It's official: The White House has joined the war for talent.
In recently released directives, President Bush has ordered the CIA and FBI to make dramatic changes in their intelligence programs.
He instructed the CIA to increase -- by 50 percent -- "the number of fully qualified, all-source analysts," the number of "fully qualified officers" in the clandestine service and the number of officers "tested and proficient in mission-critical languages." The CIA is directed to increase staffing "as soon as feasible."
Bush did not set numerical requirements for the FBI, but he gave it three months to create an "integrated intelligence cadre" of special agents, analysts, linguists and surveillance specialists. The president also directed the FBI to implement a recruitment and training program within 90 days that will "attract individuals with educational and professional backgrounds in intelligence, international relations, language, technology and relevant skills."
The White House usually avoids getting into this kind of personnel management, especially setting hiring goals, but these are unusual times.
Much of Bush's directive grows out of recommendations by the 9/11 commission and the political wrangling on Capitol Hill about how to restructure, and revamp budgets for, the intelligence community. The 9/11 commission found an array of shortfalls in staffing and expertise in key agencies during its investigation into the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
To be sure, Bush's directives ratify what has been underway inside the CIA and FBI for two years. For example, the FBI has added about 700 linguists with a top-secret clearance, and the CIA has reported a fivefold increase in Mideast specialists.
The FBI and CIA also acknowledge that they have a long way to go. Almost all national security agencies and the State Department took staffing and budget cuts during the 1990s as part of the post-Cold War drawdown. It takes time to build a pipeline that delivers highly skilled employees, such as Arabic speakers.
But it can be done.
That's the message in a recent report by the Foreign Affairs Council, a nonpartisan coalition of 11 organizations, which formed in 2000 to monitor management and leadership issues at the State Department.
The council, in an assessment of Colin L. Powell's term as secretary of state, found that his attention to management issues paid off. Calling Powell "an exemplary CEO," the council report said, "When he departs, he will leave the institution infinitely stronger than he found it."
When Powell arrived, the department was stretched thin -- too few people being asked to work with scant resources, including outdated computers.
In the summer of 2000, the council's report noted, about 1,400 Foreign Service officers -- a quarter of the diplomatic corps -- signed their names to an Internet petition protesting their working conditions. Four years later, 200 members of the Foreign Service and civil service had volunteered for 146 State Department jobs opening in Baghdad.
The turnaround in morale, the report said, can be attributed to Powell and his management team.
As part of Powell's Diplomatic Readiness Initiative, and in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the department worked with Congress to add about 2,000 employees. More than half have master's degrees; about 13 percent have law degrees.
The department has stepped up recruitment, spending about $1.2 million a year on marketing, the report said. The outreach effort was extended to more schools and to minority and professional associations. The report noted that the proportion of minority applicants hired has grown from 13 percent in 2000 to 19 percent in 2003.
Training in critical languages also has jumped, the report said. The number of employees in Arabic studies rose from about 120 in fiscal 2001 to almost 200 in fiscal 2004, the report said.
Thomas D. Boyatt, president of the council and a former ambassador, said Powell arrived at a critical time and created a "leadership culture" at all levels of the State Department. "We got someone who cared about the troops and knew how to manage large numbers just at the moment we needed him," Boyatt said.
What State has accomplished can be done at the CIA, FBI and other agencies, Boyatt said. Powell, he said, "has proved that."
E-mail: barrs@washpost.com
