Dear condi: Office of Foreign Service letter (Protest Hughes office pick)

[rodeodance]

gawd------more crap coming from Hughes office

------- Original Message --------
Subject: Dear condi: Office of Foreign Service letter
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2006 00:47:27 -0500
To: xxxx



The message is ready to be sent with the following file or link attachments:
Shortcut to: http://www.afsa.org/afsa-protest-letter.cfm

October 24, 2006

The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520


Dear Madam Secretary:

I am writing today with a sense of deep sadness to express AFSA’s dismay at the recent, unfathomable decision by the Department of State -- in violation of the Department’s own regulations, its negotiated agreements with AFSA, and the guidelines in the Foreign Service Act -- to assign a mid-level Civil Servant from Under Secretary Hughes’ office to fill the recently established Senior Foreign Service position as chief of the Department’s highly-touted new Public Diplomacy Rapid Response team in Brussels, which is meant to serve as the “hub” for our media outreach efforts throughout Europe on Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war on terrorism. The creation of this important position and the manner in which it was assigned were processes that minimized employees’ awareness of its existence and excluded many senior Foreign Service Officers who have extensive career experience in public diplomacy in Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia.

As you know, the Foreign Service Act of 1980, bolstered by the Foreign Affairs Manual and subsequent administrative case precedents, makes it clear that only in truly exceptional instances should Foreign Service positions overseas be filled by non-Foreign Service personnel. In such rare cases, you or your designee justify this anomaly by executing a Certificate of Need that explains why the Department was unable to find a qualified FS employee and what unique qualifications the non-FS employee has to warrant assigning someone from outside the FS. In this Brussels PD case, there are many highly qualified senior Foreign Service Officers with appropriate experience, far exceeding that of the non-FS person brought in, who might have jumped at the chance to take this key position in Brussels -- if they had been made aware of its existence and given the opportunity to bid on the position. At a time when the Department is asking our members to devote a greater part of their careers to service in more difficult hardship and danger-pay posts – and when the global repositioning exercise is shrinking the number of positions at more comfortable European posts – it is incomprehensible why the Department would deny this senior Brussels opportunity to career Foreign Service Officers. This position might well have been a perfect fit and an ideal onward assignment for a veteran FSO coming out of an unaccompanied tour of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia.

I regret to tell you, Madam Secretary, that the Department did not even follow its own standard practices to find a Foreign Service Officer for a newly created, immediate vacancy. During your tenure as Secretary, the Department has sent out 119 formal calls via cable for volunteers for 193 priority positions. Many of these positions came open unexpectedly after the normal assignment cycle had run its course and needed to be filled urgently. Yet the Department made no such call to fill this Brussels PD position. Its refusal to issue such an announcement sends the message to our members worldwide that either it was a low-priority position (and thus one in which a non-Foreign Service employee would never be considered), or that the assignment process was manipulated so that the possible attention of unwanted applicants would be minimized. In either case, AFSA decries the failure of the Department to follow its own rules, its negotiated agreements with us, and its abuse of the assignment powers the Foreign Service Act provides you.

Moreover, other important rules were disregarded. The Senior Assignments Division did not "cede" the position, as must be done before a senior level job becomes available to a non-senior officer for assignment. And particularly egregiously, the Department did not execute, as required in advance of such an assignment, the 'Certificate of Need" discussed above until well after the fact and only after AFSA expressed its deep displeasure over the way this position had been handled. The cursory, minimalist nature of the Department’s efforts to find a Foreign Service officer feed our conclusion that this was a "pre-cooked" deal done in contravention of the Department’s own rules and standard practices. ......

[rodeodance]

1. This WH inner circle makes us look like fools!!

[Demit]

2. So this is essentially the union for foreign service personnel, filing an

official grievance. They must loathe Karen Hughes to begin with, but this is injury added to insult. Plunking the Crawford crew down in senior foreign service positions, shoving aside career diplomats. I wonder if Condi Rice can even override Hughes. Please post again, roedodance, if you see any update to this story!