Ryan Zinke Asks Witness About Giving Ambassadors More Autonomy In Their Country Of Assignment

2 days ago

During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last week, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) asked witness Michael Polt, a former U.S. ambassador, about authorities given to ambassadors.

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Transcript

00:00I now recognize for five minutes the distinguished gentleman and former

00:05Secretary of the Interior, the gentleman from Montana, Mr. Zinke, for five minutes.

00:10Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and just a couple comments as we go through. I would

00:15think that if you use the services you ought to pay the freight. Whether it's

00:20mandated or not, there might be more efficient. I'll let those guys, you know,

00:25figure it out. But if they use the services, certainly I think they should

00:27pay the freight. I think that's fair. Mr. Ambassador, looking through and

00:32listening to your testimony, I'm interested when you say enhanced

00:36authority. That seems to be a theme throughout, no doubt with individuals

00:43traveling around. My experience as a commander, I think that everyone

00:47works for somebody. So to give carte blanche, I think probably the ambassador

00:52or the RSO is probably the guy that would approve such things. But

00:57explain to me when you say enhanced authority. What do you mean by that?

01:03Thank you, Mr. Zinke. Since the ambassadors, our ambassadors serve as

01:11representatives of the President of the United States around the world,

01:15and they are charged by the President in these, what we call the chief of mission

01:19letters, by every president in every administration that give the ambassador

01:23instruction, you are in charge of all U.S. official government activities in

01:28your country of assignment. And you have all these responsibilities and

01:32accountability for their safety and for the performance of their duties. I have

01:37found that over the years, in my experience and also my experience as

01:40ambassador, that more and more there has been this effort to have to refer back

01:47to Washington for permission to go ahead and do your job. That has been very

01:52clearly outlined for you already by the President and the President's letter.

01:55And to your point, we're talking about regionalization, right? In my

02:00experience, you have to be very, very careful when you regionalize. Because

02:04oftentimes, rather than you regionalize a service, you regionalize

02:08authority. And that line is problematic because it does create a

02:15bureaucracy. So when you say authority, do you have specific authorities that you

02:20think that we can push the State Department to give to the

02:25ambassadors? I think we should go ahead and let the ambassadors perform the

02:31function that the President and through the Secretary of State, from

02:36the President, have been given to the ambassador in very clear format and not

02:41ask for our chiefs of mission to have to refer back to Washington for

02:46the functions which they've already been authorized. And to make sure that they

02:50have the authority to not only perform their mission, but also to be the risk

02:55managers and the risk absorbers for our functions abroad. The example I'd like to

02:59give you is, you know that many of our embassies nowadays are very heavily

03:03secured and fortified to make sure that our staff stays safe. That's a smart and

03:08prudent idea. At the same time, you can't do diplomacy from behind a fortified

03:13wall. You have to come out and meet the people to go ahead and engage with the

03:17host country, to go ahead and take a certain amount of prudent risk in

03:21performance of your duty. Our ambassadors need to be authorized to go ahead and

03:25absorb that risk prudently, to hold themselves accountable for taking

03:32those risks, but to go ahead and get their staffs to be able to accomplish

03:35their mission and not to be so risk-averse that we can't get the job

03:39done. In your experience, do you find it frustrating on our procurement process?

03:45It seems you have the operator that knows what he wants, the vendor who

03:50basically knows how to manufacture it, but we put a third entity called a

03:55contracting officer in charge. Is there frustration in the State Department

04:00like there is with the Department of Defense on timeliness of procurement?

04:04Certainly there is. Let me be honest, of course there is. At the same

04:08time, we realize that everybody cannot be his or her own procurement officer. You

04:14have to have a process that is fair, that is clearly delineated, and

04:18that is accountable to the money being wisely spent. At the same

04:23time, you know that sometimes it takes much too long to procure things. Often we

04:28work on budgets where there are restrictions all the way through the end

04:32to the end of the fiscal year, and suddenly at the end of fiscal year you

04:35said, my god, you better go out there and buy some refrigerators and some various

04:38other things because very quickly the money needs to be spent. It would be

04:42better if we had a more logical and more predictable procurement process

04:47throughout the entire fiscal year. You seem very articulate for a Sun Devil. I

04:52played for the Ducks, just for the matter of record. Let me ask you,

04:57if this committee, if you could say we're gonna focus on one thing, to fix one

05:03thing within the span and the authority of this committee, what would you pick?

05:08The one I already picked, sir, and that is the one is I really think you could

05:13give serious consideration for creating this Diplomatic Reserve Corps. Create that

05:18body of search capacity for the United States, not just for the State

05:23Department, for the United States to meet overseas contingencies on a diplomatic

05:28basis that we currently do not have. With the State Department positions already

05:33being vastly understaffed by current projections of about 13% of positions

05:37around the world not being filled, in order for us to go ahead and meet

05:41emergencies, it becomes a really dire situation to be able to meet those.

05:46Thank you. Thank you both for your service. Mr. Chairman, I yield.

Ryan Zinke Asks Witness About Giving Ambassadors More Autonomy In Their Country Of Assignment

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