American Public Diplomacy and Islam

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D-DE): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing. We began this process last year to examine the whole issue of public diplomacy and what was lacking, what was needed. I welcome back the secretary and the new chairman—he was not chairman last time we were here—or two times ago I should say. And I must say at the outset my statement is going to be more critical than I have been for some time, reflecting my frustration.

I recall years ago during another president's administration, when I was asked by a president to go visit then-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. And it was during the period of, as you will remember, Mr. Chairman, during the period when we were talking about and debating and discussing with our European friends the so-called neutron bomb, and there was a great split between Germany and the United States at that time, and there were questions whether a Democrat president handled it very well that time—I think he did not. But, at any rate, so I was sent over. And I'll never forget sitting in Chancellor Schmidt's office, and he was a chain smoker, frustrated, angry with us, would not speak to the president at the time. And he pounded his hand on his small conference table, and he said, "But you don't understand, Joe. Every time America sneezes, Europe catches a cold." And the point should be well taken: We have a public diplomacy problem with our European friends right now, let alone our Arab—I mean, the Arab community worldwide. The Muslim community, a billion, two hundred million people, we know we have a problem. We have as much a problem now in Europe, in Asia, as we do in the Muslim world—or almost as much. And you know just as American foreign policy cannot be sustained at home without the informed consent of the American people, I would argue it cannot succeed abroad unless it can be explained—not only to presidents and prime ministers, but also to foreign publics. We must deal with a very simple fact: many foreign governments are constrained by their ability to support American foreign policy if their own people oppose U.S. foreign policy. It seems to me we have to engage with foreign audiences in a dialogue about the objectives of American foreign policy.

In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, support and sympathy for the United States was nearly universal. The French, with whom we have a very strained relationship at the moment, the French newspaper Le Monde proclaimed the giant headline, "We are all Americans." Hundreds of thousands of people filled public squares across Europe and Asia in support of the United States of America. It was spontaneous. NATO, without our prompting, involved Article Five of the NATO Treaty. And here we are less than 18 months later, this enormous goodwill and energy has largely been squandered, in my view.

Earlier this month, hundreds of thousands of people rallied in the streets of Europe and elsewhere to condemn American policy. A study conducted by the Pew Research Center, which we are going to hear from later, indicates that the number of people in many foreign nations who have a positive view of the United States fell significantly between the years 2000 and 2002. In key countries with significant Muslim populations, the United States is viewed unfavorably by large majorities—Pakistan and Egypt, 69 percent of the population had an unfavorable view of the United States. Just 6 percent of the population in Egypt had a favorable view. In Turkey, a NATO ally, 55 percent of the population had an unfavorable view. A remarkable percentage of people in Europe believe U.S. policy in Iraq is driven by a desire for oil, which it is not. As many as three quarters of the public in France and Russia believe this nonsense.

And I remember—I am recalling from memory from now, but about 10 or 12 months ago there was a poll in France conducted, asking, Can you think of anything good to say about Americans? Don't hold me to the number, but it was close to 70 percent who said, No, they couldn't think of anything good to say about Americans, America. This is—why this dramatic reversal? Well, I think there's several factors, not all of which can be dealt with by public diplomacy.

First is our projected attitude. I would respectfully suggest that the administration has not followed the advice of its presidential candidate and president in the year 2000 during a debate when he said, really when asked about how the United States should be viewed or would be viewed abroad, he said, "It really depends on"—I'm quoting—"on how our nation conducts our foreign policy. If we are an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. If we are humble nation but strong they'll welcome us. Our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power. And that's why we have to be humble." I haven't heard anybody characterize the utterances of the administration in the last 8 months as "humble." "Humility" is a term not familiar to many senior levels of the administration, with what I would argue the single exception of the secretary of State, which as often been disdainful of the opinions of foreign governments on ranges of issues, from the abrupt abandonment of the Kyoto Protocol, which I did not support, but we abandoned it, to the provocative assertions of the doctrine of preemption, just as diplomatic campaigns were beginning to commence on Iraq.

The second is there's another problem it seems to me, and that is the way in which we seem to be willing to—maybe inadvertently—embarrass foreign leaders occasionally, from the first meeting of President Kim of South Korea visiting Washington, to refusing assistance by our NATO partners in Afghanistan, to Secretary Rumsfeld's dismissal of our oldest partner in Europe as "Old Europe," and to the administration's often taken for granted attitude about ally support. We kind of act as if we are never going to need any help again. We kind of act like we are not going to need any alliances in the future. This is not how in my view you win friends and influence people, which means your jobs are going to be a lot harder—both of you.

I would suggest, thirdly, that our outreach to the world since September 11th has been hampered by the slowness of our response and our failure to properly invest in public diplomacy. Soon after September 11th, at the request of the president, with the Henry Hyde in the Oval Office with me, the president asked for ideas, and asked would we prepare for him a proposal for public diplomacy and how we should modernize it, upgrade it, change it. And so I, along with—I and I imagine others did do—gave the president a detailed proposal. I am sure—I hope—Secretary Beers has seen it. I don't—I don't have any particular pride of authorship. As a matter of fact, many of your board helped to draft this. But I don't mind that it wasn't adopted. I mind that it wasn't discussed. I mind that it went nowhere—not my proposal—any serious substantive alteration.

Soon after September 11th, the State Department had been planning for an advertising campaign to Muslim countries about the United States. It took them until October 2002 to reach the airwaves, and even then some of our allies in the Middle East refused permission for the advertisements to air.

The administration does deserve credit for attempting to coordinate its message overseas through the White House Office of Global Communications. But organizational change is not policy. Nor does it produce budgetary resources. The Broadcasting Board of Governors also deserves a great deal of credit for the initiative, the innovative radio broadcast to the Middle East, and for proposing a Middle East television network in its budget for fiscal 2004. But the administration's budget for fiscal 2004 otherwise short-changes several major public diplomacy programs. For example, the request for international exchange programs, which are essential in exposing thousands of people to the United States and U.S. citizens, are reduced in the president's budget for fiscal 2004. For example, the Fulbright program falls from 150 million to 141 million (dollars), instead of going up; professional cultural exchanges, 86 million to 73 million (dollars). This will result in reductions of nearly 2,500 fewer participants in exchanges next year.

Similarly, the budget request for the Broadcasting Board of Governors for fiscal 2004 requires the elimination or reduction of broadcasts by Voice of America or Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to several Central and Eastern European countries. We just had the Bulgarians—you hosted them—we hosted them in the Foreign Relations Committee. The one thing they mentioned was, Why are you not continuing to broadcast in our country?"

Now, we spent 50 years fighting to get broadcast into their country. And now, because of budgetary constraints, you're going to have to move resources to the Middle East—I assume that's where they're being moved—and no longer broadcast in Bulgaria. And the Bulgarian government is asking us not to stop.

Well, I can't understand why we would go off the air or reduce broadcast in places where there's a significant listenership such as the Baltics and/or the Balkans. As our diplomatic efforts in Iraq have made plain, we cannot take allies, old or new, for granted. We must consistently engage them. We should expand our international broadcasting and international exchanges, not contract them. They're valuable tools to tell America's story to the world.

And I would conclude, Mr. Chairman, by making one point in a little different way than you made it. Here, after the first Gulf War, we allowed, over that period of time, then to now, for the Arab world and many in the European world to become convinced that the reason why there were starving children, malnutrition, lack of medical supplies in Iraq was because of the U.S.-imposed embargo.

Public opinion around the world assumed, instead of that madman Saddam taking the money, diverting it to weapons of mass destruction, building palaces and castles and otherwise using the food money and the money he had through legal and illegal means to provide for the means of his citizens, we were blamed. We were blamed.

And that had nothing to do, in my view, with the failure to be humble or the failure to have the proper policy. The only reason I mention those two points at the outset is it makes your job harder. If our policy, in and of itself, if known accurately, is disliked, all the public diplomacy in the world is not going to change anybody's mind.

But it seems to me that we are never given a square deal, a fair shake, and in large part because we have not modernized our diplomacy and we have not modernized our public diplomacy via the use of the airways. And so I hope this hearing will shed some light on that. And I hope, Mr. Chairman, that this committee will be able to convince the administration that prudent investment of more resources in public diplomacy is very, very, very much in our interest.

SEN. BIDEN: Praise the Lord. I really don't think there's anything that we are going to undertake in this committee that is more important. There's some think that's important, but not more important. I just want to—just a little review so you all know, as they saw, where I am coming from on this.

What is being heralded accurately as just an incredible success is Sawa. For those listening, what that is is a radio broadcast in the Middle East that hits Oman, Kuwait, the UAE, even into Iraq. And I just want to review the bidding here. We had a big fight with the last board—well, not—I mean, several years ago—about an idea that one person gets credit for, Norm Pattiz. I went to Norm Pattiz and recommended him to the last president to put him on the board, because this is a guy who made a billion bucks getting people to figure out how to listen to radio. If we were going to decide how we were going to get into Arab horse racing, you'd be the first guy I'd go to. I'm not being facetious. And so what did we do with something totally unconventional from the standpoint of the State Department and the standpoint of public diplomacy?

Pattiz came up—he's the guy , you know, if you fly across the country and you put on that headset, you know, and you're listening to the broadcast, or rock, where it's interspersed with interviews with the musician, it's interspersed with talk about how the song was written—you know, it's that whole deal—he's the one that put that package together, and he parlayed that package into a significant—I kid him. I say he's the only guy involved in public diplomacy when he tries to get something done he flies his own G-5 to the area. Okay? Well, he did that—learned how to get people to listen to the radio. And you may remember the big argument was, What's our target audience? Let me remind everybody here, and I'll not go through it all, but let's just take in Turkey -- 19 million people in between the ages of 19 and 30. In Iraq, 23 -- excuse me, in Iran, 23 million people between the ages of 15 and 30. In India, 114 million people it would target. In Indonesia, 58 million. How do you get these people to listen? It sure as hell isn't by a news program. Does anybody in this country between the ages of 15 and 30 tune in in any numbers a public broadcasting? It's an incredibly important means of communication. What do they do? They listen to rock stations. You know who the single best known people are in Egypt? The same single best known people here. A lot of people know our chairman, but they know Britney Spears a helluva a lot better. (Laughter.) And if you are going to communicate to this age category, it's one thing to have former Chairman Joe Biden on a broadcast into Oman talking about U.S. policy. It's another thing to have the rock star—and the best known people in Jordan are rock stars—the best known people in Egypt are rock stars. I don't think we know that. We know so little about the Muslim world we assume that it must be clerics or, you know, their version of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson is what's best known—I'm not—fine men, I don't mean that as a knock. And conservative journalists and a lot of other people said this is no way to communicate an idea and a notion.

And Pattiz's idea, embraced by you, Mr. Chairman, and others on the board, starting by the way in 2001 this was put together, before this administration—and thank God they embraced it, and it's a great success. What do you have now? And I realize I'm using my time not for a question. If you take a look at the listening, 51 percent of those young adults listened within the past 7 days to Sawa in Oman, 25 percent in Kuwait, 30 percent in the UAE. Listening to radio station, all adults, 36 percent—compared to all other radio stations—all other radio stations. And I'd ask this to be submitted in the record.

SEN. BIDEN: Radio Sawa and local media scene in Oman, core target audience. Radio Sawa, 92 percent; MBC, Middle East Broadcasting, 79; Radio Jordan, 78; Radio Jordan AM, 25; BBC, 18; Voice of Palestine, 6 percent. That did not exist at all before. This is a big deal. And the reason I have been pushing so hard, and I know you have been incredibly supportive, Mr. Chairman, for the television version of this, as you said in your statement—just ride through the Middle East. Every little—everything from a tent, figuratively speaking, to the most modest accommodation has a satellite dish, a little—one of those little—you know, those little RCA deals, or whatever make they are. And so there's an opportunity here that is immense, immense.

But my question is this: Based on the analysis was done, we projected that you need for about all the Muslim world, not just the Middle East, you need about 280 or 250 million dollars of infrastructure, including personnel, to be able to replicate the kind of saturation—not the same program—the kind of saturation you've accomplished with Sawa. Why has that request not been made for that infrastructure, including—including hardware—hardware—satellites and the like? And how many of the 1,000 personnel that it was estimated by a fairly thorough study here that would be needed to get up and running and Muslim-wide, a Muslim-wide public diplomacy, not just in the Arab states? How many personnel do you have that exist in country in the United States and in country as well as how much hardware requirements do you have—my term "hardware"—that's not the term you guys use?

SEN. BIDEN: But there's only 30 million allocated, isn't there? Or --

SEN. BIDEN: In the request. There's only been requested 30 million. But it's going to cost you 30 million to start-up costs. It's going to cost you another 30 million to broadcast for a year, right?

SEN. BIDEN: So it's going to be at least 60 -- my understanding is at least $61 million.

SEN. BIDEN: And right now the only request that is coming before us, if we pass the president's request, will be 31 million, which means you will not be up and on the air with the television—I'm overstating it—with the television version of Sawa—I mean, for a lack of a better way of saying it in the interest of time.

SEN. BIDEN: Well, I know my time is up, Mr. Chairman. I just want to remind all the committee members what they know—and I know they know it well—but anyone listening. Al Jazeera has had a catalytic impact on attitudes about us. And let's even—let's assume it wasn't even intended. Let's give the benefit of the doubt, which I don't, but let's give the benefit of the doubt. There is no counterpart. There is no counterpart for that. And one thing I would argue—there is not a—there is not a discrimination imposed by citizens under the age of 30 living in all these countries. They will not boycott this. The whole thing—you have got to put programming on they want to see, just like you have got to have material on they want to hear. If you build a better mousetrap, you attract those audiences. They will listen. And I sincerely hope, Mr. President, we are able to just in that one small piece be able to give this operation enough of an opportunity to it's not stillborn, to get it up and moving. But I think it's a very small piece, but it's a critical piece.

SEN. BIDEN: I'd like to make one other point my staff made to me. I know you know it and my colleagues know it, but I'm not sure everybody else does. Sawa broadcasts uncensored news. The key to this is that there is total journalistic integrity here. And I think that's an important piece for all of us to keep in mind, not to suggest that our other broadcast capabilities are not useful; they are. But this is important that it's uncensored.

SEN. BIDEN: You say another. I clearly do not fit that description. (Laughter.) Mr. Pattis (sp) does.