Gingrich calls for State Department revamp, AID closure

The State Department should be reorganized and the U.S. Agency for International Development should be abolished because of diplomatic failures this year, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday.

Gingrich called on President Bush to convene a commission on making the State Department less bureaucratic and timid and urged Congress to conduct hearings on revamping the department.

"Without bold, dramatic change at the State Department, the United States will soon find itself on the defensive everywhere except militarily," Gingrich said at an American Enterprise Institute briefing in Washington.

Gingrich contrasted the performance of the Pentagon, with its success in Iraq, to the performance of the diplomatic agencies, which he said put the United States on a weak footing internationally.

"One world view is process, politeness and accommodation. The other world view is a world view of facts, values and outcomes," Gingrich said. "The State Department as an institution and the Foreign Service as a culture clearly represent the former."

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer defended the performance of the State Department and Secretary of State Colin Powell, saying that the process the department followed on Iraq this year was Bush's process. "The fact of the matter is the State Department and Secretary Powell did an excellent job at ushering through that process," Fleischer said. "There were others who complicated the process in the Security Council. That in no way is reflective of the State Department or what the president thinks about the State Department or Secretary Powell's superb efforts."

Gingrich said AID and State had failed to pave any roads in Afghanistan because the agencies had kept the Army Corps of Engineers from working on such projects. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said roads could not be paved in Afghanistan during winter and that road projects are on schedule, with a highway connecting Kabul and Kandahar nearing completion.

Gingrich also questioned the State Department's efforts in Turkey, the United Nations and in Iraq, saying the department is undermining Bush's foreign policy.

Boucher said the department carries out the president's policies. "I'm kind of left scratching my head, which I will do, for television," Boucher said. "I don't know what's being criticized here. The State Department is here to carry out the president's policy and in every one of the instances that are being cited we're doing that effectively, we're doing that loyally, we're doing that diligently and we're doing that with a fair amount of creativity and accomplishment."

An assessment by current and former diplomats issued last week found that Powell had improved the management and morale of the State Department in his two years on the job. But the Foreign Affairs Council also called for a revitalization of the Foreign Service through the creation of a set of values for the service, including risk-taking, talent management and team play.