Submitted by John Stauber on
Was it the horrifiic images of US soldiers torturing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners that caused the announcement? If so, no mention was made of it when "Margaret D. Tutwiler, the State Department veteran who was summoned from abroad to overhaul the public diplomacy effort, said Thursday that she was resigning to take a position at the New York Stock Exchange. The move was a blow to the Bush administration's hopes to improve America's image and better articulate its policy goals as the country faces growing opposition to the war in Iraq and to its support of Israel's plan to redraw its boundaries. It also highlighted the administration's difficulty in retaining managers of public diplomacy. Ms. Tutwiler's
predecessor in the job was Charlotte Beers, a former New York advertising executive, who resigned in March of last year. ... An extensive report on public diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim world, released in October, painted a dire picture of American efforts to reach out to foreign countries and
build support for Washington's actions. The bipartisan report, called 'Changing Minds, Winning Peace,' found that America's prestige had dwindled, that its good works were
largely ignored and that it lacked strategic direction in its message."
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