John Weisman is one of a select company of writers to have had books on both the New York Times fiction and nonfiction best-seller lists. His best-sellers include Rogue Warrior (written with Richard Marcinko) and Rogue Warrior's eight fictional sequels. A former journalist, Weisman has worked in more than three dozen countries. His latest work, the Black Ops novel SOAR, is now available through HarperCollins/William Morrow. He is currently completing the second Black Ops novel, Jack in the Box, for release in 2004. He can be emailed at: blackops@johnweisman.com
Special Event: John Weisman will be appearing to sign autographed copies of his latest thriller, Soar, at the following locations:
August 15: Fort Bragg
11:00-11:30 a.m. - Bldg 80-5050 (2nd street and Buckner Rd)
2:00-4:00 p.m. - Bldg 1017 on Canopy Lane
August 19 & 20: TREXPO EAST (Chantilly, VA)
10:00 a.m.-5::00 p.m. - TEAM ONE NETWORK booth, at Dulles Exposition Center, Chantilly, VA. Official ID credentials required.
August 30: Quantico
12:00-2:00 p.m. - Marine Corps Post Exchange
September 6: Horse Shoe Curve Restaurant (Pine Grove, VA),
6:00-9:00 p.m. at Horse Shoe Curve Restaurant
Pine Grove Road
Pine Grove, VA
Pine Grove Road [Rt 679] runs off Rt.7, just west of the Blue Ridge, and 2 mi. east of the Shenandoah River.
A couple of weeks ago, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich gave a speech at a Washington, DC Think tank, the bottom line of which was that the State Department is "a broken instrument of diplomacy" and it's time to fix it.
From the reaction of the inside-the-Beltway establishment, you would have thought Newt had advocated child abuse. Dick Armitage, the normally level-headed deputy secretary of state, was quoted as opining that Gingrich was no doubt "off his medications." The White House quickly rallied behind SECSTATE Colin Powell and put the word out that the status quo is, well, status quo.
The problem is, Gingrich was spot on. The State Department IS a broken instrument of diplomacy. In fact, it is time for Colin Powell to bring the same kind of out-of-the-box thinking, innovation, and risk-taking to State that Don Rumsfeld brought to another imperfect instrument of bureaucracy, the Pentagon. Of course, Don Rumsfeld is a kick-ass kind of guy. Colin Powell is more of a, well, diplomat.
So how broke are things at Foggy Bottom? Let's go to the videotape for a few snapshots.
It is a little known fact that our embassies abroad are not actually run by Americans. Oh, sure there are Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) in residence. But much of the real hands-on work is done by locals, known as Foreign Service Nationals, who help in the visa and administrative section, as well as supply clerical and maintenance help for our diplomats.
And who vets FSNs? Well, the embassy security people do, with the liaison assistance of local law enforcement and intelligence authorities.
Stop tape. Now, if I were an unfriendly intelligence service (or even a friendly one who wanted to learn more about American capabilities and intentions), and I wanted to insinuate spies inside an American diplomatic post, it would be relatively easy for me to get a dozen or two of my better intelligence operatives hired as FSNs. This possibility has obviously never bothered the folks at State, because the number of FSNs has never been higher.
Of course, security has never been a high concern for the striped-pants crowd, who are sometimes known to lesser mortals as "cookie pushers" or "fudge cutters."
A man in a tweed jacket strolled into former SECSTATE Madeleine K. Albright's office suite, took a sheaf of papers marked "Top Secret" right off a desk-and disappeared. The culprit has never been identified or caught.
Diplomats in the Bureau of Political and Military Affairs left laptops with classified materials in an unsecured room. The computers were stolen.
A Russian spy was able to bug a conference room on the State Department's 7th floor for months, without the device being discovered.
The U.S. ambassador to Israel was cited for repeated security violations. He was never disciplined.
Speaking of security, the Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA)-the folks in charge of giving out visas-bestowed visas to 15 Saudis who turned out to be 9/11 hijackers, despite the fact that the 15 SIQs (Saudis-in-Question) didn't qualify for visas under State Department guidelines. The then-Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs should have been cashiered at 0700 on 9/12. She was not. Instead, she was given an award for superior service, and allowed to retire-no doubt on full pension.
One rumor floating through Washington these days is that a former ambassador to Yemen, one Barbara Bodine, is going to become one of the top civilian administrators in post war Iraq. (When Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage was asked about Bodine becoming the "mayor of Baghdad" at an April 9 press conference, he quibbled with the title but not about her upcoming appointment.)
Whoa. Reality check. Isn't this the same Ambassador Bodine who forbade the U.S. Navy to take antiterrorism precautions when its destroyer, the USS Cole, was about to dock in Aden?
And why did she do so? Because, so it has been reported, Bodine did not want to offend the Yemenis by having a U.S. Naval vessel appear to be provocative. As a result of this bizarre form of "diplomacy," seventeen crew aboard the Cole died because the ship was incapable of defending itself against attack.
According to my sources at the CIA's Directorate of Operations, U.S. Ambassadors have regularly stifled CIA spooks who want to aggressively pursue their trade. My old friend R, who operated as a case officer in Syria, developed plans to run a bug into the Damascus offices of an active Palestinian terror group. R was forbidden from doing so by the then-ambassador, who told him that under no circumstances did he want to offend his Syrian "hosts."
Indeed, there is so much pussy-footing, equivocating, vacillating and old-fashioned dithering at State that one sometimes wonders who all these ambassadors and foreign service officers work for. Do they work for us, the American people, or are they agents for the countries to which they have been posted.
Bottom line: Newt was right. It is time for the striped-pants crowd to join the twenty-first century. It is time for a sea-change at Foggy Bottom.
Hey, maybe Rumsfeld and Powell could exchange jobs for a couple of months.
