A Match Made Behind Closed Doors

Administration officials insist that the U.S. Agency for International Development, traditionally a distinct operation within the State Department, is not about to be officially merged with State. But recent events are making people wonder.

In April 2005, the agency's Policy and Program Coordination bureau (PPC) issued four reports on development issues in the Muslim world. The reports had been fully cleared through the normal process, we're told.

But then, PPC chief Edward Menarchik got an e-mail June 23 from Paul J. Bonicelli , who runs USAID's Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance bureau.

"The Ambassador [aka USAID Administrator Randall L. Tobias ] has asked that I relay to you that the document 'Governance in the Muslim World' should be pulled immediately from the web, no more hard copies should be circulated and the Agency should no longer treat it as representative of the agency's policy or views since it conflicts with the President's and Secretary's stated policies," the e-mail said.

Phew. That must be one hot document, but upon reading the paper, it isn't clear which sections violated holy doctrine. USAID, twice asked to please explain what the heinous violations were, declined to do so.

This is all we got: "The paper was never intended to reflect official . . . policy," a USAID spokesman said in an e-mail. What's more, it "clearly states so inside the document, on more than one occasion."

Well, then, if it's so clear, which morons "treat[ed] it as representative of . . . policy" so it had to be immediately pulled?

USAID veterans remember when the agency effectively took a lead role on development strategy. Apparently, not now. "In the future," the e-mail said, "Ambassador Tobias expects these policy documents to be developed through the interagency committees developed around the five sectors of the foreign assistance framework." Tobias wants government-wide, "as opposed to agency-specific," policies, Bonicelli said.

"The interagency committee we have developed around the Governing Justly and Democratically objective," he wrote, in a variant of traditional Mao-speak, "works closely with the NSC [National Security Council]" to make sure policies "are approved through the Deputies and Principals committees." This surely enhances spontaneity and inoculates against government groupthink.

Menarchik e-mailed Bonicelli that he'd get right on the document disappearance effort. Of course, Menarchik has other concerns, because Tobias moved about 50 people last month from Menarchik's office in the Ronald Reagan Building to the State Department, leaving Menarchik very few staff members.

In fact, Tobias also has a State Department position: In January, he was made director of U.S. foreign assistance (called "F" at the department), and we're told he spends at best three mornings a week at the Reagan Building. That post carries a rank equivalent to deputy secretary of state.

USAID veterans are certain a merger is coming. "We're merging, but it's incremental," one source said, "so you don't know that you're merging and then it's happened. There's less pain and suffering that way, I guess."