Holbrooke's Kiss of Death to NGOs

Some diplomatic doubletalk at yesterday's State Department press conference, meaning (IMHO): "So long, it's been good to know you..."

QUESTION: This is Laura Rozen from Politico. I know your team has been meeting with USAID contractors and NGOs and others in the past week to try to communicate your ideas for assistance to Pakistan. Can you talk a little bit about what you all are trying to communicate?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: I’m not sure what you mean by the last week. I meet with NGOs every few days. We are the only office in this building with a full-time NGO person assigned to us who has joined us recently. He – we have a list of close to a thousand NGOs that we have now compiled and doing databasing on. NGOs are a hugely important part of this process. And the Secretary of State herself is deeply involved in outreach to the NGOs. She cares about the NGOs. I ran three NGOs myself until January 19th and have served on many boards. And so yesterday, we met with some of them. We support the NGOs.

At the same time, we’re trying to improve the operations of entities – NGOs and contract employees – who serve – who carry out part of American foreign policy in the region. And this is a very delicate balance, and some people have expressed concerns about this, but we have a very clear image of speeding up the flow of American taxpayer dollars to the people and the governments of the two countries. So if it’s a government contract, we want to speed it up.

Now, of the NGOs I met with yesterday, they all pointed out that only a certain percentage of their funds come from the U.S. Government, and that that percentage is going down. So we encourage them to work with us, and we’ll continue. And I don’t believe you’ll ever find in this building, in its past or currently, any office which spends more time with NGOs --

QUESTION: And --

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: -- because it’s what we believe in. Hillary Clinton and I believe in it, and because they’re important.