Marco Rubio Acknowledges 'Hiccups' With PEPFAR, Saying Nearly 85% 'Is Functional Right Now'

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At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. James Risch (R-ID) questioned Sec. Marco Rubio about PEPFAR.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Senator Rubio. We're going to do a round of questions. We'll go seven

00:04minutes since we have a secretary here, and I'm going to start. One of the

00:09things that you mentioned, and admittedly, what we're dealing with

00:14here is a large number of subjects. I want to focus on one that Senator Shaheen

00:19and I have worked together on, and that's the Syria matter. Thank you and

00:24the President for suspending or lifting the sanctions on Syria. I think the next

00:29step, and I think you agree with us that both Syria and Lebanon are

00:35opportunities for us, and we need to explore the opportunities with a careful

00:40eye on what's going on to make sure it stays on track. I think the next step, as

00:46far as I'm concerned, as far as moving Syria forward, is getting personnel on the

00:53ground there, and you and I talked about the possibility of opening the embassy,

00:58and I understand that this isn't a classified setting, but can you maybe

01:04describe for us the challenges of opening the embassy, why we haven't done it to

01:08this point, staying within the bounds of the... Yeah, well, it's entirely driven by

01:14security concerns. By the way, we're not, it's not the transitional authorities. We

01:17don't think they would harm us, but there are other elements on the ground in Syria

01:20that we have to be able to protect our...

01:21That's a parting point. And there are the ability... You don't just have to be able to

01:25get people in, you have to be able to get people out. We have all kinds of

01:28requirements that are there for a reason. If someone is hurt, do you have a

01:30medical evacuation plan? Can you secure a facility from an attack from an armed

01:35group, many of whom are still running loose in the country, unfortunately? It's

01:39one of the fundamental challenges the transitional authority is facing. On the

01:42broader point of Syria, I would say it is... When Syria, if you look at the history of the

01:47region, when Syria is unstable, the region becomes unstable. And this has certainly

01:51been true after the Arab Spring led to the Assad rebellion against Assad, and

01:55that really destabilized the entire region. And then it turned Syria, frankly,

01:59into a playground for jihadist groups, including ISIS and others, that used it

02:02to operate and to destabilize their partners. So you have this change in

02:06December. In my view, which I've discussed with many of you individually, is

02:10the bad news is that the transitional authority figures, they didn't pass their

02:13background check with the FBI, okay? They've got a tough history and one that we

02:17understand. But on the flip side of it is, if we engage them, it may work out, it may

02:21not work out. If we did not engage them, it was guaranteed to not work out. In fact,

02:26it is our assessment that, frankly, the transitional authority, given the

02:29challenges they're facing, are maybe weeks, not many months, away from potential

02:35collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions, basically the country

02:40splitting up. The good news is that there is a Syrian national identity. It is one of

02:44the places in the Middle East where Alawis and Druze and Christians and Sunni and

02:48Shia have lived along, and Kurds, have lived alongside each other underneath the

02:51banner of a Syrian identity until it was broken by a butcher, Assad, who pitted

02:56them against each other. So they face a number of challenges. The first is they are

03:00dealing with deep internal distrust in that country because Assad deliberately

03:03pitted these groups against each other. He claimed to be the protector of the Alawis

03:07and the Christians and pitted them against the Druze or whoever else he wanted to, and the result

03:11is a deep level of distrust. The second is the displacement, upwards of six, seven, eight

03:16million Syrians living abroad. Very successful, by the way, in the countries they go to.

03:20But we need to figure out how we can enable the transitional authority to create an environment

03:26where they come back home, where they can come back to their homes, where they can help

03:29rebuild their economy. But what prompted the President to move quickly on sanctions, because

03:34we had a plan. You know, we engaged with a foreign minister at the UN here in New York.

03:37We gave them a visa to come into the country. We allowed their finance minister to come to

03:41World Bank hearings, or meetings here in Washington, D.C. The next step was I was going to meet

03:46with a foreign minister, and some of you may have met with him already at Munich, but I

03:49was going to meet with him in Turkey at the NATO gathering. But the President had an opportunity

03:55to meet with al-Shahra. And frankly, he made a bold decision, I'll do it. I'll meet with

03:58them under the Saudis and the Turks that encouraged that. And the rationale and the reason is we need

04:04to, right now, the most important thing is that partnering nations, the nations in the region

04:09want to get aid in, want to start helping them. And they can't because they're afraid

04:14of our sanctions. So they don't. The lifting of the sanctions, its most immediate impact

04:18will be to allow neighboring countries to begin to assist transitional authority, to build

04:22governance mechanisms that allow them to actually establish a government, unify the armed forces

04:27under one banner and the like. But I want to be frank, that won't be enough. You know,

04:31the Caesar Act, we can issue waivers. But these waivers, because of expirations on them, are

04:37not going to attract the kind of foreign investment. Ultimately, there's going to have to be something

04:41done congressionally or more comprehensively to ensure that if the right steps are taken,

04:45we can create an environment for private sector growth that begins to provide economic opportunity

04:50to the people of Syria. But one last point I would make is the outcome in Syria will have

04:55a deep impact on what happens inside of Lebanon. Because Lebanon, too, has been hurt by a combination

05:01of clashes at the border, but also they've had to assume responsibility for some of these

05:05Syrian refugees. We believe that, by the way.

05:07So the combination, if you think about a region, let's say two years from now, where Syria and

05:12Lebanon are stable, that opens up incredible opportunities around the region for all kinds of peace

05:18and security and the end of conflicts and wars. Obviously, this is a big task. It's, you know,

05:23big picture thinking, but it's a historic opportunity and one that we are obligated to try to explore and

05:29see if we can make it work.

05:31Thank you. I appreciate that. And I think we're in full agreement with this. And it is a conundrum

05:38as far as the sanctions are concerned. We've got the six months, but as you say, the future,

05:43it's hard to predict the future since it hasn't happened yet, as Yogi Berra used to say. And

05:48there are real issues and risks in the future. We can take it a step at a time. You issued a visa

05:55to the foreign minister. Senator Shaheen and I met with the foreign minister in Munich. You issued him

06:02a visa to come to New York, which is important to meet with other heads of state. Do you have the

06:10ability to do that for the president also?

06:15Sure. I mean, we could, and there may be an opportunity to do that come the General Assembly

06:19of the United Nations. Yeah, probably, probably will be. And I think that's important. Let me,

06:25you know, we do hear a lot of complaining and renting of garments over cuts here and there on

06:35our foreign assistance. But the number you laid out is absolutely stunning that the United States

06:43contributes more to foreign aid than the next 10 countries put together. I mean, that's a stunning,

06:49an absolutely stunning number. So I guess what you're telling us before we feel too guilty about

06:55it, that we need to look around and compliment ourselves for what we are actually doing and have

07:01been doing for a long time. Fair statement? Yeah, there's no doubt. And we want to do it in a

07:05smarter, more targeted way. Yeah. Lastly, let me give you a minute on PEPFAR. People talk a lot

07:13about the cutting in PEPFAR. I think virtually everyone here supports PEPFAR. But you've done

07:19some things to it to make it better. Can you give us a short dissertation on that? Very short, please.

07:2585% of PEPFAR is functional right now. I know there was some hiccups on the payment systems,

07:29not the waivers, the payment systems, because it goes to Treasury. Treasury has to push the money

07:33out. And there were some hiccups, which I acknowledged in conversations with many of

07:36you. But we have fixed that program and the money's flowing. So 85% of PEPFAR is functioning

07:41and is operating. There was reduction in about 15% or individual pieces of the program. But PEPFAR

07:49today stands at 85% of functionality. And, you know, when I hear these stories about all the

07:54money, we're moving money out of the building every single day, 20 million in one day, 35 million

07:59in the other. Money is moving out the door. It's going to somebody. Some of it is going

08:02to pay for work that was conducted in December, January, February, before the freeze. So we

08:07are paying back invoices on some of them. But most of it, a lot of it, is going towards

08:11ongoing programmatic activities that are approved and that we've either through a waiver and or

08:18approval process are moving forward on.

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