WASHINGTON, Nov 22 (AFP) - Outgoing US Secretary of State Colin Powell won high praise on Monday from a team of foreign policy experts for overseeing a radical improvement in working conditions and morale at what they said had been a "broken" State Department.
The Foreign Affairs Council, a non-partisan umbrella group of 11 organizations concerned about the management of US diplomacy, said Powell and his top aides had made significant progress in bringing the department in the computer age, boosting security at embassies abroad and increasing hiring during their nearly four years in office.
"In short, the achievements have been extraordinary -- even historic," the council said in a 36-page report released a week after Powell announced his resignation as the top US diplomat, effective on the confirmation of his successor.
"To use the vernacular, the Powell team has 'talked the talk' and 'walked the walk'," it said. "The secretary has been an exemplary CEO of the State Department. When he departs, he will leave the institution infinitely stronger than he found it."
In the summer of 2000, six months before Powell was named secretary of state, the council recalled that some 1,400 foreign service personnel -- 25 percent of the diplomatic corps -- had signed an Internet petition protesting their working conditions.
But by the beginning of 2004, the State Department had more volunteers than it needed to serve in hardship conditions at the new US embassy in Baghdad, said the report entitled "Secretary Colin Powell's State Department: An Independent Assessment."
"The difference was Colin Powell and the gifted team of senior managers he assembled at the State Department," the council said, adding that they had come to work "determined to fix a broken institution."
The council credited Powell and his senior management team with changing the leadership culture at the State Department to focus on training and ensuring that individual diplomats are respected and rewarded for effective work in promoting US foreign policy.
It noted that during Powell's tenure, the department had hired about 2,000 employees above the attrition rate, introduced modern computer hardware and software, and made advanced information technology available to nearly all employees.
The department has also gone from building new overseas missions at a rate of one per year before 2002 to 13 over the past two years and 26 more to come, it said.
In addition to playing on his widespread popularity to boost the ranks of the foreign service, Powell also used his considerable lobbying skills to persuade US lawmakers to allocate the funds necessary for the overhaul, the council said.
"Congress has given State virtually all of the resources Secretary Powell requested," it said.
The report also calls for Powell's successor, current national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, to carry on with the secretary's agenda and push for even greater improvements.
Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Powell, who is now traveling in the Middle East, and his team were gratified by the praise.
"We're very pleased that the achievements of the last four years have been noted in this report," he told reporters. "This is a record that I think the State Department can be proud of."
11/22/2004 20:38 GMT - AFP