Rice Bashed Over Staff Gaps, Low Morale

WASHINGTON — The State Department has too few people to fill increasingly difficult jobs while the Iraq and Afghanistan wars drain off resources, an independent report found Tuesday.

The report from the Foreign Affairs Council, which includes retired ambassadors and senior diplomats, also said morale is dropping among diplomats.

The council found a severe staff shortage and holds Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice partly responsible. The State Department needs 1,100 more employees, especially since recent staff additions have gone to fill jobs in Iraq, Afghanistan and other difficult posts, the report said.

"In the first two years of Secretary Rice's stewardship almost no net new resources have been realized," the report said. It noted that Congress has twice denied money for Rice's plan to rearrange diplomatic postings away from the Cold War model, which was heavy on jobs in Europe, and toward modern challenges in places like China and India.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the report backs up Rice's request for additional money and people, and he called its critique of her management decisions "armchair quarterbacking."

"I know it talks about the resource strain on the foreign service because of Iraq and Afghanistan," McCormack said. "Well, point out for me two more important foreign policy challenges facing the United States right now. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find them."

The report noted that about 750 overseas positions are "unaccompanied," meaning employees cannot take their families with them because conditions are too dangerous, and that one in five current foreign service officers have served in Iraq.

"Widespread anecdotal evidence suggests worsening morale," the report said.

McCormack said he cannot tell if that assessment is correct, but he acknowledged the changed circumstances for diplomats.

"Are we designed like the military or accustomed to having long deployments of the military servicemember overseas, unaccompanied, in very difficult, hostile terrain?" McCormack said.

"No, we're not. We're civilians. So it's a matter of some adjustment."