Madame Secretary.  Thank you for your appearance today to discuss the Administration’s FY 08 budget request.

It would be an understatement to say that the world is rapidly becoming a more complex and dangerous place, where the challenges facing the United States are expanding on many fronts.

Our response must be as nuanced and faceted as the problems we face. 

But a foreign policy is more than a simple collection of individual pieces.

Success requires that these be shaped within a context of clear organizing principles and that the individual elements contribute to a common purpose.

The President’s foreign policy is distinguished by two distinct, but interwoven themes:  a Security Agenda and a Freedom Agenda. 

The Security Agenda is the more traditional and tangible set of policies and is focused on defending the U.S. itself and our interests abroad.

This Security Agenda embraces a range of objectives from seeking out and destroying terrorists and curbing the proliferation of dangerous unconventional weapons to countering the rise of powers such as China, which are moving aggressively to expand their influence by undermining that of the U.S.

The Freedom Agenda addresses a much broader and longer-term vision. 

Among the greatest problems we confront are those resulting from authoritarian governments ruling by force that inevitably push their citizens toward extremism.

If we are to take effective action against these sources of instability, we must always keep in mind that our strongest allies in our fight against rogue regimes such as Iran and Syria, are the people they rule over.

By assisting these peoples in their struggle to undermine their oppressors, we can advance our own interests as well.

Although the shaping of strategies dominates the discussion of foreign policy, most observers overlook the more mundane, yet all-important, task of implementation.

Even the wisest decisions must be transformed from printed word to concrete action in an effective and faithful manner, if the intended result is to be achieved. 

It is in the process of implementation that failure or success is often determined.

This seemingly simple task is in fact enormous, requiring close management of the global efforts of thousands of employees, contractors, and others; coordination of the work of scores of bureaus, agencies, and programs; and ensuring the smooth, daily operation of our countless actions in every country on the planet.

Madame Secretary, you are to be congratulated not only for your dedication in your role of Secretary of State but also for choosing to undertake a massive and long-overdue reorganization of the operations of the State Department and its associated agencies to meet the rapidly changing conditions of the world in which we live.

Given the complex challenges and foreign policy objectives outlined above, and the demands these and current programs place upon our ability to implement them, the question before us today is whether or not this budget submission is the one best structured to accomplish the goals you have set.

A good place to start would be to revisit the resources and independence of the Office of the Inspector General. 

Although State’s overall budget has increased by approximately 50% since FY 2001, the Inspector General’s budget has increased by only 1%.

Obviously, strengthening State’s own internal oversight mechanism is a prerequisite to effective reform elsewhere.

There is also a great need to review whether or not the training and deployment of personnel are adequate to current needs.

Last fall, the GAO released a report that concluded that State needed to devote far more attention to addressing staffing shortfalls and improving language proficiencies of employees at foreign posts, especially those critical to the war on terror.

I believe some of your broader reform proposals address some of these issues.

I welcome any details you may be able to share with us and look forward to hearing from Ambassador Tobias in coming weeks regarding the progress on this front.

We must also be alert to decision-making by inertia and to be wary of the trap of equating the spending of money with advancing U.S. interests.

For example, in his FY 07 budget, the President requested funding for U.S. membership in more than forty international organizations. 

But it is not at all clear that continued membership in each of these organizations serves U.S. interests.

Given that the new and supposedly reformed United Nations Human Rights Council still includes some of the world’s worst human rights violators, I believe that a sober look at the costs and advantages of our participation in these international organizations be undertaken as soon as possible.

Regrettably, the UN provides many such examples where a fresh eye and unclouded judgment are sorely needed.

On a larger scale, there is an undeniable need for a thorough reexamination regarding the focus of our assistance programs overseas.

In some instances, I would argue we need to move away from government to government programs and focus more on developing and strengthening civil society.

We must also be careful not to place undue emphasis on conferences and sporadic training efforts but, rather, should structure our programs toward long-term sustainability.

Last year, the National Endowment for Democracy issued a report stating that, in certain countries around the globe, “government efforts to constrain democracy assistance have recently intensified and now seriously impede democracy assistance.”

We must remain vigilant and hold foreign aid recipients accountable for their actions.

The overriding goal of our State Department operations and foreign aid budget should be to better integrate and streamline our programs, in order to effectively advance both the Security and Freedom Agendas I have already mentioned.

The need for a new approach extends to all levels, beginning with the mechanisms and standards we currently employ to monitor and evaluate the performance in the field of our assistance programs.

We must restructure or eliminate those programs which have failed to secure the results set out for them.

Madame Secretary, again let me thank you for your appearance here today.  I look forward to working with you as you move forward in implementing this long-overdue reorganization of how we conduct U.S. foreign policy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.