangerous one to go through. So the issue is a very
emotional one; I recognize that and I have great sympathy for those who
are just so incredibly passionate about it.
But I think the free market of ideas, the academic community, the
open architecture of communication that is even greater now than it was
in the past, are the proper fora for this kind of engagement, and that’s
where I hope it is worked out. And eventually, people will have their
own conclusions, which needs to be respected, but we need to encourage
anyone on any side of any contentious historical debate to get out into
the marketplace of ideas. Muster your evidence, put forth your
arguments, and be willing to engage, and that’s what I think should
happen on that too. (Applause.)
QUESTION: Good morning, Madam Secretary. My name is Behar
Gidani, and the last time I stood before you I was an intern, and now
I’m a program analyst, so it’s quite an honor to be here before you
again today. (Applause.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Good, good.
QUESTION: My question is regarding foreign policy, if I may.
As a Kurdish American, much of my interest focuses on the current state
of Iraqi political affairs. Given what’s going on or what’s happened
since the American troop withdrawal, with Hashimi fleeing to the
Kurdistan region, I was wondering what the role of U.S. diplomacy is
right now with that situation, and what you hope you will see in the
future to ensure Iraqi security and democracy and stability continue.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first, I’m delighted that you’ve gone
from intern to full-fledged employee in such a short period of time,
and we’re delighted, and that’s exactly the kind of movement of young
people into our ranks that I’m thrilled to see.
Look, there is no doubt – all one has to do is follow the media –
that there’s a lot of political contention in Iraq right now. The United
States, led by our very able, experienced Ambassador Jim Jeffrey – I
don’t know if the man has slept more than an hour or two, because he is
constantly, along with his able team, reaching out, meeting with,
cajoling, pushing the players, starting with Prime Minister Maliki, not
to blow this opportunity. Let me just be very clear: This is an
opportunity for the Iraqi people of all areas of Iraq, of all religious
affiliation, of all backgrounds – this is an opportunity to have a
unified Iraq, and the only way to do that is by compromising.
And one of the challenges in new democracies is that compromise is
not in the vocabulary, especially in countries where people were
oppressed, brutalized over many years. They believe that democracy gives
them the opportunity to exercise power and, even though it’s not the
specific individual – Saddam Hussein is gone – he oppressed the Shia, he
terribly abused the Kurds, including chemical attacks – he’s gone, but
people’s minds are not yet fully open to the potential for what this new
opportunity can mean to them. And unfortunately, there’s a lot of
line-drawing going on and boundary-imposing between different political
factions.
So we are certainly conveying in as strong a message as we can that
these political difficulties and disagreements have to be peacefully
resolved for the good of all Iraqis, and that everyone has a chance to
grow the pie bigger, to have more freedom, more economic prosperity by
working together.
And it’s not easy. It’s unfortunately one of the challenges we face
everywhere in the world right now. With the great movement toward
democracy, which we welcome and applaud, it has upended a lot of the
historical experiences that people have held onto, and there is a need
to get moving beyond that. But it will take time. The United States will
be firmly in the role of advising and mentoring and playing the
go-between in every way that we possibly can. But at the end of the day,
Iraq is now a democracy, but they need to act like one, and that
requires compromise.
And so I’m hoping that there will be a recognition of that, and such a
tremendous potential to be realized. Iraq can be such a rich country –
it’s already showing that with the oil revenues starting to flow again –
but problems have to be resolved. They cannot be ignored or mandated by
authoritarianism; they have to be worked through the political process.
(Applause.)
MODERATOR: Madam Secretary, we received two very similar
questions from Katherine Koehler and Eric Clayborn that ask you about
your vision for us: From the most senior employee to the most junior, in
an era of limited resources, what is the one thing that we can do every
day in our work, in our attitude, to make sure we reflect the
priorities and values of the Department and your strategic vision for
smart power? Can you give us a vision of what it means to work
creatively and innovatively, given the growth of issues that we must
deal with and the reality of the resources that we have?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, that is a very important question
that would probably deserves a much longer answer. But let me just say
that part of the vision is in the QDDR. I mean, that is really what
drove our doing the QDDR, and why we asked so many of you to participate
in helping us think through what the vision was for diplomacy and
development, to have an openness to change, to learn new skills, to be
willing to collaborate and listen to one another, not to defend the
past.
If the past is worth defending in the values and the practices that
we used, then make the case for them, not a reflexive “This is the way
we’ve always done it, this is how we expect to do it forever, I’m too
old to change” – I relate to that. (Laughter.) So I think it’s both
institutional and personal attributes that we are trying, together, to
examine. And there is an opportunity – I always believed that the best
change comes from the bottom up. It comes from empowered employees
saying: “Look, I’ve got this great idea.” (Applause.)
So to everyone, feel that empowerment. And then to supervisors,
managers, et cetera, be open to those ideas. Not every idea is a good
one. That is to be – you have to say that. (Laughter.) Because even if
you believe it and you’ve spent a long time working on it, doesn’t
necessarily mean it will carry the day. But how do you know unless you
ask, unless you deliver, and not just stand to one side and say, “Well,
if they only did what I would have them do,” or “Why are they doing
that,” well, that’s not helpful to anybody. And I am sure that we’ll
find it increases stress levels and all kinds of health problems. So
come forward with ideas, and then I want to encourage everyone at the
supervisor level to be open to listen – doesn’t mean you’re going to
agree or accept, but to have that give and take. And that is what we’re
looking for.
When you think about 21
st century diplomacy, we’re asking
our director general, we’re asking FSI, to envision what is the
training, what are the new modes of thinking that we have to equip you
with. Because you’re not your mother’s or your father’s diplomat or
Foreign Service officer or Civil Service expert; you’re coming with a
new set of challenges. So how can we help equip you, but then how can
you help prepare yourself to be ready?
So I think if you look at the QDDR and kind of go through that and
imagine how this will lead to the vision of our role in the world, how
we can be more effective, more impactful, how we can go further on less,
because there is no guarantee in these austere times that we’re going
to have what we would ideally like – that starts a conversation. And in
kind of the office groupings, the subject matter groupings, the affinity
groupings, have that conversation and then come with ideas either
through the Sounding Board or directly to people in positions of
responsibility. And let’s see where it leads and we’ll do our best.
(Applause.)
QUESTION: Good morning, Madam Secretary.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Good morning.
QUESTION: My name is Leon Galanos.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Could you get just a little closer to the microphone?
QUESTION: Sorry.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you.
QUESTION: My name is Leon Galanos. I am with the Management
Office of Policy, Rightsizing, and Innovation. I work for Under
Secretary Kennedy.
In your opening letter in the QDDR, you ask the question, “How do we
do better?” I’d like to say that in order to meet the program goals of
the QDDR, we need that strong management platform in the Department and
USAID. And an important component of that management platform is how we
manage data, information. I just want you to know that we have a
inter-bureau working group which started in June 2011 that is working to
getting all those silos together to share data, to access data better,
so that you get that information you need quicker and more accurately.
And we would be keen on meeting with your staff, debriefing them on our
success and the work yet to be done.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we will do that, because you’re a
hundred percent right. In today’s world, you can either manage data or
be drowned by it. And it is – that’s the choice. And if you start being
drowned, the natural human inclination is just to ignore. So the smarter
we can be about managing and presenting and utilizing data – so we’ll
follow through on that, Pat, okay?
QUESTION: Not a question. (Laughter.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: That’s okay. A shameless but very important plug. (Laughter and applause.)
QUESTION: Good morning, Madam Secretary. My name’s Michelle
Lakomy. I’m a member of the Civilian Response Corps. I wanted to know
what your vision for the Civilian Response Corps and the interagency is
and their role in the implementation of the QDDR in the next few years.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Great question. Is Rick Barton here? There
he is. Rick’s right in front of me. We were so fortunate to recruit Rick
to be the first leader of the CSO. And I think his vision and what all
of you are thinking through will answer that question.
I want us to be able to deploy expertise in the form of Americans,
both from the government, from the outside if appropriate but part of
our network, to be on the ground, as I said in my remarks, doing what is
necessary to protect us, promote our values, and further our interests.
And that’s why this is so exciting, because I can’t, standing here
today, tell you exactly all of the different roles and functions that
CSO will perform. It will – it already does have a very tight
partnership with counterparts in AID. We need to increase the flow of
information and cooperation but then, going beyond that, into the rest
of the government.
But I do know this: This was absolutely one of the most important
decisions that came out of the QDDR. We entered into it with a question
like, “Well, do we need this?” I mean, is this – because we’d had some
efforts that were really quite important but never were given the
support, the resources, the attention and time that they deserved. So it
was a natural question to say, “Do we need this?” And the answer was
resoundingly yes, but it has to be done the right way.
So I’m hoping that as we go through the startup and the consolidation
of the CSO, you’ll be coming to me to say, “Well, here’s what we need
to do, what we think we should be doing,” and I will be as responsive as
I can.
QUESTION: Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you.
UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: Madam Secretary, another question from the field (inaudible) Sounding Board.
MODERATOR: Madam Secretary, this question comes from Noah
Donadieu from Istanbul and it relates to staffing and career
development. He says: With the recent hiring surge, many mid-level
Foreign Service positions were ceded to entry level in order to provide
positions for those newly minted FSOs. Now that hiring has slowed and
the first wave of these hires are approaching mid-level bidding, how
does the Department plan to return these positions to the mid level? Is
there a timeline for this process?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I can tell you and everyone who’s
worried about this that HR is developing a plan to move positions where
they’re needed, when they’re needed, because we are aware of this
problem. This will be done in close consultation with the bureaus,
because we obviously don’t want anyone who came in at an entry level to
feel like there’s nowhere for them to go. So we’re going to be taking a
hard look at this.
I mean, it was one of the good problems we had, like how were we
going to quickly incorporate, integrate our new entry-level hires
because we had so many of them. And that was our goal – to begin to
refill our ranks. But now we have to take a look at what changes have to
be made to kind of keep the momentum going for these young – not all
young, but many young – entry-level people. So thank you.
QUESTION: Good morning, Madam Secretary. My name is Susan
Johnson. I’m the president of AFSA. And first of all, I’d like to thank
you for that excellent and exciting update and overview of QDDR
implementation and for your really inspiring advocacy for all of us to
embrace change, participate in it, and see what we can do to make our
agencies more effective in advancing and protecting U.S. interests. So
thank you very much. AFSA really welcomes this. (Applause.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you.
QUESTION: Madam Secretary, President Obama led his State of
the Union Address with the remarks, and I’ll quote, “Last month, I went
to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to
serve in Iraq. Together, we offered a final proud salute to the colors
under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought and
several thousand gave their lives.” The President continued, “For the
first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq.”
Madam Secretary, you know that all of us salute the accomplishments
and sacrifices of our military colleagues, and in fact, many in our
community are former veterans of the Armed Services. My question is:
What are your ideas and thoughts on what the State Department can do to
ensure that the American people remember and better appreciate that we
all – the men and women of the State Department and our other foreign
affairs agencies – are still there, are still in harm’s way, are still
taking care of business and advancing the interests of the United
States? And the related question: How can AFSA help? (Applause.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: I think that’s a very fair question, and we
are obviously trying to talk about it, trying to raise the visibility
of it. This is the largest post-conflict operation the State Department
has ever tried to lead and manage. It’s hard. Many of you have spent
time trying to help us with this transition. But I think when I see the
President tomorrow, I will mention to him the importance of also having
presidential attention to our members of the civilian side of the ledger
who are still in Iraq and who are still facing a lot of threats and
dangers.
And he is very mindful of that, very grateful for it, and I think
will look for an opportunity to try to raise it to a higher visibility.
So I thank you very much. And of course, AFSA has been a good partner in
all of this work, and we continue to appreciate your support and your
constructive criticism. Thank you. (Applause.)
MODERATOR: Madam Secretary, we have another synthesis of two
similar questions from Elizabeth Williams and Adam Kaufman about the
future of the State Department and you in 2013. The State Department has
been very fortunate to have an experienced, intelligent, productive,
and passionate Secretary these past few years. With the election season –
(applause) –
SECRETARY CLINTON: Can we put that first part of the question
in writing – (laughter) – so I can put it in front of me when it gets
really, really hard? (Laughter.)
MODERATOR: We’ll put it on your EER. (Laughter.) With the
election season fast approaching, can you offer any predictions for the
State Department after the elections in November? Specifically, are you
considering staying on or not? This is the synthesis: What could we do
to persuade you to run for Vice President? (Laughter.) After your tenure
here comes to an end, what will you do, and what will become of us?
(Laughter.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Oh, my goodness. Well, first of all, it’s
one of the most extraordinary, wonderful experiences being able to work
with all of you, which I am always telling people everywhere, how
privileged I am. I think I have made it clear that I will certainly stay
on until the President nominates someone and that transition can occur,
but I think after 20 years – and it will be 20 years – of being on the
high wire of American politics and all of the challenges that come with
that, it would be a – probably a good idea to just find out how tired I
am. (Laughter.) Everyone always says that when they leave these jobs.
But I have no reason to have any concerns about the future of this
Department and USAID so long as we continue to do what we are doing to
really make the case to a broad base of the American public about who we
are, what we stand for, the work we do, why it’s important.
And I am looking forward to this year. I don’t want to think about
what might come next, because I don’t want me or any of us to divert our
attention. I think the best case we can make is to do the work we’re
doing every day at the highest possible standards and trying to achieve
the best outcomes for our country.
And then the election is going to, I’m sure, suck up a lot of the
attention from following areas that we think are so important – trying
to resolve frozen conflicts, trying to bring food and healthcare and
education to desperately poor people, trying to build up America’s
reputation and reality in so many places in the world. But the good news
is maybe we can even get more done if they’re not paying attention.
(Laughter.) So just factor that in.
And I think from my perspective, I will just work as hard as I can to
the last minute I have the honor of being Secretary and certainly do
everything, no matter what I do, which I have no idea what it will be,
to support all of you. And I am happy to work with Vice President Biden,
who does an excellent job and who is a huge advocate and supporter for
this Department and for USAID. So it’s a little odd for me to be totally
out of an election season since, as Secretary of State, I cannot
participate. But I didn’t watch any of those debates. (Laughter and
applause.)
UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: Unfortunately for us, that will have to be last question.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Okay.
UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: Because you have another engagement.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, thank you all very, very much. Let’s keep going. (Applause.)
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