Foreign Relations Authorization Act, fiscal years 2002 and 2003: report (to accompany S. 1401)

OCLC Number: (OCoLC)48067587 Subject: United States -- Appropriations and expenditures, 2002-2003. Excerpt: ...onal funds are intended for the Diplomatic Security Bureau's technical and perimeter security program. The Committee supports the Department's initiative to increase staffing by hiring to attrition and beginning a program of addressing the current shortfall of over 1,000 officers. To meet this objective, the Department will need to streamline its recruitment process, which for many years has worked at a glacially slow pace (it can take nearly two years to recruit, clear, test, and assign a new Foreign Service Officer). The Committee also supports the Department's proposal to hire additional security officers. Since the embassy bombings in 1998, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security has hired nearly 280 new agents to meet increased security challenges. That increase may, however, be soon offset by a retirement wave. Between FY 2001 and 2006, nearly 260 agents will be eligible to retire. The Department must continue to recruit and hire new agents. The Committee also strongly supports continued investment of resources in information technology (IT) through the Capital Investment Fund. The Committee recognizes that many of the Department's IT systems remain well behind the times. Information is central to the function of diplomacy, and the Department must focus not only resources but senior management attention on the programs being developed and implemented by the Chief Information Officer. The Committee expects to receive regular briefings about the progress of the current initiatives, particularly the efforts to provide Internet to every desktop and to provide a common platform for the foreign affairs agencies as advocated by the Overseas Presence Advisory Panel. Assuming the common platform pilot program succeeds and a decision is made to proceed with a worldwide program, the Committee expects that the Executive Branch...