Clinton lays groundwork for a more robust State Department
WASHINGTON - Even before taking office, Hillary Rodham Clinton is seeking to build a more powerful State Department, with a bigger budget, high-profile special envoys to trouble spots and an expanded role in dealing with global economic issues at a time of crisis.
Clinton is recruiting Jacob J. Lew, the budget director under President Bill Clinton, as one of two deputies, according to people close to the Obama transition team. Lew's focus, they said, will be on increasing the share of financing that goes to the diplomatic corps. He will join James B. Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration, as Hillary Clinton's chief lieutenants.
Nominations of deputy secretaries, like Clinton's, would be subject to confirmation by the Senate.
The incoming administration is also likely to name several envoys, officials said, reviving a practice of the Clinton administration, when Richard Holbrooke, Dennis Ross and other diplomats played a central role in mediating disputes in the Balkans and the Middle East.
As Clinton puts together her senior team, officials said, she is also trying to carve out a bigger role for the State Department in economic affairs, where the Treasury has dominated during the Bush years.
The steps seem intended to strengthen the role of diplomacy after a long stretch, particularly under former Secretary of State Colin Powell, in which the Pentagon, the vice president's office and even the intelligence agencies held considerable sway over American foreign policy.
Given Clinton's prominence, expanding the department's portfolio could bring on conflict with other powerful Cabinet members.
Clinton and President-elect Barack Obama have not settled on specific envoys or missions, although Ross' name has been mentioned as a possible Middle East envoy, along with Holbrooke and Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel.
The Bush administration had made relatively little use of special envoys. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice personally handled most peace-making initiatives, which meant a punishing schedule of Middle East missions, often with meager results.
"There's no question that there is a reinvention of the wheel here," said Aaron David Miller, a public policy analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. But with so many problems, including Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, Miller said, it made sense for the White House to farm out some of the diplomatic heavy-lifting.
The recruitment of Lew -- for a position that was not filled in the Bush administration -- suggests that Hillary Clinton is determined to win a larger share of financial resources for the department.
For years, some Pentagon officials have complained that jobs like the economic reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq had been added to the military's burden when they could have been handled by a robust foreign service.
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