WP: Rice Explains Aid Restructuring to (concerned) USAID Employees

[DeepModem Mom]

Rice Explains Aid Restructuring to USAID Employees
By Bradley Graham and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 20, 2006; Page A02


Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice faced a barrage of pointed questions yesterday from employees at the U.S. Agency for International Development, who expressed concerns that an administration move to centralize the management of foreign assistance will weaken the agency and place short-term political goals ahead of long-term development aims.

Rice took the unusual step of holding a town-hall-style meeting with hundreds of USAID employees after announcing the creation of a high-level State Department position to oversee all foreign aid programs.

Rice said the position -- director of foreign assistance -- is intended to bring greater coherence and efficiency to a broad patchwork of often overlapping assistance programs that now total about $19 billion. Randall L. Tobias, a former pharmaceuticals industry executive who has headed the administration's global AIDS program for the past 2 1/2 years, was named to fill the position and also to serve as the new USAID administrator.

The moves eased fears at USAID that the agency, set up in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy, would be merged into the State Department. But it prompted other worries, voiced in the questioning, that USAID's strategic planning role might end up diminished and that the agency's corps of experienced foreign aid specialists might be superseded by Foreign Service officers.

In her nearly hour-long appearance before a standing-room-only crowd gathered in the cavernous Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium next to USAID headquarters, Rice offered assurances that USAID will continue to play a key role in setting development strategy and that the administration will maintain a long-term view on development issues. "If we have a short-term perspective, we will fail," she said....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/19/AR2006011903003.html

[DeepModem Mom]

1. "Rice Appoints Political Sycophant to Head U.S. Foreign Aid Efforts"

Adding this link from GD posted by RedEarth:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x194392

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[cosmicdot]

3. calling Tobias a former pharm industry exec is putting it mildly

Chairman Emeritus of Eli Lilly and Company is more precise.

What kind of job did he do as US AIDS coordinator? Who benefited?

Is the Hoover Institution directing its former Fellow (CondiLIAR lying again)?

Sorry Sen. Lugar, but saying he's qualified because he's worked in 'big organizations' and on what you described as 'complicated programs' aka corporate CEO/multi-company Board Director background doesn't = Public Servant. It probably means he's highly experienced in destroying organizations from within; and, profiteering.

Why isn't a career USAID person promoted to this job? Why a Bu$h donor Republican activist corporate crony?

Anything this think-tanked-corrupt-gov't-destroying cabal (and, that's describing them mildly) does is suspect. What are they really trying to achieve? Just being a JFK program is probably incentive enough to Bu$hify it.

I'll conjecture: to destroy its mission, and anything good it might be achieving which might be contrary to this White House's and its handlers plans; and, of course the Money, too, must be a motive.

From the USAID website, it says it "works in agriculture, democracy & governance, economic growth, the environment, education, health, global partnerships, and humanitarian assistance in more than 100 countries to provide a better future for all"

... doesn't sound like Bu$hCo, does it?

They're going to ruin and destroy everything they can. It's going to be a mess to rebuild.