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October 23, 2002, 9:00 a.m. “Don’t Question Whether [They] Deserved Them or Not.” Richard Boucher to reporters: Please, ignore our bonuses. EDITOR’S NOTE: Joel Mowbray reported Tuesday that some of the same State Department officials responsible for the lax policies that allowed the Sept. 11 terrorists into the country were rewarded with bonuses. Richard Boucher didn’t want to talk about it in Tuesdays press briefing.

n Monday, October 21, the U.S. General Accounting Office released a report assessing the State Department's pre- and post-9/11 visa policies and practices. The GAO study confirms reporting that has appeared in National Review about the unlawful negligence by which State officials issued visas to 9/11 terrorists and the department's laxity in following up and holding officials accountable in the year since. The entire report, "Border Security: Visa Process Should Be Strengthened as an Antiterrorism Tool" is available here on NRO, as a 1.4MB .pdf download. (You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the file; the software is available, free, here.)

QUESTION: New topic?

MR. BOUCHER: Okay.

QUESTION: The pay bonuses, the $10,000 to $15,000 each for over 200 members of the Foreign Service, can you give a few details about that?

MR. BOUCHER: It's an established, annual procedure. It's part of the OPM rules; it's part of the government rules; it's been around for a long time. The performance of people is examined very carefully by committees and they determine who gets the pay benefits. And it was done, I think, a long time ago by the government in order to assure that they stay competitive with the private sector. And people get these performance awards based on things that they've done and how they performed in their jobs and met the needs of the service. And in our case, it's a sign that they have performed well in terms of serving their country and their government.

QUESTION: Okay, a couple thoughts on that, then. By my math, then, we're talking about a ballpark $3 million going out in bonuses to these members of the Foreign Service.

MR. BOUCHER: I'm sure if you check with OPM you'll find the total figure for the entire government.

QUESTION: Yeah. No, and that's fine. But does that seem to make financial sense when State Department is complaining about understaffing at consulates —

MR. BOUCHER: It makes an awful lot of sense in terms of the way the government has, for many years, had these programs, has run them efficiently, carefully and confidently and wants to retain senior executives in the government so that we, as taxpayers, have the benefit of their services.

QUESTION: Okay, well, again, I guess going to the benefit of their services, the GAO report which came out yesterday was not terribly flattering, I suppose, about the benefit of the services provided by some of these officials. And if you — you know, the award is for outstanding performance.

Do you think that it is — that it constitutes outstanding performance to have visas applications that were not filled out properly still being issued to terrorists during this period? This was April 16th of last year to April 15th of this year, and it includes 9/11. Do you think that that track record from Consular Affairs — in particular, Mary Ryan got the bonus as did Thomas Furey, who was the Consul General at Riyadh who helped establish visa express, which let in three of the 9/11 terrorists — what exactly about that constitutes a track record of outstanding performance worthy of these bonuses?

MR. BOUCHER: I want to stop this right here. You've said things that I disagree with and I've said things that you disagree with. I have not gone after your paycheck.

QUESTION: I'm not going after yours.

MR. BOUCHER: I have not gone after — I got one of these bonuses.

QUESTION: Congratulations.

MR. BOUCHER: Thank you.

QUESTION: I wasn't questioning whether you deserved one.

MR. BOUCHER: I have not said that you didn't deserve to be paid for your services. I didn't say that you didn't deserve to be paid for your articles or your appearances.

QUESTION: Now, Richard, I'm not making this personal.

MR. BOUCHER: And I'm not going to do it now.

QUESTION: I did not go after you —

MR. BOUCHER: You're attacking friends of mine, people who dedicate their lives to their government and their country.

QUESTION: They are government officials. They owe a certain responsibility to the country.

MR. BOUCHER: People who dedicate their lives to their government and their country.

QUESTION: That's fine, but they don't have — they don't owe accountability?

MR. BOUCHER: If you want to talk about the GAO report, we'll talk about the GAO report, but I'm not going to talk about whether or not they deserve their bonuses. It's an established procedure. It's done very carefully by the government. It's done under an open set of rules that have been around for a long time. If you want to question those rules, you can go question those rules. But don't question whether these individuals deserved them or not.

QUESTION: Okay. And I did not make this personal. You did. And just for the record —

MR. BOUCHER: No. I'm sorry. You started naming names.

QUESTION: — I want to make sure you don't take this as —

MR. BOUCHER: You started naming names.

QUESTION: Well, they are names of people who set policies and then people need to decide —

MR. BOUCHER: Now, do you want to talk to about the GAO report?

QUESTION: Let's talk about the GAO report.