Diplomats Sound the Alarm as They Are Pushed Out in Droves

nytimes.com ^ | 11/24/17 | Gardiner Harris

[cotton1706]

Of all the State Department employees who might have been vulnerable in the staff reductions that Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson has initiated as he reshapes the department, the one person who seemed least likely to be a target was the chief of security, Bill A. Miller.

Republicans pilloried Hillary Clinton for what they claimed was her inadequate attention to security as secretary of state in the months before the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Congress even passed legislation mandating that the department’s top security official have unrestricted access to the secretary of state.

But in his first nine months in office, Mr. Tillerson turned down repeated and sometimes urgent requests from the department’s security staff to brief him, according to several former top officials in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Finally, Mr. Miller, the acting assistant secretary for diplomatic security, was forced to cite the law’s requirement that he be allowed to speak to Mr. Tillerson.

Mr. Miller got just five minutes with the secretary of state, the former officials said. Afterward, Mr. Miller, a career Foreign Service officer, was pushed out, joining a parade of dismissals and early retirements that has decimated the State Department’s senior ranks. Mr. Miller declined to comment.

The departures mark a new stage in the broken and increasingly contentious relationship between Mr. Tillerson and much of his department’s work force. By last spring, interviews at the time suggested, the guarded optimism that greeted his arrival had given way to concern among diplomats about his aloofness and lack of communication. By the summer, the secretary’s focus on efficiency and reorganization over policy provoked off-the-record anger.

[Bookshelf]

From experience I have found that the Deputy Chiefs of Mission are often far superior to Ambassadors in moxie and mental ability. In reality, the DCM and the Administrative Officer run the Embassy. The head Political Officer is usually a puffed-up know-it-all who has long forgotten that he or she works for, and not against, the USA. The Consular Affairs officer is usually oblivious to the fact that his personnel are on the take. Cynical? You bet your....

[vpintheak]

Get rid of them all!

[samtheman]

Thanks!

[1FreeAmerican]

I’m not getting something here - is he Chief of Security or an Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security?

[fortes fortuna juvat]

>> Has TRUMP fired All Obama holdovers yet??!!!<<

Hell no, he hasn’t, and the border patrol people are really pissed about the dirty Obama holdovers who they have to contend with everyday. And he also hasn’t replaced that useless POS sleeping over at the Justice Department.

[fortes fortuna juvat]

>>Yes, fire all of those leftist America haters. They are not useless; they America’s enemies.<<

And after they’re all fired, have a REAL Attorney General indict them all for treason.

[ripley]

“Not to mention leaks of national security information.”

The list is endless and there’s no end to their treachery, duplicity, mendacity, obnoxiousness, adolescence and general scummy behaviour that not even animals engage in.

IMHO