type: other

jurisdiction: US

text: b' SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\n\n United States Department of State\n and the Broadcasting Board of Governors\n Office of Inspector General\nOffice of Inspector General\n\n Office of Inspections\n\n Inspection of the\n Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs\n\n Report Number ISP-I-11-49A, May 2011\n\n\n\n\n Important Notice\n\n This report is intended solely for the official use of the Department of State or the\n Broadcasting Board of Governors, or any agency or organization receiving a copy\n directly from the Office of Inspector General. No secondary distribution may be made,\n in whole or in part, outside the Department of State or the Broadcasting Board of\n Governors, by them or by other agencies of organizations, without prior authorization\n by the Inspector General. Public availability of the document will be determined by the\n Inspector General under the U.S. Code, 5 U.S.C. 552.Improper disclosure of this report\n may result in criminal, civil, or administrative penalties.\n\n\n\n\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\n PURPOSE, SCOPE, AND METHODOLOGY\n OF THE INSPECTION\n\nThis inspection was conducted in accordance with the Quality Standards for Inspections, as\nissued by the President\xe2\x80\x99s Council on Integrity and Efficiency, and the Inspector\xe2\x80\x99s Handbook, as\nissued by the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of State (Department) and the\nBroadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).\n\nPURPOSE AND SCOPE\n\n The Office of Inspections provides the Secretary of State, the Chairman of the BBG, and\nCongress with systematic and independent evaluations of the operations of the Department and\nthe BBG. Inspections cover three broad areas, consistent with Section 209 of the Foreign Service\nAct of 1980:\n\n \xe2\x80\xa2 Policy Implementation: whether policy goals and objectives are being effectively\n achieved; whether U.S. interests are being accurately and effectively represented; and\n whether all elements of an office or mission are being adequately coordinated.\n\n \xe2\x80\xa2 Resource Management: whether resources are being used and managed with maximum\n efficiency, effectiveness, and economy and whether financial transactions and accounts\n are properly conducted, maintained, and reported.\n\n \xe2\x80\xa2 Management Controls: whether the administration of activities and operations meets the\n requirements of applicable laws and regulations; whether internal management controls\n have been instituted to ensure quality of performance and reduce the likelihood of\n mismanagement; whether instance of fraud, waste, or abuse exist; and whether adequate\n steps for detection, correction, and prevention have been taken.\n\nMETHODOLOGY\n\nIn conducting this inspection, the inspectors: reviewed pertinent records; as appropriate, circulated,\nreviewed, and compiled the results of survey instruments; conducted on-site interviews; and\nreviewed the substance of the report and its findings and recommendations with offices,\nindividuals, organizations, and activities affected by this review.\n\n\n\n\n i\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\n\n\n United States Department of State\n and the Broadcasting Board of Governors\n\n Office of Inspector General\n\n\n\n\n PREFACE\n\n\n This report was prepared by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) pursuant to the\nInspector General Act of 1978, as amended, and Section 209 of the Foreign Service Act of 1980,\nas amended. It is one of a series of audit, inspection, investigative, and special reports prepared\nby OIG periodically as part of its responsibility to promote effective management, accountability\nand positive change in the Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors.\n\n This report is the result of an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the office,\npost, or function under review. It is based on interviews with employees and officials of relevant\nagencies and institutions, direct observation, and a review of applicable documents.\n\n The recommendations therein have been developed on the basis of the best knowledge\navailable to the OIG and, as appropriate, have been discussed in draft with those responsible for\nimplementation. It is my hope that these recommendations will result in more effective, efficient,\nand/or economical operations.\n\n I express my appreciation to all of those who contributed to the preparation of this report.\n\n\n\n\n Harold W. Geisel\n Deputy Inspector General\n\n\n\n\n ii\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\n Table of Contents\n\nKey Judgments ................................................................................................................................ 1\nContext ............................................................................................................................................ 3\nExecutive Direction ........................................................................................................................ 5\nPolicy and Program Implementation .............................................................................................. 9\n Functional Offices ....................................................................................................................... 9\n Regional Offices ....................................................................................................................... 17\n Foreign Assistance .................................................................................................................... 24\n Other Issues ............................................................................................................................... 26\nResource Management .................................................................................................................. 28\n Executive Office Overview....................................................................................................... 29\n Planning for the Iraq Transition ................................................................................................ 30\n Regionalization and Management Initiatives............................................................................ 31\n Human Resources ..................................................................................................................... 32\n Financial Management .............................................................................................................. 38\n Domestic Services ..................................................................................................................... 44\n Security Program ...................................................................................................................... 47\nManagement Controls ................................................................................................................... 52\n Performance Management ........................................................................................................ 52\n Recruiting Practices .................................................................................................................. 52\n Time and Attendance ................................................................................................................ 53\n Extensions and Performance Management for Temporary Employees .................................... 54\n Purchase Card Program............................................................................................................. 54\nList of Formal Recommendations ................................................................................................. 56\nList of Informal Recommendations .............................................................................................. 62\nPrincipal Officials ......................................................................................................................... 65\nAbbreviations ................................................................................................................................ 66\nAppendix A: Summary of Foreign Assistance Funding Allocation ............................................ 67\n\n\n\n\n iii\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nKey Judgments\n \xe2\x80\xa2 The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) does an outstanding job pursuing U.S.\n interests in the region under particularly challenging circumstances. The Assistant\n Secretary has built a strong front office team dedicated to its mission and to sharing the\n often overwhelming workload with its employees.\n\n \xe2\x80\xa2 This inspection took place during a period of change in the Middle East unprecedented in\n its intensity and impact, region-wide. NEA managed crises in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya,\n Bahrain, and elsewhere, while dealing compassionately with evacuated families. At the\n same time, the bureau was able to maintain its focus on its important work on Iran,\n Middle East peace, and the transition in Iraq.\n\n \xe2\x80\xa2 Morale among employees is generally high, due to pride in working on critical issues and\n recognition from the front office. Morale is good despite an often inadequate working\n environment, and competition is keen for many NEA positions, domestically and\n overseas.\n\n \xe2\x80\xa2 Interagency interlocutors praised the bureau for its leadership, inclusiveness, mastery of\n policy issues, and operational effectiveness.\n\n \xe2\x80\xa2 The transition from a military- to a civilian-led presence in Iraq poses challenges for the\n Department of State (Department); it must ramp up its presence there quickly and\n securely, even with resource questions affecting its mission not yet decided. Department\n planning and coordination have been thorough with the Department of Defense (DOD)\n and other agencies dedicated to the transition. The appointment of an Iraq Transition\n Coordinator for the Department is a welcome addition, as the date for completing the\n transition approaches.\n\n \xe2\x80\xa2 Staff in the Iraq office is not used effectively, and NEA needs to reorganize the staffing\n pattern.\n\n \xe2\x80\xa2 A separate team in the executive office focuses solely on planning for the upcoming\n military-to-civilian transition in Iraq. Team members are proud of what they have\n accomplished so far. However, communication and coordination issues with the NEA\n Iraq policy office, as well as the unclear budget picture and occasionally confusing\n strategic guidance, are hurting the planning process.\n\n\n\n 1\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\n \xe2\x80\xa2 The new deputy assistant secretary (DAS) for public diplomacy has made important\n improvements to ensure that the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s messaging is consistent, timely, and\n coordinated with other agencies, particularly on Iraq. Still, the Department needs to\n clearly define the authority and responsibilities of this new position, relative to those of\n the existing position of public diplomacy office director, to avoid confusion and\n duplication of effort.\n\n \xe2\x80\xa2 While employees are energized by the importance of their work, the pace of bureau work\n interferes with training. NEA needs to implement orientation and mentoring programs,\n develop a handbook for desk officers, and urge managers to spend more time teaching\n their staff, rather than fixing papers for them.\n\n \xe2\x80\xa2 The executive office that supports both NEA and the Bureau of South and Central Asian\n Affairs (SCA) does a remarkably good job in many areas, particularly given the heavy\n workload. However, the financial management office\xe2\x80\x99s ability to properly manage the\n funds it controls is questionable. Moreover, human resources services need to be\n addressed.\n\n \xe2\x80\xa2 The executive office\xe2\x80\x99s technology team is operating in crisis management mode, as\n bureau staff face frequent and recurring computer system outages, causing papers to be\n late and staff to work overtime, waiting for resumption of service. Customers are\n dissatisfied with the service provided by the Bureau of Information Resource\n Management (IRM) 3 years after consolidation, but problems also typically involve\n antiquated Department infrastructure, which may take years to fix.\n\n\nThe inspection took place in Washington, DC, between February 9 and March 17, 2011.\n(b) (6)\n\n\n\n\n 2\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nContext\n The inspection of NEA took place at a time of unprecedented turmoil in the Middle East.\nIn December, at the beginning of the Office of Inspector General (OIG) survey of bureau\nemployees and contacts, the self-immolation of a young fruit merchant in Tunisia set off\nrepercussions throughout the Arab world. Within days, the President of Tunisia had departed and\nan interim government had taken power. This was followed in January by mass demonstrations\nin Egypt which, after 2 weeks, led to the departure of a long-time ally of the United States,\nEgyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Demonstrations in Jordan, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Algeria,\nMorocco, Bahrain, and other states in the region required governments of those countries to\nrespond. These events impacted critical U.S. interests. To manage these crises, support the\nSecretary and President as they considered policy options, and continue the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s ongoing\nwork, including on Iraq and Middle East peace, NEA staff worked extraordinarily long hours,\nsometimes through the night. They prepared policy papers for, and sometimes participated in,\nover 100 meetings under National Security Staff authority from January through mid-March.\n\n As the inspection concluded in March, armed conflict bordering on civil war was raging\nin Libya, the Gulf states were still trying to cope with protestors\xe2\x80\x99 demands, and the Gulf\nCooperation Council had sent troops to Bahrain to quell unrest. Other states in the region were\nfocused on the conflict in Libya as well as on their own domestic audiences, carefully\nconsidering what, if any, political and social reforms might be required to maintain stability and\norder. The world\xe2\x80\x99s attention also remained on Iran and its intransigence on human rights and\nnuclear nonproliferation issues. More important was the question of how Iran might try to take\nadvantage of the opportunity presented by instability in the largely Sunni-ruled Gulf states, while\nsuppressing free expression at home. Through all of this, the effect of these changes on the\nMiddle East peace process, as well as on other strategic U.S. interests, loomed as serious,\nunanswered questions, even as NEA continued to support transition in Iraq.\n\n Meanwhile, the White House, the Secretary of State, the U.S. Ambassador in Baghdad,\nand other State Department principals, together with the DOD, were engaged in serious budget\ndiscussions, both internally and with Congress, to ensure that the United States had the financial\nand personnel resources in the FY 2012 budget to complete the transition from a military- to a\ncivilian-led American presence in Iraq, as U.S. forces depart from there later in the year. At\ninspection\xe2\x80\x99s end, these negotiations continued, as Congress continued to debate how to fund the\ngovernment in the current fiscal year.\n\n Clearly, the challenges of this period impacted NEA\xe2\x80\x99s workload, as never before.\nAlthough always a significant part of the Department\xe2\x80\x99s strategic agenda, and consistent with the\nPresident\xe2\x80\x99s 2009 Cairo speech, human rights and democracy in the region took on a greater\nurgency and focus than ever before. At the same time, while supporting protestors urging\ndemocratic reform, the United States sought to ensure that these changes did not damage U.S.\nmedium- and long-term interests in the region. The bureau was at the epicenter of efforts to\nreview these issues and prepare recommendations to the President, the Secretary, and other\nprincipals. As an example of the intensity of this period, beginning in early January through mid-\nMarch, the bureau prepared policy papers for, and often participated in, more than 50\n 3\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nInteragency Policy Committee and subcommittee meetings, 40 deputies committee meetings, and\n16 principals committee meetings, as well as separate meetings of the National Security Council\nwith the President, and with National Security staff. The burden of this workload was aggravated\nby the fact that agendas for these meetings were often late and/or changed at the last minute; the\nbureau often did not get timely informal read-outs from these meetings; and summaries of\nconclusions often came out several days later \xe2\x80\x93 with tasking deadlines already passed, and after\nsubsequent meetings had transpired.\n\n The bureau was required to staff two 24/7 task forces and a number of \xe2\x80\x9cshadow task\nforces\xe2\x80\x9d through mid-March, in large part to make sure that the evacuations of the U.S. citizens\nfrom Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, and Yemen proceeded smoothly, and to manage the effects of\nadditional Wikileaks disclosures of purported embassy cables.\n\n During the inspection, the Department selected an Iraq Transition Coordinator, an\nambassador with Iraq experience, to work for the Deputy Secretary for Management and\nResources and with the bureau, DOD, the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, Embassy\nBaghdad, and other interagency actors, to ensure the success of the transition. The Department\nalso selected an ambassador with considerable experience in the region to act as the Coordinator\nfor Egypt Transition. The U.S. Ambassador to Tripoli, withdrawn due to security concerns in the\naftermath of the Wikileaks affair, continued to work on policy toward Libya and to lead U.S.\ninteraction with the Libyan opposition. Ironically, the evacuations in Egypt and Libya provided\nthe bureau with much-needed help, as evacuees from Embassy Cairo and Tripoli were available\nin Washington.\n\n Domestically, NEA has 321 employees. Overseas, 1,346 U.S. direct-hire and 7,007\nlocally employed staff work in 17 U.S. missions in the region. The total FY 2010 budget\nresources (domestic and overseas) for NEA were $1.2 billion (excluding salaries for direct-hire\nAmericans).\n\n\n\n\n 4\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nExecutive Direction\n The crises in the Middle East gave inspectors an opportunity to see the NEA leaders in\naction in a time of enormous change and significance to the United States. Their extensive\nregional expertise, collegiality, and esprit de corps set the tone for all levels of the bureau.\nEmployees knew their front office team was working as intensely as they were and that each\nperson\xe2\x80\x99s work counted. This knowledge contributed to generally high morale, although the\nintense workload and lack of progress on some issues influenced it negatively. Most importantly,\nthe outstanding and timely products of their efforts, including policy recommendations for the\nSecretary and President, underscored the reputation of the bureau as one of the finest in the\nDepartment.\n\n The Assistant Secretary has served throughout the region, including as Ambassador in\nLebanon, as well as principal deputy assistant secretary and acting Assistant Secretary\nimmediately prior to his current position. He received consistently high marks from employees\nthroughout the bureau and the Department for his knowledge of the region, his communication\nskills, and his genuine concern for his staff and their workload. His own grueling schedule only\nreinforced that appreciation. During this inspection, he made three trips to the region: to Tunisia\nin the aftermath of government changes there, to the Gulf for a week of shuttle diplomacy, and to\nBahrain to try to defuse tensions after the Gulf Cooperation Council had sent troops there.\nIronically, this schedule reflected less travel than he normally undertakes.\n\n While the Assistant Secretary told the inspectors that he has not had the time to do long-\nterm strategic planning with his leadership team, in fact he took advantage of any opportunity to\ndo so. In January, as events in Egypt unfolded, he convened an ad hoc strategy session with his\nfront office team and his ambassadors, who were in Washington for the Global Chiefs of Mission\nconference. Later, after his trip to the Gulf, the Assistant Secretary presided over a meeting with\nhis front office team to discuss the risks and opportunities of the dramatically unfolding events\nthroughout the Middle East. These sessions contributed to the discussion led by the Secretary\nand other principals on the U.S. policy response.\n\n The Assistant Secretary has put together a team of seven DASes who, for the most part,\nhave considerable executive leadership experience themselves, including as ambassadors, chiefs\nof mission, deputy chiefs of mission, and charg\xc3\xa9s d\xe2\x80\x99affaires throughout the region. The noncareer\nDAS overseeing the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) has an academic background\nworking on Middle East and assistance issues.\n\n The principal deputy assistant secretary, a former ambassador, has spent most of his\ncareer working on Middle East and related issues, including tours as Chief of Mission in\nJerusalem and deputy chief of mission in Beirut. His Iraq experience, gained from prior senior\npositions in the Department and in Baghdad, has informed policy discussions as the transition in\nIraq goes forward. He is both chief operating officer for the bureau and alter ego to the Assistant\nSecretary, serving frequently as acting Assistant Secretary due to the Assistant Secretary\xe2\x80\x99s heavy\ntravel schedule. He is known throughout the Department and the interagency community for his\nexperience and policy sense, as well as for his bureaucratic and interpersonal skills. His\n 5\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\ncolleagues in the NEA/SCA Executive Office (EX) give him high marks for being attentive to\nthe management demands of NEA. He meets weekly with them to address both resource and\npersonnel issues.\n\n In addition, the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s overseas team includes its ambassadors and charg\xc3\xa9s in the field,\nmost of whom have had long NEA careers. These chiefs of mission serve admirably, but where\nthere are leadership issues, the Assistant Secretary does not hesitate to address them directly with\nthe individual. In a region where women\xe2\x80\x99s rights are generally limited, both the NEA front office\nand its chiefs of mission have a high percentage of women in their ranks, setting an impressive\nexample for their Middle Eastern counterparts and others.\n\n The front office team shares information with its employees well. Each Friday, the\nAssistant Secretary convenes an open meeting that all bureau employees and key contacts inside\nand outside the Department may attend. Interagency contacts praised the front office for its\nprofessionalism, transparency, and openness, saying it resulted in better communication for all\nsides as they work together on difficult and urgent issues.\n\n The Assistant Secretary, DASes, and EX director take an active interest in filling the\nbureau\xe2\x80\x99s positions with the best officers they can find. The need to fill key Iraq slots over the\npast 7 years has resulted in many non-NEA hands coming into the bureau. The Assistant\nSecretary is understandably proud of this influx of new blood. Competition for prime NEA slots\nremains fierce, despite the long hours.\n\n Each member of the front office also serves as a role model of expertise, tradecraft, and\nwork ethic. Several times during the inspection, the Assistant Secretary and the DASes worked\nthrough the night alongside their staff to meet short deadlines for papers or actions. No matter\nhow busy the front office is, the Assistant Secretary takes time to compliment and thank staff for\ntheir efforts. Many desk officers, however, are serving in that position for the first time, whether\nthey are entry-level officers or mid-level Foreign Service or Civil Service, and they need a more\nstructured introduction to the work.\n\n Currently, there is no formal orientation program, to either introduce staff members to\ntheir work or to give them practical information about requesting services from EX. While the\nOffice of Egypt and Levant Affairs has developed a handbook for its desk officers, there is none\nfor bureau-wide use. The lack of orientation and resources for new staff leads to confusion about\nroles and processes and, ultimately, wastes time. There also have been a few examples of\nconfusion when new desk officers were unfamiliar with the procedures for clearing press\nguidance outside the bureau.\n\nRecommendation 1: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should develop an annual orientation\nprogram and handbook for new personnel, including guidance on procedures and expectations\nand information about support services. (Action: NEA)\n\n The pace of work is so intense that a poorly written draft or one that misses policy nuance\nis more likely to be fixed by a supervisor than returned to the drafter. In order to meet deadlines,\nthe opportunity is lost to teach and mentor the next generation of leaders. In addition, larger\n 6\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nnumbers of entry-level officers are serving their first tour in the Department, without the benefit\nof overseas service. While the principal deputy assistant secretary has served as a mentor for a\nrecent, entry-level Foreign Service class and continues his role with a number of officers,\nparticularly those serving in the bureau or its posts, the need for greater mentoring is clear.\nFailure to do so leads to some frustration among desk officers and managers. Both the Bureau of\nConsular Affairs and the Bureau of Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs have leadership\nprograms that NEA could draw from, and the Foreign Service Institute\xe2\x80\x99s Leadership and\nManagement School has ample leadership courses, organizational development training, and\ncoaching programs that could assist supervisors in these efforts.\n\n The bureau employs staff in a wide variety of personnel categories, all of whom\ncontribute in significant ways to NEA\xe2\x80\x99s considerable productivity. These include political\nappointees, members of the Foreign Service, traditional and excepted Civil Service employees,\ncontractors, when-actually-employed staff, fellows, and interns. The varying terms of\nemployment and lack of clearly identified career paths for some personnel categories can\nsometimes lead to misunderstandings about an employee\xe2\x80\x99s place in and value to the bureau.\n\nRecommendation 2: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should establish and implement a\nmentoring program for entry-level officers and employees in personnel categories not already\ncovered by formal counseling and evaluation programs. The program should involve direct\nengagement of the front office. (Action: NEA)\n\n A few special advisors in the front office reinforce bureau leadership where there is a\nhigh volume of senior-level activity required, such as for Yemen. The inspection team found,\nhowever, scant justification for dedicating a GS-15 employee to be a Senior Advisor for Iranian\nAffairs. There has been little activity in the past 8 months that cannot be handled by personnel in\nthe Office of Iranian Affairs. The inspection team examined documents from multiple sources\nand conducted interviews with embassies and with a range of offices inside and outside the\nbureau, including those of special envoys. It concluded that, notwithstanding the relevant\nexperience the incumbent brings to the portfolio, demand for the employee\xe2\x80\x99s contributions were\ninsufficient to justify the position, especially in light of the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s other unmet priority staffing\nneeds.\n\nRecommendation 3: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should eliminate the position of\nSenior Advisor for Iranian Affairs and reprogram position number D-03530-00 to an office\nwhere it can be better used. (Action: NEA)\n\n Office directors and deputy directors in the bureau face the challenge of managing crises,\ncompleting normal work, and developing staff. Several country directors expressed regret that\nthere was no natural forum in NEA for sharing those experiences with their peers. Senior staff\nmeetings and the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s expanded weekly meetings are policy focused and often devoted to\ndiscussing urgent operational issues. Office directors and deputies would benefit from the\nexchange of experience and views on human resource professional development.\n\n\n\n 7\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n Informal Recommendation 1: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should\n periodically use one of its weekly staff meetings or other gatherings with office\n directors as a forum for senior staff to discuss professional development, both for\n themselves as supervisors and their subordinates.\n\n A number of the DASes did not have current work requirement statements signed by the\nAssistant Secretary. This applied to the Assistant Secretary, as well. While it was clear that, even\nin the midst of crisis, each officer understood clearly his or her responsibilities and that feedback\nfrom supervisors was forthcoming, NEA should remedy this gap immediately.\n\n Informal Recommendation 2: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should prepare,\n sign, and submit work requirement statements for all front office employees.\n\n The bureau does not have a centralized calendar listing key items such as major events,\nvisiting foreign officials, and groups of exchange visitors in Washington. Such a calendar would\nimprove coordination and open up opportunities to take better advantage of visitors and events.\nThe NEA SharePoint site would be an excellent place for a shared calendar, because each office\ncould add its own items.\n\n Informal Recommendation 3: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should establish\n a bureau-wide calendar of events, visitors, and programs.\n\n\n\n\n 8\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nPolicy and Program Implementation\nFunctional Offices\n\nOffice of Regional and Multilateral Affairs\n\n The Office of Regional and Multilateral Affairs actively manages major cross-cutting\nissues and contributes substantially to integrating bureau activities. These include: strategic\nplanning, foreign assistance, furthering U.S. economic and commercial interests in the region;\npolitical-military programs, liaison with the Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai,\nglobal issues; and congressional relations. Several Civil Service staff members ensure continuity\nin managing these complex issues. The office employs effectively a variety of interns and\nfellows.\n\n The Foreign Service director and deputy director earn high marks for strong leadership.\nIn keeping with the wide-ranging office portfolios, the staff is outward looking and spends\nconsiderable time coordinating with all offices in the Bureau, with other Department bureaus,\nand other Federal agencies. The office succeeded in recruiting staff for the numerous task forces\nNEA was charged with standing up in early 2011. The director maintains continual outreach to\ncounterpart regional offices in other geographic bureaus with which he initiated monthly\nmeetings to coordinate on issues of mutual concern. Among other things, these meetings have\nbeen useful in jointly developing improved processes for meeting functional bureau requirements\nfor compiling congressionally-mandated reports. The deputy ably leads the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s economic\npolicy advocacy and commercial promotion and manages the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s strategic planning\nprocess, with frequent direct input from the front office.\n\n The quality of interaction with and support for the Multinational Force and Observers has\nimproved markedly in recent years. Some of the obstacles have been addressed that were\npreventing Foreign Service officers from smoothly reintegrating into the Department after\nserving in the Multinational Force and Observers\xe2\x80\x99 civilian observers unit. However, challenges\npersist, including problems with bidding on onward assignments, delays in the effective dates of\nearned promotions, and difficulties with reinstatement on the Department\xe2\x80\x99s payroll.\n\nRecommendation 4: The Bureau of Human Resources, in coordination with the Bureau of\nNear Eastern Affairs, should establish standard operating procedures for reintegrating into the\nDepartment the Foreign Service officers returning from duty with the Multinational Force and\nObservers and include in the work requirements of a designated officer the responsibility to\naddress the reintegration challenges facing these individuals. (Action: DGHR, in coordination\nwith NEA)\n\n U.S. Government personnel of the Multinational Force and Observers are authorized\ndiplomatic passports by the Bureau of Consular Affairs, Special Issuance Agency, but are having\napplications denied. The OIG team determined that this complication in issuance of diplomatic\npassports has been rectified by a January 2011 revision of the Diplomatic Travel Manual, which\nnow authorizes 5 year diplomatic passports for eight key positions within the Multinational\n 9\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nForce and Observers. OIG considers the above action taken by the Bureau of Consular Affairs to\nbe sufficient, and no recommendation is necessary.\n\n The Bureau of Diplomatic Security is administratively terminating security clearances\nafter notification from the Bureau of Human Resources that the employee has resigned from the\nDepartment. Since 2007, there have been seven recorded instances of Multinational Force and\nObservers designees having security clearances revoked and removed from the Bureau of\nDiplomatic Security, Case Management System. This action is largely due to lack of awareness\nof the policy set forth by Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage in the cable STATE 021222 in\nJanuary 2003 authorizing that certain Multinational Force and Observers employees must\nmaintain their security clearance as they are \xe2\x80\x9cacting on behalf of the Department.\xe2\x80\x9d Currently,\nclearance reinstatement is being conducted on an ad-hoc basis by the NEA Bureau Security\nOfficer, which is not a viable solution to the problem and runs counter to the directive given by\nDeputy Secretary Armitage.\n\nRecommendation 5: The Bureau of Human Resources, in coordination with the Bureau of\nNear Eastern Affairs and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, should establish standard operating\nprocedures that prevent security clearances being terminated upon resignation of Department\npersonnel seconded to the Multinational Force and Observers. (Action: DGHR, in coordination\nwith NEA and DS)\n\n The Office of Regional and Multilateral Affairs has one of three NEA positions\ndesignated to manage congressional issues, although only one was filled at the time of the\ninspection. Just prior to the inspection period, through the initiative of the front office staff\nassistants, the bureau eliminated a sizeable backlog and regained control over the flow of\ncongressional correspondence. There remains room for improvement in NEA\xe2\x80\x99s management of\nthe myriad responses to nonwritten congressional requests for information and requests for\nbriefings. At times, the Bureau of Legislative Affairs staff is not informed of NEA\xe2\x80\x99s contacts\nwith congressional offices or the status of requests that the Bureau of Legislative Affairs passed\nto action offices. With its well developed mechanisms for dealing with offices both within and\noutside NEA, the Office of Regional and Multilateral Affairs could perform a useful service to\nthe bureau, in improving coordination on interactions with the Congress.\n\nRecommendation 6: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of\nLegislative Affairs, should develop and implement standard operating procedures for dealing\nwith requests from the Congress. These procedures should include routinely notifying the Bureau\nof Legislative Affairs staff and others within the Department, as appropriate. (Action: NEA, in\ncoordination with H)\n\nOffice of Press and Public Diplomacy\n\n Fast-moving, lean, and professional, NEA\xe2\x80\x99s Office of Press and Public Diplomacy\n(NEA/PPD) does a good job responding to the daily inundation of requests and taskings, while\nkeeping a handle on the status of public diplomacy programs and exchanges in a rapidly\nchanging environment. However, as it grapples with a plethora of high-profile, sensitive issues,\nthe office is also struggling with many of the same practical and philosophical issues that beset\n 10\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\npublic diplomacy Department-wide. The geographical division of the office, which is split\namong four different locations in two buildings, makes the task of integrating its efforts even\nmore difficult.\n\n In response to a mandate from the Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy and Public\nAffairs, NEA added the position of DAS for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communications in\n2010. The bureau initially expressed concerns about potential overlap between this position and\nthat of the office director, who had previously performed many of the functions envisioned for\nthe new DAS. This issue has remained unresolved, resulting in confusion, duplication, and\nunclear lines of authority and responsibility. The DAS has become heavily involved in\noperational issues, rather than concentrating on big picture planning involving all aspects of\npublic diplomacy; the office director has become involved in many press issues, rather than\nfocusing on the day-to-day operations of the office and bringing the full range of public\ndiplomacy resources to bear on NEA issues. The upcoming arrival of a deputy office director for\npress, a position that has been vacant since the summer of 2010, heightens the urgency to clarify\neach person\xe2\x80\x99s role.\n\nRecommendation 7: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Office of\nPolicy, Planning and Resources for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, should rewrite the\nwork requirements and position descriptions to clearly delineate the authority, duties, and\nresponsibilities of the deputy assistant secretary for Public Diplomacy and Strategic\nCommunications and the director of the Office of Press and Public Diplomacy in relation to each\nother. (Action: NEA, in coordination with R/PPR)\n\n The new DAS arrived with strong strategic communication skills, bolstered during her\nyear working with the military in Iraq, but without a formal public diplomacy background or\ntraining. She has succeeded in improving NEA/PPD\xe2\x80\x99s coordination with the policy desks in the\nDepartment and with the information and communications offices at the Pentagon. She also\nmakes sure the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s messaging takes advantage of new media and reflects U.S. interests.\nStill, her lack of familiarity with the scope and long-term purpose of public diplomacy programs\naimed at building lasting relationships has led to their taking a back seat to the more urgent\nmessaging challenges of the day. Also, since she has arrived in the bureau in June 2010, the DAS\nhas not traveled to the region to familiarize herself with how embassy public affairs sections are\nusing the full spectrum of public diplomacy tools. The office director, who took up his duties in\nSeptember, 2010, also has not yet traveled to the field.\n\n Informal Recommendation 4: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should require\n the deputy assistant secretary for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communications\n and the director of the Office of Public Diplomacy to travel to the region in the very\n near future, to familiarize themselves with the public diplomacy programs and\n challenges in the field.\n\n The physical division of NEA/PPD has exacerbated the leadership challenge. Some\nemployees work on Navy Hill, in a separate compound across the street from the main\nDepartment building where the unit\xe2\x80\x99s front office and press office are located. The Navy Hill\nstaff oversee public diplomacy programs, support public affairs sections in the field, and liaise\n 11\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nregularly with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Office of International\nInformation Programs. Creating more opportunities for in-depth contact between the staff on\nNavy Hill and office leadership in the main Department building would enhance mutual\nunderstanding.\n\n Informal Recommendation 5: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should\n encourage the deputy assistant secretary for Public Diplomacy and Strategic\n Communications and the director of the Office of Press and Public Diplomacy to\n have more informal, in-depth contact with the staff, through monthly brown-bag\n lunches at Navy Hill and other gatherings, such as an all-staff meeting off site.\n\n Informal Recommendation 6: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should include\n the Office of Press and Public Diplomacy\xe2\x80\x99s deputy director for public diplomacy on\n the press office distribution list, to improve information sharing between the two\n elements of the office.\n\n As noted above, the physical separation of the various parts of the office has made\ncoordination and communication more difficult, especially between the press and public\ndiplomacy staffs. Because movements of office space are complex decisions that can affect the\nequities of other offices and bureaus, the OIG team did not formally recommend immediately\nreuniting NEA/PPD; however, the bureau should make doing so a high priority.\n\n Some bureaus within the Department have public diplomacy desk officers embedded in\nthe policy offices handling their countries. The 2004 OIG inspection report for NEA\nrecommended following such a course, which the bureau partially implemented, but then\nabandoned. At this point, the practical difficulties of moving all the public diplomacy desk\nofficers would outweigh the benefits gained. The office is already physically split, and most\npublic diplomacy desk officers cover countries in more than one regional office. Public\ndiplomacy desk officers now routinely attend the regional offices\xe2\x80\x99 staff meetings, a constructive\ninitiative by the DAS. Another initiative by the DAS was the creation of a weekly coordination\nmeeting on Iraq, bringing together policy, press, and public diplomacy program staff. Its success\nled to the creation of a similar coordination meeting on Iran, inaugurated in February 2011 and\nexpanded to include other interagency partners.\n\n The Iran desk has a public diplomacy officer on staff who acts as liaison with NEA/PPD,\nwhich also has a public diplomacy desk officer at Navy Hill who covers Iran and other countries.\nAlthough it is not standard, this arrangement for Iran functions well; it also promotes close\ncoordination between the policy and public diplomacy message and programming regarding this\nmost sensitive policy area.\n\n NEA/PPD\xe2\x80\x99s coverage of Iraq was undergoing changes at the time of the inspection. The\ndesk officer was leaving, and the office was preparing to hire two staff members, one to focus on\nstrategic communications and liaison with the military, and another to focus on programs and\nexchanges. Coordination between policy and public diplomacy would benefit if at least one of\nthese individuals, and possibly both, would sit in the Iraq office. Shortly after the inspection,\nNEA embedded one of the new Iraq public diplomacy staff members within the Iraq office.\n 12\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n All of the Iraq public diplomacy staff mentioned above, as well as the press officer who\nfocuses on Iraq, are noncareer, temporary appointment Civil Service employees, hired under\nU.S. Code Title 5, Section 3161 (informally called 3161s). Logically, a career Foreign Service or\nCivil Service officer should oversee what is arguably the most important public diplomacy\nportfolio in NEA. However, NEA/PPD has only three career public diplomacy desk officer slots\nfor the entire region, and has decided not to devote one of them to Iraq when it has the option of\nhiring temporary 3161 employees for Iraq. Looking ahead, though, the bureau will need to\ntransition to a more normal Iraq office structure for public diplomacy.\n\nRecommendation 8: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should develop a transition plan for\nIraq public diplomacy to give oversight responsibility to a career public diplomacy professional.\n(Action: NEA)\n\n As the public affairs section at Embassy Baghdad undergoes the transition to a more\nnormal public diplomacy operation, there is a need to determine what resources it will require in\nits base budget for public diplomacy activities. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad drafted a 3-year\nstrategic plan, which was still in the clearance process at the time of the inspection. The\nuncertainty about future funding levels has complicated the planning process.\n\n NEA/PPD has developed communications and strategic plans for various issues and parts\nof the NEA domain. It is beginning to reposition its public diplomacy spending in line with the\nstrategic priority of countries in the region, as advocated by the Under Secretary for Public\nDiplomacy and Public Affairs. The FY 2012 plan written before the arrival of the current public\ndiplomacy DAS and office director makes relatively little mention of public diplomacy. It\nincludes a public diplomacy goal paper, and the Assistant Secretary\xe2\x80\x99s opening statement cites the\nimportance of public diplomacy, but besides that, the plan mentions public diplomacy only in the\ngoal papers for Middle East peace (requesting a press officer), Iraq, and enhancing infrastructure.\nAn additional element that needs to be incorporated in public diplomacy planning in the FY 2013\nBureau Strategic and Resource Plan is the Public Diplomacy Strategic Framework issued in\nFebruary 2010 by the Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.\n\nRecommendation 9: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should integrate public diplomacy\nmore widely throughout its Bureau Strategic and Resource Plan and incorporate the concepts\nfrom the Public Diplomacy Strategic Framework. (Action: NEA)\n\n NEA/PPD\xe2\x80\x99s press office has achieved a reputation for agility, responsiveness, and close\ncoordination with NEA front office and policy offices. It conducts significant direct outreach\n(some of it in Arabic) to members of the Arab and Middle East news media, and does some of its\nown monitoring of Arabic social media. It has been able to do this because the office has been\nfortunate to have on its staff a student fellow who is a native Arabic speaker, as well as officers\nwho are fluent in the language. During the inspection, NEA/PPD was making plans to bring on\nboard bloggers in Arabic and Persian. Maintaining adequate language capability on short notice\nis an important need for this office, especially in view of the imminent departure of the student\nfellow and normal staff turnover. However, it raises questions of duplication, cost-effectiveness,\nand policy coordination with the other Department offices that are engaging in social media and\ndigital outreach.\n 13\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\n\nRecommendation 10: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of\nPublic Affairs, the Office of International Information Programs, and the Office of Policy,\nPlanning and Resources for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, should develop a\nmemorandum of understanding outlining the conditions under which the Bureau of Near Eastern\nAffairs will carry out blogging, in order to avoid duplication and to ensure policy and message\ncoordination. (Action: NEA in coordination with PA, IIP, and R/PPR)\n\n Also during the inspection, as the key role social media played in the regional upheavals\nof early 2011 became clear, an issue arose among NEA/PPD, the Bureau of Public Affairs, and\nthe Office of International Information Programs about whether the policy offices should clear\nTweets aimed at the region, to ensure they are highlighting the most effective messages, or\nwhether such clearances would needlessly hamstring efforts to engage audiences via Twitter.\n\nRecommendation 11: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of\nPublic Affairs and the Office of International Information Programs, should come to a common\npolicy regarding when clearances are and are not needed for social media messages. (NEA, in\ncoordination with PA and IIP )\n\nOffice of Middle East Partnership Initiative\n\n The MEPI office serves as NEA\xe2\x80\x99s in-house assistance programming office, running\nprojects to promote more pluralistic, participatory, and prosperous societies in the Middle East\nand North Africa. Its programs reach 17 countries plus the West Bank and Gaza. Funding for the\nMEPI office in FY 2010 was $65 million from Economic Support Funds and $1.7 million\nprovided from diplomatic and consular programs (D&CP) funds. The office\xe2\x80\x99s unique mandate\nand separate physical location have sometimes caused its staff to feel isolated from the rest of\nNEA and have hampered the rest of the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s understanding of MEPI\xe2\x80\x99s functions. However,\nthe outbreak of pro-democracy demonstrations throughout the Middle East and North Africa in\nearly 2011 threw a spotlight on MEPI\xe2\x80\x99s work to promote civil society and highlighted the value\nof its programs. The office also demonstrated its flexibility and responsiveness when it quickly\nreprogrammed $20 million from lower priority programs to meet new needs in Tunisia.\n\n OIG recently conducted an inspection of the MEPI office, and released a report (ISP-I-\n10-76) in August 2010. Therefore, this NEA inspection report focuses on new developments and\nissues arising after the previous OIG inspection.\n\n In response to a 2010 OIG recommendation, MEPI reorganized itself to create a separate,\nthree-person public outreach unit to produce informational materials, respond to press queries,\nengage its audience online, and develop an alumni program. The unit launched a revamped Web\nsite in October 2010, moving it to the Office of International Information Programs\xe2\x80\x99 platform,\nfor greater flexibility in updating content and including translated material. The unit also\nlaunched a Twitter feed in January 2011, complementing its existing social media Facebook and\nYouTube sites. Although the social media sites include some material in Arabic, the Web site\nand informational materials are still nearly entirely in English. They would be more effective if\n\n 14\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nthey included more information in Arabic. MEPI staff would like to have more information\ntranslated but are still exploring the best way to accomplish this goal.\n\nRecommendation 12: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should find cost-effective means to\ntranslate into Arabic portions of the Web site and informational materials of its Office of Middle\nEast Partnership Initiative. (Action: NEA)\n\n At the time of this inspection, MEPI was preparing to issue a $4 million request for\napplications, to create an alumni outreach network. The Bureau of Educational and Cultural\nAffairs has an exchange alumni network and Web site; however, MEPI wishes to create its own\nnetwork, because most MEPI program alumni would not be eligible to join ECA\xe2\x80\x99s State Alumni\nWeb site because they participated in programs in their own or other countries and thus are not\nalumni of \xe2\x80\x9cexchanges.\xe2\x80\x9d Nevertheless, MEPI does run some exchanges involving travel to the\nUnited States, and those alumni would be eligible to join the State Alumni Web site if they\nreceived information about it, and if ECA could confirm that they were bona fide exchange\nparticipants.\n\nRecommendation 13: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of\nEducational Affairs, should implement procedures to routinely distribute brochures and\ninformational material about the State Alumni Web site to Middle East Partnership Initiative\nexchange participants while they are in the United States and to furnish lists of Middle East\nPartnership Initiative exchange participants to the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.\n(Action: NEA, in coordination with ECA)\n\n The new public outreach unit works closely with the NEA press office to provide\ninformation about MEPI programs for speeches, talking points, and media inquiries. However,\nthere is some disagreement about whether the outreach unit or the NEA press office should take\nthe lead in speaking directly to journalists. While MEPI staff are the best informed about their\nown programs, the NEA press staff are more attuned to the overall policy context and\nsensitivities.\n\n Informal Recommendation 7: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should work\n out an understanding between the Middle East Partnership Initiative\xe2\x80\x99s public outreach\n unit and the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s press office, regarding procedures for handling journalist\n interviews about the Middle East Partnership Initiative, factoring in issues like timing\n and sensitivity.\n\n After the 2010 inspection, MEPI leadership reorganized the office to create three\ndivisions \xe2\x80\x93 policy and programming, strategic planning and resources, and grants management.\nTwo of the division chief positions received an upgrade to GS-15. The grants management chief\nmaintained a GS-14 classification. The position has significant management responsibilities in\naddition to grants officer responsibilities and the position description does not fully reflect the\nmanagement responsibilities.\n\nRecommendation 14: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should rewrite the position\ndescription of the grants management division chief; conduct a desk audit to determine whether\n 15\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nthe position has the correct skill code and grade level, given its range of management\nresponsibilities; and reclassify and regrade the position, if warranted. (Action: NEA)\n\n The MEPI grants staff has made a major effort to conduct site visits of domestic-based\ngrantee organizations, most of which they had not visited in the recent past. They have created\nnew templates for evaluating and monitoring grant awards, as well as financial and\nprogrammatic materials to help grantees meet grant requirements. The Office of the Procurement\nExecutive may find these informational materials and analysis aids useful for wider distribution,\nprovided they are in line with Department grant policies and literature.\n\nRecommendation 15: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should consult with the Office of the\nProcurement Executive to confirm that the Middle East Partnership Initiative grant templates and\ndocuments accord with Department-wide grants policies and literature. (Action: NEA)\n\n The new chief grants officer received a grants warrant based on extensive grants\nexperience at another U.S. Government agency, but had not yet taken the Department\xe2\x80\x99s grants\ntraining because of the press of duties in an office suffering from vacancies. Although most\ngrants rules are government-wide, some aspects of grants management are Department-specific.\n\n Informal Recommendation 8: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should require\n the senior grants official in the office of the Middle East Partnership Initiative to take\n Department-specific grants training.\n\n\n\n\n 16\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nRegional Offices\n\nOffice of Israel Palestinian Affairs\n\n The Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs functions smoothly, expertly, and with a\nhuman touch that softens the burden of long work days. Staff members find their work\ncompelling. In addition to NEA, the office also supports the Office of the Special Envoy for\nMiddle East Peace (S/SEMEP). S/SEMEP taps NEA officers as needed, which allows it to\nmaintain only a small permanent staff. This relationship gives desk officers interesting work and\na chance to develop negotiation skills. It also presents some challenges in coordination,\npriorities, and communication, which a separate OIG report on S/SEMEP covers.\n\n The office is effective and efficient. The director and deputy director bring policy\nexpertise and strong management skills to the job, and the staff includes a mix of seasoned and\nrelatively more junior employees. The inspectors counseled the director to examine aspects of\nwork flow, such as whether approval authority for the daily official-informal report could be\ndelegated to the deputy or the office could require contributions to be submitted for approval\nearlier in the day. Goals would be to decrease overtime for all and allow time for additional\nmentoring. Too often, deadlines and the volume of work mean the director has to fix papers\nhimself rather than return them to staff, which would allow staff members to develop further\ntheir tradecraft and policy sensitivity. The inspectors also underscored the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s responsibility\nto take action on several recommendations in the recent OIG reports on Embassy Tel Aviv and\nConsulate General Jerusalem.\n\nOffice of Egypt and Levant Affairs\n\n The Office of Egypt and Levant Affairs performs well. As noted, the inspection of NEA\nbegan simultaneously with protests in Egypt, which put extraordinary strain on this office. All\nbut the office director and two desk officers arrived in the summer of 2010. Despite a relatively\njunior staff and a long-term vacancy on the Lebanon desk, the office met the extraordinary\nchallenge of managing crises in Lebanon and Egypt and preparing the new U.S. ambassador to\nSyria, the first in several years.\n\n The office director and deputy make a strong team. Both bring years of experience in\nMiddle Eastern affairs, policy sensitivity, and operational skill. The desk officers universally\nlauded their substantive knowledge and hard work, saying that it bolstered morale to have their\nsupervisors in the trenches with them. Staff praised the managers for two innovations: putting the\noffice on a shift schedule during the Egypt crisis to ensure everyone had time off, and developing\n\xe2\x80\x9cdeep dive\xe2\x80\x9d meetings with each of the desks to allow more substantive discussion of issues. Desk\nofficers saluted the collegiality, good humor, and team work of their peers.\n\n Handling nonstop crises engendered a sense of pride, but left the staff exhausted, and\ndeprived the office of calm space for staff members to get to know one another and to develop\ntradecraft. The OIG team counseled the managers to hold an offsite meeting soon, preferably\nwith a coach from the Foreign Service Institute, which would foster more communication and\ngive managers better insight into staff concerns.\n 17\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nOffice of Arabian Peninsula Affairs\n\n Arabian Peninsula Affairs is a well managed, high output, fast paced office. A Senior\nYemen Coordinator assigned to the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s front office handles requirements for interagency\nand multilateral senior policy coordination. Neither the volume of work nor its relentless pace,\nfurther exacerbated by early 2011 concurrent crises in the region, has negatively impacted office\nmorale. Staff members work well to ensure that information flows vertically and horizontally,\nthrough regular and ad hoc staff meetings supplemented by close dialogue with and support from\nthe DAS. Embassies in the region appreciate greatly the frequent and thorough information\nupdates the office provides. In order to avoid a situation where the press of daily business\nisolates staff from one another, the staff make concerted efforts to socialize informally. Staff\nmembers report a reasonable work/life balance, access to training and the opportunity to travel to\ntheir assigned countries.\n\n The office director and deputy work well together. They carefully monitor the workload\nof each staff member\xe2\x80\x99s portfolio and make adjustments and/or seek additional personnel\nresources, as rapidly evolving developments in the region require. Staff members are justifiably\nproud of an office reputation for delivering high quality, timely products. While officers\nfrequently pitch in to help each other out to ensure the work of the office gets done, there is\npresently little \xe2\x80\x93 if any \xe2\x80\x93 staffing \xe2\x80\x9ccushion\xe2\x80\x9d to deal with additional crises in the region. More\nimmediately, there is a current need to augment permanent staffing on the Yemen desk.\nAlthough the bureau has arranged a series of short-term assignments to assist the sole desk\nofficer, the centrality of Yemen in the fight against terrorism and the involvement of multiple\nU.S. Government agencies there require the desk to have additional, and more senior, staffing.\n\nRecommendation 16: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should review its overall staffing\ncomplement in order to identify and assign to the Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs a second\nfull-time equivalent position for the Yemen desk. (Action: NEA)\n\nOffice of Maghreb Affairs\n\n In a bureau where regional offices routinely handle important policy issues of front-page\nprominence, the Maghreb office traditionally has been one of the quieter places. This situation\nchanged in early 2011 as large-scale protests erupted on its territory, first in Tunisia and then in\nLibya. Fortunately the small office, which in the past has suffered from staffing gaps, had its full\ncomplement when it found itself on the front lines and stepped up to the challenge. After initial\nhesitation as the situation developed, the office mobilized its resources and temporarily\nrearranged portfolios to handle the crises. The Department established a Libya task force that\nprovided needed support, especially to cope with the evacuation of American citizens.\n\n Office morale is high, and there is a good working atmosphere. The director and deputy\nhave quite different styles, but balance each other well. Office members work well together and\nback up each other. Desk officers have the sense that their voices are heard and have the\nopportunity to travel to their countries. Staff meetings held three times a week keep everyone\ninformed, and the public diplomacy desk officer for the Maghreb region sits in on these meetings\nonce a week. The office does have the challenge of working in a less-than-ideal space; it\n 18\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\noccupies cramped quarters in an out-of-the way cul-de-sac. The space lacks a conference room\nand is inadequate to host visitors.\n\n The Maghreb office\xe2\x80\x99s seven officers include an entry-level officer on a first tour and a\nBoren Fellow. Except for the program assistant and fellow, the entire staff is Foreign Service. At\nthe time of the inspection, the office was trying to get a Civil Service position to cover its\nregional affairs portfolio, which handles multi-country assistance projects and backs up the desk\nofficers. This addition would provide needed institutional memory for this increasingly important\noffice.\n\nOffice of Iranian Affairs\n\n The Office of Iranian Affairs is exceptionally well managed, and the DAS has energized\nthe staff. He is admired for his constructive criticism, as well as his advocacy of office\ninitiatives. The office director and deputy take seriously mentoring and professional\ndevelopment. They delegate authority to a mix of experienced and inexperienced staff, while\nproviding guidance on policy nuances and offering tips on operational skills. The office consults\nwidely with diplomatic missions in Washington and other capitals, providing valuable\nexperience in bilateral and multilateral diplomacy to less experienced officers. Intense workloads\nare fairly managed. The director and deputy are attentive to the full range of supervisory\nfunctions, even the completion of records archiving.\n\n The inspector contacted three of the dozen officers at embassies worldwide who report on\nIran-related issues. These embassy officers praise the office leadership, one commenting how\nwell the office\xe2\x80\x99s leaders and staff are mutual force-multipliers on policy objectives, especially\nwith third-country government officials. The office has supervisory responsibility for personnel\nevaluations and other support, including funds disbursements to these embassy officers. The\ninspection team commends the office for its pro-active, wide-ranging outreach to diverse\naudiences globally to build understanding about U.S. policy objectives with Iran. In addition, the\noffice closely coordinates with the Bureau of Consular Affairs and devotes appropriate time to\nsensitively counsel U.S.-Iranian dual nationals on family and property issues. (Additional\nmaterial is discussed in the classified annex of this report.)\n\nOffice of Iraq Affairs\n\n The Office of Iraq Affairs is by far the largest of the entire bureau, with nearly 60\nemployees. It supports the embassy in Baghdad, the largest U.S. diplomatic presence in the\nworld, as well as 16 provincial reconstruction teams; all are due for closure by October 2011.\nTwo will become consulates and two will become Embassy branch offices. The office\xe2\x80\x99s efforts\nare tied to ensuring that the current transition from a military- to civilian-led presence in Iraq,\nwith multiple consulates and embassy branch offices, is conducted with all the necessary\nresources and security. When the OIG inspection ended, the level of these resources remained\nunder discussion within the Administration and with Congress, complicating planning efforts in\nthe office and leaving unclear what the ultimate outcome (and hence the organization of a future\noffice) will be. The office and its employees are to be lauded for their continuous hard work\nunder these difficult circumstances. (See the management section of this report.)\n 19\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\n\n The office is centrally involved in preparing the transition to a reduced, civilian-led U.S.\npresence in Iraq, and in planning and implementing programs to help the Iraqi Government\nassume full, sovereign responsibilities. Office staff scramble to address immediate demands for\nposition papers and to participate in Department and interagency meetings. Meanwhile, office\nmanagers have difficulty carving out time to plan for medium-term activities. Although\nimmediate assignments for the current week must be satisfied (and they are), strong office\nmanagement is critical for successful, longer-term policy implementation. The inspection team\nfound ways in which the office could be more efficient, such as eliminating some functions and\nevaluating how many positions are needed and how best to deploy them.\n\n The office has six directors and five deputy directors. With the multiple layers of\nmanagement, there are problems of communication. The office is organized into four pillars:\npolitical affairs; politico-military affairs; economic and assistance affairs; and support for\nprovincial reconstruction teams and the transition. The scope of activity for the fourth pillar is\nunclear to many, both inside and outside the Iraq Office, since virtually any topic can be deemed\nto fall within the transition. There is also a group of seven 3161 employees handling\nadministrative and information dissemination tasks, discussed below.\n\nRecommendation 17: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should streamline the management\norganization of the Office of Iraq Affairs in order to improve efficiency and communication.\n(Action: NEA)\n\n The employees admire the DAS for his regional expertise and analytic skills, as well as\nfor his regular expressions of gratitude and praise for their hard work, but they feel removed\nfrom him and the senior director. Employees report that the weekly office staff meetings are not\nuseful, and most have stopped attending. Including future-oriented items on the office staff\nmeeting agenda would increase the meeting\xe2\x80\x99s usefulness. Numerous comments to the inspectors\nfrom within and outside the office highlighted inadequate communication from the top, which\ndamages morale and leads to duplication of efforts. In one example, a number of the office staff\nlearned by hearsay (or from the inspectors) about the February 2011 announcement of the Iraq\nTransition Coordinator, even though this new role will touch on all aspects of the office\xe2\x80\x99s work.\n\n Informal Recommendation 9: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should review\n the purpose of the weekly staff meeting in the Office of Iraq Affairs and widely\n communicate the substance of the meetings in the office.\n\n On external communications, the DAS is active and effective in speaking to think tanks\nand community groups throughout the United States. He not only responds to requests but also\ninitiates visits in coordination with the NEA Office of Press and Public Diplomacy. Other\nmembers of the Iraq office speak to visiting groups and at scholarly institutions.\n\n Many staff members have completed assignments in Iraq. They are passionate about\ncontributing to U.S. policy efforts, but some feel underemployed and are discouraged about how\ntheir skills are used. Other staff members work long hours and need relief. The inspectors\n\n 20\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nreviewed email transmittals that verified the late-evening work tasked within the office. Such\nexcessive late evening standby availability generates unjustified overtime expense.\n\n The office lacks effective oversight for time and attendance reports, and senior managers\nare unaware of abusive patterns of overtime claims. The inspectors found pro forma reporting of\n40 hour work weeks without validation of actual hours performed. The OIG team made a\nrecommendation regarding time and attendance in the Management Controls section of this\nreport. One employee claimed more than 11 hours of overtime per pay period in the 6 months\nbefore and during the inspection, at a cost of $750 per pay period. The office does not have\nprocedures for approving overtime in advance. (See the Management Controls section of this\nreport.) It could minimize overtime expenses through advance planning, such as implementing\nflexible schedules with shifts from noon to 8:00 p.m.\n\nRecommendation 18: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should implement flexible schedules\nto reduce overtime expenses in the Office of Iraq Affairs. (Action: NEA)\n\n The inspection team observed that workload is not allocated according to assigned\nportfolios. This setup generates perceptions of \xe2\x80\x9cpoaching\xe2\x80\x9d and unpleasant competition within the\noffice, as well as confusion in other bureaus. It also causes avoidable delays, such as when\ndrafting officers without relevant subject matter expertise fail to consult office and bureau\ncolleagues to obtain accurate data and context on a particular issue.\n\n Occasional circumstances may occur involving a tight deadline on a specific task that\nnecessitates assigning tasks to a small group, but when such cases arise, managers should clarify\nwidely to the entire office which individuals are assigned which topics, and how long the\nassignment will last. Managers also can reiterate the importance of lateral consultations with\noffice colleagues at early drafting stages.\n\nRecommendation 19: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should review the portfolios in the\nOffice of Iraq Affairs in order to revise and reassign staff within the office, so that work is more\nevenly distributed. (Action: NEA)\n\n The office has its own staff assistant/chief of staff position to manage paper flow, and a\ncongressional liaison position. Both incumbents have reputations inside and outside the bureau\nfor effective coordination on the unremitting stream of assignments to the office. Indeed, NEA\xe2\x80\x99s\ntwo staff assistants characterized the positions as indispensible to smooth, overall bureau\noperations. However, in some instances information and documents are not being shared with\nthese two persons, either inadvertently or deliberately. Failure to make good use of these\npositions aggravates the instances of duplicative work and complicates the tracking of deadlines.\n\n According to mid-level managers, weekly management meetings do not focus on\nmanagerial and supervisory topics, but instead repeat the topics handled in policy meetings. Mid-\nlevel managers have not received feedback on their proposals, and administrative business is left\nundone or unvetted. Preparing and using a written advance agenda would help discipline the\ncontent of management meetings.\n\n 21\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n Seven 3161 employees comprise the Iraq Policy and Operations Group (IPOG) in the\noffice. The group added Afghanistan support duties to its portfolio in 2009. It compiles and\ndisseminates twice-daily Afghanistan media summaries and twice-daily cable summaries for the\nDAS and the Iraq office, with a comparable dissemination for offices handling Afghanistan. In\naddition, the group established Web links on the classified and unclassified networks for Iraq and\nfor Afghanistan. A number of the Web links have not been updated for several months. Five\nanalysts in the group serve as note-takers and handle logistics for 11 Iraq-related interagency\nworking groups (held monthly or biweekly), telephone conference calls, and a monthly\nAfghanistan coordination meeting. The analysts also assemble items drafted in the office into a\nbiweekly report that is emailed to a growing list of Department, congressional, military, and\nthink tank contacts. A limited review of survey feedback raised serious questions about the cost-\nbenefit ratio of using Department resources to produce this biweekly report.\n\n Justification for the IPOG is elusive. Besides IPOG staff, two other persons in the Office\nof Iraq Affairs are forwarding daily Embassy Baghdad\xe2\x80\x99s media summaries. Moreover, the\nbureau\xe2\x80\x99s Public Diplomacy and Press Office has a media specialist who distributes other articles\nabout Iraq. It is a misuse of resources for the IPOG group to disseminate media summaries; the\nstaff should be redirected to higher priority work. Careful tailoring of the State Messaging and\nArchive Retrieval Toolset (SMART) cable profile system for employees in the office will\nobviate the need for daily cable summaries. IPOG analysts could coach and guide the rest of the\noffice in defining individual SMART profiles. The analysts are swift, accurate drafters whose\nskills could be developed and better used by direct participation in office activities beyond their\nroles in taking minutes and arranging logistics for meetings. As an example, the 3161economic\nanalyst could be supervised by the economic deputy and would likely be more productive.\n\nRecommendation 20: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should eliminate the assembly and\ndissemination of daily media and cable summaries by the Iraq Policy and Operations Group of\nthe Office of Iraq Affairs. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 21: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should require the Iraq Policy and\nOperations Group analysts to conduct guidance and coaching on the definition of State\nMessaging and Archive Retrieval Toolset cable profiles for its employees. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 22: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should assign the Iraq Policy and\nOperations Group analysts to sector-specific supervisors in the Office of Iraq Affairs, where they\ncan contribute more efficiently to office operations. (Action: NEA)\n\nLessons Learned in Iraq\n\n The bureau can play a beneficial role in informing foreign affairs employees about efforts\nto capture lessons learned from the whole-of-government experience in Iraq, which can offer\nvalue for future, post-conflict situations. Studies are already underway about activities on the\nground in Iraq, as described below. The Department and other agency partners, however, have\nnot yet addressed the lessons learned from the governmental transition of military to civilian\nresponsibility in Iraq. The range of issues and actors involved in the military-to-civilian\ntransition should be examined in 2011, while memories are still fresh and planners are available.\n 22\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nRecommendation 23: The Iraq Transition Coordinator, in coordination with the Bureau of Near\nEastern Affairs and the Under Secretary for Management, should convene an offsite retreat in\n2011, at the director level and above, with representatives of relevant bureaus and agencies, to\nexamine, report on, and memorialize in writing the lessons learned in the military-to-civilian\ntransition in Iraq. (Action: S/ITC, in coordination with NEA and M)\n\n Presently, various entities are focused on collecting material, cataloging it, and\nconducting analyses that focus on stabilization and provincial reconstruction team operations in\nIraq. These include a best practices working group, co-chaired by the Department\xe2\x80\x99s Coordinator\nfor Reconstruction and Stabilization, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the U.S. Agency\nfor International Development. The group enlisted the Center for Complex Operations, a quasi-\ngovernmental organization housed at the National Defense University, to serve as the repository\nfor interviews of provincial reconstruction team personnel and to analyze their content. In 2010,\nthe Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization established a password-protected,\ninteragency SharePoint portal as another repository.\n\n In addition, the Center for Army Lessons Learned in Fort Leavenworth has assigned staff\nto conduct interviews of provincial reconstruction team personnel, and it shares the results with\nEmbassy Baghdad. Embassy Baghdad has built a database, and encourages provincial\nreconstruction team personnel to send email copies of records using the SMART archiving\nsystem. The embassy has established checkout procedures to require submissions before\nprovincial reconstruction team staff depart Iraq at the end of their assignments. The U.S. Institute\nfor Peace, among others, is engaged in compilation and analysis projects. The bureau\xe2\x80\x99s Iraq\noffice is also collecting extensive materials.\n\n Separately, the Department\xe2\x80\x99s Office of the Historian, in the context of its ongoing project\nto produce a diplomatic history of the Iraq war \xe2\x80\x93 and because it is responsible for preparing and\npublishing the official, documentary history of U.S. foreign policy in the Foreign Relations of\nthe United States series \xe2\x80\x93 is collecting information on its own, as well as through the sources\ncited above.\n\n There is no central, Federal Government repository for compiling, cataloguing, and\nstudying lessons learned in Iraq, whether regarding the Department\xe2\x80\x99s efforts specific to\nprovincial reconstruction team operations or for eventual, overall Iraq conflict and stabilization\nstudies. There may not need to be a single U.S. Government entity responsible for these studies;\nhowever, in the course of the inspection, the OIG team observed that numerous parties in the\nDepartment were not aware of the scope of activities related to, and the number of participants\ninvolved in, lessons learned. There is a risk that interested parties may not even know about\nsome of the databases.\n\n Consistent with objectives identified in Section II, Chapter 4, of the Department\xe2\x80\x99s 2010\nQuadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, it is time to move beyond lessons learned in\nthe provincial reconstruction team program and to designate a dedicated Department office with\nadequate resources \xe2\x80\x93 in partnership with institutions such as the U.S. Institute for Peace \xe2\x80\x93 to\nfocus on lessons learned for the overall, Iraq-wide conflict, stabilization, and reconstruction\nhistory.\n 23\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nRecommendation 24: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should transmit a closeout cable in\n2011 that summarizes the lessons learned about the operations of the provincial reconstruction\nteams and their stabilization efforts. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 25: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should transmit to all posts, in 2011\nand annually thereafter, a cable that reports on the status of the best practices working group. The\ncable should identify the range of activities reported to the group, including data collection,\nanalysis and validation, and dissemination. The cable also should identify the numerous U.S.\npublic and private entities engaged in gathering lessons learned in Iraq, and provide Web links\nand points of contact in order to encourage contributions from the foreign affairs community.\n(Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 26: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should implement procedures to\narchive the lessons learned materials held in the Iraq office files on an annual basis, according to\nDepartment records management standards and employing the Traffic Analysis by Geography\nand Subject labeling system. (Action: NEA)\n\nForeign Assistance\n\n Most NEA countries do not qualify for foreign assistance, due to their relatively high per-\ncapita gross domestic product. The vast majority of the $7.4 billion for foreign assistance\navailable in FY 2010 was congressionally earmarked for Israel, Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan. In\naddition, Lebanon, Yemen, and the West Bank and Gaza receive substantial funding. Overall, the\nbureau has little flexibility in determining assistance allocations. The Office of Regional and\nMultilateral Affairs has a well managed process for both preparing foreign assistance requests\nbased on Mission Strategic and Resource Plans and the Bureau Strategic and Resource Plan, and\nfor responding to the Office of the Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance or the Office of\nManagement and Budget on issues that require adjustment. The offices for Iran and Iraq, in\nconjunction with the U.S. Agency for International Development, manage separate funding. The\nAssistant Secretary and his deputies are active participants in bureau-wide deliberations on\ndecisions regarding allocations for projects and programs. One program not restricted by a\ncountry\xe2\x80\x99s level of economic development is MEPI, whose $65 million in FY 2010 appropriations\nsupported democracy and human rights in the region through engagement with civil society and\nbusiness leaders, students, women, activists, and lawmakers. 1\n\nNear East Regional Democracy\n\n Congress funds the Iran-specific Near East Regional Democracy program, to support\ninitiatives that strengthen democracy, increase respect for human rights, and further integrate\npeople of the region with the global community. The Iran office has direct responsibility for a\nnumber of grants. Trained grants officer representatives manage these grants well. Activities\nfully comply with U.S. sanctions licensing requirements. The Iran office staff communicates\nclosely with the grants partners to monitor performance. When implementation difficulties arise,\n\n1\n See OIG Report No. ISP-I-10-76 (August 2010), Inspection of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Office of\nMiddle East Partnership Initiative.\n 24\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nthe office offers alternative strategies to the grantees. In other cases involving implementation\nissues, the office and grantee promptly terminate a grant, thereby releasing funds to more\nproductive uses. Funding is returned to the Treasury when grants terminate early or have funds\nremaining at the end of the award. Attentive oversight and thorough documentation produce both\ngood liquidation rates and good progress in meeting intended grant objectives.\n\nIraq\n\n The focus of nonmilitary U.S. foreign assistance in Iraq has shifted from physical\ninfrastructure reconstruction and rehabilitation to initiatives that build Iraqi capacity in\ngovernance, economic reform, education, health, and justice. The total estimated amount for\ngrants and grants management for Iraq in FY 2009 and FY 2010 is over $88 million. In a 2-year\nperiod, the Iraq grants unit handled more than 134 grants. The Iraq office has a grants unit,\nestablished in 2007 to manage Washington-controlled grants. A warranted grants management\nofficer arrived in December 2010 to normalize operations of the unit. Establishing an inventory\nand organizing files are time-consuming tasks that demand meticulous attention. The grants unit\nwas in the midst of these activities during the inspection period.\n\n In years past, when the bureau first arranged grants and interagency agreements for\nassistance in Iraq, the grants unit worked hurriedly. In the interest of speeding disbursements, a\nnumber of waivers were granted allowing the unit to skip certain standard requirements. Iraq\xe2\x80\x99s\ndangerous operating environment did not always allow for adequate training of persons with\noversight roles, full grant documentation, or on-site monitoring of grant implementation. In some\ncases, the grants personnel did not know who, besides themselves, shared a role in managing\nthese funds. With a 9-month vacancy in the lead management position and constant turnover in\nBaghdad, there is insufficient institutional memory regarding the origin and progress of some\ngrants. When the grants unit has questions, it reaches out to a previous manager, now working\nelsewhere in the Department.\n\n The grants unit is taking steps to strengthen its operations. The lead grants management\nofficer is working intensively to build a file management system to make data retrieval easier.\nThe office\xe2\x80\x99s senior advisor for assistance coordination is working with the experienced grants\nofficer to clarify appropriations and allotment levels. The grants unit is working on reconciling\ngrants that will be closed, and it has a good handle on the unliquidated obligations for certain\ncategories of funds. There remain miscellaneous grants that do not fall into identifiable\ncategories. The unit enlists the help of locally employed staff at Embassy Baghdad to locate\nprevious Iraqi grantees for information to complete files.\n\nRecommendation 27: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should establish standard operating\nprocedures in the grants unit of the Office of Iraq Affairs in order to capture accurate information\nand strengthen management of assistance programs in Iraq. (Action: NEA)\n\n The lead grants management officer and a grants administrator spent 2 weeks in Baghdad\nin January 2011 to provide much-needed training to some 30 embassy officers with grant\noversight responsibilities. Such training should be repeated regularly. Given the 1-year tours of\n\n 25\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nduty in Iraq, it would be useful to schedule such training sessions in March-April and again in\nOctober-November, so as not to conflict with the summer transfer cycle.\nRecommendation 28: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should budget and plan for one of its\ngrants officers in the Office of Iraq Affairs to conduct twice-yearly grants officer representative\ntraining for officers at Embassy Baghdad and constituent posts who have assistance oversight\nresponsibilities. (Action: NEA)\n\n When the warranted grants officer travels or is otherwise absent, backlogs develop. This\nsituation arises because the unit\xe2\x80\x99s other staff members are contract employees and therefore are\nnot permitted to take on the inherently governmental duties of a warranted grants officer.\n\nRecommendation 29: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should designate, train, and\nappropriately certify a U.S. direct-hire employee to backfill for the warranted grants officer, as\nneeded, in the Office of Iraq Affairs. (Action: NEA)\n\nOther Issues\n\nState Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolset\n\n The inspection team observed little use of the record email function of the SMART\nsoftware system. Record email is designed to archive emails that should be preserved for the\nhistorical record, such as those relating to schedules for visitors, program implementation, and\nthe exchange of views on policy-related matters. Examples of messages and documents that the\nbureau should consider for archiving in the SMART system are Welcome Home packages for\nsupervisors, Daily Activity Reports to the Assistant Secretary, and official\xe2\x80\x93informal messages\nexchanged with embassies.\n\nRecommendation 30: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should issue guidance on the types of\nemail and other correspondence that staff should archive in the State Messaging and Archive\nRetrieval Toolset system. (Action: NEA)\n\nWikileaks\n\n The 2010 Wikileaks disclosures of purported Department cables generated more\ninformation attributed to NEA posts than to any other region. The disclosures had an immediate\nimpact on U.S. relations with all NEA countries, and a profound impact on some. The U.S.\nAmbassador in Tripoli was quickly recalled after a particularly strong reaction from the Libyan\nGovernment. The designated DAS ably led NEA\xe2\x80\x99s response to the Wikileaks publicity, which\nincluded a task force to review the damage, summarize reactions from all posts, and prepare the\nSecretary for potentially difficult conversations with foreign officials in the affected countries.\nThe head of NEA\xe2\x80\x99s task force participated in the Department\xe2\x80\x99s Wikileaks task force. In\ncoordination with the Bureau of Public Affairs, NEA\xe2\x80\x99s public diplomacy staff developed an\ninnovative initiative, in which former ambassadors were deployed to educate audiences about the\nrole of cable traffic in the conduct of American foreign policy. The bureau also coordinated with\nsenior DOD officials traveling to the region to reinforce with foreign partners the importance of\ncontinuing to work closely on issues of mutual concern. As Wikileaks cable disclosures\n 26\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\ncontinue, the regional affairs staff leads a bureau-wide effort to evaluate the risks of\ncompromised cables, give advice to U.S. embassies, and maintain a log of Wikileaks actions.\nThe inspection team heard numerous comments from NEA staff about how the Wikileaks\nexperience has inhibited communications by cable, as well as emails, between posts and the\nDepartment.\n\nRecords Management\n\n With rare exceptions, most NEA offices are not implementing Department procedures for\nmanaging and retiring records, as required by 5 FAM 414.5 and 5 FAH-4 H-113. Offices are not\norganizing shared folders according to the Department\xe2\x80\x99s Traffic Analysis by Geography and\nSubject labeling system. They are not preserving email messages that meet the definition of\nrecords in 5 FAM 443.2. Failure to implement such procedures impedes the ability of the\nDepartment to retrieve official documents that are of value to the conduct of foreign policy and\nto historians.\n\nRecommendation 31: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should issue a bureau memorandum\nnotice explaining that all Department employees are required to establish, maintain, and annually\nretire official records, including email messages that meet the definition of records as specified\nin Department guidance. It should also develop and implement a monitoring system to verify that\nbureau offices are in compliance. (Action: NEA)\n\n\n\n\n 27\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nResource Management\nResource Tables\n\n NEA \xe2\x80\x93 Direct Hires (Domestic) 2\n Foreign Civil 3161s When Detailed Interns/ Total\n Service Service Actually Staff students\n Employed\n 110 153 48 7 1 2 321\n\n NEA \xe2\x80\x93 Direct Hires (Overseas)\n Foreign Civil 3161s When Detailed Interns/ Total\n Service Service Actually Staff students\n Employed\n 1,175 40 126 5 1,346\n\n\nFY 2010 Resources Controlled by NEA 3 Iraq Portion Other Total\n(in thousands)\nTraditional Overseas Program Funding (D&CP) 4 $74,964 $186,883 $261,847\nAdditional Iraq Funding (D&CP) 592,773 3,439 596,212\nPublic Diplomacy (D&CP) 435 23,418 23,853\nEconomic Support Funds, Iraq 97,815 97,815\nEconomic Support Funds, Middle East Regional 87,838 87,838\n(MEPI)\nDevelopment Assistance 396 396\nCritical Infrastructure Program 9,118 9,118\nInternational Cooperative Administrative Support 136,636 136,636\nServices\nRepresentation 96 815 911\nOther Appropriations 5 18,241 18,241\n Totals $766,083 6 $466,784 $1,232,867\n\nAs shown in Appendix A, the U.S. Agency for International Development and Department-\ncontrolled foreign assistance funding for the region totaled $7 billion in FY 2010, $1 billion of\nwhich was for Iraq.\n\n\n\n\n2\n Domestic and overseas staffing numbers provided by EX.\n3\n Numbers provided by EX\n4\n Diplomatic and Consular Programs is abbreviated as D&CP\n5 Unconditional Gift Funds, Foreign Service National Separation Liability Trust Fund, Sec. 810 USI & EE Act Fees,\nWhite House Travel, Machine Readable Visa Processing Fees, and Commercial Service Fees\n6\n About 85 percent of this funding was held and managed domestically in EX.\n 28\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nExecutive Office Overview\n\n The Executive Office (EX) for NEA and SCA supports two of the busiest regional\nbureaus within the Department. During this inspection, EX was handling the ordered departures\nin Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya; the authorized departure in Yemen; and task forces related to the\ncrises in these countries; as well as the \xe2\x80\x9cnormal\xe2\x80\x9d issues related to staffing and support for Iraq,\nAfghanistan, and Pakistan. The office managers and staff were lauded by several interlocutors\nfor their support of overseas missions and good working relationships with other bureaus and\nagencies. As one person said, \xe2\x80\x9cEX is really standing up to the job.\xe2\x80\x9d\n\n There are several problems, however, which the director and deputy directors are well\naware of but so far have been unable to solve. The domestic human resources (HR) office in EX\nis broadly considered to be dysfunctional. The Office of Domestic Services (ODS), which had\nbeen neglected for years, has improved during the past 9 months, but problems still remain in\ninformation technology. The financial management office, which received reasonably good\nreviews in the OIG survey, had difficulty producing the reports used to monitor funds\navailability.\n\n EX, which has supported both bureaus since 1992, has three strong deputy directors: one\nfor NEA (except Iraq), another for SCA, and the third for Iraq. The deputy director for SCA\nsupports Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as the rest of the South and Central Asian countries.\nAll three were praised by their staffs. The executive director is a strong management officer\nknown for his innovation and support of regionalization. EX also supports the Pakistan and\nAfghanistan desks that are part of the Office of the United States Special Representative for\nAfghanistan and Pakistan (S/SRAP), and provides support to S/SEMEP.\n\n Space constraints, which are an issue throughout the Department, are especially acute in\nEX. The offices were in the process of being remodeled during the inspection, which forced the\nEX staff to move to temporary offices scattered throughout three separate buildings. ODS, for\ninstance, was located approximately 20 minutes away by shuttle from the offices it serviced.\nWhen the year-long remodeling is completed, the staff will move back into office space that is\ntwice the density of Department standards. This space issue is exacerbated by a Department\nrequirement that bureaus maintain control of all excess property until it can be listed as excess\nand disposed of, a process that can take a month or more. The practical result of this rule is that\nproperty has to be stored within bureau office space. In EX, it means that the areas near the front\ndoor of the EX suite are stacked with old computers and other equipment. ODS has begun\ninvestigating other options for storing this equipment, such as renting shipping containers to be\nused for storage, but it has yet to develop a solution.\n\n As noted earlier in the report, NEA lacks a formal orientation program for employees;\nFormal Recommendation 1, above, requires the bureau to begin one. A check-in form exists, but\na number of employees reportedly never received a copy. A similar problem exists with\nemployee check-out: although check-out sheets exist, their use is not enforced and employees\nhave left the bureau without closing travel advances, completing required security debriefs, or\nhaving their computer log-ons transferred.\n\n 29\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n Informal Recommendation 10: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should require\n that each departing employee complete and return to the Executive Office a\n comprehensive departing employee checklist.\n\nPlanning for the Iraq Transition\n\n A separate EX unit, the EX Iraq team, is responsible for planning for the military-to-\ncivilian transition in Iraq. This closely-knit group of 12 \xe2\x80\x93 a mixture of Foreign Service,\ntraditional Civil Service, 3161s, and contractors \xe2\x80\x93 works on management aspects of the\ntransition, from staffing and recruitment and budgeting to aviation and life support. Team\nmembers report that communication and cooperation with Embassy Baghdad, offices and\nbureaus outside of NEA, and DOD are good. In fact, some said it was the best they had seen in\ntheir entire careers. Team members are proud of what they have accomplished so far. However,\ncommunication and coordination issues with the NEA Iraq policy office, as well as an unclear\nbudget picture and what they see as confusing strategic guidance, are hurting the planning\nprocess. As the Secretary noted, the military\xe2\x80\x99s overseas contingency operations budget will drop\nby $45 billion from 2010, while the Department\xe2\x80\x99s costs will increase in the range of $4 billion\nfor Iraq. Funding levels are both uncertain and relatively low, to handle necessary operations.\n\n The EX Iraq team, headed by a Foreign Service officer, began focusing on the Iraq\ntransition in summer 2009. With the military scheduled to begin turning over some operations to\nthe Department on October 1, 2011, and with its scheduled departure from Iraq on December 31,\n2011, the team is scrambling to get needed support systems in place. It developed a very useful,\nSharePoint-based Web application called Iraq Common Operations Planning & Implementation\nSystem to track staffing and task management, but some functions have yet to be installed. The\nDOD has allowed the Department to use its contracts for support services for the first year\nfollowing the transition, but the Department still needs to put in place other support services,\nsuch as hospitals and an air wing with both fixed-wing planes and helicopters. Much of this is\nuncharted territory for the Department. The Department plans to open consulates in Erbil and\nBasra and embassy branch offices in Kirkuk and Mosul, but several bureau employees expressed\ndoubt that these offices will be operational by the October 1, 2011, deadline.\n\n The Department appears to be making a conscious effort to address staffing at Embassy\nBaghdad, its consulates, and branch offices. In preparation for its first rightsizing exercise,\nEmbassy Baghdad has been reviewing mission requirements and staffing. It is scheduled to\ncomplete its first rightsizing report by June 2011, but the report will address only embassy\nstaffing. The office of the Under Secretary for Management has held several meetings with all\nrelevant Department offices and bureaus, as well as with the embassy, to review the staffing\nnumbers for the rest of the country and to ensure that everyone is in agreement. The most recent\nmeeting was held in mid-February 2011.\n\n Iraq staffing is a mix of Foreign Service, traditional Civil Service, 3161s, and contractors.\nThe embassy has hired a number of Iraqis; the locally employed staff is augmented by temporary\nduty local staff from other overseas missions. The bureau recently implemented a program to\nhire non-Iraqis to work in Baghdad on a contract basis, in order to phase out the more expensive\n\n 30\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\ntemporary duty locally employed staff program. This third-country national program will later be\nphased out, as they are replaced by Iraqi staff.\n\n In October 2010, the OIG\xe2\x80\x99s Compliance Follow-up Review of Embassy Baghdad, Iraq\n(Report No. ISP-C-11-08A) recommended that the Department establish a dedicated,\nambassador-level Iraq transition coordinator with a full-time staff. The Secretary of State\nappointed the Iraq Transition Coordinator in mid-February 2011. Members of the EX Iraq team\nwere pleased with the selection, as the new coordinator has experience in Iraq. This coordinator\ngives the Department a senior-level official working solely on the transition, who should be well-\nplaced to work with senior-level DOD officials.\n\n Virtually all EX Iraq team members the inspectors spoke to complained about the Iraq\npolicy office\xe2\x80\x99s lack of communication, coordination, and transparency. Team members echoed\ncomplaints from other NEA offices that the Iraq Policy Office does not share information, does\nnot clear reports and briefing material with relevant offices, and is poorly organized. In a process\nas important and complicated as the Iraq transition, policy decisions affect management\nplanning. The reverse is also true. This report addresses this lack of communication and issues a\nrecommendation about it, in the Iraq Office section.\n\n The Iraq Common Operations Planning & Implementation System Web application is an\ninformation and project management system that includes staffing numbers and task\nmanagement. The staffing information can be sorted in numerous ways, including by the number\nof beds, desks, and offices required, and allows the numbers to be compared easily against\nmaximum capacities. It also links timelines, responsibilities, and task management, and includes\ndecision trees for notifications, approvals, and clearance, as well as multiple-view reporting. A\nhiring and bidding module, scheduled to be deployed in summer 2011, will allow the bureau to\ntrack bidders by title, grade, or name. The software also will act as the central repository for\ntransition-related data and will include a library of documents related to the transition. EX plans\nto adapt this software for use in the planning for the Afghanistan transition.\n\n The nonhierarchical, country-specific design of the Iraq EX, headed by a separate EX\ndeputy director, allows the staff to focus on Iraq planning, while at the same time allowing the\nrest of EX to concentrate on the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s other missions without the distraction of Iraq. Once the\nwork on the transition is completed, it will be time to reintegrate the group into the rest of EX. It\nis a model that could easily be adapted for use in other crisis situations.\n\nRegionalization and Management Initiatives\n\n EX is a strong proponent of regionalization and moving activities that can be handled at a\ndistance to another embassy or regional center. While the economies of scale it produces can\nsave money, regionalization can be especially useful in danger-pay missions, as it can reduce the\nnumber of employees in the country. EX management has pushed its missions to use the Post\nSupport Unit in Charleston to process all travel vouchers and has strongly urged them to\noutsource other voucher processing to the support unit. Some 51 percent of the support unit\xe2\x80\x99s\nwork comes from NEA and SCA missions; Baghdad, Riyadh, and Manama are among the\nsupport unit\xe2\x80\x99s top clients.\n 31\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\n\n The Regional Service Center in Frankfurt is providing locally employed staff position\nclassification services for Embassies Kabul and Islamabad. Embassy Baghdad also receives off-\nshore position classification services from the Iraq Support Unit in Amman. The Regional\nService Center in Frankfurt also continues to provide support to the Central Asian countries that,\nat one time, had been within the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. EX is working with\nthe European bureau to develop a service-level agreement under which Frankfurt would provide\nlocally employed staff position classification for all NEA and SCA missions. EX also has\npartnered with the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs on a regional training center. Under\nthis agreement, the bureaus pay for training based on the number of employees who attend.\n\n EX is working with IRM to develop ways to regionalize classified computer network\nsupport, in order to reduce the amount of classified equipment that is kept at high-threat\nmissions. It also is looking at ways to store data from Pakistan and Afghanistan at another\nlocation.\n\nHuman Resources\n\nDomestic Human Resources\n\n The domestic HR section is dysfunctional for several reasons: understaffing, excessive\nworkload, and a lack of adherence by some NEA and SCA managers to prescribed work\nprocesses. No one could have projected, when the Foreign Service Institute, Human Resources\nDivision, (FSI/HR) agreed to become NEA and SCA\xe2\x80\x99s service provider, that the workload would\nincrease exponentially due to the U.S. diplomatic presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. HR\nresources have not been reinforced to deal with this surge. Both the management teams in NEA\nand FSI are cognizant of these challenges, but so far have been unable to make much headway.\n\n Despite the efforts of both FSI/HR and the NEA and SCA HR division, NEA and SCA\ncustomers do not receive satisfactory service. Customer complaints were many, the most striking\nof which involved slow recruitment (which in some cases took over a year) and awards\nprocessing. Recruitment problems have been chronic for at least 2 years; awards processing was\nbacklogged for some 5 years. Several factors relating to the poor performance are discussed\nbelow.\n\n At the specific request of NEA-SCA/EX, FSI/HR became the service provider for the\nbureau in October 2006. In 2008, NEA and SCA detailed its domestic HR specialist staff to FSI\nwith the intent to work and gain experience in a bureau with full delegated authority. While\nhaving no impact on the substance of operations, this arrangement limited NEA\xe2\x80\x99s and SCA\xe2\x80\x99s\ninfluence in the management chain of command for domestic services and the bureaus\xe2\x80\x99 authority\nover most domestic HR services ceased at the deputy director level, which became an obstacle to\nleveraging FSI/HR\xe2\x80\x99s function. The addition of a Foreign Service officer as the NEA-SCA HR\ndirector in August 2010 has improved the situation somewhat, but much work remains to be\ndone.\n\n\n 32\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n The domestic HR section is divided between core and noncore services and reports to the\nNEA/SCA HR director. Core services are provided mostly by FSI/HR and include position\nclassification, staffing and recruitment, and performance management. Noncore services are\nprovided by the domestic HR section and include employee programs, such as awards and\ntraining.\n\n Morale among the domestic HR section employees is poor. This is best exemplified by\nthe section\xe2\x80\x99s inability to keep qualified personnel. For most of 2009 and 2010, the domestic HR\nsection had a severe shortage of staff. In early 2011, the staff had almost disappeared. At the time\nof the inspection, of the 10 HR supervisory and specialist positions embedded from and detailed\nto the shared services provider, four (including the supervisor) were vacant, and three\nincumbents (on board for less than a year) were leaving. Of the three remaining, the most tenured\nwas a student on board for 8 months.\n\n The domestic HR section struggles to keep up with unanticipated increases in workload.\nPrioritization of hiring actions is problematic, since some NEA and SCA managers describe\nnearly all hiring actions as urgent, and desperately needed positions remain in the queue.\nDomestic HR staff has not had time to pursue training and reflect on strategic requirements.\nStaffing and workload factors detract from the EX\xe2\x80\x99s efforts to manage both bureaus\xe2\x80\x99\nperformance evaluation programs. (See the Management Controls section of the report for a\ndiscussion on performance management.)\n\n Many HR specialists complained of a chaotic working environment created by senior and\nother managers operating outside the normal chain of command. Many described interactions\nwith NEA and SCA managers as harsh and antagonistic, including efforts to influence the\nrecruitment process. Five domestic HR employees cited this atmosphere and poor morale as a\nfactor in seeking other employment. The Management Controls section of the report discusses\nthese issues further.\n\n FSI/HR\xe2\x80\x99s oversight and organizational analysis of domestic HR operations has not\nresolved the domestic HR section\xe2\x80\x99s problem. To date, human capital accountability reviews have\nbeen limited in scope and have not encompassed the full range of FSI/HR activities. Despite\nsome progress, the domestic HR section is still far from operationally sound.\n\nRecommendation 32: The Bureau of Human Resources should assess the domestic human\nresources services for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and give the bureau recommendations\nfor its future services. (Action: DGHR)\n\nRecommendation 33: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of\nSouth and Central Affairs, the Bureau of Human Resources, and the Foreign Service Institute,\nshould evaluate domestic human resources delivery options, select a human resources service\nprovider, and sign a relevant service-level agreement with measurable service standards for all\ncategories of service. (Action: NEA, in coordination with SCA, DGHR, and FSI)\n\n\n\n 33\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nOverseas Division\n\n Foreign Service Assignments\n\n The EX Foreign Service assignments process is generally working well. The busy\nForeign Service assignments office includes eight assignment officers, specialists and assistants,\nincluding the unit chief, to cover 33 missions and provide some support to Afghanistan and\nPakistan. Two other members of the assignments staff handle only Afghanistan and Pakistan. (A\nseparate EX team handles staffing for Iraq.) This office also works to find temporary positions\nfor evacuees returning to Washington from missions that have been closed or are on authorized\nor ordered departure. The staff members work well together and have good relationships with the\nembassies and other offices involved in the assignments process. They were pleased with the\nsupervision and support they receive from EX supervisors.\n\n Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan (AIP) are the Department\xe2\x80\x99s highest staffing priorities. To\nfurther this goal, the Department now has two assignment seasons: June of each year for AIP\npositions, and early fall for all other positions. This procedure, which allows the three AIP\nmissions to choose their candidates before the regular bidding season begins, has meant that a\nlarge percentage of AIP positions are filled within a few months. By mid-March 2011, the\nbureaus had filled 92 percent of the summer 2011 Afghanistan positions, 91 percent in Iraq, and\n95 percent in Pakistan.\n\n Staff working on AIP assignments expressed concern about the shrinking pool of Foreign\nService volunteers who have not already served a tour in one of these three missions. While Civil\nService employees can volunteer for AIP assignments, Department rules make it difficult to\nassign them to positions for which Foreign Service officers have applied, even if the Civil\nService employee is more qualified. As the number of available Foreign Service officers\ncontinues to shrink, being able to take advantage of the Department\xe2\x80\x99s talented Civil Service staff\nwill become even more important.\n\n In an attempt to improve continuity, Embassies Kabul and Islamabad have proposed that\nthe tours for those missions be increased from 1 year to 18 months or 2 years. Opinions\nregarding longer tours were mixed. While they would provide better continuity than the current\n1-year tour, many were concerned that this change would reduce the number of volunteers. Some\nsuggested that front office, section supervisors, and certain other key positions be changed to 2-\nyear tours, while all other tours remain at 1 year. AIP posts have substantial service recognition\npackages, a 15 percent incentive pay bonus for extending for a second year, and a policy of no-\nfault curtailment. The Department also recently implemented continuity tours, in which\nemployees spend 1 year in an AIP mission and 1 year in a related position outside of those\nmissions.\n\n Recruitment for the three AIP missions does not appear to have seriously affected filling\npositions at the majority of other NEA and SCA missions. However, both bureaus have problems\nrecruiting for non-AIP missions that are considered especially difficult or dangerous. Employees\nat non-AIP missions receive neither the recognition nor the hardship differential and danger pay\nthat those working in AIP missions receive. These staffing problems are exacerbated by a liberal\n 34\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\ncurtailment policy, which allows an employee to curtail from a mission at any time in order to\nserve in an AIP mission.\n\n The Department has a shortage of office management, information management, and\nfacilities management specialists. Of the 44 overseas vacancies in NEA and SCA, 19 are either\noffice management specialists or specialists in the information management field. There is also a\nshortage of Foreign Service officers who are fluent in French, Arabic, Hebrew, and other\nlanguages used in these regions. Of the 32 overseas vacancies remaining in NEA (not including\nIraq) as of March 2, 2011, 19 are language-designated. Employees who are comfortable in the\nregional languages are especially important in these critical regions.\n\n In order to improve coordination with the field, the HR division has begun holding\nquarterly conference calls with the overseas HR offices to discuss regional issues. These\nconference calls generally deal with topics that are of interest to specific missions and provide a\nforum for the HR officers to share ideas and information with others dealing with the same\nissues. These calls also have increased the HR division\xe2\x80\x99s visibility with the field.\n\n Post Management Office\n\n The post management office works well, despite a heavy workload and the absence of\nseveral staff members. The office is divided into three sections. The Afghanistan and Pakistan\nsection has six post management officers (PMO) and two PMO assistants. The second section,\nwhich handles all countries but Afghanistan and Pakistan, has seven PMOs, one supervisory\nPMO, and two PMO assistants. Two members of that section were on temporary duty in\nAfghanistan and Pakistan during this inspection, and one position was vacant, leaving it with\nonly seven employees to handle 28 missions. A third section handles post management for Iraq.\nOnce the office is fully staffed, they anticipate that they will be able to adequately handle day-to-\nday operations. However, the lean staffing level provides little opportunity for long-range\nplanning or projects, and it does not provide enough staff to handle evacuations and other time-\nintensive crises overseas. When these occur, the office runs the risk of not giving smaller\nmissions the attention they need.\n\n The PMOs provide management liaison between the overseas mission and Department\nbureaus and offices. Along with the EX assignment officers, the PMOs work with evacuees\ncoming out of missions that are on ordered or authorized departure. During the inspection, there\nwere two missions on ordered departure and one on authorized departure. PMOs regularly staff\nthe task forces set up to handle crises; there were two task forces during this inspection.\nAccordingly, several PMOs were working 12-hour days to staff task forces, respond to issues\nfrom the embassies and consulates overseas, and work with the evacuees returning to\nWashington. A number of PMOs expressed frustration at the lack of standard operating\nprocedures and document templates related to the evacuations and the work they do on behalf of\nthe returning evacuees. The Department\xe2\x80\x99s Crisis Management Support Office has posted\ntemplates on its SharePoint site, but these were said to be out-of-date. While the PMOs agreed\nthat each evacuation is different, there are enough similarities to make up-to-date and easily\naccessible templates and standard operating procedures useful.\n\n 35\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n Informal Recommendation 11: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should develop\n and post on its SharePoint site, standard operating procedures and document\n templates related to the actions required in the event of evacuation from an overseas\n mission.\n\n Overseas staff generally expressed satisfaction with the service the PMOs provide,\nalthough several mentioned that communication could be improved. This issue appeared to be\nrelated, in part, to a change in PMOs as well as the staffing shortage within the office.\n\nAwards Program\n\n EX manages the awards program for NEA and SCA. Until recently, EX was not\nprocessing awards, but it now is clearing up the enormous backlog of unprocessed awards dating\nback several years. Instead of processing awards as they arrived, the staff had put them into\nboxes or desk drawers to be processed when time permitted. In some cases, the awards were\nnever entered into employee personnel folders; in other cases, the award certificates or payments\nwere never provided, or the nominations were never considered by the bureau awards panel. In\n2010, the office brought in staff from other bureaus to work evenings and weekends to eliminate\nthe backlog. After the awards processing was transferred to the Human Resources Service Center\nin the Bureau of Human Resources, the EX staff discovered yet more boxes of unprocessed\nawards. Between December 2010 and February 2011, the shared services office processed 2,200\noverdue awards. They anticipate it will take another 4 to 6 weeks of work to complete this\nproject.\n\n In October 2010, EX issued a policy requiring that the electronic bureau award program\nbe used to process overseas and domestic award nominations. There had been no systemic and\norderly process for award nominations prior to the issuance of this policy.\n\n A member of the NEA awards committee, which approves all superior honor awards,\nexpressed concern about the number and quality of the award nominations the bureau is\nreceiving. The committee recognizes the possibility that so-called \xe2\x80\x9caward inflation\xe2\x80\x9d is an issue\nthat needs to be addressed throughout the bureau.\n\nEntry-Level Officer Mentoring Program\n\n The bureau has 15 entry-level officers; three work in EX. It also has many newly hired\ntraditional and noncareer appointment (3161) Civil Service employees, most of whom have\nnever worked in the Department before. The bureau has held some brown bag sessions on topics\nof interest to entry-level officers and in December 2010 it instituted a program to allow Civil\nService employees to fill temporary vacancies at posts. However, there is no formal mentoring\nprogram. This type of program is especially important in a busy bureau such as NEA, where new\nemployees can easily become frustrated or intimidated. NEA management will formalize a\nmentoring program for all bureau employees with less than 5 years of service with the\nDepartment.\n\n\n 36\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nEqual Employment Opportunity\n\n The bureau is generally attentive to and supportive of Equal Employment Opportunity\nmatters, but EX could better manage cases as they arise in missions abroad. There are many\ncases from Iraq and Afghanistan that require collaboration in EX. For example, EX could\nproactively weigh in on transfer possibilities and offer participation in alternative dispute\nresolution. Regular meetings between each regional deputy executive director and Office of Civil\nRights representatives would help improve communication between the two offices.\n\n Informal Recommendation 12: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should require\n regional deputy executive directors to meet quarterly with Office of Civil Rights\n representatives to develop case strategies.\n\nExcepted Civil Service Hiring\n\n A single personnel and operations office (the 3161 Personnel Office) serves both the Iraq\nStrategic Partnership Office (ISPO) and Pakistan and Afghanistan Support Office (PASO). This\noffice works well. ISPO and PASO are temporary offices created by executive order, which\nallow the Department to hire excepted Civil Service employees to support its efforts in Iraq,\nAfghanistan, and Pakistan.\n\n Executive orders created ISPO to facilitate the final stage of the Iraq transition and PASO\nto strengthen governments in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Secretary appoints the director for\neach office. The ISPO director position had been vacant for several years at the time of this\ninspection; the PASO director, a 3161 employee, works in S/SRAP. NEA and SCA are\nstakeholders in both temporary offices. ISPO and PASO 3161 employees are stationed\ndomestically in NEA, SCA, the 3161 Personnel Office, and in Embassies Baghdad and Kabul.\n\n Although serving two distinct entities and funded with separate allotments, the 3161\nPersonnel Office is viewed largely as one office. The acting office manager is careful to keep the\ntwo entities at arm\xe2\x80\x99s length, so as not to commingle assets and funds. This joint office provides\nsynergy and cost savings. The 3161 Personnel Office has three sections: recruiting, employment,\nand personnel, each led by a senior specialist. All sections do the usual tasks of a traditional\nfederal personnel office. However, there is no program to record employee performance\nmanagement. This issue is described in the Management Controls section of the report.\n\n The 3161 Personnel Office does not have rights and privileges as a fully delegated HR\norganization, and thus its actions are approved elsewhere in the Department. Currently this is\ndone by FSI/HR, which also determines salaries and authorizes and classifies positions.\nHowever, there is no operative service-level agreement in place defining the relationship\nbetween the 3161 Personnel Office and FSI/HR, and customer service standards. According to\nthe 3161 Personnel Office staff, FSI/HR\xe2\x80\x99s turnaround for all its functions takes too long, which\nprevents the office from optimizing its resources to meet program goals. These delays, staff told\nthe OIG team, mean that offices in Washington and abroad risk losing candidates.\n\n\n 37\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nRecommendation 34: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Foreign\nService Institute and the Bureau of Human Resources, should negotiate a service-level\nagreement, including customer service standards, with the chosen domestic human resources\nservice provider. (Action: NEA, in coordination with FSI and DGHR)\n\nFinancial Management\n\n According to OIG questionnaires, the financial management office adequately serves\nNEA\xe2\x80\x99s and SCA\xe2\x80\x99s domestic and overseas offices. It received good scores for financial\nmanagement, budgeting, and travel services. The only complaints concerned the transfer of funds\ninside or outside of NEA, and the timeliness of some travel services (discussed below). During\nthe course of the inspection, however, the office had great difficulty producing status of funds\nreports.\n\n The section, headed by an FS-01 Foreign Service officer and a GS-14 Civil Service\ndeputy, handles a huge amount of funding from many different appropriations and\nreimbursements. In FY 2010, the office allotted funds and incurred obligations against 29 NEA\nand 20 SCA appropriations, and incurred liquidations against an additional 90 NEA and 80 SCA\nappropriations. Although the total amount of funding the office oversees has not changed over\nthe last 4 years, SCA\xe2\x80\x99s share of the funding has increased, while NEA\xe2\x80\x99s share has decreased. The\nOIG team was unable to conduct more than a cursory review of transactions occurring in NEA\nand SCA appropriations. While most staff have been in the office for many years and are\nfamiliar with the allotments and systems for which they are responsible, the office had difficulty\nat a macro level identifying the status of funding under its control. Problems stem from lapses in\ntraining; insufficient leadership; and, shortcomings with the unwieldy Global Financial\nManagement System (GFMS) Data Warehouse that the Department uses domestically. The\nsection also needs to clarify its policy on supporting documentation for obligations; make sure it\nhas appropriate points of contact for all obligations; obtain clarification from the Bureau of\nResources Management (RM) on its use of Military Interdepartmental Purchase Requests\n(MIPR); and improve controls over travel.\n\nBureau Status of Funds Reports\n\n The office had tremendous difficulty providing to the OIG team, an overview of the\nstatus of each appropriation and allotment controlled by the bureau. 7 This situation limited the\nOIG team\xe2\x80\x99s ability to comment on the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s proficiency in managing its funds, budgeting,\nand monitoring unliquidated obligations. Monitoring is important to ensure that needed funding\nis not allowed to expire; to develop budgets; to ensure that transactions with other bureaus and\noffices are processed correctly; and to ensure that section staff are adequately monitoring the\nfunds for which they are responsible. High-level status of funds reports are particularly important\nfor NEA and SCA, given the large number of appropriations and allotments they deal with.\n\n\n\n7\n For clarity, this report uses the term \xe2\x80\x9cappropriation\xe2\x80\x9d for funds allotted by RM to the bureau and the term\n \xe2\x80\x9callotment\xe2\x80\x9d for funds suballotted by the bureau to its missions or domestic suballotments.\n 38\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n Following inspectors\xe2\x80\x99 request for this information, some office staff started to develop a\nspreadsheet on the status of funds, by running reports on the GFMS, Budget Resource\nManagement System, and Regional Financial Management System (RFMS) Consolidated\nOverseas Accountability Support Toolbox (COAST). Specifically, they:\n\n \xe2\x80\xa2 ran GFMS budget query detail reports, to determine the status of the overall\n appropriation;\n \xe2\x80\xa2 ran BRMS Budget Resource Management System reports, to determine how much\n funding was allotted to each post;\n \xe2\x80\xa2 ran RFMS COAST reports, to determine the status of each overseas allotment;\n \xe2\x80\xa2 ran a GFMS report, to determine the status of domestic allotments; and,\n \xe2\x80\xa2 started entering the information into an Excel spreadsheet.\n\n The office estimated that it took 64 hours to create a spreadsheet that ultimately provided\nthe total funding available and unliquidated obligations for all allotments. However, since the\nspreadsheet did not indicate how much money within each allotment was obligated or available,\nthe OIG team was unable to determine the percentage of obligations remaining unliquidated or\nthe amount of funding still available. The spreadsheet also did not show the status of funding at\nthe appropriation level. The office could have produced this information by following the above\nsteps for each appropriation.\n\n This is not the first time the section has struggled to monitor the status of its\nappropriations and allotments. When a capable contractor arrived in EX in 2008, he discovered a\n$20 million discrepancy between RM and NEA\xe2\x80\x99s Iraq 2006/2007 Economic Support Fund\nbalance. He initiated meetings among EX, the NEA Iraq office, and RM, and the OIG team had\nbeen told the problem was resolved.\n\n According to the GFMS helpdesk, the best report for this high-level information is a\nGFMS Data Warehouse report called the \xe2\x80\x9cModified High Level Budget and Spending Extract.\xe2\x80\x9d\nNeither the head of the financial management office nor her deputy was familiar with this report,\nbut one analyst in the section had seen it while working in a previous job and ran two reports for\neach bureau: one at the appropriation level and one at the allotment level. The appropriation-\nlevel reports for NEA and SCA, respectively, were 30 and 26 pages long, mostly due to\nseemingly unnecessary headers inserted by the program between every appropriation. The\nallotment-level reports were 1,605 and 1,179 pages long, also due to unnecessary headers and\nother columns. It took the analyst 6 hours to run the reports. Although GFMS reports can be\nmodified to make them somewhat easier to run and read, the modified reports are not available\nautomatically; the analysts would need training on how to modify the reports, and then could\nmodify them at their own workstations.\n\n The difficulty and amount of time needed to obtain this information domestically is in\ncontrast to the capabilities of the RFMS COAST system that the embassies use to monitor their\noverseas allotments. COAST uses a standard menu and drill-down capability that allows users to\neasily view and print a list of all of its allotments, along with the status of each allotment. The\n\n\n 39\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nlists do not contain unnecessary headers or columns, are easy to review, and can be generated by\nusers with almost no training.\n\n According to an RM representative, GFMS and RFMS are designed to meet different\nneeds 8 and for that reason, the GFMS Data Warehouse provides users an expansive amount of\nfinancial information that can to be tailored to meet specific needs, while RFMS COAST\nprovides more of a one-size-fits-all capability. According to the RM representative, once\ndomestic users invest the time needed to identify requirements and then work with the GFMS\nhelpdesk to build the appropriate reports, the reports can be run more quickly and in a more\nreadable format. RM encourages bureau staff to attend monthly and quarterly GFMS Data\nWarehouse meetings and read software releases.\n\n Given that RM does not have plans in the near term to create a shorter, more readable,\ncapped report to improve the bureaus\xe2\x80\x99 ability to review their status of funds, the EX financial\nmanagement office needs to work with RM to determine the best reports to run and make\nmodifications to produce an overview of the status of funds. Shortly after the OIG inspection, the\noffice started working on their GFMS reports, and RM indicated that it would assist the bureau\nin producing an overview of the status of its funds. The EX director is aware of the accounting\nsystem\xe2\x80\x99s deficiencies and noted that the Department\xe2\x80\x99s financial management systems rarely yield\nreports to help guide management decisions; in fact, the amount of time and work required is a\ndisincentive to request financial analysis.\n\n Informal Recommendation 13: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should require\n its relevant financial management staff to collaborate on the best report format for\n reviewing the status of its funds at a macro level.\n\nRecommendation 35: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of\nResource Management, should determine the best reports to run and modify to obtain an\noverview of the status of its funds; train relevant financial management staff to run these reports;\nand then run, analyze, and act upon status-of-funds reports at both the appropriation and\nallotment levels quarterly. (Action: NEA, in coordination with RM)\n\n The office\xe2\x80\x99s deputy runs day-to-day operations and does a good job ensuring that funding\nis checked and obligations processed. The deputy also asks analysts to check up on unliquidated\nobligations periodically, although it did not appear that these were checked regularly for all\nappropriations and allotments. Analysts in the section have very different levels of knowledge\nregarding the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s appropriations and the capabilities of the domestic accounting systems.\nThe section chief is not proficient in using the domestic accounting systems and often does not\ncheck work produced by analysts in her section. Some analysts were unfamiliar with how non-\ntraditional funding (such as the Economic Support Fund and supplemental funding) was\nprocessed and reported in GFMS, which limits their ability to back each other up. A few analysts\nsaid official GFMS status of obligation reports were not useful, because they either did not\ninclude a document description or the document description showed up on multiple lines,\n\n8\n RFMS is a direct allotment accounting system whereas GFMS contains modules for tracking commitments, fixed\nassets, billings, and acquisitions and it is connected with 25 other domestic systems.\n 40\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nincreasing the size of the report. However, the office had not contacted RM to determine if this\ncapability existed in a different report or if additional descriptive information could be entered at\nthe time of the obligation, allowing it to display in some capped report. Collaboration among the\nstaff on which reports are needed and used could enable staff within the executive office to back\neach other up.\n\n Informal Recommendation 14: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should develop\n a list of needed reports, determine which reports each analyst uses, look at the\n modifications to each of these reports, provide training to the staff, and, if necessary,\n contact the Bureau of Resource Management for assistance.\n\nSupport and Points of Contact for Obligations\n\n The OIG team had difficulty tracking down the office and individual responsible for a\nfew obligations held in domestic allotments. EX maintains a list of contracting officer\nrepresentatives for all of its contracts, to facilitate timely approval of those invoices. However,\nthe office does not maintain similar lists for other obligating documents, such as grants and\ninterdepartmental obligations and intragovernmental obligations. Funding for these mechanisms\nis often provided up front, but the Department retains responsibility for ensuring that the\nprograms are executed.\n\n Budget officers in EX also do not maintain supporting documentation for all obligations.\nAccording to office staff, purchase orders are maintained in GFMS; grants are maintained by\nprogram offices; interdepartmental and intragovernmental obligations are maintained by budget\nanalysts for 3 years; and travel orders and vouchers are maintained in the online E2 Solutions\nsystem. Some contracting documents are also available in the Department\xe2\x80\x99s procurement\nprogram, and some grant documents are available in the payment management system.\nDepartment guidance does not require bureau budget offices to maintain support for all\nobligations. However, not all program offices maintain adequate documentation for the\nobligations and programs for which they are responsible. As noted in the Foreign Assistance\nsection of this report, the Iraq office has struggled to compile its files. Some employees in that\noffice are still unclear about the programs and obligations related to the Iraq FY 2006-07\nEconomic Support Fund, even though EX has briefed a number of staff in that office in the past.\nTurnover in the Iraq office and in Embassy Baghdad has not helped this situation. EX could not\nlocate any cuff records related to the Iraq FY 2006-07 Economic Support Fund appropriation,\nalthough some of the funding may have been reappropriated. EX could run status-of-obligations\nreports to identify all obligations.\n\nRecommendation 36: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should reconstruct and determine the\nstatus of its Iraq Economic Support Fund appropriation from FY 2006-07. (Action: NEA)\n\n Given the amount of support EX provides to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, staff\nturnover at those locations, the large amounts of foreign assistance funding received by the\nbureaus, and the number of interagency and interdepartmental obligations, the office needs to act\nas a back-up repository for certain obligating documents, including grants and interagency and\ninterdepartmental obligations. To his credit, the executive director has pushed offices to go\n 41\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\npaperless. Maintaining documentation electronically in a well-structured format will provide\nneeded duplication, to ensure that program offices are aware of and monitor the programs and\nobligations for which they are responsible. It also will reduce storage space needs and could\nreduce the number of inquiries EX receives regarding obligations, such as those it receives from\nthe Charleston Financial Services Center related to Intra-governmental Payment and Collection\nProgram payments. Storing those obligating documents in a program (such as GFMS or the\nDepartment\xe2\x80\x99s domestic procurement program) that is accessible to the Charleston Financial\nServices Center could reduce inquiries.\n\nRecommendation 37: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should develop a policy that outlines\nwhere all obligating documents will be maintained, and how they will be maintained, including\nthe specification that obligating documentation should include the name and office of appropriate\npoints of contact. (Action: NEA)\n\nUse of Military Interdepartmental Purchase Requests\n\n NEA and SCA often use MIPRs to provide funding to DOD, particularly in Iraq,\nAfghanistan, and Pakistan. According to 4 FAM 221.1 (b).:\n\n Financial management staff in Department bureaus and posts may not allot or\n transfer funds to other U.S. Government agencies. This includes transferring\n funds to the Department of Defense via a MIPR. All fund transfers to other\n agencies must be processed through the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary\n for State Programs, Operations and Budget (RM/BP).\n\nHowever, according to EX staff, the portion of the Foreign Affairs Manual dealing with this\nsubject is outdated, and MIPRs are often the only form of payment DOD offices will accept.\n\n A representative from RM\xe2\x80\x99s Global Financial Operations Directorate reported that\nMIPRs could not be used as obligating documents. Additionally, MIPRs are not included in the\nlist of commonly used obligating documents in 4 FAH-3 H-52.3. Staff in EX indicated that\nmemoranda of agreement, memoranda of understanding, or reimbursable agreements always\nsupport the MIPRs and serve as the actual obligating documents. The OIG team noted, however,\nthat MIPR numbers are used as obligation numbers; MIPRs did not always refer to the\nunderlying documents; and fund sites and fund availability certifications appeared on MIPRs, not\nthe underlying documents. When asked who was responsible for overseeing MIPR obligations,\nEX staff provided inspectors with points of contact specified on the MIPRs. According to 1 FAM\n226.2, RM\xe2\x80\x99s Financial Policy, Reporting and Analysis Directorate develops and issues\nDepartment-wide financial policy.\n\nRecommendation 38: The Bureau of Resource Management, in coordination with the Bureau of\nNear Eastern Affairs, should review the circumstances under which the Bureau of Near Eastern\nAffairs has used Military Interdepartmental Purchase Requests to obtain Department of Defense\nservices and either reissue guidance on the use of Military Interdepartmental Purchase Requests\nor take steps to correct obligating documents. (Action: RM, in coordination with NEA)\n\n 42\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nTravel\n\n NEA staff is generally satisfied with the travel support provided by the EX. Most, but not\nall, complaints were about staff outside of EX who are responsible for entering information into\nthe online E2 Solutions system. One contractor handles all of NEA\xe2\x80\x99s and SCA\xe2\x80\x99s travel; in FY\n2010, it amounted to more than 1,000 trips. This individual makes sure that all bureau staff are\nentered into E2 and GFMS; maintains a log of all individuals\xe2\x80\x99 travel by office; makes sure all\ntravel voucher documentation is included in E2; periodically contacts individuals with\noutstanding travel orders and advances; reviews support for business class tickets; and trains and\nassists bureau staff who enter information into E2. It is a daunting amount of work for one\nperson, especially given that others in the section do not appear to be fully occupied. In the past,\nEX had separate analysts for each bureau. The office\xe2\x80\x99s efforts over the last 9 months to fill the\nsecond position so far have been unsuccessful.\n\n Informal Recommendation 15: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should assign\n select travel responsibilities to the other analysts in the travel unit and cross-train\n them on the duties of the contractor responsible for travel.\n\n In prioritizing the work, the contractor focuses first on ensuring that travel orders are\ncompleted so people can travel. The travel logs by office also appeared to be well maintained.\nOther tasks, however, have not always been completed. RM recently reviewed travel vouchers\nand found problems in 6 of the 24 vouchers reviewed. Problems included a lack of supporting\ndocumentation, Internet and actual lodging charges without authorization, an improper\nreimbursement of $19.46 for children\xe2\x80\x99s books, and a 3-month delay in a voucher\xe2\x80\x99s approval. The\nOIG team also noted that travel orders in E2 and the travel spreadsheet were not regularly\nreconciled with travel order obligations in GFMS; the bureau does not enforce use of the\ngovernment-authorized charge card, as required in 4 FAM 463.3-2; and travel advances are not\nfollowed up on time. According to a GFMS report, open NEA and SCA travel advances totaled\n$96,000, with some dating back to 2007. However, the open travel advance report did not\ninclude a 2006 travel advance that RM is researching, which brings into question the report\xe2\x80\x99s\naccuracy. According to the office\xe2\x80\x99s deputy, the section has difficulty matching the travel\nadvances and orders in GFMS with those in E2, because officers sometimes submit travel\nvouchers overseas and the transactions do not always post directly to the appropriate travel\nobligation.\n\nRecommendation 39: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of\nResource Management, should identify all travel advances in both Global Financial Management\nSystem and E2 Solutions system that have been open for more than 30 days, query the\nindividuals, and seek reimbursement, if necessary. (Action: NEA, in coordination with RM)\n\n Informal Recommendation 16: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should enforce\n use of the government-authorized charge card.\n\n\n\n\n 43\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nDomestic Services\n\n The Office of Domestic Services (ODS) comprises three sections: the General Services\nDivision (GSD), the Orientation and In-processing Division (OIP), and the Information Services\nDivision. A new ODS director position was created and filled in summer 2010 to better align\ninformation services and general services and, in the end, the customers\xe2\x80\x99 needs. The ODS\ndirector also provides strategic planning and oversight of OIP, as part of a long-term goal to\nexpand OIP\xe2\x80\x99s support to high-threat posts.\n\nGeneral Services Division\n\n GSD performs satisfactorily, although some customers criticize its performance. Its\nresponsibilities include procurement, space management, equipment maintenance, liaison with\nthe Bureau of Administration on major construction/remodeling, office supplies, mail,\nvisa/passport processing, and control of non-expendable property. Those surveyed identified as\nproblematic the division\xe2\x80\x99s responsiveness to procurement requests, office maintenance and\nupkeep, and the quality and maintenance of furniture and equipment. In addition, several\nrenovation and construction projects have been stalled for unreasonably long periods of time.\nThe deployment of a newly designed and highly effective work order system should help to\nremedy the situation and improve customer satisfaction. The system is designed to keep the\nrequesting office, the service provider, and the GSD staff fully informed of the status of\ncustomer requests. This inspection took place as EX offices were being renovated. As a result,\nsome employees were relocated to swing space in Department annexes or crowded more closely\ntogether.\n\n Generally, GSD acts as an intermediary between customers and actual Department\nservice providers, such as the Offices of Acquisitions, Real Property Management, and Facilities\nMaintenance Services. GSD does assist customers more directly in the preparation of\nprocurement requests and renovation/construction scopes of work. Both bureaus\xe2\x80\x99 last two annual\nproperty certifications disclosed shortages under the 1 percent threshold, and thus avoided\nexception reporting requirements. A recommendation concerning the purchase card program is\nmade in the Management Controls section of this report.\n\nOrientation and In-Processing Center\n\n OIP assists all U.S. Government employees and contractors under chief of mission\nauthority deploying to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. In addition to handling the in-processing\nof these employees, it also provides off-shore support to reduce the administrative footprint at\nthese high-threat posts. The center performs its mission well. It benefits from an enthusiastic and\nmotivated office director. The director and deputy director operate five teams: two for\nAfghanistan (one for the Department and one for other agencies), one each for Iraq and Pakistan,\nand one travel team. Only three people in OIP are direct-hires (under 3161 authority): the\ndirector, deputy director, and a program assistant. The remaining 11 are contract employees.\n\n On paper, the OIP director and deputy report to the ODS chief and a governance board\nmade up of senior managers from EX and S/SRAP. Under current conditions as 3161 employees,\n 44\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nhowever, they have neither a rater nor a reviewer. Despite this limitation, by all accounts the\ncenter is a solid, well-appreciated performer. Customer surveys reflect that customers are happy.\n\nInformation Services Division\n\n The EX technology team, with more than 20 years of network and customer institutional\nknowledge, is operating in crisis management mode, supporting customers in NEA, SCA,\nS/SEMEP and S/SRAP (Pakistan and Afghanistan desk). Customers who experience frequent\nsystem outages are reluctant to let go of EX\xe2\x80\x99s dynamic support team, since the customers are\ndissatisfied by the IRM Information Technology (IT) Service Center\xe2\x80\x99s slow response. The OIG\nteam determined that the IT problems cannot be attributed solely to the IRM consolidation\nprogram, but also involve antiquated Department infrastructure, which may take years to fix.\n\n In preparation for this inspection, OIG inspectors requested accounts on the unclassified\nand classified networks, and experienced IT issues that were similar to those that customers in\nNEA and SCA offices face. Recent OIG inspection reports in the Bureaus of East Asian and\nPacific Affairs, Western Hemisphere Affairs, European and Eurasian Affairs, and African\nAffairs have raised IT consolidation issues. An OIG team recently evaluated the IT consolidation\nprogram, and in January 2010, made several recommendations regarding technician skill sets, the\nhandling of customers\xe2\x80\x99 requests, roles and responsibilities, information security management\nduties, and weak communication within the organization. 9 Several of those recommendations\nremain open and currently are with IRM for compliance. While the issues facing NEA and SCA\nare the same as those experienced by other Department bureaus, in NEA these problems are\ncompounded by repeated crises in the region, during which everyone is dependent on technology\nfor quick communication and reporting.\n\n Customer Service and Support\n\n In questionnaires, several employees described staying late at the office only to lose their\nwork to system crashes. The classified network was no different and, in some offices, even\nworse. In many cases, users on classified, thin-client workstations experienced disruptions,\nbecause IRM had underestimated the number of thin-client workstations that would be connected\nto the servers, resulting in computer crashes. To complicate matters, customers were using old\ncomputers (some with 528 MB RAM). DS was pushing patches and scanning the computers\nduring the day, and IRM was also running antivirus scans during the work day. All of this\nslowed the network and adversely affected productivity. After EX brought the matter to IRM\xe2\x80\x99s\nattention, updates now are being performed after working hours. During the course of this\ninspection, the Global IT Modernization Program has stepped in and begun replacing the old,\nunclassified computers with new models. The replacement of older classified network computers\nwas approximately 50 percent complete as the inspection ended.\n\n Many customers cited the IT Service Center for not resolving problems quickly;\nhowever, some customers did not actually call or put in a work order request describing the\n\n9\n Evaluation of the Information Technology Consolidation Project at the Department of State, Report Number\n AUD/IT-10-11, January 2010.\n 45\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nissue. Under the 2008 IT consolidation, IRM is responsible for certain duties, while EX handles\nthe rest. However, the two sections are still sorting out the responsibilities listed under the IRM\nservice level agreement with EX. Computer technicians reported that the situation is slowly\nimproving.\n\n At first glance, it may be easy to blame DS, IRM, Facilities Maintenance Service, or EX\nfor system and service deficiencies, but one major culprit is the Department infrastructure. In\nconversation with EX and IRM, the OIG team learned that the Harry S Truman Building has\nolder CAT-5 cabling that needs to be upgraded to fiber optic cabling, as well as old switches that\nneed to be replaced. An air conditioning system failure also adversely affected computer\nequipment. To compound the problem, office moves \xe2\x80\x93 which often occur with little notification\nto IRM or the EX technology team \xe2\x80\x93 affect the equipment, network, and ultimately, the\ncustomers. In some cases, an office renovation can affect employees in nearby offices.\nRenovation and technical projects are abundant throughout the building, and will take years to\nsort out and complete. In order to manage the multitude of issues affecting NEA and SCA, it is\nimportant that EX, different sections of IRM, and Facilities Maintenance Services meet weekly\nto sort through the problems and determine responsibility. Relations are good between the teams,\nwho, with the help of the IRM Liaison Division, are trying to resolve the numerous problems.\n\n Informal Recommendation 17: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should direct\n the Executive Office to meet weekly with Bureau of Information Resource\n Management and the Bureau of Administration Facilities Maintenance Services\n counterparts to address customer issues.\n\n Many IT service technicians receive only on-the-job training and do not have the needed\nIRM knowledge and capability. This dilemma was addressed in the audit report noted above.\nRemedying the situation will take time, and it does not provide a solution to what customers\nneed now: working computers. The OIG team visited many offices during the course of the\ninspection and identified one building (SA-1, or Columbia Plaza) that rarely experiences network\nissues and appears to have available space. It may be possible for the computers in this building\nto be made available to customers whose own computers crash. The location is not desirable for\ncustomers located in other buildings, but it is a workable alternative.\n\n Innovation and Challenges\n\n EX has developed a state-of-the-art, icon-driven knowledge management intranet site that\nis being replicated by BNET, the Department\xe2\x80\x99s internal broadcast television station. At the time\nof this inspection, the office launched a new telephone bill reconciliation and certification\ntracking system, to automate a task that would otherwise take one employee the entire month to\ndo. Another feature of the site is a fully automated, paperless travel process that has vastly\nsimplified what was a complex and time-consuming procedure. The bureau has automated\nsystems to process, approve, and archive requests for business class travel, invitational travel,\nand travel to Lebanon.\n\n NEA is a leader in digital videoconferences, having saved the Department $4 million in\ntravel costs over the past 3 years. There are several digital videoconference rooms that are\n 46\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n heavily used and cleared for up to Secret level use. Nonetheless, during the immediate period of\n crisis in the NEA region, the Assistant Secretary was frustrated by his inability to have secure\n videoconferences on strategic issues with his chiefs of mission. Once, requested by the Secretary\n to organize such a conference at a Top Secret level, the Department had to ask the White House\n to assist, and even then the conference was a technical failure. During the OIG inspection, the\n equipment used by the Assistant Secretary was upgraded somewhat. However, even at the Secret\n level, it is not possible to have more than five or six embassies at one time online for\n videoconferencing.\n\n It is clear that the expense of providing new Top Secret digital videoconferencing\n platforms at all U.S. embassies would be prohibitive, and the security ramifications would be\n complex. However, it may be feasible to expand the capacity of NEA\xe2\x80\x99s current, Secret-level\n videoconferencing system to enable as many as 15 or 20 (rather than 5 or 6) strong, clear\n connections. In the absence of resources to make this happen, a short-term alternative might be\n to combine videoconferencing with secure audio capabilities, wherever the secure video\n connection is not reliable.\n\n Recommendation 40: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Office of\n the Under Secretary for Management, should work with the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s overseas missions to\n develop a secure digital videoconference deployment plan. (Action: NEA, in coordination with\n M/PRI)\n(b) (5)\n\n\n\n\n Recommendation 41: (b) (5)\n\n\n\n Security Program\n\n One bureau security officer (BSO) manages the security programs for both NEA and\n SCA. The security programs for both bureaus conform to Department policy, with the exception\n of discrepancies discussed below. The BSO takes a proactive approach in implementing the\n security program. Being responsible for the security of two bureaus is arduous work, but the\n BSO is well experienced and capable of executing the program successfully. The BSO,\n employed by the DS Information Security, Applications Program Division, is responsible for\n 47\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n developing, inspecting, and advising on procedures and controls for safeguarding classified and\n administratively controlled information and for enforcing all associated security regulations. As a\n Civil Service employee, he provides the continuity needed for internal security within NEA and\n SCA.\n(b) (5)\n\n\n\n\n Informal Recommendation 18: (b) (5)\n\n\n\n\n 48\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n(b) (5)\n\n\n\n\n Informal Recommendation 19: (b) (5)\n\n\n(b) (5)\n\n\n\n\n 49\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n(b) (5)\n\n\n\n\n Recommendation 42:(\n b\n )\n (\n 5\n )\n\n(b) (5)\n\n\n\n\n Informal Recommendation 20: (b) (5)\n\n\n\n Informal Recommendation 21: (b) (5)\n\n\n\n\n Informal Recommendation 22: (b) (5)\n\n\n\n (b) (5)\n\n\n\n\n 50\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n(b) (5)\n\n\n\n\n Informal Recommendation 23: (b) (5)\n\n\n\n\n 51\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nManagement Controls\n The bureau submitted its last annual management controls statement of assurance on\nSeptember 30, 2010. In the submission, the Assistant Secretary stated that he had \xe2\x80\x9ctaken the\nnecessary measures to assure that an evaluation of the systems of management controls of NEA\nwas conducted in accordance with 2 FAM 020.\xe2\x80\x9d The memorandum also included a report on\nsignificant management control deficiencies in posts within the bureau, along with corrective\naction plans. In addition, the statement identified a significant deficiency at the domestic bureau:\na lack of staffing for the HR function, an issue this report also addresses. The related\nmanagement control weaknesses and other deficiencies in other offices are described below.\n\nPerformance Management\n\n Timeliness and completion of Civil Service performance evaluations and work\ncommitments has been an ongoing problem for NEA and SCA. Many Civil Service performance\nevaluations remained outstanding for the 2009 cycle; NEA had seven outstanding, or 9 percent\nof the total due. The 2010 cycle, in process during the inspection, showed no signs of\nimprovement. Many Civil Service employees complained about this situation, and the HR\nservice provider confirmed that the bureaus showed little concern for completing this important\nfunction. In some cases, supervisors had left the bureaus without completing the evaluations for\nwhich they were responsible. The performance evaluation function is important for employee\nmorale and for administering an effective personnel system. The OIG team members urged\nbureau management to appeal to those responsible to complete this process. According to\nregulations, each executive office is required to provide the Civil Service Human Resource\nManagement office with a list of delinquent raters, including the name of the delinquent rater and\nthe names of affected employees, no later 90 days after the end of the rating cycle (3 FAH-1 H-\n2825.4).\n\nRecommendation 43: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should submit to the Bureau of\nHuman Resources a list identifying both delinquent raters and Civil Service employees whose\nappraisal reports were late or not prepared. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 44: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should institute and enforce a policy,\nwith sanctions, that supervisors complete required employee appraisal reports prior to leaving\ntheir positions with the bureaus. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecruiting Practices\n\n Certain recruitment activities are viewed throughout the domestic HR office as unfair and\nnot transparent. This issue has affected morale in the office. The inspection team found that\nmanagers engaged in potentially questionable personnel practices. Specifically, senior managers,\nselecting officials, and others in NEA and SCA identified individual applicants to domestic HR\noffice specialists and recommended and encouraged their appointment.\n\n\n\n 52\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n Informal Recommendation 24: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should counsel\n senior managers and the executive director regarding appropriate recruiting practices.\n Several employees complained of being put in awkward positions with respect to the\nbureau\xe2\x80\x99s recruitment practices. As a result, many in the domestic HR section are suspicious and\nobserve every employment-related development with a sharp eye, taking their energy and focus\naway from the bureaus\xe2\x80\x99 business. Also, prospective candidates may be discouraged from\napplying for jobs. Moreover, these practices have had a damaging effect on the domestic HR\nsection\xe2\x80\x99s control environment.\n\nRecommendation 45: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should issue a management\ninstruction clarifying the Department\xe2\x80\x99s employment policy, with emphasis on allowed practices\nby managers and selection officials, and on merit system principles. (Action: NEA)\n\nTime and Attendance\n\n The OIG team received complaints of time and attendance abuses from a number of\noffices in the bureau, the most common being that employees come to work late or leave early\nwithout submitting leave documents. This occurrence and other examples of under-reporting\nleave cause personnel costs to be overstated. In addition, time and attendance abuse creates\nmorale problems for other employees, as they often have to perform extra duties to cover those\nwho are not working the required number of hours.\n\n The bureau uses one of the methods for recording time and attendance prescribed by 4\nFAH-3 H-524.2 (1): supervisor or timekeeper observation and recording of employee\xe2\x80\x99s hours\nworked. Timekeepers for NEA prepare time and attendance records by simply entering leave and\novertime amounts to programmed, regular 40-hour work schedules, without receiving employee\nacknowledgements on authenticity. Supervisory approval occurred afterwards, en masse at the\noffice level, but not at the individual employee level. This method is not effective in carrying out\nthe bureau\xe2\x80\x99s charges to ensure that leave and attendance records of all employees are maintained\nin accordance with Department standards, and are recorded and reported in a timely fashion.\nThose complaining of time and attendance abuse cited this lack of management oversight as the\nmain factor in allowing the condition to persist. Requiring individuals to report their own time\nand attendance, with supervisory acknowledgement of the veracity of reported hours, will enable\nthe bureau to comply with Department regulations.\n\n Additionally, the bureaus do not require all employees to submit completed time and\nattendance forms. The OIG team believes that time and attendance management control requires\ndocumentation of employees\xe2\x80\x99 affirmative declaration on correctness, including the statement: \xe2\x80\x9cI\ncertify this to be a true and correct submission of hours worked;\xe2\x80\x9d and a signature line for the\nsupervisor. The Department has an electronic form available (DS 4151 \xe2\x80\x93 Time and Attendance\nSheet 2011) which meets these requirements. It is one option the bureau should consider.\n\nRecommendation 46: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should implement procedures that\nrequire the use of a time and attendance form signed by each employee and approved by the\nemployee\xe2\x80\x99s supervisor and that require all employees to submit completed forms to a designated\ntimekeeper. (Action: NEA)\n 53\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\n\nExtensions and Performance Management for Temporary Employees\n\n The 3161 Personnel Office does not have a uniform policy for managing requests for\nextensions and an adequate system of performance management or reference for future\nemployment of 3161 employees. The 2009 OIG inspection report of Embassy Baghdad\nidentified the same issues with respect to ISPO 3161 employees assigned to the mission. 10 The\nreport\xe2\x80\x99s recommendations were implemented, but only with regard to employees stationed in\nIraq. Without a uniform policy for managing extension requests, the office leaves employees\nuncertain about their eligibility to extend and confuses supervisors who need to decide whether\nor not to support a request.\n\nRecommendation 47: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should publish a single policy on\nmanaging extension requests for personnel stationed both in and outside Iraq. (Action: NEA)\n\n The 3161 Personnel Office does not have an adequate system of employee performance\nmanagement or reference for future employment for 3161 employees. Given that the Department\nmay need such employees in the future, the 3161 Personnel Office should maintain files on past\n3161 hires, to develop a \xe2\x80\x9crapid reaction\xe2\x80\x9d cadre of staff with a proven record of good\nperformance. Currently, the system for vetting such employees is informal, and\nrecommendations for 3161 employees take place by word of mouth, rather than through a more\nformal system with adequate documentation. The 3161 Personnel Office should review this\ndocumentation (which should include a justification for accepting or rejecting each candidate for\na 3161 position) prior to sending forward a list of candidates to a potential hiring official. The\nfuture supervisor does not need to see the performance file of an applicant with previous 3161\nexperience, but the 3161 Personnel Office recruiter should review it before forwarding a\ncandidate\xe2\x80\x99s name.\n\nRecommendation 48: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should develop a written rating\nsystem for employees hired temporarily under 3161 authority and assigned outside Iraq to make\npossible a vetting system for reemployment. (Action: NEA)\n\nPurchase Card Program\n\n The GSD manages the bureaus\xe2\x80\x99 purchase card program. Three employees administer 14\npurchase cards. Total FY 2010 purchases amounted to $438,843. Monthly reconciliations are\ncurrent. The GSD administrative officer reviews the purchase card program annually, but this\nreview is cursory and lacks depth, and the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s purchase card program does not comply with\nDepartment standards. Without in-depth reviews, the bureau does not have added assurance that\nits transactions are free from error or misstatement. In a memorandum dated October 1, 2005, to\nbureau and post program coordinators, the procurement executive required annual reviews to\nemploy a systematic, documented approach that includes testing transactions for a sufficient,\nrepresentative sample of purchase cards.\n\n\n10\n Inspection of Embassy Baghdad, Report Number ISP-I-09-30A, dated July 2009\n 54\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nRecommendation 49: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should perform a purchase card\nannual review for 2010 transactions in accordance with guidelines established by the Bureau of\nAdministration\xe2\x80\x99s Office of the Procurement Executive. (Action: NEA)\n\n\n\n\n 55\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nList of Formal Recommendations\nRecommendation 1: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should develop an annual orientation\nprogram and handbook for new personnel, including guidance on procedures and expectations\nand information about support services. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 2: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should establish and implement a\nmentoring program for entry-level officers and employees in personnel categories not already\ncovered by formal counseling and evaluation programs. The program should involve direct\nengagement of the front office. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 3: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should eliminate the position of\nSenior Advisor for Iranian Affairs and reprogram position number D-03530-00 to an office\nwhere it can be better used. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 4: The Bureau of Human Resources, in coordination with the Bureau of\nNear Eastern Affairs, should establish standard operating procedures for reintegrating into the\nDepartment the Foreign Service officers returning from duty with the Multinational Force and\nObservers and include in the work requirements of a designated officer the responsibility to\naddress the reintegration challenges facing these individuals. (Action: DGHR, in coordination\nwith NEA)\n\nRecommendation 5: The Bureau of Human Resources, in coordination with the Bureau of\nNear Eastern Affairs and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, should establish standard operating\nprocedures that prevent security clearances being terminated upon resignation of Department\npersonnel seconded to the Multinational Force and Observers. (Action: DGHR, in coordination\nwith NEA and DS)\n\nRecommendation 6: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of\nLegislative Affairs, should develop and implement standard operating procedures for dealing\nwith requests from the Congress. These procedures should include routinely notifying the Bureau\nof Legislative Affairs staff and others within the Department, as appropriate. (Action: NEA, in\ncoordination with H)\n\nRecommendation 7: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Office of\nPolicy, Planning and Resources for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, should rewrite the\nwork requirements and position descriptions to clearly delineate the authority, duties, and\nresponsibilities of the deputy assistant secretary for Public Diplomacy and Strategic\nCommunications and the director of the Office of Press and Public Diplomacy in relation to each\nother. (Action: NEA, in coordination with R/PPR)\n\nRecommendation 8: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should develop a transition plan for\nIraq public diplomacy to give oversight responsibility to a career public diplomacy professional.\n(Action: NEA)\n\n\n 56\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nRecommendation 9: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should integrate public diplomacy\nmore widely throughout its Bureau Strategic and Resource Plan and incorporate the concepts\nfrom the Public Diplomacy Strategic Framework. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 10: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of\nPublic Affairs, the Office of International Information Programs, and the Office of Policy,\nPlanning and Resources for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, should develop a\nmemorandum of understanding outlining the conditions under which the Bureau of Near Eastern\nAffairs will carry out blogging, in order to avoid duplication and to ensure policy and message\ncoordination. (Action: NEA in coordination with PA, IIP, and R/PPR)\n\nRecommendation 11: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of\nPublic Affairs and the Office of International Information Programs, should come to a common\npolicy regarding when clearances are and are not needed for social media messages. (NEA, in\ncoordination with PA and IIP )\n\nRecommendation 12: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should find cost-effective means to\ntranslate into Arabic portions of the Web site and informational materials of its Office of Middle\nEast Partnership Initiative. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 13: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of\nEducational Affairs, should implement procedures to routinely distribute brochures and\ninformational material about the State Alumni Web site to Middle East Partnership Initiative\nexchange participants while they are in the United States and to furnish lists of Middle East\nPartnership Initiative exchange participants to the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.\n(Action: NEA, in coordination with ECA)\n\nRecommendation 14: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should rewrite the position\ndescription of the grants management division chief; conduct a desk audit to determine whether\nthe position has the correct skill code and grade level, given its range of management\nresponsibilities; and reclassify and regrade the position, if warranted. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 15: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should consult with the Office of\nthe Procurement Executive to confirm that the Middle East Partnership Initiative grant templates\nand documents accord with Department-wide grants policies and literature. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 16: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should review its overall staffing\ncomplement in order to identify and assign to the Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs a second\nfull-time equivalent position for the Yemen desk. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 17: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should streamline the management\norganization of the Office of Iraq Affairs in order to improve efficiency and communication.\n(Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 18: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should implement flexible\nschedules to reduce overtime expenses in the Office of Iraq Affairs. (Action: NEA)\n 57\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\n\nRecommendation 19: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should review the portfolios in the\nOffice of Iraq Affairs in order to revise and reassign staff within the office, so that work is more\nevenly distributed. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 20: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should eliminate the assembly and\ndissemination of daily media and cable summaries by the Iraq Policy and Operations Group of\nthe Office of Iraq Affairs. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 21: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should require the Iraq Policy and\nOperations Group analysts to conduct guidance and coaching on the definition of State\nMessaging and Archive Retrieval Toolset cable profiles for its employees. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 22: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should assign the Iraq Policy and\nOperations Group analysts to sector-specific supervisors in the Office of Iraq Affairs, where they\ncan contribute more efficiently to office operations. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 23: The Iraq Transition Coordinator, in coordination with the Bureau of\nNear Eastern Affairs and the Under Secretary for Management, should convene an offsite retreat\nin 2011, at the director level and above, with representatives of relevant bureaus and agencies, to\nexamine, report on, and memorialize in writing the lessons learned in the military-to-civilian\ntransition in Iraq. (Action: S/ITC, in coordination with NEA and M)\n\nRecommendation 24: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should transmit a closeout cable in\n2011 that summarizes the lessons learned about the operations of the provincial reconstruction\nteams and their stabilization efforts. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 25: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should transmit to all posts, in 2011\nand annually thereafter, a cable that reports on the status of the best practices working group. The\ncable should identify the range of activities reported to the group, including data collection,\nanalysis and validation, and dissemination. The cable also should identify the numerous U.S.\npublic and private entities engaged in gathering lessons learned in Iraq, and provide Web links\nand points of contact in order to encourage contributions from the foreign affairs community.\n(Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 26: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should implement procedures to\narchive the lessons learned materials held in the Iraq office files on an annual basis, according to\nDepartment records management standards and employing the Traffic Analysis by Geography\nand Subject labeling system. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 27: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should establish standard operating\nprocedures in the grants unit of the Office of Iraq Affairs in order to capture accurate information\nand strengthen management of assistance programs in Iraq. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 28: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should budget and plan for one of\nits grants officers in the Office of Iraq Affairs to conduct twice-yearly grants officer\n 58\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nrepresentative training for officers at Embassy Baghdad and constituent posts who have\nassistance oversight responsibilities. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 29: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should designate, train, and\nappropriately certify a U.S. direct-hire employee to backfill for the warranted grants officer, as\nneeded, in the Office of Iraq Affairs. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 30: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should issue guidance on the types\nof email and other correspondence that staff should archive in the State Messaging and Archive\nRetrieval Toolset system. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 31: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should issue a bureau memorandum\nnotice explaining that all Department employees are required to establish, maintain, and annually\nretire official records, including email messages that meet the definition of records as specified\nin Department guidance. It should also develop and implement a monitoring system to verify that\nbureau offices are in compliance. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 32: The Bureau of Human Resources should assess the domestic human\nresources services for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and give the bureau recommendations\nfor its future services. (Action: DGHR)\n\nRecommendation 33: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of\nSouth and Central Affairs, the Bureau of Human Resources, and the Foreign Service Institute,\nshould evaluate domestic human resources delivery options, select a human resources service\nprovider, and sign a relevant service-level agreement with measurable service standards for all\ncategories of service. (Action: NEA, in coordination with SCA, DGHR, and FSI)\n\nRecommendation 34: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Foreign\nService Institute and the Bureau of Human Resources, should negotiate a service-level\nagreement, including customer service standards, with the chosen domestic human resources\nservice provider. (Action: NEA, in coordination with FSI and DGHR)\n\nRecommendation 35: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of\nResource Management, should determine the best reports to run and modify to obtain an\noverview of the status of its funds; train relevant financial management staff to run these reports;\nand then run, analyze, and act upon status-of-funds reports at both the appropriation and\nallotment levels quarterly. (Action: NEA, in coordination with RM)\n\nRecommendation 36: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should reconstruct and determine\nthe status of its Iraq Economic Support Fund appropriation from FY 2006-07. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 37: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should develop a policy that\noutlines where all obligating documents will be maintained, and how they will be maintained,\nincluding the specification that obligating documentation should include the name and office of\nappropriate points of contact. (Action: NEA)\n\n 59\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nRecommendation 38: The Bureau of Resource Management, in coordination with the Bureau\nof Near Eastern Affairs, should review the circumstances under which the Bureau of Near\nEastern Affairs has used Military Interdepartmental Purchase Requests to obtain Department of\nDefense services and either reissue guidance on the use of Military Interdepartmental Purchase\nRequests or take steps to correct obligating documents. (Action: RM, in coordination with NEA)\n\nRecommendation 39: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of\nResource Management, should identify all travel advances in both Global Financial Management\nSystem and E2 Solutions system that have been open for more than 30 days, query the\nindividuals, and seek reimbursement, if necessary. (Action: NEA, in coordination with RM)\n\nRecommendation 40: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in coordination with the Office of\nthe Under Secretary for Management, should work with the bureau\xe2\x80\x99s overseas missions to\ndevelop a secure digital videoconference deployment plan. (Action: NEA, in coordination with\nM/PRI)\n\nRecommendation 41: (b) (5)\n\n\n\nRecommendation 42: (b) (5)\n\n\n\n\nRecommendation 43: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should submit to the Bureau of\nHuman Resources a list identifying both delinquent raters and Civil Service employees whose\nappraisal reports were late or not prepared. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 44: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should institute and enforce a\npolicy, with sanctions, that supervisors complete required employee appraisal reports prior to\nleaving their positions with the bureaus. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 45: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should issue a management\ninstruction clarifying the Department\xe2\x80\x99s employment policy, with emphasis on allowed practices\nby managers and selection officials, and on merit system principles. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 46: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should implement procedures that\nrequire the use of a time and attendance form signed by each employee and approved by the\nemployee\xe2\x80\x99s supervisor and that require all employees to submit completed forms to a designated\ntimekeeper. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 47: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should publish a single policy on\nmanaging extension requests for personnel stationed both in and outside Iraq. (Action: NEA)\n\n 60\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\nRecommendation 48: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should develop a written rating\nsystem for employees hired temporarily under 3161 authority and assigned outside Iraq to make\npossible a vetting system for reemployment. (Action: NEA)\n\nRecommendation 49: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should perform a purchase card\nannual review for 2010 transactions in accordance with guidelines established by the Bureau of\nAdministration\xe2\x80\x99s Office of the Procurement Executive. (Action: NEA)\n\n\n\n\n 61\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nList of Informal Recommendations\n Informal recommendations cover operational matters not requiring action by\norganizations outside the inspected unit and/or the parent regional bureau. Informal\nrecommendations will not be subject to the OIG compliance process. However, any subsequent\nOIG inspection or on-site compliance review will assess the mission\xe2\x80\x99s progress in implementing\nthe informal recommendations.\n\nInformal Recommendation 1: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should periodically use one\nof its weekly staff meetings or other gatherings with office directors as a forum for senior staff to\ndiscuss professional development, both for themselves as supervisors and their subordinates.\n\nInformal Recommendation 2: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should prepare, sign, and\nsubmit work requirement statements for all front office employees.\n\nInformal Recommendation 3: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should establish a bureau-\nwide calendar of events, visitors, and programs.\n\nInformal Recommendation 4: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should require the deputy\nassistant secretary for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communications and the director of the\nOffice of Public Diplomacy to travel to the region in the very near future, to familiarize\nthemselves with the public diplomacy programs and challenges in the field.\n\nInformal Recommendation 5: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should encourage the\ndeputy assistant secretary for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communications and the director\nof the Office of Press and Public Diplomacy to have more informal, in-depth contact with the\nstaff, through monthly brown-bag lunches at Navy Hill and other gatherings, such as an all-staff\nmeeting off site.\n\nInformal Recommendation 6: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should include the Office of\nPress and Public Diplomacy\xe2\x80\x99s deputy director for public diplomacy on the press office\ndistribution list, to improve information sharing between the two elements of the office.\n\nInformal Recommendation 7: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should work out an\nunderstanding between the Middle East Partnership Initiative\xe2\x80\x99s public outreach unit and the\nbureau\xe2\x80\x99s press office, regarding procedures for handling journalist interviews about the Middle\nEast Partnership Initiative, factoring in issues like timing and sensitivity.\n\nInformal Recommendation 8: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should require the senior\ngrants official in the office of the Middle East Partnership Initiative to take Department-specific\ngrants training.\n\nInformal Recommendation 9: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should review the purpose\nof the weekly staff meeting in the Office of Iraq Affairs and widely communicate the substance\nof the meetings in the office.\n 62\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\n\nInformal Recommendation 10: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should require that each\ndeparting employee complete and return to the Executive Office a comprehensive departing\nemployee checklist.\n\nInformal Recommendation 11: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should develop and post\non its SharePoint site, standard operating procedures and document templates related to the\nactions required in the event of evacuation from an overseas mission.\n\nInformal Recommendation 12: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should require regional\ndeputy executive directors to meet quarterly with Office of Civil Rights representatives to\ndevelop case strategies.\n\nInformal Recommendation 13: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should require its relevant\nfinancial management staff to collaborate on the best report format for reviewing the status of its\nfunds at a macro level.\n\nInformal Recommendation 14: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should develop a list of\nneeded reports, determine which reports each analyst uses, look at the modifications to each of\nthese reports, provide training to the staff, and, if necessary, contact the Bureau of Resource\nManagement for assistance.\n\nInformal Recommendation 15: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should assign select travel\nresponsibilities to the other analysts in the travel unit and cross-train them on the duties of the\ncontractor responsible for travel.\n\nInformal Recommendation 16: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should enforce use of the\ngovernment-authorized charge card.\n\nInformal Recommendation 17: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should direct the\nExecutive Office to meet weekly with Bureau of Information Resource Management and the\nBureau of Administration Facilities Maintenance Services counterparts to address customer\nissues.\n\nInformal Recommendation 18: (b) (5)\n\n\n\n\nInformal Recommendation 19: (b) (5)\n\n\nInformal Recommendation 20: (b) (5)\n\n\n 63\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\n\nInformal Recommendation 21: (b) (5)\n\n\n\nInformal Recommendation 22: (b) (5)\n\n\n\nInformal Recommendation 23: (b) (5)\n\n\n\nInformal Recommendation 24: The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs should counsel senior\nmanagers and the executive director regarding appropriate recruiting practices.\n\n\n\n\n 64\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nPrincipal Officials\n Name Arrival Date\n (Month/Year)\nFront Office:\nAssistant Secretary Jeffrey D. Feltman 08/2009\nPrincipal Deputy Assistant Secretary Ronald Schlicher 07/2010\nDeputy Assistant Secretary Jacob Walles 06/2010\nDeputy Assistant Secretary Janet Sanderson 07/2009\nDeputy Assistant Secretary Greta Holtz 06/2010\nDeputy Assistant Secretary Philo Dibble 08/2010\nDeputy Assistant Secretary Tamara Wittes 11/2009\nDeputy Assistant Secretary Michael Corbin 07/2009\n\nOffice Directors:\nIsrael Palestinian Affairs Paul Sutphin 08/2010\nEgypt and Levant Affairs Nicole Shampaine 07/2008\nArabian Peninsula Affairs Steven Bondy 05/2009\nMaghreb Affairs William Roebuck 09/2010\nRegional Affairs Raymond Maxwell 09/2009\nPress and Public Diplomacy Philip Frayne 09/2010\nIranian Affairs Henry Wooster 10/2010\nPartnership Initiative Karen Volker 08/2010\nIraq Affairs John Desrocher 09/2010\nExecutive Office Jay Anania 08/2009\n\n\n\n\n 65\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nAbbreviations\n3161 Excepted Civil Service hired under U.S. Code Title 5, Section 3161\nAIP Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan\nBBG Broadcasting Board of Governors\nBSO Bureau security officer\nCOAST Consolidated Overseas Accountability Support Toolbox\nDAS Deputy assistant secretary\nD&CP Diplomatic and Consular Programs\nDepartment U.S. Department of State\nDOD Department of Defense\nDS Bureau of Diplomatic Security\nEX Executive Office of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and the Bureau of\n South and Central Asian Affairs\nFAH Foreign Affairs Handbook\nFAM Foreign Affairs Manual\nFSI Foreign Service Institute\nFSI/HR Foreign Service Institute,Human Resources\nGFMS Global Financial Management System\nGSD General Services Division\nHR Human resources\nIPOG Iraq Policy and Operations Group\nIRM Bureau of Information Resource Management\nISPO Iraq Strategic Partnership office\nIT Information technology\nMIPR Military Interdepartmental Purchase Request\nMEPI Middle East Partnership Initiative\nNEA Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs\nNEA/PPD Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Office of Press and Public Diplomacy\nODS Office of Domestic Services\nOIG Office of Inspector General\nOIP Orientation and In-Processing Division\nPASO Pakistan and Afghanistan support office\nPMO Post management officer\nRFMS Regional Financial Management System\nRM Bureau of Resource Management\nSCA Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs\nSMART State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolset\nS/SEMEP Office of the Special Envoy to the Middle East Peace Process\nS/SRAP Office of the Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan\nTSCO Top Secret control officer\nUSO Unit security officer\n\n\n\n\n 66\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\nAppendix A: Summary of Foreign Assistance Funding\nAllocation\n($ in thousands)\n FY 2010 State and U.S. Agency for International Iraq Other Total\n Development-Controlled Foreign Assistance Portion\n Resources for the NEA Region\n (in thousands) 11\n\nForeign Military Financing 4,542,498 4,542,498\nEconomic Support Funds 382,500 1,243,400 1,625,900\nInternational Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement 569,440 126,250 695,690\nNonproliferation, Antiterrorism, Demining and Related 30,300 54,635 84,935\nPrograms\nPeacekeeping Operations 26,000 26,000\nGlobal Health and Child Survival 8,000 8,000\nDevelopment Assistance 64,935 64,935\nInternational Military Education and Training 2,000 16,593 18,593\n\nTotal $984,240 $6,082,311 $7,066,551\n\n\n\n\n11\n The numbers are taken from NEA\xe2\x80\x99s FY 2012 Bureau Strategic and Resource Plan. They do not include other U.S.\nGovernment or agency assistance to the region such as DOD-funded programs.\n\n\n 67\n SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0cFRAUD, WASTE, ABUSE, OR MISMANAGEMENT\n of Federal programs\n and resources hurts everyone.\n\n Call the Office of Inspector General\n HOTLINE\n 202-647-3320\n or 1-800-409-9926\n or e-mail oighotline@state.gov\n to report illegal or wasteful activities.\n\n You may also write to\n Office of Inspector General\n U.S. Department of State\n Post Office Box 9778\n Arlington, VA 22219\n Please visit our Web site at:\n http://oig.state.gov\n\n Cables to the Inspector General\n should be slugged \xe2\x80\x9cOIG Channel\xe2\x80\x9d\n to ensure confidentiality.\n\x0cSENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\n\n\n\n 68\nSENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\n\x0c'