In the nature of changes that are taking place within the US State department, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has maintained these were not 'status quo' changes but 'transformative' ones that has had an impact on American foreign policy.

Rice was answering a question from Ohio Republican George Voinovich on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday when she argued that the re-positioning of American diplomats from Europe to India was indeed making a difference to foreign policy.

"Those diplomats who are now serving in India instead of in Berlin are going to make a difference to our foreign policy. And I think, the things we have done are going to make a much bigger difference than perhaps some of the things that are cited in GAO reports," Rice told Senator Voinovich.

At the very outset Rice told the Senate Panel that the State Department, in the process of restructuring, is 'very actively' re-deploying diplomats out of posts in Europe to countries like India with a view to making right some of the balances.

"We are very actively redeploying our diplomats out of posts, for instance, in Europe, to posts in places like India and places in Latin America, places that, frankly, have been under-staffed by American diplomatic personnel. At one point, we had as many people in Germany as we had in India. We are trying to right some of those balances," Rice said.

"We are restructured -- we have restructured our foreign assistance efforts, so that our foreign assistance dollars are going to high-priority tasks and are matched up with the objectives that we are trying to achieve. We have put a great effort into restructuring public diplomacy," she said.