Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy
State, Foreign Operations Subcommittee
Secretary Of State Condoleezza Rice
March 28, 2006

Madam Secretary, thank you for being here. 

This is be the first and last time we hear from you on your Fiscal Year 2007 budget request, until after we receive our 302b allocation and our bill is on the floor of the Senate.  At that point the game is pretty much over since we usually lose ground in conference with House, when programs that are important to you and to us are cut further.

Hearings like this are useful, but they are far from sufficient.  You need to mount a far more effective effort than you have in the past to get the funding you need, because the party in the Majority in Congress, with the exception of a few allies like Chairman McConnell, will want to cut your budget.

While I believe your transformational diplomacy initiative has much to recommend it -- and I commend you for it -- I am afraid that the amount of funds you are requesting falls far short of what you would need to implement it effectively.    

It is one thing if all you hope to do is deploy your staff more strategically and plan and coordinate foreign aid programs effectively.  But to me, “transformational” suggests something significantly more far reaching. 

This budget, contrary to the President’s promise, cuts many of USAID’s core programs to promote democracy and fight poverty.  It is true that in the aggregate what you propose represents an increase, but that is only because of funding for AIDS and the Millennium Challenge Corporation.   

While we are providing hundreds of millions of dollars from the MCC to tiny countries with little if any foreign policy or security importance to the United States, you would cut funds for programs that have bipartisan support, proven results, and that fund everything from girls’ education to providing clean water and improving agriculture.     

Chairman McConnell and I are among your strongest supporters here, but with the cuts the President is proposing to so many domestic programs this is going to be a very difficult year for this subcommittee. 

You may have big plans, you may have great policies.  But if you don’t have the funds to implement them they won’t amount to much.  They certainly won’t be transformational.  Unless you can convince the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, much of what you hope to do will not be possible.

I want to mention a few issues of special concern to me, and I will have questions on other topics as well:

-- First, is the image and reputation of the United States, which has obvious importance to our security.  After 9/11 there was an outpouring of sympathy from every corner of the globe.  Today, we are seen by alarming numbers of people as an aggressive, occupying bully that locks up innocent people indefinitely, humiliates and physically abuses them, and denies them the right to even know what they are accused of.

We get regular reports of Iraqi civilians, including women and young children, who have been mistakenly killed by U.S. soldiers.  We have spent billions on grossly over-priced reconstruction projects that were poorly designed and may never get finished, but which made U.S. contractors rich.  This is not making us safer.

-- Second, is UN peacekeeping.  The UN is operating 18 different peacekeeping missions.  One of them, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is trying to provide security for the first democratic elections in half a century, while it copes with armed militias and every possible logistical challenge in a destitute country the size of Western Europe with virtually no infrastructure.  This is just one example.  Darfur may be next, and it will involve similar challenges and costs.

Yet while the Administration votes to send UN peacekeepers to some of the world’s most dangerous places, we under-fund these missions which together cost in a year less than our military spends in a week in Iraq.  It is time for us and the other nations who don’t contribute any troops, to support these missions the way we would expect our own soldiers to be supported.  Yet, again, your budget does not do that, and it is going to cause serious problems.

-- Third, is Latin America.  It has been sorely neglected by this Administration, despite protestations by State Department and White House officials to the contrary.  Senator DeWine has noted it.  Senator Coleman has noted it.  There is no end to the interests we share with our southern neighbors -- immigration being just one -- and yet your programs and policies are a mere shadow of what they should be.  It is a missed opportunity and this budget continues business as usual.

Madam Secretary, I voted for you because I felt you have the qualities to do a good job.  I know you are trying and I think you have outstanding people here and in our missions around the world.  But I have to say I think the foreign policies of this Administration have too often been misguided and harmful to our national interests.  

I am sure you disagree, but I do not believe this country is safer because of these policies, and I do not believe the budget you are here to support is nearly adequate to protect our interests in today’s increasingly divisive and dangerous world.

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