U.S. Relations With the People's Republic of China (2008)

U.S. Department of State

Daily Press Briefing

Sean McCormack, Spokesman
Washington, DC
January 8, 2008

12:53 p.m. EST

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QUESTION: This morning you spoke briefly about the Foreign Service Association survey. If you could just say why you think there was such a small number of people who said that Secretary Rice was working strongly on their behalf?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, I don't know exactly why, but -- and I haven't looked into the details of this particular survey. But in the past, these have not been scientific polling that has been done with strict sample size and done on a random basis. It is really self-selecting. You have a questionnaire or any mail that's sent out and people will self-select whether or not they want to reply to a question of, well, do you think you have enough resources to do your job?

Well, look, for example, you talk to folks in the military, you ask a brigade of soldiers, raise their hand and say, well, do you think the food in the mess is really what you'd like to see? Oh, yeah, you'll get a handful of people who raise their hand and say, no, I want better food. Well, of course, that's just -- it's the nature of organizations. You're going to have people who say, well, yeah, of course we want more. So I can't tell you that this was a scientific survey. You can talk to those who did it and they can talk about methodologies, et cetera. And it is an interesting point; I researched this a little bit. If you look at State Department funding going back to FY '05, '06 and '07, it's steadily gone up: FY '05, $8.2 billion; FY '06, $8.92 billion; '07, $8.99 billion.

So you see despite a very difficult budgetary environment in which you are seeing a lot of other cabinet agencies' funding actually reduce, State Department funding is actually going up, and that is due to the efforts of Secretary Rice fighting on behalf of the State Department for the resources that she thinks this Department needs to do its job. Now, that isn't to say she is just going to go out there and say the only answer is more money. She wants to make sure that money is spent effectively. She wants to make sure that she is a good steward of the taxpayers' dollars. That's why she's done things like global repositioning, making sure that our diplomatic structures are oriented such that we have our assets where our most important diplomatic challenges exist, whether that's in Iraq or Afghanistan or in places like India and China where before she came into office you actually had as many people in the political section in Germany -- and I don't want to pick on Germany, it's a close friend and ally -- but as many people in the political section in our Embassy in Germany as you did in India, in New Delhi, a country of a billion people. Well, clearly, there's something wrong. There's a mismatch of assets with interests there.

So she has gone through a process where she is trying to reposition the State Department globally. She's also made it very clear that we are going to back up the interests of our foreign policy and national security with State Department assets. And great examples of that are her backing up the requests of Ambassador Ryan Crocker in Iraq for more people and to get more people out in the field working directly with the military.

So that's -- those are just a couple of examples of how she is working to change the Department and she is working very well with the Foreign Service. If you look at the regional assistant secretaryships, five of the six are currently held by Foreign Service officers. She reaches down to desk officers oftentimes before her trips and gets briefings directly from desk officers, you know, without respect to rank. She wants to hear from the people who are doing the job.

And she gets out in the building; you guys don't see it, but she gets out in the building quite a bit visiting bureaus, talking to people about their real concerns. And when problems come up, she tries to address them. Recently, there was issues -- there were issues related to healthcare counseling, mental healthcare counseling for people coming back from Iraq. She got on that issue and she wants to make sure that the people have what they need to do their jobs.

And I think on the whole you have a group of people here at the State Department who joined the Foreign Service, joined the State Department, to make a difference, to make a difference in policy, to make a difference in the world. And I think that if you go around the building you will find people who will tell you that they are very much involved in the foreign policymaking process. She has put the State Department, working very closely with President Bush and the White House and certainly, where there is consent and agreement, put the State Department at the center of U.S. foreign policy formulation and execution.

Of course, there are a lot of different inputs throughout the government to that process but I think those who are deeply concerned with and involved in the policymaking process will say that they find it very gratifying to be at the center of that process. And that's the reason why most of us joined the Foreign Service and the State Department.

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(The briefing was concluded at 1:19 p.m.)