About a third of Foreign Service officers in jobs that
require language skills don't have the proficiency required to do their jobs,
hurting America's ability to advocate its interests around the world, according
to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.
The report, which has not yet been released, but was
obtained by The Cable, spells out the consequences of having a Foreign Service
that in many cases can't communicate with local officials or populations,
relies too heavily on local staff for critical functions, and can't respond to
bad press when it appears in foreign languages.
Substandard skills were found in people holding 31 percent
of the approximately 3,600 jobs that require a certain level of language
proficiency, known as language-designated positions, up from 29 percent in
2005. In critically important regions such as the Near East and South and
Central Asia, that number rises to 40 percent.
In one particularly
damning instance, the report states, "An officer at a post of strategic
interest said because she did not speak the language, she had transferred a
sensitive telephone call from a local informant to a local employee, which
could have compromised the informant's identity."
In the warzones, the problem is much more pronounced. Thirty-three
of 45 officers in language-designated positions in Afghanistan, or 73 percent,
didn't meet the requirement. In Iraq, 8 of 14 officers or 57 percent lacked
sufficient language skills. Deficiencies in what GAO calls "supercritical"
languages, such as Arabic and Chinese, were 39 percent.
Forty-three percent of officers in Arabic
language-designated positions do not meet the requirements of their positions,
nor do 66 percent of officers in Dari positions, 50 percent in Urdu (two
languages widely spoken in South Asia), or 38 percent in Farsi (which is mostly
spoken in Iran).
Meanwhile, a large portion of State Department posts in
dangerous countries are vacant, the GAO says in another report. Both reports
are expected to be released later today or tomorrow, and paint a picture of a
diplomatic service badly in need of increased attention and oversight.
"We cannot
effectively sway our allies or adversaries if we do not speak their language,"
said Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, the
chairman of the Homeland
Security & Governmental Affairs Oversight of Government Management
subcommittee, which commissioned the report. "Staffing
hardship posts will always be a challenge, but President Obama has called on
the United States to re-engage the world and State must fix these chronic
foreign language and staffing shortfalls."
Some of the anecdotal examples of the consequences of the
deficiencies are shocking:
- In
China, officials told us that the officers in China with insufficient language
skills get only half the story on issues of interest, as they receive only the
official party line and are unable to communicate with researchers and
academics, many of whom do not speak English.
- The
deputy chief of mission in Ankara said that officers who do not have sufficient
Turkish skills are reading English-language newspapers rather than what Turks
are reading, further limiting their insight into what is happening in the
country.
- In
Shenyang, a Chinese city close to the border with North Korea, the consul
general told us that reporting about issues along the border had suffered
because of language shortfalls.
- A
security officer in Cairo said that without language skills, officers do not
have any "juice"-that is, the ability to influence people they are trying to
elicit information from.
The
State Department blames the poor figures on staffing shortages and the recent
increase of language-intensive positions, according to the report. Three
hundred new language trainers were funded in State's fiscal 2009 budget and 200
more are on the way in 2010 funds. But even with those additions, State says it
won't be able to start moving in the right direction until 2011.
"Given the
recent increase of resources, the State Department has the unique opportunity
to address concerns that have been overlooked for far too long," said Sen. George Voinovich,
R-Ohio, the panel's ranking Republican, "The department must take advantage of
this situation and plan strategically to meet short- and long-term diplomatic
needs."
Each year since 2005, State has reported that 80 percent of
employees assigned to vacant positions met language requirements, but that
figure is "misleading and overstates the actual language proficiency of FSOs in
language-designated positions," according to the GAO, because State counts
people who are just in training, not only those that have completed training
successfully.
One thing that might help would be a strategic plan for
addressing this problem, the GAO noted, but none exists.
In addition to its problems in Iraq and Afghanistan, the
State Department isn't even properly staffing positions in these areas where
the U.S. could be engaged military, what are known as "hardship posts," the GAO
found.
Seventeen percent of slots vacant in the thorniest places
and 34 percent of "mid-level generalist" positions in severely dangerous
locations are filled by people who aren't really qualified for that role.
The
most potentially hazardous assignments are in places like Beirut, Nairobi,
Baghdad, and Kabul. The State Department offers a range of incentives for
personnel to brave these dangers, but there's no evaluation to determine
whether these incentives are working.
"Staffing
and experience gaps at hardship posts can diminish diplomatic readiness in a
variety of ways," the GAO report stated, "including by reducing reporting
coverage, weakening institutional knowledge, and increasing the supervisory
burden on senior staff."
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