US State Department gets woeful report

WASHINGTON - The United States State Department is underfunded, understaffed and poorly equipped, and many of its buildings are shabby, insecure and overcrowded, says a new report.

Without greater resources and internal reforms, the State Department will lose its ability to avert diplomatic crises, increasing the likelihood the US must resort to military force abroad, the report concludes.

The report, by a taskforce chaired by former Defence Secretary Frank Carlucci, was submitted to new Secretary of State Colin Powell on January 22 and released yesterday.

It recommends a series of bureaucratic changes inside the State Department, which sets US foreign policy and runs the country's embassies and consulates abroad.

Congress should respond to internal reforms by promising to increase funding, it added.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher welcomed the report and said the proposals matched in many respects the priorities of the new Secretary of State.

The 12,000-page report paints a gloomy picture of conditions at the State Department, which lives on about 1 per cent of the receipts from all federal taxation. The Defence Department has a budget about 50 times greater.

"The apparatus of US foreign policymaking and implementation that you will inherit is in a state of serious disrepair. The Department of State suffers from long-term mismanagement, antiquated equipment and dilapidated and insecure facilities," it says.

The number of foreign service officers is about 15 per cent, or 700, below requirements, and 92 per cent of overseas posts have obsolete networks for classified information.

"Many Department of State facilities at home and overseas are shabby and insecure ... If this deterioration continues, our ability to use statecraft to avoid, manage and resolve crises ... will decline, increasing the likelihood that America will have to use military force to protect our interests abroad."

- REUTERS

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