From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Thu Sep 17 2009 - 00:25:25 EDT
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/16/envoys-hesitate-to-report-bad-news-76067822/
EXCLUSIVE: U.S. envoys hesitate to report bad news
Nicholas Kralev (Contact)
U.S. embassies are discouraging or suppressing negative reports to
Washington about U.S. allies, sometimes depriving officials of information
they need to make good policy decisions, current and former diplomats say.
One diplomat told The Washington Times that he has decided to resign in
part because of frustration with "rampant self-censorship" by Foreign
Service officers and their superiors that has gone so far as to ban "bad
news" cables from countries that are friendly with the United States.
The diplomat, who asked that his name not be used for fear of retribution
against himself and colleagues, said that, in one instance under the George
W. Bush administration, an embassy in the Middle East did not report local
government interference in elections. Senior management censored accounts
of low morale at another Middle East mission that had been the target of
terrorist attacks, he said.
More than a dozen diplomats serving in Washington and abroad told The Times
that they agreed with most of the officer's critique, and that the
censorship has continued to a lesser extent in the Obama administration.
All asked not to be named to avoid retribution.
Thomas R. Pickering, a career diplomat for more than 40 years who rose to
be undersecretary of state for political affairs under the Clinton
administration, said the criticism is "well worth paying attention to."
"What worries me - and I have heard it before - is the expectation that
reporting has to be tempered to fit the expectations and not the realities.
This is dangerous and unprofessional and worse," Mr. Pickering said. "Some
of it always existed and it was not confined to the political ambassadors
alone, but it was more their expectation than among the pros. That is
obviously now changing."
Current and former Foreign Service officers said the censorship reached a
peak during the Bush administration. They attributed its continuation to a
risk-averse institutional culture.
"Even in highly classified cables, people in the [Foreign Service] are very
careful not to speak negatively about their host country," said the
diplomat, who is resigning after three overseas assignments.
His ambassador declined to comment for this article. The officer has
received consistently good evaluations, including a recent cable praising
his work from the assistant secretary of state responsible for the region
where he is serving.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said that a cable "represents the
view of the chief of mission" who signs it, and that he or she therefore
has ultimate responsibility for its content. That gives the top diplomat
the power to edit a draft written by a lower-ranking officer.
Still, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton "appreciates those in the
department who give her their honest assessment, and so does the
administration," Mr. Crowley said.
In the Bush administration, he added, "there were various people with
shortcuts around the interagency process, and the president didn't always
get the best policy advice. This administration values all and different
points of view."
"There may be a temptation to put a particular spin on a reporting cable,
but the risk for a post is being seen as out of touch, because the
department has other sources of information," he said.
Mr. Pickering noted that officers do have another outlet for their critical
reporting: e-mails, which do not need clearance.
However, unlike a diplomatic cable, an e-mail is not an official document
and is not read by the wide circle of policymakers.
"Unfortunately, the e-mail may get out, but it doesn't get widely seen and
is not thus of policy significance and influence in the Washington reading
community," he said.
The resigning officer said that, during one of his tours, his ambassador, a
political appointee of President Bush, "flat out banned any 'bad-news'
cables, and made it known at all levels that we were only to produce
'good-news stories' about our [host] country," a U.S. ally.
The officer said he had written "several cables critical of senior leaders"
in his host country and about "interference by the government in the
electoral process," but many of them "were either quashed or radically
altered."
On the other hand, he said, negative cables are common regarding countries
with strained relations with Washington, such as Burma, Zimbabwe and
Venezuela.
Susan Johnson, president of the American Foreign Service Association
(AFSA), the diplomats union, pointed out that the State Department has a
dissent channel, through which officers can express disagreements with
policy or other issues. However, there seems to be a widespread perception
in the Foreign Service that the channel is almost "moribund," she said.
"People don't seem to believe in it anymore," Ms. Johnson said. "Having a
functioning dissent process is vital for the health of the system and our
foreign policy, and AFSA strongly supports it."
She said that AFSA has been struggling to find nominees for some of its
annual dissent awards in recent years. As her organization's new president,
she said, one of her missions will be "revitalizing dissent."
Several officers said that channel has been used few times because of the
impression that the Bush administration did not welcome dissent.
Francis J. Ricciardone, deputy chief of mission in Afghanistan and a former
ambassador to Egypt and the Philippines, said that his 31-year experience
in the Foreign Service "may be unusual, but in any case it has not
resembled what" the resigning officer described.
"Self-censorship most often is precisely that - self-imposed, from within
oneself, not the larger organization," Mr. Ricciardone said.
"There have been a good many play-it-safe colleagues along the way, but I
guess I have been lucky to serve with intellectually restless people of
great integrity - and humor - who have known and shown me the art of
pushing different thinking through exasperating bureaucracies, the fog of
political correctness and, at times, doctrinaire self-delusion," he said.
Patricia Kushlis, a former career diplomat who now writes a blog on foreign
affairs, WhirledView (http://whirledview.typepad.com), said that censorship
"comes with a stultified bureaucracy and a [State] Department afraid to
rock the boat for a variety of reasons - some good, others not."
"There were always legal ways around the system if one looks, and that's
the hallmark of a good bureaucrat. Possibilities include e-mail, letters,
telephone and simply briefing trusted journalists on deep background," she
said.
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