Projo Politics Blog

SEN. JACK REED: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Madam Secretary, you were right to cite the talent and courage of many individual foreign service officers.

I had the occasion to run into John Weston in Fallujah, and he was a one-man band. But that was the problem. He was the only person out there, really.

And institutionally, the State Department, many times, I feel, has over-promised and under-performed.

Let's take the PRTs [Provisional Reconstruction Teams], for example. You said that you achieved your goal of 10 PRTs. In November of 2005, you announced the goal as 15 PRTs.

What happened to the five PRTs? And how confident can we be that this new goal will be achieved?
U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, Senator, we did decide to take a hard look at – we said up to 15 PRTs, I believe, because we wanted to take a hard look at how we could roll these out.

The big problem, in many of these cases, is to provide adequate security for people in these very difficult areas, and to be able to do that in conjunction with the military.

And so we and the military sat down and began to roll these PRTs out, one at a time. We finally settled on 10 -- I think, seven American; three that are led by others.

And we now believe that 20 is the appropriate number. We will have all of the State Department that we need for those PRTs available for duty in those new 10 PRTs. We've identified them. We're ready to go.

REED: So you have 10 PRTs that are fully staffed?

RICE: That are operational and staffed.

REED: You hope to have 10 more. Is that a hope or a commitment?

RICE: No, we are committed to having 10 more. We have identified the State Department personnel who will be the people who go to those PRTs.

The goal now is to identify other kinds of specialists who need to populate those PRTs. We don't have those specialities at State. We'll have to get them from other government agencies or from the civilian population at large.

REED: Well, thank you, Madam Secretary, but I think what I'm hearing is you've got State Department people identified, but you don't have full teams identified.

And let me just raise another issue. A few weeks ago, when it was announced the surge, you indicated to the Department of Defense that 40 percent of the 300 State Department positions that were to be added would have to be filled by military personnel.

RICE: That is because those are not State Department positions in the sense that I have the personnel to fill those. Those are positions that the State Department was asked to recruit for from the civilian population.

And, Senator, it's an extremely important distinction, because we have filled the positions that State has the expertise to fill.

REED: But let me just step back. I think what you're saying is that either you're the recruiting agent, but essentially you have not yet mobilized the full national authority to go and staff these teams.

RICE: What I need, Senator, is the money.

REED: Is the money in this budget?

RICE: The money is in this supplemental. I can then let the contract for the contracting for civilian personnel who are not in the U.S. government. We have -- we're in the process right now of identifying those people, recruiting them. But for reasons having to do with the law, I can't sign the contract until I have the money.

So if we can pass the money in this supplemental we will be able to recruit the appropriate civilian personnel to go out to the field.

REED: So these will not be federal employees, they will be contractors.

RICE: Some of them will be federal employees. We will get some from U.S. domestic agencies. And we've asked that those that we have the capacity to reimburse -- for instance, the United States Department of Agriculture or the Justice Department or Homeland Security...

REED: Have you previously asked for this type of money – going back to last year?

RICE: We did it on a non-reimbursable basis before. We believe that, given the numbers that we needed, it's better to do it on a reimbursable basis. And so if I can get that authority and that money, we can do this.

But, Senator, I just...

REED: Madam Secretary, my time is very short.

RICE: Yes.

REED: Mr. Secretary, have you been tasked to provide personnel under the auspices of the State Department for these PRT teams?

U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ROBERT M. GATES: Yes, sir. On a temporary basis, I think we've identified 129 people who will participate in the PRTs.

REED: So they'll do that. And that takes away from your ability -- I presume these are civil affairs officers, translators, people with some expertise?

GATES: Yes, sir, that's...

REED: And that takes away your ability to staff your units that are going into these neighborhoods in small unit groups that need, essentially, the same type of personnel.

And I would add, in my discussion with General Schoomaker, when he came up -- he's generating these forces -- he was not able to give us assurance that he could fulfill the civil affairs slots and the translator slots.

GENERAL PETER PACE, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Sir, that's true. We're looking to the retired community and our Reserve volunteers first. And if we're not able to fill those 129 spots from the retirees and the volunteer Reserve and Guard, then we will have to go to active duty forces.

But we are committed to filling these spots.

REED: Well, it just seems to me that this is more of the same and there's reasons about security and contracting and money. But we have known for several years that if we didn't get these PRT teams in the field -- not just 10, but upwards of 18 or 20 -- that likelihood of this whole mission would fail. And we're still messing around trying to find people to fill these teams.

Thank you.