Bills would steer more funds to diplomacy

WASHINGTON, July 20 (UPI) -- Bills moving through the U.S. Congress give more money to the State Department, which officials say recognizes the role of civilians in U.S. foreign policy.

Committees in the House and Senate recently passed bills that would increase spending for the department and related activities by about 25 percent from what was spent in 2008, USA Today reported Monday.

"We're at a moment in time where you have a combination of a president and a secretary of state focusing on how to project the U.S. internationally in a very different way, and that is something that has captured imaginations," Jacob Lew, deputy secretary of state for management, told USA TODAY.

The money, some of which was in a 2009 supplemental spending bill President Barack Obama signed last month, is for 1,300 new diplomats, major initiatives in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and increases in foreign and humanitarian assistance, officials said.

Observers note the funding for the State Department reflects a recognition that both a strong civilian foreign service and military effort are needed in U.S. foreign policy, a position endorsed by Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Foreign aid would be about $32.3 billion in 2010, down from $34 billion in 2009, but up from $26.7 billion in 2008, USA Today said. Obama has indicated he wants to raise it to $50 billion by 2015.

"There's general consensus," Marc Grossman, a State Department official in the George W. Bush administration, told USA Today, "that there needed to be an increase in civilian capacity in foreign policy."