Daily Press Briefing
Sean McCormack, Spokesman
Washington, DC
July 5, 2007
Excerpt Begins
QUESTION: Okay. Can we talk about the passport issue?
MR. MCCORMACK: Sure.
QUESTION: Were you able to clarify the --
MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah, a bit. Let me get my notes -- my notes here. Essentially we are up around 200 as the number of people who are going to be helping us out, who are either Presidential Management Fellows or Career Entry people, so that number is about 200.
QUESTION: Plus.
MR. MCCORMACK: Plus and -- we may in the future look for others to help out with this, so that number could go up. Look, there's a backlog of passports. The top management of this Department said that's a problem, we need to fix it, and we're going to do everything that we can to make sure that the American people are able to get passports in the timeframe that we have said they should be able to get a passport in. Right now that's not the case and so the Secretary and Deputy Secretary are going to do everything they can, devote all the resources that they need to devote to the problem to fix it. And this is an example of their -- the U.S. Government working on behalf of the American people.
Now, should we have gotten into the backlog situation? No, it shouldn't have happened. But the issue now is: How do you fix it? And this is -- the fix is to apply the manpower and the brainpower that we have in this Department to make sure that we get people their passports.
QUESTION: Just a follow-up, if I may? One is it's my understanding that there was a decision made earlier this week to seek to get an additional 150 Foreign Service officers to pitch in on this. That's beyond the cable that was sent, you know, by Under Secretary Fore. Is that where the additional number comes from or the additional people that you might try to get are going to be more PMFs or CE Program people or people like --
MR. MCCORMACK: I don't know that they have specifically identified the people. I think they have in mind some groups and some people who might be doing this. And I would add, too, that we also have a number of people who stepped up in response to a volunteer request prior to this. Yeah, for example, in my bureau, the Bureau of Public Affairs, we have -- 7 percent of my bureau is involved in some way in volunteering to help fix this problem.
QUESTION: Voluntarily -- 7 percent?
MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah, voluntarily. Yeah, seven percent. And we're going to have more people step up to the plate and -- you know, that's just one small bureau in this department, but it's indicative of the fact that when people are presented a challenge in this department, they're going to step up to meet it.
QUESTION: One last question, what is the backlog? When I -- when we wrote about this back in June when you decided to relax the rules regarding carrying of passport to those particular countries --
MR. MCCORMACK: Right.
QUESTION: -- we were told -- and I think it was put on a TQ, but I'm not sure. We were told that it was about 500,000 passport applications that had not been processed with the 10-week guideline.
MR. MCCORMACK: Right.
QUESTION: I didn't ask you this this morning. I'm sorry, it didn't occur to me, but if you --
MR. MCCORMACK: Don't have that current number.
QUESTION: -- don't have that, can you get it by the end of the day?
MR. MCCORMACK: We -- well, I'll try to get a fix on what the current backlog is --
QUESTION: Fine.
MR. MCCORMACK: -- and what the current waiting time is.
QUESTION: And the same comparison, if possible, you know, that that was to have -- I think it may have been Secretary -- the Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs who told us that --
MR. MCCORMACK: Right, Maura Harty.
QUESTION: -- but, Maura -- yeah.
MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah. Okay, here's what I'll try to do. I'll try to get you the backlog, how long it takes currently to get a passport and when we expect to be able to meet our self-imposed guidelines of the --
QUESTION: I think 10 weeks.
MR. MCCORMACK: Right.
QUESTION: Yeah. Okay. Thanks.
QUESTION: Sean, do you have a sense of how many people the State Department's going to need to add in total over the next couple of months to meet this?
MR. MCCORMACK: This isn't bringing in people from the outside.
QUESTION: Right. But how many people are you going to need to --
MR. MCCORMACK: How many people are being applied to this?
QUESTION: Right, the total number.
MR. MCCORMACK: We'll try to get you -- try to get you that number. I mean, part of it --
QUESTION: Between the volunteers and then the people that are being sent --
MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah, part of it may be hard because you have volunteers that are, you know, for example when they finish their work, here in the Department, they're going to go over to some place else and work at night to do this, so it may be an issue of, you know, man-hours. I'll see if we can generate that figure for you. It may take a little bit of time.
Excerpt ends
