Gates: "Congress is part of the problem" in State, USAID shortfalls

[unhappycamper]

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U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates


Gates: "Congress is part of the problem" in State, USAID shortfalls
By Kevin Baron
Published: August 13, 2010

For years, Defense Secretary Robert Gates – like most defense leaders -- has said over and over that U.S. cannot win the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq with military might alone. He has practically begged for a vastly expanded budget for his diplomatic and humanitarian partners across the Potomac at the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, the nation’s foreign aid and assistance arm.

But Gates opened a crack to his true feelings on Thursday, when he said to an audience of Marine Corps veterans in San Francisco, in frustration, “I will tell you, Congress is part of the problem.”

“There has to be a change in attitude (on Capitol Hill) in the recognitions of the critical role that agencies like State and AID play, for them to play the leading role that I think they need to play,” he said.

To illustrate the point, Gates told an audience the same talking point he has repeated for at least a year – that all of the Foreign Service Officers (the U.S. diplomatic corps) in the world would not be enough people to crew a single aircraft carrier.

But in retelling the chuckle-line, by now it has begun to illustrate the lack of progress Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been able to make on the Hill.

[malaise]

1. Fuck him n/t