Responding to a call from advocacy groups, Mitt Romney's campaign has released a statement promising to protect "innocents" and prosecute human rights abuses by the Khartoum government in Sudan and what is now South Sudan.

"Mitt Romney recognizes that for too long far too many Sudanese have been victims of war crimes and other atrocities committed by the government in Khartoum and its proxies," the Romney campaign said in Tuesday statement. "In Southern Sudan, millions died as a result of ethnic and religious targeted killings during the long civil war. Among those brutally targeted were Christians and adherents of traditional African religions, Dinka, Nuer, and members of other ethnic groups. In Darfur, non-Arab populations have been and continue to be victims of a slow-motion genocide. And since independence of the Republic of South Sudan, Khartoum has committed a range of atrocities in border regions that have claimed countless lives and displaced hundreds of thousands."

The Romney campaign accused the Khartoum regime, led by President Omar al-Bashir, of inciting and arming rebel groups with the objective of undermining the South Sudanese government, stealing hundreds of millions of dollars of South Sudan's oil money, and impeding the flow of humanitarian assistance.

"Governor Romney is committed to protecting innocents from war crimes and other atrocities, ensuring that humanitarian aid reaches those desperately in need, holding accountable those leaders who perpetrate atrocities, and achieving a sustainable peace for all who live in Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan," the statement said.

The Romney campaign was responding to a call for support from the organization Act for Sudan, an alliance of grassroots advocacy organizations. Last December, the group sent a list of questions related to the events in Sudan to all the presidential candidates. So far, only the Romney campaign has responded.

In November, Act for Sudan sent an open letter to President Obama that was signed by 66 organizations, urging him to ramp up administration efforts to protect civilians and provide humanitarian relief for the people of Sudan and South Sudan.

"We believe the United States is not doing enough to uphold its responsibility to protect innocent civilians from atrocities perpetrated by the Sudanese government," the letter stated.  "We, therefore, respectfully request that your administration make it a top priority to provide the necessary protection and change the ruthless political calculations of the National Congress Party."

The White House announced today that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice will lead the country's delegation to South Sudan on July 9 to attend a ceremony marking the country's Declaration of Independence.  She will be joined by former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Other members of the delegation include Rep. Donald Payne (D- N.J.), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights; Johnnie Carson, assistant secretary of State for African Affairs; Princeton Lyman, the U.S. special envoy to Sudan; Brooke Anderson, deputy national security advisor; Gen. Carter Ham, commander of the U.S. Africa Command; Donald Steinberg, deputy administrator for USAID; Barrie Walkley, the consul general in Juba; and Ken Hackett, the president of Catholic Relief Services.

Notably absent from the delegation: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She was initially scheduled to make the trip, but the Washington Post reported last month that security concerns might prevent her from doing so.

Franklin Graham, an evangelical leader, will also be in attendance. He was supposed to travel with Sarah Palin, but Palin also canceled her plans to attend due to what she said were "scheduling problems."   

Southerners backed independence in a January referendum -- though since then clashes along the border with the north have led to growing fears that violence could escalate. Tensions between north and south Sudan are still high over the issues of oil revenue sharing and what's to become of Abyei, a disputed region on the border.

And today the Harvard-based Satellite Sentinel Project released images taken July 4 showing what appears to be an 80-car convoy of Sudanese military forces traveling through the disputed border region of Southern Kordofan. 73,000 people have fled fighting there since June.

The U.N. Security Council will meet July 13 to discuss admitting South Sudan to the international body, making it the first state since Montenegro in 2006 to become a U.N. member.

The Palestine Liberation Organization, no longer willing to follow the Obama administration's diplomatic lead, is gambling that its latest drive for a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements will put more pressure on both the Israeli government and the Obama administration.

The U.S. administration, caught between its desire to bring the Palestinians back to the negotiating table and its reluctance to abandon Israel at the United Nations, has not officially decided what it will do if and when the Palestinian resolution ever comes up for a Security Council vote.

"I'm not going to speculate on how we might vote, but we've made very clear both our policy on settlements as well as our belief that action in the United Nations or any other forum is not particularly helpful," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner.

The resolution itself, which has 122 co-sponsors and the support of Security Council members Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Gabon, India, Nigeria and South Africa, is undergoing several rounds of revision in New York. The Cable has obtained a version of the resolution circulated among U.N. diplomats Jan. 18, which can be found here. Under this draft, the Security Council:

1. Reaffirms that the Israeli settlements established in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and constitute a major obstacle to the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;

2. Reiterates its demand that Israel, the occupying Power, immediately and completely ceases all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard;

3.  Calls upon both parties to act on the basis of international law and their previous agreements and obligations, including under the Roadmap, aimed, inter alia, at improving the situation on the ground, building confidence and creating the conditions necessary for promoting the peace process;

4. Calls upon all parties to continue, in the interest of the promotion of peace and security, with their negotiations on the final status issues in the Middle East peace process according to its agreed terms of reference and within the timeframe specified by the Quartet in its statement of 21 September 2010;

5. Urges in this regard the intensification of international and regional diplomatic efforts to support and invigorate the peace process towards the achievement of a comprehensive, just  and  lasting  peace  in  the  Middle  East.

The State Department tried and failed to convince the PLO to not bring up the resolution. U.S. officials asked Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat to delay bringing the resolution forward during his trip to Washington last week, the PLO's representative in Washington, Maen Rashid Areikat, told The Cable in an interview. Areikat said the Palestinians hope the United States will eventually come around to support the resolution, but that the PLO had no choice but to proceed.

"The Obama administration cannot tell us not to resort to the U.N. when the international community has failed to stop the illegal settlement activity by Israel which is changing things on the ground," Areikat said. "How long are we supposed to stand by with no results? [The administration] has to tell us what it is they intend to do to move towards a solution to this problem."

Areikat indicated that the Feb. 5 meeting in Munich of the Quartet, which is composed of the United States, the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia, could be an opportunity to head off a confrontation at the Security Council. However, he didn't say outright that the Palestinians would wait that long before calling for further action.

 "They're in no particular rush. They want to see if this can be used as leverage so the U.S. can come in with some other compromise," said Steve Clemons, foreign policy head of the New America Foundation.

But the Obama administration isn't yet ready to come out with a plan for revitalizing the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Clemons said.

"The administration has been working really hard to move Netanyahu on the settlements and to try to push Abbas into a position to sit down regardless of what was happening on settlements. But there seems to be complete gridlock," he said.

Clemons has been leading a drive among foreign policy professionals in Washington to convince the Obama administration not to veto the resolution.

"If the proposed resolution is consistent with existing and established US policies, then deploying a veto would severely undermine US credibility and interests, placing us firmly outside of the international consensus, and further diminishing our ability to mediate this conflict," read his letter to President Obama, which was signed by several other foreign policy professionals.

Daniel Levy, the co-director of the New America Foundation's Middle East Task Force, explained that Abbas is under intense pressure domestically to show strength vis-à-vis Israel, and absent a more aggressive plan from Washington, has no choice but to pursue international support for the Palestinian cause.

Meanwhile, the Israelis have no plans to stop settlement activity, regardless of what happens with the Security Council resolution. But like the Palestinians, they are also looking to Washington to chart the road ahead for the peace process.

"We're all in a kind of wait and see mode to see what the U.S. administration is planning to do," an Israel official said.

A whole host of U.S. officials are on the ground in Sudan, working tirelessly to encourage that two votes scheduled for early January are conducted on time and fairly. But the top U.S. official in Sudan said on Monday that at least one of the two votes will not happen as scheduled, and that the other could now be delayed as well.

In the main referendum scheduled for Jan. 9, the citizens of oil-rich Southern Sudan are due to decide whether to remain united to the Northern Khartoum-based government or separate to form their own country. In the second poll, the citizens of the resource-wealthy province of Abyei are supposed to decide whether they want to be part of the North or the South -- if the South does vote to secede.

U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration said on Monday on a conference call from Khartoum that due to problems setting up the vote in Abyei, that vote will not happen on Jan. 9 as had been hoped.

"We've passed the opportunity for there to be a poll," Gration said, citing disagreements over voter eligibility that led to delays in setting up the logistics of holding a referendum in Abyei. He said the issue was in the hands of the two parties, but that the United States was "encouraging them to do what it takes to get a solution before the end of the 9^th of January."

The revised goal appears to be somewhat less ambitious, but no less critical: if the outstanding issues in dispute in Abyei are unresolved before the South votes on Jan. 9 -- and if the expected outcome of secession hold -- both sides could claim ownership of the province and violence could erupt.

"We are working with both sides to calm the rhetoric and put a plan in place that will give both sides reassurances," Gration said. "This is probably not a situation where either side will be happy. We're looking for a solution that leaves both sides angry but neither side mad."

A senior U.S. official, speaking on background, said that the Abyei situation was extremely tense and represented the greatest risk of violence in the near term. If Abyei breaks out in violence, it could threaten the overall Southern Sudan referendum, the official said.

"In terms of violence that would upset the (Jan. 9) referendum, Abyei could be a flashpoint that would be disturbing enough that there would be cause for a delay," the officials said. "It's important that the (Sudanese) presidency come out with some roadmap, some solution, that the people in that area know what their future is going to be."

Of course, even without a breakout of violence in Abyei, the referendum in Southern Sudan might be delayed anyway. Gration said that although the technical preparations in Southern Sudan were going well, legal challenges to the referendum could result in a delay.

Southern Sudanese leaders have been flooded in recent days by complaints and legal challenges intended to derail the referendum, a campaign they claim is an organized effort supported by the government in the North. One of the complaints, for example, is that time periods for various stages of voting were not strictly adhered to.

Gration admitted that the voter registration period and the time between registration and voting had been compressed.

"Therefore the Southern Sudan Referendum Act was not totally complied with in order to reach the date of Jan. 9... We think it's a good trade off," Gration said. "It really didn't change the outcome and it hasn't changed the transparency."

Another senior U.S. official said that there are no "technical" barriers to holding the referendum on Jan. 9, but acknowledged the political problems. He estimated the odds of holding the vote on time at "greater than 50 percent."

But the official admitted that even a short delay in the overall referendum could cause huge problems in Sudan.

"That would be a serious political crisis if there were any serious steps to delay the referendum," the official said.

John Prendergast, the CEO of the Enough Project, said that the key to peace is to fold the sensitive Abyei negotiations back into the larger deal that is being pursued between the North and South on a host of issues, including borders, citizenship, and wealth sharing. 

"Tradeoffs and compromises are critical at this juncture," he said. "For the overall deal to work, Abyei is going to have to be transferred to the South, using the borders outlined by the Permanent Court of Arbitration. But the Arab Misseriya population is going to have to have a minority role in governing arrangements in Abyei, along with guaranteed grazing rights along traditional migratory routes.  Both sides are going to have to give in order to avert war, a war in which everyone would lose badly."

Gration also announced that Ambassador Dane Smith will join the U.S. delegation in Sudan to be the point man for the Darfur issue, which some analysts are concerned is worsening as attention focuses on other parts of the country. Gration will travel this week to Doha for a multilateral meeting on Darfur.

The White House spent an hour Friday afternoon trying to convince angry Hill staffers and human rights activists that "naming and shaming" governments that recruit child soldiers, rather than imposing Congressionally-mandated sanctions on them, will better address the problem. But advocacy leaders are upset with the administration and rejected top White House officials' contention that removing sanctions against four troubled states will be a positive move.

The White House began a conference call on the issue Friday afternoon by apologizing to the NGO and Hill community for the decision's botched rollout, which was announced only through a short official presidential memorandum on Monday and then reported on by The Cable on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The call was off the record and not for press purposes, but a recording was made available to The Cable.

"This is a call that should have happened before you read about the administration's child soldiers' posture in the newspaper," said Samantha Power, the National Security Council's senior director for multilateral affairs and human rights. "Given the way you all heard about the implementation of the statute, I can understand why some of the reactions that you had were prevalent."

Power defended the president's decision to waive penalties under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008, which was set to go into effect this month, for Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sudan, and Yemen. She argued that identifying these countries as violators while giving them one more year to stop recruiting underage troops would help make progress.

"Our judgment was brand them, name them, shame them, and then try to leverage assistance in a fashion to make this work," said Power, adding that this was the first year the Obama administration had to make a decision on this issue, so they want to give the violator countries one more year to show progress.

"In year one to just say we're out of here, best of luck, we wish you well... Our judgment is we'll work from inside the tent."

But Hill staffers and advocacy leaders on the call weren't buying what Power was selling. They were upset that they learned about the decision via The Cable, and challenged Power on each point that she made.

For example, Jo Becker, advocacy director for the children's rights division at Human Rights Watch, pointed out that the law was passed two years ago.

"The law was enacted in 2008, so countries have had two years to know that this was coming down the pike," she said. "So the consequences of the law really shouldn't be taking anyone by surprise, so to say countries need a year to get their act together is really problematic."

She also disputed Power's contention on the call that "there's evidence that our diplomatic engagement and this military assistance has resulted in some changes."

"The U.S. has been providing training for years already with no real change on the ground," said Becker. "We haven't seen significant changes in practice so far from the engagement approach, so that seems to indicate to me we need to change the approach, maybe withholding programs until we see changes on the ground."

"I think the logic of engagement is something reasonable people can disagree on," Power responded. "There's probably empirical evidence on both sides."

Advocates on the call did acknowledge Chad's efforts on child soldier demobilization, but lamented that little or no progress has been seen in the DRC or with South Sudan's Southern People's Liberation Army (SPLA). But they wanted to know: If the administration believes that the threat of the sanctions has caused progress, then how does removing that threat keep the pressure on?

"Why remove that leverage now when we've seen it's been so valuable?" asked Scott Stedjan, senior policy advisor at Oxfam America

Jesse Eaves, policy advisor for children in crisis at World Vision, was one of several on the call to wonder why the administration decided to waive all sanctions, rather than using a part of the law that allows the continuation of military assistance to violator countries, along as that assistance goes toward military professionalization.

"Naming and shaming has not worked," he said. "You can give support under the law. Much of the aid that's even discussed in the justification memo that many of us have seen can still be given to these countries if they show a reasonable attempt to demobilize child soldiers."

Overall, Power wanted to point out that the administration is still intent on fighting the use of child soldiers and that waiving the sanctions doesn't mean that all pressures will stop. She promised that if these countries don't shape up, the administration will take a tougher line when reevaluating the sanctions next year.

Power repeatedly attempted to argue that the attention over the president's decision to waive sanctions was exactly the kind of public pressure needed to spur violator governments to change. However, her argument was complicated by the fact that the administration failed to tell anyone about the decision and announced it with no rollout or explanation whatsoever.

"I do think there's something different between what happened in 2008 [when the law passed] versus actually being named this week," she said. "And we're already seeing out in the field via our embassies a huge amount of discomfort and angst on the part of those countries about being branded in this way."

Power said at the end of the call that the administration plans to capitalize on the fallout from its decision. She said that the administration planned on "[u]sing the attention from this moment and the leverage of having abstained from having put the sanctions in effect right now and saying... ‘You're not going to get so lucky next time if we don't see some progress.'"

Overall, the call showed that the White House realized it botched the rollout of the decision but is standing by the decision itself. Next, they will have to defend it on Capitol Hill, where staffers are set to receive a special briefing on the issue next week.

"I think it's unfortunate that the NGO community and those in Congress who wrote the law were not involved in its implementation," said Kody Kness, an aide to Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), one of the lead sponsors of the law. "I think that's a missed opportunity."

The Obama administration quietly waived a key section of the law meant to combat the use of child soldiers for four toubled states on Monday, over the objections the State Department's democracy and human rights officials. Today, the White House tells The Cable that they intend to give these countries -- all of whose armed forces use underage troops -- one more year to improve before bringing any penalties to bear.

The NGO community was shocked by the announcement, reported Tuesday by The Cable, that President Obama authorized exemptions from all penalties set to go into effect this year under the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2008. The countries that received waivers were Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Yemen.

The failure of the administration to consult or even warn those groups that had worked hard to pass the law caused unease and concern around the advocacy community Tuesday. Child protection advocates worried that the administration was abandoning the tactic of threatening to cut off military assistance as a means to pressure abusive regimes to stop forcibly recruiting troops under the age of 18.

"This took us totally by surprise and was a complete shock to people who are working in the field," said Jesse Eaves, policy advisor for children in crisis at World Vision, a children-focused humanitarian organization.

On Tuesday evening, a White House official explained to The Cable the reasons for the decision and the details of what it means for U.S. activity in the affected countries. Essentially, the administration decided that it could not ensure that the offending countries would be able to abide by the law in time -- the breach of which would have required Washington to pull funding. In the end, the administration's calculus weighed in favor of continuing to fund several ongoing assistance programs like military training and counterterrorism advising. They decided to give each country at least one more year to implement reforms before sanctions are brought to bear, according to the official.

"This is the first year that sanctions were to take effect and part of our thinking here has been to put countries on notice of these legal provisions that are taking effect for the first time and that progress is going to have to be made on these things if these countries are going to continue to receive assistance," the White House official said.

The official also noted that the Obama administration was keen to preserve their relationships with the governments in question and argued that engaging troubled militaries was the most effective way to encourage the reform the law was designed to bring about.

"We still think it's important to maintain a solid relationship with the governments there to ensure they provide protection to those folks," the official said. "One rationale for continuing the assistance is to help them address the very problem that is the source of the sanctions."

Inside the administration, however, The Cable has learned that there was a heated debate over whether to issue the waivers. Apparently, this debate was held inside the State Department, with the bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) and the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons arguing against blanket exemptions. The bureau of Political and Military Affairs (PM) argued for the exemptions. The PM bureau's argument won the day and the State Department submitted recommendations to the White House, which issued the waivers.

The 2008 Child Soldier Prevention Act was originally sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and wrapped into a larger bill sponsored by then Sen. Joe Biden. Durbin's office was not able to comment by deadline and Biden's office deferred to the White House.

Leading human rights activists involved in the issue were skeptical that letting abusive governments evade sanctions would have the effect of producing reform faster.

"This is the first year it's being enacted, so to waive everyone right out of the gate sends exactly the wrong message," said Jo Becker, advocacy director for the children's rights division at Human Rights Watch. "By providing a blanket waiver, the U.S. is really giving up all of its leverage to force them to change their approach to using child soldiers."

She also criticized the official's contention that the abusive countries needed more time to become aware of the law, which was signed in December 2008. It became operative in June 2009 but couldn't go into effect until violator countries were identified in the State Department's 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report, which came out in June.

"If the State Department was doing its job, governments would have been well aware two years ago that this process was underway," said Becker.

The 2010 Trafficking in Persons report identified six countries that are systematically employing the use of child soldiers. In addition to the four that Obama waived sanctions on, Burma and Somalia are also implicated. But neither of those countries receive U.S. military assistance that could be cut off as a sanction, according to the law. Therefore, Obama's waivers have the effect of preventing the law from imposing any sanctions at all this year.

The White House official said when the next State Department report comes out in June 2011, there will be another assessment of whether to impose penalties on violator countries. He also hastened to underline that the waivers weren't issued to pave the way for new military sales to any of the countries found to be using child soldiers.

In Chad, the U.S. is engaged in counterterrorism activities but also is working with the government's armed forces to deal with the spillover of refugees from the crisis over the Sudanese border in Darfur. In the DRC, the U.S. is providing training of various types, military advisors, and also military vehicles and spare parts to the Congolese army. Over 33,000 child soldiers have been involved in the decade old civil war there and the country leads the world in the use of underage troops, according to UNICEF.

With regard to Sudan, other sanctions prevent the United States from helping the Khartoum government in the North, but the U.S. is giving military training assistance to the Southern People's Liberation Army, which could end up a national army if the South votes to separate in the January referendum. The SPLA has about 1,200 child soldiers, the official said, adding that cutting off such training would only undermine ongoing reform efforts.

Yemen is a recipient of significant direct U.S. military assistance, having received $155 million in fiscal 2010 with a possible $1.2 billion coming over the next five years. Yemen is also a much needed ally for counterterrorism operations. The government is engaged in a bloody fight with al Qaeda (among other separatist and terrorist groups), and estimates put the ratio of child soldiers among all the groups there at more than half. Nevertheless, "the president believes there are profound equities with Yemen in terms of counterterrorism that we need to continue to work on," the official told The Cable.

Several outside experts pointed out the existing law already contains an exemption that would permit the U.S. government to sanction abuser countries while still providing assistance that "will directly support professionalization of the military."

"This exception gives the U.S. government very wide berth to continue to provide assistance to bring these militaries more in line with the American image of what their military should look like," said Rachel Stohl, Associate Fellow at the Washington office of Chatham House, a U.K.-based think tank. "The law allows for professionalization of these militaries, so these waivers are really disappointing and add insult to injury."

As the administration attempts a full-court diplomatic press in Sudan in the final stretch before the January referendum on splitting the country, Congress is also ramping up its involvement in the issue, with Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry (D-MA) leading the effort.

Kerry is on his way to Sudan now and will be there throughout the weekend, where he will hold high-level meetings with government officials representing both the North and South in Khartoum and Juba. Kerry previously traveled to Khartoum and Darfur in April 2009.

"Sudan is at a pivotal moment. Every reliable source indicates that Southern Sudan will vote for separation, dividing Africa's largest country and taking with it some 80 percent of known Sudanese oil reserves," Kerry said in a statement. "The Sudanese in the North and the South must seize this moment and address the difficult issues that could seriously disrupt the fulfillment of the landmark Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which included provision for the referendum, and lead to unnecessary violence. America must help North and South Sudan find a peaceful path forward."

Last month, Kerry introduced the Sudan Peace and Stability Act of 2010, which calls for the U.S. government to provide increased aid to southern Sudan, develop contingency planning in case violence breaks out, review existing sanctions if the country splits into two, appoint a full-time senior official to deal with the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, and develop a multi-year strategy for helping end the Darfur tragedy.

In an op-ed last month, Kerry clearly stated his position that the January referendum can't be delayed, as some officials in the North are now saying is necessary.

"The deadline for the Southern referendum promised in the peace agreement, January 9, 2011, is not negotiable," he wrote. "But exactly how the North and South will simultaneously separate while remaining interconnected must be."

Kerry has not staked out a clear position in the Obama administration's long-running internal debate on how tough the United States should be on President Omar al-Bashir's government, which continues to propagate atrocities in the run up to the poll. The administration has promised to employ both incentives and pressures on Bashir, but officials are divided over how to balance these policy tools.

For anyone interested in the administration's latest thinking on Sudan, there will be a briefing at the State Department's Foreign Press Center Friday morning with Special Envoy Scott Gration, Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson (Hey-oh!), and NSC Senior Director Samantha Power.

President Obama's special envoy to Sudan, retired Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, could be on his way to a new job in Kenya as the White House prepares a new approach to Sudan ahead of a January referendum that analysts fear could split the country into two separate nations -- or even spark a new civil war.

The news comes in the wake of a contentious principals-level meeting at the White House last week, in which Gration clashed openly with U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice over the direction of Sudan policy.

At the meeting, Rice was said to be "furious" when Gration proposed a plan that makes the January referendum a priority, deemphasizes the ongoing crisis in Darfur, and is devoid of any additional pressures on the government in Khartoum.

According to multiple sources briefed on the meeting, Gration's plan was endorsed by almost all the other participants, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and will now go the president for his approval. Rice was invited to provide a written dissent. Vice President Joseph Biden did not attend.

It wouldn't be the first battle Gration has won over how to deal with the brutal regime of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, an indicted war criminal who has driven his nation to ruin since coming to power in a 1989 military coup. Gration advocates closer and more cooperative interactions with the ruling National Congress Party, which he sees as the best way to influence its behavior, along with a de-emphasis on public criticism of the regime's deadly tactics.

The tension between Gration and Rice goes back to the early days of the administration. In June 2009, ABC News reported that Rice, who has long advocated a tougher line on Khartoum, was "furious" when Gration said that Darfur was experiencing only the "remnants of genocide." The State Department quickly confirmed that its official position is that genocide is ongoing.

Now, Gration's penchant for gaffes and his poor relations with communities of interest may have finally taken its toll, observers say.

"The fact that he's being rotated out of this position suggests that he may have won a number of battles but lost the war. If people were overwhelmingly happy with his performance, it seems odd you would move him out to be ambassador of a neighboring country," said John Norris, executive director of the Enough Project, a leading Sudan anti-genocide advocacy organization.

Gration, who has been the administration's point man on Sudan for more than a year, is currently considering taking the job of U.S. ambassador in Nairobi, according to multiple sources both inside and outside the administration. Discussions are ongoing and no formal offer has been made, but as of one week ago Gration was said to be lobbying hard to keep his Sudan portfolio if he moves to Kenya.

Gration has wanted to be envoy to Kenya for some time, according to multiple administration sources. If he is successful in keeping his role in Sudan policy, he would be hugely influential on three major Africa policy issues: Sudan, Kenya, and Somalia, which is largely managed from the embassy in Nairobi.

The more likely scenario is that if and when Gration is sent to Kenya -- assuming he passes a Senate confirmation process that will likely be contentious -- he would have to relinquish the Sudan portfolio.

"The special envoy job is a full-time job, as is being ambassador to Kenya during this crucial time," Norris said. "I can't imagine they would place one person in charge of both."

One administration source said that the plan had been to nominate Gration during the congressional recess, as to avoid a lengthy confirmation debate, but that plan was no longer operative and Gration would be nominated and confirmed through the usual process. Gration's office did not respond to a request for comment.

Leading figures in the Sudan advocacy community have long been critical of Gration, whom they see as too cozy with the Khartoum government and wholly uninterested in applying additional pressures on Sudan's government in response to rising violence.

When the administration rolled out its new Sudan policy last October, Secretary Clinton promised that both carrots and sticks would be used to influence Bashir's behavior. "Assessment of progress and decisions regarding incentives and disincentives will be based on verifiable changes in conditions on the ground. Backsliding by any party will be met with credible pressure in the form of disincentives leveraged by our government and our international partners," she said.

But though Sudan is under a variety of unilateral and multilateral sanctions, the administration never publicly identified what additional pressures it was bringing to bear. That, combined with Gration's statements about the need to engage Khartoum positively, have led most observers to conclude that no additional pressures were ever applied.

"During the last year and a half, we've seen increased violence in Darfur and the deadliest months in five years, we saw an election that was completely compromised without any resulting sanctions, we've seen a deepening of the rifts that could cause a resumption of war between the north and the south. None of these have elicited from the Obama administration anything more than an occasional statement," said John Prendergast, CEO of the Enough Project. "This has given a clear green light to the regime in Khartoum to pursue its warmongering as usual. Gration has overseen this policy."

Administration officials played down the conflict between Rice and Gration, saying that such meetings are supposed to be deliberative. "This is a policy debate. People often disagree. If they didn't, what's the point of having the meeting?" one White House official said.

Regardless, for Sudan watchers, the hope is that the president will finally weigh in and make his views known, to settle the internal debate.

"There's always going to be divisions inside an administration," said Prendergast. "This is the first time you have a clear choice placed directly in the hands of the president. It's time for him to step up."

Meanwhile, the world is bracing for an eruption in Southern Sudan. Khartoum has been caught fomenting violence between southern groups, agreements on borders and revenue sharing are nonexistent, and the conduct of the last election gives nobody confidence the referendum is on track.

Analysts worry that the international community and the U.S. in particular are missing their last opportunity to prevent Bashir's government from undermining the credibility of the referendum to a degree where armed conflict would break out.

"Good diplomacy backed by serious pressure can potentially prevent this from happening, but that's what's so disappointing; we have poor diplomacy with almost no pressures whatsoever," said Prendergast. "It's a worst-case scenario."

Vice President Joseph Biden is leading an interagency delegation to Africa this week, but his final stop at the 2010 World Cup is not the point of the journey. Biden is there to get involved in Sudan policy and lend some senior-level supervision to an issue that has split the Obama administration for months.

On Wednesday, Biden will become the senior-most Obama administration official to meet with Southern Sudanese President Salva Kiir. The purpose of the meeting will be "to talk about the necessary steps to fully implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and to plan for post-referendum Sudan," a senior administration official told The Cable, adding that the conversation will be "mostly about the future of southern Sudan." That's an indication that the Obama team is getting concerned about the January 2011 elections, when the South is widely expected to vote to separate from the North, a result that could spark violence or even a return to civil war.

There are Sudan meetings woven throughout Biden's seven-day journey through Africa. He already spoke about the future of southern Sudan with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Monday in Sharm el-Sheikh, it's sure to come up in his Tuesday meetings with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, and the vice president's office has said Sudan will be at the top of the agenda during Biden's meeting Thursday with former South African President Thabo Mbeki.

Sudan Special Envoy J. Scott Gration is on the trip with Biden, along with Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs Johnnie Carson and the National Security Council's senior director for Africa Michelle Gavin, among others.

The elevation of the Sudan issue to the top levels of the White House is exactly what leading Sudan activists have been demanding of the administration for months. They are fed up with what they see as deep divisions inside the Obama team about how to approach Sudan.

Read on

While the Sudanese government was busy striking a peace deal with the Darfuri people of western Sudan, back in Washington, Obama's point man on the issue was holding a tense meeting with members of the Darfuri diaspora that has since touched off a fierce controversy.

A coalition of Sudan groups has been complaining that inside the Jan. 26 meeting, which was held off the record at the United States Institute of Peace, Special Envoy Scott Gration -- who outraged Darfur campaigners last September when he said the Khartoum regime was more likely to respond to incentives than threats -- made several statements that veered far from the Obama administration's official policy. Others deny that account.

While the exact content of his remarks are in dispute, "clearly the meeting between Gration and the Darfuris was a disaster," according to one Washington-based advocacy leader, who was not in the meeting but communicated with several attendees.

"Every time Gration speaks, he seems to churn up a whole damage-control exercise," the advocacy leader said.

An open letter (pdf) sent to President Obama in mid-February by 35 mostly smaller Sudan-related groups alleges that, inside the Jan. 26 meeting, Gration said the Sudanese government didn't intentionally kill civilians in Darfur and that the U.S. government is planning to shift some $2 billion in funding from that region to South Sudan. The letter calls for Gration's removal as Sudan envoy.

But according to multiple sources, those groups are twisting Gration's words to make them seem more out of step than they actually were. The Cable spoke with several of the participants in the meeting, all of whom asked for anonymity because they had agreed to keep Gration's remarks off the record. The consensus was that the letter to Obama mischaracterized much of what the special envoy actually said.

It may be impossible to determine exactly what Gration did say, since no transcript exists and there were language and communications difficulties to boot. Only four of the 35 groups in the letter actually had a representative in the meeting, the Washington-based advocacy leader pointed out. Gration's office did not respond to requests for comment.

Several attendees acknowledged there was palpable frustration at the end of the meeting, however, due to a perception that Gration chose mostly to explain his own thinking rather than have a genuine exchange of views.

The differing accounts of the meeting highlight a growing divide among Sudan groups over how to deal with Gration. One faction mostly outside Washington wants to force his ouster, whereas another faction, mostly consisting of larger institutions inside the Beltway, assumes that he's not likely to be thrown overboard any time soon and worries that his sacking would only create a vacuum at a critical time in U.S. diplomacy.

These larger groups hope that before 2011, when the autonomous South Sudan region is due to hold a referendum on whether to secede altogether, the White House will assign ownership of this issue to senior officials in the State Department and the National Security Council, wresting some control away from Gration.

Advocacy leaders worry what might happen if the fragile truce in Sudan falls apart, the South votes for independence, and the U.S. is forced to take sides. They see Gration's reaction to the latest agreement as an indication he is too inclined to give Khartoum the benefit of the doubt.

"We have had agreements in the past; most have failed," Gration said last week in Doha, the Qatari capital. "I think this is different."

Last week, however, U.N. officials accused the government of Sudan of increasing its attacks on Darfur civilians, despite the new truce.

A meeting of top U.S. officials on Sudan last week was supposed to yield big recommendations on how to craft the right balance of incentives and pressures toward the Khartoum regime, which stands accused of fomenting genocide in Darfur and stirring instability in its autonomous southern region. Instead, the meeting seems to have left the Obama administration's Sudan policy in limbo, leading to angst among both Sudan insiders and observers, sources tell The Cable.

The meeting, hosted by the National Security Council and carried out at the deputies level, had been greatly anticipated by Sudan watchers as a watershed moment in their long struggle to turn Darfur into a top-tier policy issue. Expectations were so high that Sudan advocacy groups published an unorthodox ad in the Washington Post before the meeting calling out the deputies -- U.N. ambassador Susan Rice's No. 2 Erica Barks-Ruggles, NSC deputy Tom Donilon, Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg, Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey, and Michèle Flournoy, the under secretary of defense for policy -- by name.

Several members of the Sudan advocacy community said they were told that the quarterly deputies meetings would be tracking progress and making recommendations on specific "carrots and sticks" to use as leverage in Khartoum.

And they pointed to the October remarks of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said during the press conference announcing the administration's new Sudan policy: "Assessment of progress and decisions regarding incentives and disincentives will be based on verifiable changes in conditions on the ground. Backsliding by any party will be met with credible pressure in the form of disincentives leveraged by our government and our international partners."

But the deputies, who don't decide policy but make recommendations to their bosses, never got to outlining those incentives and pressures, instead only reviewing the various agencies' "assessments" of the situation in Sudan, one high-level participant confirmed to The Cable.

"This was an opportunity to hear the views of the representative, a number of challenges were outlined, and each of the assessments were in line," the participant said, referring to Sudan envoy J. Scott Gration. "I thought it was a very productive meeting," the participant said, arguing that the assessments were always meant to be the basis of the discussion.

One big problem, though, was that the briefing paper that was to have all the agencies' positions clearly spelled out was not prepared in advance, hurting the deputies' ability to iron out any differences.

According to one person familiar with the meeting, Deputy National Security Advisor Tom Donilon scolded NSC Africa Director Michelle Gavin for a lack of preparation in front of all the other participants. A government source characterized Donilon's comments to Gavin as no different than comments he might make to any staffer at any meeting. Besides, this second source said, it wasn't Gavin's responsibility to prepare the document. The source declined to specify exactly who dropped the ball.

The first source also said that Steinberg, upon learning that the prep materials were absent, moved to leave the meeting in protest but was directed to stay by Donilon, which he did.

Steinberg denied that account. "I didn't move to walk out of the meeting," Steinberg told The Cable. "The meeting ran overtime and I had to leave to attend another meeting on a time-urgent subject that was happening at the same time and which I had previewed to Tom [Donilon]."

A participant source inside the meeting confirmed that Donilon asked Steinberg to stay to the end, but said that Steinberg wasn't trying to make a show of exiting.

Regardless, the inability of participants to demonstrate any real progress on outlining a package incentives or disincentives struck many observers as a bad sign going forward.

"What's concerning here is that this signals that the same kind of dysfunction that occurred leading up to the policy review appears to continue to this day," one advocacy leader said. "It's a cliché to say the clock is ticking, but it is."

National elections are slated for April, and Sudan watchers worry that the Obama administration doesn't have a clear strategy for dealing with the autonomous South, which in January 2011 will hold a referendum on whether to remain part of a unified Sudan.

"If they're not moving the ball forward, that means the process is stalled at that level and the new policy is already stuck in the mud," said John Prendergast, cofounder of the Enough Project and an outspoken critic of the administration's Sudan policy.

Rice vs. Gration?

Obama's approach to Sudan has been hobbled from the beginning by deep divisions between senior officials -- especially Gration, the special envoy, and Rice, the U.N. ambassador -- on how best to handle Khartoum, sources said. Gration is said to be big on carrots, while Rice prefers sticks. Steinberg is also said to lean towards a harder line, which the advocacy community also favors. 

In 2006, Rice coauthored an article saying, "History demonstrates that there is one language Khartoum understands: the credible threat or use of force."

ABC News reported that Rice was "furious" in June when Gration said that Darfur was experiencing only the "remnants of genocide." The State Department quickly confirmed that its official position is that genocide is ongoing.

In remarks this week, Rice stated clearly that violence in South Sudan was on the rise and she was concerned new weapons were flowing in from the North. She also said she was not confident April elections would be safe and fair.

Regardless, Prendergast said, Gration is the driver of policy now. He has consolidated control and meets with Obama directly, often without Secretary Clinton in the room.

"This is a White House driven policy and the State Department at multiple levels has been deeply frustrated at their lack of input at various levels of the process," he said.

But if it's a White House driven policy, it's not one getting much public attention from the president: Obama didn't mention Sudan or Darfur once in this week's State of the Union address.

A "secret annex" to the Obama administration's new Sudan policy contains all of the details of what incentives and pressures the U.S. is readying to deal with the Sudanese government going forward, but administration officials aren't telling what's in it.

"We will employ calibrated incentives as appropriate and exert real pressure as needed on any party that fails to act to improve the lives of the people of Sudan," U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice told reporters at a Monday briefing set up to introduce the new policy. "There will be no rewards for the status quo, no incentives without concrete and tangible progress. There will be significant consequences for parties that backslide or simply stand still. All parties will be held to account."

But what those incentives and consequences might look like in practical terms is classified, leaving many to question why the administration is being so secretive and whether the new policy really contains strong levers that could convince Khartoum to reverse its bad behavior.

"We have a menu of incentives and disincentives, political and economic, that we will be looking to, to either further progress or to create a clear message that the progress we expect is not occurring," said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, "But we want to be somewhat careful in putting those out. They are part in fact of a classified annex to our strategy that we're announcing the outline of today."

Some incentives that special envoy Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration (ret.) has discussed in the past, such as removing Sudan from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism, are not likely to be in the offing anytime soon. Likewise, strong pressures such as imposing a no-fly zone over large swathes of Sudanese territory are also not being seriously considered.

Two State Department officials, speaking on background basis, said that the classified annex contains specific benchmarks to measure whether or not progress is being made toward advancing the new policy, to be reported on a quarterly basis, but those benchmarks are also secret.

"We don't think it's in the interests of the success of the policy to lay it all out at this time," one of the officials said.

Overall, Sudan watchers and human rights groups came out remarkably in support of the new policy, calling it a victory for those who were warning against what they characterize as a naïve approach put forth by Gration, who said famously that "goldstars" and "cookies" could be used to effect positive change in Khartoum.

"This is a victory of accountability over goldstars and cookies," said John Prendergast, cofounder of the Enough Project, explaining that "the policy today clearly spells out the need for verifiable progress on issue of peace and protection of civilians before anything positive in the form of incentives will be issued."

While expressing cautious optimism, other advocacy leaders were quick to call on President Obama to get personally involved in his new Sudan approach.

"For a lot of people it sends the wrong message that he wasn't there for the rollout," said Sam Bell, executive director of the Genocide Intervention Network, who also wondered why the policy rollout took so long when it was promised months ago.

A former State Department official close to the issue told Foreign Policy that the delay was in part related to a fundamental dispute between Gration and Rice over how tough the policy should be.

Apparently, Gration's office drafted several iterations of the policy document and sent them along to the White House, the National Security Council, and the U.S. delegation at the United Nations. Each time, Rice's people at the U.N. sent back the document with heavy edits, calling for "more sticks" (meaning tougher pressures), based on her basic skepticism that Sudan's regime could be persuaded with carrots.

"Her view is very pragmatic, she has been working with these guys for a generation," the former official said, "[She knows that Sudan's] response diplomatically is yes, yes, yes, but administratively it's no, no, no, and then nothing really happens. So everything would go up to New York and would come back heavily edited ... That's why it's taken so long."

One open question raised by the administration's new Sudan policy is, what will it cost? Does the administration plan to bolster its new strategy with increased resources and will it have to go through Congress to secure those funds?

While there is no specific call for more money in today's announcement, down the road there will be a need for funds, especially when it comes time to get involved in the Sudanese elections, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told The Cable.

"If you're going to restore stability to Darfur, there's a cost to that, there's a cost to CPA implementation. So overtime I think there will be significant resources demands," said Crowley, "I'm sure that will require a significant U.S. investment."

Crowley didn't know if those funds would be included in the regular budget request, but admitted those funds will be needed sooner rather than later.

"We're acutely aware of the urgency of our task and the shortness of our timeline," Gration told reporters Monday morning, "We have only six months until Sudan's national elections take place. The referendum on self-determination [for the autonomous region of South Sudan] is only 15 months away."

Crowley also pledged that the United States would support independence for South Sudan if the people there choose it in 2011, another seemingly important clarification in the new policy.

But if Gration was hoping to engage directly with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, he won't be doing so anytime soon.

"We have no intentions of working directly with President Bashir," one State Department official said, "We firmly believe he should get a good lawyer, present himself to the ICC, and face the charges that have been leveled against him."

Gration has several trips planned over the coming weeks to explain the policy to international stakeholders, a key ingredient of the new policy's potential success, experts said.

"If it's just a unilateral U.S. statement of policy," Prendergast said, "I couldn't think of anything besides toilet paper that's more meaningless."

FP assistant editor Elizabeth Dickinson contributed to this report.

Mark Wilson/Getty Images