Nomination of Peter Joseph Kadzik to be an Assistant Attorney General

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about an important topic, the topic of embassy security. The safety of American embassies abroad and especially our capital ``A'' Ambassadors and our small ``a'' ambassadors, who go to work every day in communities across the globe--182 countries where we have embassies--to represent the United States.

Embassy security has been in the news yesterday. The President announced the dispatch of 275 additional marines to Baghdad to protect the American Embassy and embassy personnel in Iraq. Today we received the news of the excellent law enforcement work that has been done by the United States to finally capture one of the leaders behind the raid on Benghazi in September of 2012. Obviously, embassy security is an important and very newsworthy and topical issue.

Mr. President, I think you have noticed what I have, that in the aftermath of the tragic attack on the embassy compound in Benghazi that cost four Americans their lives, there has been much discussion in Congress about Benghazi. But too much of it, in my view, has been focused on trying to play the blame game than trying to talk about what we should do to minimize the chance of such an incident happening again.

We have seen attacks on embassies. From the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in the 1980s, to attacks on embassies in Africa in the 1990s, we have seen this before. But what we ought to be talking about in this body and in the House is how to make our embassies safer instead of trying to play a blame game.

I want to bring in this speech one fact about embassy security that should trouble us a lot, and especially us in the Senate. Of the 182 countries in the world that have United States Ambassadors, 54 of the U.S. Ambassador posts are currently vacant. Nearly 30 percent of the ambassador posts in the world--where the U.S. Ambassador goes to represent us--are currently vacant. Ten of the posts are vacant because the White House has not forwarded a name to the Senate, which is responsible for the consent to those nominations. One of those 10--Syria--has not been forwarded because of security reasons. Twenty-one posts are vacant because the White House has sent nominees but the nominees are pending in the Foreign Relations Committee, where I serve. The chairman of the committee, Senator Menendez, is doing all he can to move those through but is facing some pretty significant opposition, often from members of the committee. And 23 of the positions are vacant because they have gone through the Foreign Relations Committee, they have received overwhelming votes of support, but they are being held here on the Senate floor with no action on the Senate floor, often for a very long period of time.

Let me tell you about those 23 nations. The ambassador to the nation of Djibouti, which is a critical partner in Africa for the United States in counterterrorism operations--his nomination has been pending in the Senate for 67 days; for the Czech Republic, the nomination has been pending for 95 days; for the Bahamas, the nomination has been pending for 122 days; for the State of Kuwait, in the Middle East--a critical area--the nomination has been pending for 179 days; for Bosnia and Herzegovina, 200 days; for Hungary, 215 days; for New Zealand, 223 days; for Iceland, 223 days; for Zambia, 270 days; for the Gabonese Republic, 270 days; for the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, pending here in the Senate, 272 days; for the Kingdom of Norway, 272 days; for Jamaica, 272 days; for the Kingdom of Lesotho, 312 days; for the Republic of Palau, 313 days; for the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, 313 days; for Cameroon, 314 days; for Namibia, 314 days; for Niger--Niger, critical in issues of terrorism and counterterrorism in Africa--the nomination on this floor, pending for 314 days; for Trinidad and Tobago, 314 days; for Albania, 319 days; for Sierra Leone, 335 days; and topping the list, a strong ally of the United States, the Republic of Peru, the ambassadorial nomination has been pending on the floor of the Senate for 353 days--almost a year.

Again, these vacancies represent nearly 30 percent of all of the in-country ambassadorships that the United States sends around the globe--essentially just hanging a sign out in front of the Embassy of the United States with a big ``vacant'' sign on it.

I would submit that ``vacancies'' means an uncertainty about leadership and that hurts embassy security. Mr. President, you and I were both Governors. We know that our agencies ran a lot better when they knew who the leaders were. An interim, a part-time, a temporary, an acting--that is not the same as a leader. That is not the same as a confirmed ambassador. So our personnel, who are serving in these 54 embassies around the world--often in very dangerous places in the world--are there waiting for their leader to come. Now they have a deputy in charge of the mission, and those people are usually fine, but even that deputy is waiting to find out: Who will our leader be? Times of uncertainty increase insecurity.

So I would say to my colleagues, if you really care about Benghazi and embassy security, you should care about confirming ambassadors in these 54 nations that are waiting for American leadership.

The ability to promptly nominate and confirm these ambassadors is directly connected to our security, and I would argue that individuals blocking or slowing down ambassadorial appointments are not being accurate when they claim to support embassy security.

The effects of these vacancies are not just in the security of our embassies, obviously. I often hear colleagues on the floor of this body or see them on television criticizing America as retreating from global leadership. Well, if you care about America's global leadership, why allow 54 American embassies around the world to not have ambassadors? Why allow those vacancies to exist?

The existence of these vacancies--some for nearly as long as a year--sends a pretty powerful message to the nations where the vacancies exist. And the message could be interpreted one of two ways. Maybe the United States is retreating from global leadership because if the United States cared, the Senate would confirm ambassadors. Or in some countries the interpretation is a little bit different. It is not about global leadership. Some countries interpret it

as: Maybe we are not that important to the United States. It is a sign of disrespect to nations as important as Niger, some of the nations in the Middle East I mentioned, France, to not have ambassadors for extended periods of time.

This is a very important issue and I do not think this body, which is constitutionally charged with this responsibility, should be complicit in sending a message to the nations of the world that we are retreating or that we are uninterested in our relationships with them.

Let me conclude by coming back to the subject of embassy security. Mr. President, I know you, like I, in this job have had the opportunity to travel around the world and meet some of our embassy personnel. What I try to do when I travel--I imagine you try to do the same--is not just spend time with the capital ``A'' ambassadors--that is important--but I also try to spend time with the small ``a'' ambassadors: the Foreign Service officers on their first or second tour who have chosen--even though the salary is not great, even though the working conditions can be tough, even though security challenges can be significant--to serve the United States abroad.

I was in Beirut, in Lebanon, in February with Senator Angus King of Maine. Let me tell you about our personnel in Lebanon. Because of the dangers in that country, they all have to live on the embassy compound. They live there in Beirut, which has been subject to some very difficult times. The U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut were bombed in the 1980s. The U.S. Embassy was bombed. Hundreds were killed in those two bombings. The U.S. embassy annex was bombed. Other U.S. Embassy personnel were targeted and killed. Hundreds of Americans serving not just in the military but as Foreign Service officers lost their lives in Lebanon, representing us in the best way they could.

For that reason our embassy personnel live on the embassy compound in Beirut. Guess what kind of personal life they have. They are allowed 6 hours a week personal time to be off the embassy compound, and they have to be escorted by security. They described what it is like. They might want to go to the beach, and traffic is horrible, so in that 6 hours a week, it is an hour and a half to get to where they want to go, and then it is an hour and a half to get back from where they want to go, so what they really get is about 3 hours a week of personal time. That is what these wonderful American public servants do.

I then went to Egypt, and I had a visit with a young first-tour Foreign Service officer there who was talking about needing to finish a meeting we were having because of the Skype date with her husband. I was not familiar with that terminology. She serves in a capacity where, for safety and other reasons, it was not ideal for him to be there with her. So on Friday nights they both dress up, and with a glass of wine they then fire up the Skype and talk across thousands of miles to try to keep their marriage alive. This is a person who is thrilled to serve the United States in a dangerous part of the world. Again, it is not for the salary. It is not for the comfort. It is for the honor of representing this country.

We owe them something. We owe them a secure operation that can make them feel--not completely safe because there is no guarantee of safety for our personnel in many of these countries but at least that we are doing all we can to try to keep them safe.

I stand today because we are not doing all we can to keep these people safe. To the extent that we in the Senate are responsible for the vacancies of nearly 30 percent of the ambassadorial posts around the world--and the absence of ambassadors leads to additional insecurity--we are not honoring our obligation to the brave Americans who want to serve this Nation in very dangerous places.

I urge my colleagues, if you are talking about Benghazi and the need for more embassy security, you should be promptly confirming ambassadors to represent the United States. If you are worried about the role of America in the world, and you are asserting, critically, that America is retreating from global leadership, you should be confirming promptly the ambassadorial nominees who are pending before the Senate.

With that, Mr. President, I thank you and yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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