Transcripts For CSPAN3 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20240622

We addressed those to director munoz and greg starr. Today agreed at the meeting to improve coordination and collaboration. At a later date in a meeting with director munoz, she developed colleagues to work with senior colleagues in d. S. We believe the coordination is improving, certainly in washington. We are not able to speak to the relationship in the field. Thank you. I want to see if i can put this in context a little bit. Ambassador hayes, i would like to ask questions from the view of the Inspector Generals office. I understand staffing attica bull increased since 2002. Is that right . Thats correct. In 2009 there was bipartisan support for a drastic increase in troops and civilian personnel. They commonly called that a surge. Construction contracts. I would like to understand how state plans to adapt to such changes. Explaining that the total number of american personnel working for the americans in 2008 to a peak of more than 1340 in fiscal year 2012. Is that all correct . Is that right . Sp i believe thats correct. These numbers reflect an in crease of almost four times in the state department versus afghanistan within fourer eryears. Thats right. Do you know approximately what percentage of those people worked in the ka uh bull embassy . As of the time we visited about 800 americans were housed on the compound. They were talking about a downsizing downsizing. A number of nonamericans work at the embassy as do employees from other agencies. For example, fbi dea department of Homeland Security have employees there who conducted important work at the embassy attica bull. From the Department Perspective the United States government working in afghanistan requires a larger interagency presence at the embassy that fluctuates depending on a variety of factors. Correct . Yes, sir. These fluctuating staff levels must have exacerbated the space challenges experienced by the Kabul Embassy. Is that correct . Sir, thats absolutely correct. As we noted the department has tried to be flexible to surge our number of both state and other agency colleagues when the pill tear surge took place and now to draw down to a sustainable level. We have been looking at environments in afghanistan we have tried to find the best diplomatic diplomatic. What about the overseas building on oh radiations . How did that go into building the Kabul Embassy . Im curious to see your answer on that. I would say it impacted the can you put your mic up . I would say it impacted the project pretty dramaticalliment ta said we knew we were operating in an environment where we would be trying to adjust to changes. Given the constraints, the time we had, we moved forward with awarding the ro project as quickly as we could and incorporate aring changes as quickly as you could. In a perfecter world you know the final number of desks years before you develop a project you develop a design and award it and nothing changes. Thats not the reality in kabul. I think it would have been a waste of time to wish that it was and not continue to react to changes in the best way we could. Its sort of like flying a plane into a building at the same time . A little bit. This the report including since the em ba si reopened in 2002 dynamic and unpredictable operate environment of afghanistan has produced changing Facility Needs that have been outpaced existing capabilities. Do you agree with the statement, Health System munoz . I do agree. Can you provide examples . Again, i think shifting numbers, the fact that the numbers would delay the removal of temporary facilities in the footprint or the path of building permanent facilities these things can complement the execution of the projects. Thats correct. Do you agree with that . I dont agree. Why not . I simply dont. Let me give you an example. The recommendation, Risk Assessment and cost evaluation done to the 2010 project ares that have been referred to the cost savings generated from the value engineering study were a Million Dollars and well over a billion dollars. The risks that were known at that time so in an ideal situation you cant award to two contractors. You award to to one beginning to end. There was a decision that there was an opportunity to gain time and get hardened facilities and made the decision to pov forward with the approach. Is it ideal in an ideal scenario . Absolutely not. That point is va ledment we waited against the primary need of moving the construction project forward as quickly as we could. Ambassador hayes you are from the Inspector Generals office. This in october you offered a report are with troubling findings about egypt and it work in afghanistan. I understand you were not the individual who worked on the report are. Let me direct that. You are the ceo of eges . Yes, sir. There were questions about how passports from third Country Nationals you hired to come to afghanistan afghanistan. Your company held the passports for purchase longerer. Than would have been necessary for purposes raising in persons. Thats a serious thing. Would you agree . Thats a serious trafficking in persons. Absolutely. Let me read. There were Third Party Nationals passports for periods longer than necessary. Report of all tip violations, all of which increase the risk of inappropriate practices that could lead to potential tip violations. I heard you are say now you have the posters up. Youre getting 723 Million Dollars. Seemed like you could put a poster up. Would you agree . Hello . Yes. Why did your company do that . Why were you holding peoples passports . Let me address them separately. Please do. The passports werent held longer than they were required to be held. Its a difficult situation in afghanistan submitting passports and the documentation to administrative intierer yor and they dont turn them around as quickly as wed like. We failed to keep the employees up to date on the status of passports. I can assure you and the committee that we dont hold them any longerer tan we need to. We do keep them advised of status. With regard to the posters we didnt have posters published in nepali and we should have done that. There is no excuser for it. Its been corrected. We souldnt be hearing about these problems in the future. Sir . We should not hear about these problems in the future. Thats correct. That is holding peoples passports longerer than they are suppose ed to. A country paying 723 million placing people in a possible indentured service type situation. Not in 2015. Thats correctment. In fact, the Inspector General reported many workers complained, and i quote it took three to four months to obtain a new passport resulting in a contractor hold ing passports for approximately four months for every sixmonth visa. Again thats a function of the Afghanistan Ministry of interior. We werent holding them longer than we needed to. We worked with the administrative interior to try to turn multiple entries around as quickly as we can. It has improved. We dont the hold passports unnecessarily. Its just the period of time we need to obtain. You are in a position where you are informer president ing people as to the status of the passport. How does that work . Do they come and sea whats happening with my passport . Do you go to them . They advise them, give them data. It is published in the break rooms also. Its interesting. I want to make sure you correct this which was also found. Your company had and i quote an absence of detailed records in the access. Its hard to give information when you dont have the appropriate detailed records. Whats happening with that . Have you improved that . Yes. We have accurate records. We know exactly where everybodys passport is on the entire project. Our committee has operating in iraq are including the way they treated third Country Nationals under circumstances almost resembling a little bit earlierier inden cure ed servants. We all agree this goes against our most basic values as americans. A key part of the oversight responsibility is to ensure that lessons have been learned from past mistakes. We must be diligent in reviewing the performance of the contractors hired let me circle back. I know we were not the one who worked on the report but we would like to follow up. Can we schedule a briefing for our staff to get an update on the Inspector Generals findings in october . Im sure we can find the appropriate time to do so. Can the state department Inspector General review documentation that is going on around the world . I will bring this back to the attention of the auditors who conducted this and see what they can do. If you could con if i were withes that you are going to do it, we would appreciate it. Absolutely. Taung. Now mr. Mica from florida. Thank you. My first question is to the director of the bureau of overseas building operations. I heard you say that they are going to you spoke about opening more desks or something being rabl. The care man asked about what did you achieve. You said the next few days were going to open a facility with more desks. What was that . This month and in the i i cant hear you. In the coming weeks we are opening an unclassified facility facility. I look at your testimony and some of which, it sounds like the desker report are. We have gone from hundreds of desks 900. When complete it will have 1,237 the desks. But we could grow to well, we go to 1487. Then 1771. That breaks out the scope in the current project and the nine and ten. Thats the 1200 and 00 if you combine them with existing facilities. I appreciate the report. People dont understand that i guess the revenue in the country is 2. 5 billion and the budget in the entire country is 7. 2 billion. The rest is given money isnt that correct, for afghanistan . I dont have the exact i do. Thats the exact figurersment the scope of the project is 2. 2 billion. The em if a sis is on desks. Isnt it by the end of the year rethe administration is supposed to have all the troops out . Do you know . By the end of ethics year well have probably one of the best arrays of desks you have ever seen in any post. I was over there and some of the Foreign Ministry folks. Are are we going to be buddy 31 . Does anyone know . If i may this refers back to the point i head that we have tried to be flexible and responsive in terms of staffing. I know. But again, a desk would suppose a person is sitting there. Vacant desks are another matterer. We are building this is a 2. 2 billion dollar project. Its probably the biggest Infrastructure Project if the history of afghanistan. In a country that has revenue of about 2. 5 billion coming in. We are going to have this massive complex of desks. This will be will be the taj pa hall of desks and the complex the taxpayers are getting ripped off for. Your company is britishbasedment. We have a u. S. Subsidiary. We are also quartheadquartered in mclane. Are half from afghanistan and half from where the u. S. Or other countries. Of the project . 1400. 300 are from afghanistan. The rest are brought in. Yes, sir. A little over 600 Nuclear Weapon leez and 400 u. S. I was out with some of the troop it is if helmut province. They were looking at a School Building and said this is the joke of the province. The americans pay three, four times what it would cost for this. We appreciate that but it was the joke of the province. What would youest hate the premium you are paying for. The locals told me we are getting the american taxpayer is getting ripped off on the projects. We are not doing that kind of work. Finally, i do have a letter, mr. Chairman. I visited one of the posts recently. A major post in western europe. Mr. Issa and i worked at the end of his tenure going on post benghazi visits to some of the complexes. Trying to avoid another benghazi. One of the simp things we found, thats a huge project. A money pit. One of the simple things we found was the lack of surveillance cameras. And their ability to have are high definition. And get those replaced. When i visited within the last two weeks one of our major posts of western europe. I found one of the facilities didnt have those surveillance cameras. They said i said was the reason money. They said, no it was the bureaucrat tick acquisition process. I want to talk about the small things that make a big difference in security. I will recognize the i will answer the question for you in writing if you would like. I would like that. We appreciate to seeing that. Well recognize mr. Lynch who is traveled extensively to afghanistan. Spent quite a bit of type there. Appreciate his efforts and sacrifice. Hes now recognized for five minutes. Thank you. I know a lot of members have been in and out of kabul and afghanistan afghanistan. One of the traveling aspects of our people working there is not so much the security and embassyimportant. But from my experience in and out has been the challenge. Going from bag ram to kabul airport getting to the embassy. Is there any plan to have a helo pad . Well have are 1500, 1700 desks. A lot of contractor tors, a thousand employees. Im concerned about shg going sideways where the embassy might be over done. We have had incidents. The airport where my security staff had to push people away from the suburban i was in. They were up set about something. I couldnt figure it out. Tlgs a danger going from the airport to the embassy. We had a convoy. And a vehicle borne ied recently. I have given up counting how many attacks on the kabul airport by the taliban. They are focused on that corridor. If the we are taking any precaution at all about getting people in and out of that area and again do we have an evacuation plan if things get bad there and we have to get our people out . Congressman, thank you for the question. Part of our job and we do it everywhere in the world is to make sure we have adequate evacuation plans for personnel and not a single type of evacuation plan but multiple different plans. We could do short draw downs of certain personnel. We could lower our presence or they go to lets talk about kabul. We work closely with the department of defense. Okay. We are many the mids of upgrading because of the surge and the number of people left behind in the military leaving this large part. We are in the midst of another revision of the evacuation plan. The ne o plan, we call it. We will ensure we have the ability to get our people out of that country given the size it wont be overnight. This is not like evacuating a 200person embassy. We are exception that willy aware of the danger of the route ta particularly white between the embassy and airport. We have been using a mix of air 57bd ground movements by appropriate. The embassy reviews how to move people and the safest way to do it. We have i think because of our efforts not suffered the same types of attacks yet. We will do our best and use a mix of air and ground movements. I would say given the history here we should expect further attacks on the embassy and on the airport as well. We are spread out between kabul airport. We have properties there where we are spread ott. The distance is two taf miles i think, at least. Probably longer from the u. S. Embassy to kabul airport. The roads arent good. I im concerned about getting peep out of there. Practical stuff. I dont have enough time to go over the contract issue. I think we need to get back on the ground in kabul and go over the documents and figure out what the cost increase the delta between what we expected to see and what we are seeing thousand in terps of cost. Im not assured by the statements that the quality of the work is good and we are on schedule and under budget. We heard from general williams about the baghdad situation. The quality of the work was good. We are under budget on schedule. And then when he was gone the budget went from im happy its done but in the meantime we lost some Good American ss electrocuted because of cold violations and Electrical Systems that werent grounded. Things like that. Im concerned that we are having a repeat performance here. And we did let the contractor know this was in afghanistan. Afghanistan has never been a peaceful environment. We shouldnt be shocked that war broke out. Theres been a war for 10, 12 years. Beyond that what its always been a tough environment. When we get a bid we expect it to be baked into the cost. This is a difficult environment. I appreciate you helping the committee with the work. I will yield back. Now the gentleman from michigan i for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thanks to the panel. Since in afghanistan and kabul several types. Mogs recently was late 2010. I remember staying in trailererers and having meetings and shipping containers and temporary facilities. I assume these are still at the embassy and in use. Thats the case. How secure are they . I would tell you they certainly dont come to the same level of security as a permanently built building. We have taken steps to surround them with either concrete barriers to limit shrapnel. We have predetonation shields so the more morer tar or rocket predetonates and sandbags catch shrapnelment we have over a hundred feet of setback from the perimeter walls. High perimeter walls around them well guarded and reinforced. We have bunkerers. To the extent we have to use the temporary temporaries we are aware of the vulnerabilities they come with and do what we can to mitigate them until we can bring permanent buildings online. Mr. Courts i understand gao recommended the state establish Security Standards for the temporary facilities and they did not accept the recommendations. Is that correct . The state department partly concurred with the recommendation. They didnt fully accept it. What were the problems with fully accepting it . The state department would argue the office of Security Policy board standards apply to all facilities overseas including permanent and temporarier facilities and those are the standards that they hold themselves to. In practice they would tell you the only buildings that meet the standards are permanent structures. As we noted when state contracted for the temporary buildings, they contracted for buildings that had differing levels of security and didnt have overhead cover. El i would note in 2008 the state department notified the congress that they needed additional funds because the threat in kabul required overhead cover for the temporary facilities that in 2009 they contracted for temporary buildings that didnt specify the need for overhead cover. Let me give an opportunity for ms. Munoz or mr. Starr to answer from your perspective on the question of not accepting all standards and with where youre at now. The recommendation to have different standards for temporary structures struck us as very strange. They are different facilities. Well, the problem is invariably when i have seen standards for temporary structures or interim facilities its a lowerering of the standard. What im afraid of oh is by virtue of the fact that a trailerer is a trailerer well is have lower levels of standards rather than striving to meet the real standard. An example is for many years all we had is construction trailererers. We have developed a heavilier armored trailerer we can now ship into faces. We are using them in adonna and peshower which allows us to reach the permanent standard. It is our goal to are meet permanent standards to the extent we can and not water down the standards for lower level standards for interim structures. Ms. Munoz. I noticed you moved and i dont want to cut you off. I would assume that in 2009 im told state acknowledged that personnel should be housed in permanenter hardened facilities. We are dealing with reality. Our concerns today are the basis of the questioning of how this is been a cost over run and continues the length of the process. But we have a large number of american personnel using temporary facilities in kabul. I appreciate the answers that you want to go and strive toward the permanent level. But these arent permanent. Today seem to be existing an awful long time. I guess i have heard your answer that you dont plan to develop standards for temporary housing. So knowing my time has expired mr. Chairman, i would contend that the biggest question is how do we finish this project, complete it on time and make sure it meets the standards necessary . I yield back. Do either of you want to respond to that . The over use of temporary facilities is a deep concern. Mr. Chairman, at the time ta the department and the administration needed to surge people in. At the particular start of the period in 2009 and 2010 some are not what we are facing tau. We have had other buildings around us that grew in height. That presented a different type of fret. We started surrounding buildings with cement walls and sandbags. We had not been subject to incoming fire either morer tars or rockets. Even today it is a very infrequent type of attack. Infrequent or not we have taken Counter Measures by putting overhead power on temporary facilities building walls around then. Putting bunkerers in. Making sure we have a radar system thats a duck and cover Warning System to give people the most amount of time. It goes to the point that we have to serve this certain places and. We had to go in with trailerers and offices. We modified them to try to mimic our permanent standards give them setbacks bullet resistance, shrapnel resistance. At a certain point we have no choice but use temporary structures while awaiting permanent structures. The only problem i have is thats not true and it was in these report ares. I can go into specificity but for you to suggest you have done those things in afghanistan that aint true. It is not true. We try to do it as best we can. But you didnt. You did not. No. I beg to differ. Believe me. If we get these two, myself you and whoever else. Thats not true. I will show you. They have pictures. Think this goes to a bigger policy. How to win and keep afghanistan. Now recognize the gentle woman from new jersey for five minutes. Thank you. Thank you for your indulgence in the time allotted to get through some of the interesting questions. Thank you to the panel. Whats the condition of the wall that was a subject of a report i read last night . Is it complete . Is there a portion left . I will turn to my colleague mr. Starr. Ta wall is on design. And will be executed in the context of the larger construction contract. I appreciate the question. The issue are of a request for modifications to the wall came up in the i. G. Report are. And the question about why this couldnt be done immediately. The committee and folks need to understand we have an active construction project that included construction of a wall. I understand that. In the context of the larger project. I understand. Those modifications will be made in that context. The wall was considered significant in keeping them safe and secure. I have not been there. Whats keeping that facility and that compound safe . There is ale wall. There are existing walls composed of things like barriers that are 11, 12, 13 feet high. Cement walls, steel panels. There is to area around the facility that doesnt have a wall. There were interim security measures in place. Not easily compromised at all. We believe there are newer and better only thes available today. Thank you. I appreciate you speaking to me first. I have a question to both of you. Ms. Munoz, whats the role of the overseas building. The Real Property manager for the u. S. Department of state for all of the facilities overseas. So we design build buy lease sell and obviously construction is if our rel of responsibility. Tluz we kpe cute based on two important factors. One is the number of desks or beds. The number of people who will be if the faft. We worked with our colleagues to understand the security situation and make sure think building we develop meets all the Security Standards they require. Whats your overall responsibility . I am the assistant secretary for Diplomatic Security. I advise others in the department on the levels we must have have. There is a security and Law Enforcement organization responsible for visa fraud, violations and the security of personnel domestically and abroad. With regard to security issues, who has the final say . Who has the final say in do this because it will secure facilities that are being built. Is it obo or you . Who breaks the tie if there is a disagreement . If there is a disagreement i would say i win. You win okay. My understanding is from the i. G. Report that theres been a tension between o. B. O. And your entity. Where arer we on that . I understand theres been a senior Level Study Group or seen senior Level Task Force in place to address these. What does that mean . How is it working . I think well divide that question up. The tension you describe is a natural tension. The obo project director on the ground is trying to execute a project thats been agree ared to with all the parties which has already been confirmed to heat all the current security rierpts. To the degree that in the execution uh of the billion dollar project changes are are recommended throughout. The teams have to work closely together to understand the impact of the kaengs will have on the execution cost and schedule of the longterm project. I would say at the working level there is tension because on the d. S. Side they are thinking this is what we need. Do et now. On the obo side we are thinking, okay we have it to work if the larger project. The working groups and toes things are really worked out and decided at the higher level. If we see tinges moving forward, urgent security that needs resolution but there isnt perfect clarity about which we should do and when. Thats when i sit down with assistant secretary starr where casey jones sitting with his colleague Wayne Ashbury and we work these things out. The time of may i ask your time has expired. Thank you. Assistant secretary starr while i have you here im concerned about the state departments proposal to build their own Training Facility in fort picket in blackstone virginia. I want to know in georgia there are 91 different agencies. Why is that not sufficient for the state Department Security service . We try to do the type of training we want. We want to train. It is not they have ex pressed willingness to make accommodations. They said they would build the driving courses, mock embassies state department have primary compare over that. There is an acknowledgment it would need to be done. That could be done at half the cost of what you are proposing to spend to have a facility in blacksburg, virginia. Isnt that the case . Thors. Thats two different thingsment me and people on the committee concerned about the state department being good stewards of the taxpayer dollars, we see a cost discrepancy. So you can disagree but i think we see its there. So you were going to continue. There is a gao report coming out that will talk to the numbers that we have put down and how they have been carefully verified and the fact that the numbers havent been as carefully verified. More importantly sir, it is a question that we need something in this area are. We will be moving thousands of people which can take the type of weaponry we are required to use as was seen in our defense of the consulate in harat and other places. It is not the type of training fletsy does. We are more closely aligned to the military and what we must do in many cases than Law Enforcement. We believe that fort picket is the better answer. Why being close to washington. The other agencies presumably would like to have people close. Why cant people train in georgia if you had what you needed. Seems to me that wouldnt be a big deal to put people on a course and come back. They are not commuting from the department. They would do training and get back. The training is for officers, Diplomatic Security agents. Most importantly it allows us to train with partners such as the u. S. Marine corps battalion and do what we need to do together. They will have a difficult time getting down to georgia to do the training exercises. Fletsy doesnt currently on their space they have not acknowledged this. They cannot handle the weapons we use. They are looking at getting another military facility 30 or 60 miles ss fletsee georgia in order to use weapons. That would not be worth doing it. I would suggest looking at the gao study. I will look at that. We dont believe right thousand whats your cost that the state department has provided about how much the cost fluctuated a great deal. So what will be the cost of the taxpayer for fort picket . 413 million. Okay. So thats gone from 460 907, 960. Now we are back down. How long has that been the estimate . Independentest pats conducted by gsa are Building Contractor have brought it if at the 413 million. We will be conducting oversight over this. Theres been examples. Several billion dollars of state department not accounted for during secretary clintons tenure. We want to make sure we are getting bang for the buck for the taxpayer. I yield back. Now we recognize the gentlewoman from the server gin islands for five minutes. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Uh i had a question about the surge and the pill tear civilian personnel. And the need it created for Immediate Office space in the time we were having the surge. I know this presented a challenge for the state department requiring the necessary amount of space to be built quickly, safely. Not doing the over runs and the mess take made in iraq where we had a huge compound that was built and we immediately down sized the number of personnel that was there. In ta instance we would be having a hearing about cost over runs. In this instance we are having a hearing about something else. Potentially. So ms. Munoz do you agree the state department needed to be careful not to over build when planning for the Kabul Embassy . I would agree but i would argue we have been careful not to over build. In the end we will not have over billed. We will have built the to the number of desks and beds, the requirements that we need. Around the world in afghanistan, most u. S. Government employees not only work at the Embassy Compound but they live there. Right is this so all the support services that we take for granted on a daily basis here in the United States must be provided on that Embassy Compound as well in order to support the employees that have to remain in that compound. Correct is this. Thats absolutely right. Whether its dining cleaning facilities. Everything that you would do in a small city is done essentially on the same compound. Okay. To meet the increased requirement in the fastest way possible, hence you have the temporary facilities. Correct . Correct. What benefits do the temporary facilities provide . Does it better my sense is i would think it would help you plan better for the permanent because you have something in which people are which people are living in and functioning in on a temporary basis so you can accurately plan for the permanent structure. I think thats right but i think fundamentally it provides facilities in which all of the staff can live and work until the permanent facilities are done. Okay. And id like to hear from some of the other witnesses, if they think thats correct or not correct. Mr. Gulino . I do believe its correct. Mr. Starr what are your thoughts on that . Yes, i think it gives us an idea of whether or not we can support the platform. I would say that we dont get the efficiencies out of the temporary structures that we can get out of our permanently built structures and i think thats one of the things obo factors in their planning. In building the permanent structures to house all of the additional personnel and planning that properly, was using the temporary facilities a mistake . I would argue that it wasnt an option not to use those temporary facilities. Its the basic assumption that bias based on National Security priorities the u. S. Government needed to be in afghanistan at the levels at which the administration has agreed on the date they agreed to have them. Exactly. The use of temporary facilities was an inescapable fact. The second priority was continue to build the permanent facilities as quickly as possible. Those were the two things that we were doing. So the express concern about gao and the ig regarding the use of the temporary facilities you would say what to that . I think we all have concerns about using temporary facilities. But as director muniz has said when faced with the situation that we need to surge people, it was our choice, and i think we all have concerns about the length of time that we use temporary facilities. But this particular project, because we were having to build on the same site essentially as using them, was very complex. So the challenge is to build temporary facilities but to move quickly into the permanent ones at the right period of time in the challenged environment in which you are in afghanistan . Exactly. Okay. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time. Well now recognize the gentleman from georgia for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Courts, ill start with you. In planning projects such as this on this scale, are value engineering studies important . Yes, they are. Thats a very wellestablished practice that both the federal government and the private sector have used for decades to redo cost while still maintaining the quality and the performance of this project, especially one of this size. And so it is required by omp . Yes, it is. Let me ask you. Value engineering studies are sometimes referred to as Cost Containment studies because thats what theyre intended to do maintain costs and to make sure we dont have cost overruns, correct . Yes. Mr. Starr its my understanding that the state Department Overseas building operations didnt follow Cost Containment policies in this project. Is that correct . Mr. Starr . I think director muniz would have a better answer to that. My understanding is that certain ones were done. Certain ones may not have been. Im the director of bobo. I understand that. And congratulations. Thank you. As i mentioned in my testimony, we conduct those. Theyre valuable. We did not conduct it in the 2009 project. But you agree they are valuable . Yes, absolutely. Thank you, thank you. Mr. Starr, can i get back to you . My colleague from florida earlier talked about the proposed facility being built near ft. Pickett, georgia instead of utilizing the facilities that already exist at fletc and glenco georgia. Is that correct . Yes. I do feel duty bound to say we were brought up to discuss afghanistan. But what were brought up to discuss is these cost overruns and the state department. As all of us know, when youre in a hole, you stop digging. Were in a hole here and we need to stop digging, and we dont let we dont need to let happen what has already happened before. We want to learn from our experiences. Now you said earlier that the cost of this new facility would be 413 million if it were built in ft. Pickett is that correct . Yes, sir. How did it get down to 413 million . The department of state started this project looking at a hard skills training site only. At some point the Department Also asked a question should we instead of just using it for hard skills combine all Security Training soft and hard skills . Gsa was asked to look at that and gsa told us in order to do both it would cost about 900 million or more. We went back after that and said thats not supportable. We dont require the colocation of hard and soft skills. Concentrate solely on the hard skills Security Training. Thats when the costs were revised and it is now 413 million. Its been said that the greatest threat to our National Security is our National Debt and i believe that to be true. And im very concerned about that. You say youre not here to discuss this but youre here to discuss kabul. Well were here to discuss cost overruns and the waste of taxpayers money. Theres no better example of this. You have a facility in fletc that trains over 91 agencies, yet youre saying you have to have one of your own. You cant utilize that. I have trouble understanding that when fletc says they can do it at half the size. A, we dont believe they can do it at half the cost. The secret service has its own higher skill Training Facility than fletc offers. The air marshals have higher skills Training Centers. The u. S. Marshals have higher skilled Training Centers than whats offered at fletc. You believe that you can spend 416 million and built another facility, a standalone facility, yet we already have one thats available. Is there a report by omb about this . Omb has looked at this. Can you provide me a report with them . The gao report is coming out very soon. Will there be a report with omb . Im not omb. I cant answer that. Would you work with me to request that from omb . We have made a decision it is in the best interest of all of us to move ahead with ft. Pickett. A request for omb would have to come from mr. Starr, im not going to accept that. Im going to continue to fight this because i think youre wasting taxpayers money. I think you have a perfectly fine facility that be utilized without wasting taxpayers money like the state department has done time and time again. I do not ever want to waste taxpayer money, sir. We have to build 90 of the facilities that we would have to build would have to be built in georgia as well as fort pickett pickett. Georgia does not have the facilities that we need. They have shown they can do that at a lower cost. No, sir they have not. I think the outcoming gao report will show that. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield the remay understandinder of my time. Thank you, mr. Chair and to the committee thats speaking here today. Ambassador hays, according to the 2014 report egis billed the government without required documentation and with inadequate invoices. What steps has the state department taken to make sure the logistic steps are taken before the issue i cant speak to the findings of that team, but i certainly can get back to you through our legislative assistant and give you the information that you require. So you have read the audit . I have not read that audit, no. Are there any other who reads the audit once its issued . The senior staff of the oig. Individual teams dont read each others audits unless theyre conducting an inspection of that specific area. Ambassador, let me go to a statement that you have said. You highlighted in your statement the lack of coordination between the bureaus of Diplomatic Security and overseas building operations together a management Oversight Team between the senior staff of obo and ds. To the best of my knowledge, they have done the latter. Director muniz has said what she has done on the first issue. If i could add on the master planning, id like to clarify a point that was brought up earlier by the oig about the recommendation for a master plan and the fact that that recommendation remained open. We have a master plan for kabul. The recommendation is still open because we are waiting for funding approval from congress. We notified the oig of that fact in april of this year, so the plan is complete but the execution of the plan will not be approved until we receive that approval from congress. I just wanted to clarify on that issue. I thank you for that. I want to go back to you, director muniz. I really want a sense of assurance. There has been, and you must admit, some concern about the operations in the past. Moving forward, are you positioned and empowered to ensure that these concerns about lack of documentation master planning because thats a concern. What im very passionate about right now is in your role and youve identified a couple of times that you are the director and you have this responsibility. Where do you see us correcting these things of the past . And you cant just keep doing the same things in expect a different result, so i really want you on the record saying as the director, how are you going to correct these concerns that we have . Thank you for the question. I think that we have very strong master planning programs, and ive argued that we have planned, designed and built on those master plans in kabul. My argument in kabul is simply that in these environments that are ever changing, we have to have a different approach, and we do have a different approach. We cant develop a master plan at the beginning of the project that was awarded in 2009 and expect that that master plan remains static. What we are building in kabul on the Embassy Compound is what we need, and we have evolving requirements that reflect later phases of a master plan so i think we have in place the planning mechanisms and the budgeting mechanisms to let Congress Know the direction that were going in in such a kinetic environment, which is so unusual. Earlier, the director had agreed to give us the original plan and then the most updated plan. Whats a reasonable time that youd provide those to us . Let us get back to you after this. Those plans exist, so in theory we could get it to our folks in the department to get those to the committee, but i know theres a long queue of documents making their way to you, but well try to get those to you as quickly as possible. That would be great. Im trying to look for a specific date. At what point do we say, hey youre not fulfilling what you said you were going to do . Weve had these challenges in the past. Im just trying to get you to agree to some sort of date. You pick it but i want it to be somewhat reasonable and timely. Why dont we get those documents to you within the month . By the end of july, is that fair . Within a month. Its the 9th of july. It would mean the 9th of august. Okay. By the 9th of august and well invite you as well. Thank you. Thank you. I will now recognize the gentleman from oklahoma mr. Russell, for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Starr, youre a smart man with a lot of security knowledge. As is a footprint more secure if it is smaller or larger . A footprint, sir . Uhhuh. A larger one is going to require a lot more resources to secure not necessarily more secure or less secure. Our consultate we have protected. The embassy in kabul, it was a secure building. It had to be breached by the roof. When we went in there in the early days i recall seeing george bushs picture on the wall with mr. Shultz the secretary of defense, calendars on the wall. I guess this notion that we have to have 5500 people on a compound is just a mystery to me. How do you justify that . Sir, allow me to turn to my counterpart. Im the one thats given the task to secure them. We appreciate ms. Muniz and she has been gracious to allow us to beat up on her in previous testimony, but she has also stated clearly here in this hearing that in a dispute, which the gao and the ig have laid out, on Security Matters you went. Its a deferment. So now what i see is this no desire to streamline infrastructure. We see a support of the support and then the more support comes in, it has to be supported and then it has to be secured and the logistics of that and now we have 5500 people and were guarding them with gerkas. A lot of respect for them. We have created a situation where this thing is massive. You, by your own admission in talking about herrat, how can we justify this enormous footprint . Sir, i think the point is that we obviously have a different set of requirements for professional staff in kabul than we did in harrat. We had ten or a dozen. In kabul we of course have a much larger direct population of people who are doing the work of diplomacy and development. Youre going to have the Security Cooperation office come under the embassy umbrella. You have other agencies that are going to stop being selfsupporting in a current stage. In the Current Situation in kabul, if you have 700 people doing professional work, youre going to have thousands more that are providing the Life Support Services of a small security, who are providing movement security. In the early days all the way up to 2009 we had an embassy there that was secured by a Marine Security company. By the way, they do that. Thats part of their mission the marines. They secure embassies. I mean this is no revelation to anyone on this panel and yet were talking about this in insatiable need for size and girth. I guess my question you stated in your own testimony, mr. Blanc, that the department of state needs to be expeditious expeditious. I think there are a few things. First of all, there are a number of security challenges in afghanistan that are obviously not normal im aware of them. I lived in a safe house in kabul. Im very familiar with the security structure and the dangers in afghanistan. The security situation has evolved over time. When i first lived in afghanistan in 2002 the situation was very different. Now the security requirements for movement, we talked about the road theo the airport, the situation is very different, and so inherently the support requirements have also changed. I would though challenge, sir, the idea that we have an insatiable need for girth. The surge is now drawing back. Its going to be growth from other agencies coming in under the state department umbrella so i believe that the support services that we have, both life support and the security support, are necessary. I dont think that they can be replaced in kabul at this time. But theyre selfperpetuating. Theyre selfperpetuating. The larger you increase the footprint, the more need to increase the footprint. At some point its easy to see how its happened. Theres not been this strategic master plan. Then we hear from ms. Muniz you said we cant develop such a plan. My reply to that is nonsense. Develop the plan and then adjust it. We do that all the time at state, in the military in congress. I know thats shocking to some people that we actually planned. I argued that is precisely what we did. I did not say that was not necessary or possible. You had mentioned that the regular plans, that the standard plans, were not applicable. You said that the International Construction and Safety Standards needed to be taken into account. How can those possibly be any better or different or weve not seen these International Construction and Safety Standards. How would that deviate from standard embassy designs and then you enhance it later . Im not sure which document youre referring im not. Im picking from your testimony today and i quote International Construction and Safety Standards. Im as baffled as it by you are. What would those be . I actually chair the overseas Security Policy board with the heads of the other agencies that work overseas. I would say that in our normal buildings that we build around the world, and we incorporate those standards in every building that obo builds, were in a situation where weve been asked to stay in what is essentially a war zone. And that presents challenges even on top of the regular overseas Security Policy board standards. These are some of the things weve had toed adjust to as the im sorry. Thank you to all the panelists. I just want to talk really about the security concerns that we have in highthreat kabul. The embassy has consistently remained one of the most highthreat environments for our overseas personnel. And in february in 2014 a vehicle borne explosive device devesicleddevice device killed two department of defense employees. So id just like to ask mr. Gulino your employees are on the front lines every day in this area. Can you give us an overview of the Security Services your personnel provide to the embassy in this highthreat area, and can you explain how egis personnel maintain a secure environment with changing and very challenging to say the least, political dynamics . Yes, id be pleased to. Let me first say the security strategies, the Strategic Plan for security, is developed by our customer the department of state. We hire the very best people and we deploy them according to the plan, which is everevolveing, every changing based upon the conditions in kabul at any given time. The services we provide are primarily in six areas. We provide static security, which is like going through a gate when you come into the building here. We provide mobile security which is assisting in movement of people. We provide convoy protection. We have aeds that are handled by trainers. We provide elu, which is basically elite protection for people like yourself that come in. We have teams that provide protection to them. And then lastly and importantly we have Emergency Response teams, and those teams are positioned at strategic locations. And theyre typical in a vehicle, and they have a combination of emts as well as guards, security personnel. Importantly, we train our people so that theres someone on that team who is responsible for command and control and makes the decisions as to what the appropriate response should be based upon a call or a situation that comes in, so those are the six areas that we provide services. I want to just say that we do have a mixture of the three groups that i mentioned. They are quite good soldiers. I would like to be able to say duty of care to our employees is of utmost importance. Yes, we did have some posters up initially, but we take care of them. When that earthquake hit the first thing we did was pull all of our employees. We give them phones. We give them contact back to nepal. For the ones that were in training in jordan, we gave them phone cards so they could call. We determined that there were a few people that needed to go out immediately. Fortunately, there were no lives of family members lost nor of employees on leave. We raised over 30,000 to give to those in employees to repair their homes. Good. Id like to ask ambassador hays and mr. Courts, given what you have learned in your investigations in your oversights, id like to hear what security recommendations would you put forward . What ideas do you have that we could improve our security in this area . Ambassador . The dynamic in a war zone is extremely difficult. The changing numbers of people going in and out the policy dynamic effecting the personnel in country all of these play into the need for solid planning or worstcase scenario planning for very close collaboration between the policy and the implementers of both construction and security. We believe that it is important to have long range dynamic planning. That means that not only do you have a plan out there, but you also are working with others that are involved in this constantly to make sure that that plan meets all the requirements on the ground and that you put security first. My time has expired. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you. I will now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Madame director im going to start with you to say thank you. The last time you were here i think mr. Russell talked about the fact that it could be contentious, would be maybe an adjective or verb to describe what went on that particular day, but i also want to acknowledge the fact that after that hearing you made a personal attempt to come and not only brief me and my personal staff but to follow up in a time when all the headlines are about a lack of cooperation, so i just want to say thank you. Thank you. So mr. Courts let me come to you because mr. Starr is characterizing your new gao report as going to be giving him an aplus is kind of the direction from his testimony a few moments ag. Would you characterize the new report that youre going to be putting out as something that we want to publish, i guess . Lets put it that way. Congressman we have not released that report yet to our original requesters, and i cant discuss it until that report is actually released. Mr. Starr knows whats going to be in that report . He has seen whats in a draft report, yes. Would you characterize his testimony as it being aplus and as being accurate . Congressman i cant comment on that as a result the report has been released yet. All right. When will that be released . Were still working that out with our client. Mr. Starr let me come to you. Youve seen the report or youve at least seen your draft. Is your characterization of it giving you a glowing report . Is that accurate . I think the report is fair and balanced report, sir. I dont think its an aplus for anybody. I think that its best that we wait until the report come out and judge where were going on the merits of the report. So your reference to it was only referencing a short portion of that as it relates to your ability to provide a secure location. Was that your testimony . I guess heres what im buying we have all kinds of testimony going back and forth, mr. Starr. As mr. Russell was talking about, weve got this big footprint. Were bringing people in in helicopters into the facility currently. Is that correct . Because it is too dangerous, other modes of transportation . Yes. If it is indeed that dangerous and the core mission of the state department is to diplomacy, how do you reconcile the two . I mean because if it is so dangerous that we cant get out and do our diplomacy are we not just building a military structure in afghanistan . Congressman, thats a very fair question. Jared, i think has some comments on this as well, but i will say one thing. The responsibility to protect our people at our embassy i dont deny that. The director knows im with her on that particular thats one portion of the mission. But thats not the core mission, though, mr. Starr. Exactly. The core mission is to conduct diplomacy. Beyond securing the embassy, we have to have programs that get people out. We have to get them to these meetings. Do you understand how the American People have a real hard time with this . Were spending a billion dollars to build a facility that we have to helicopter people in and out of and theyre saying why are we doing that. Why would we do that, mr. Starr . I would argue that we are conducting diplomacy. That is exactly the point. We are conducting diplomacy. There are some routes that get more and less dangerous and our colleagues take very good care to make sure we have the best of security in those instances, but i can assure you that our pp get out. Give me the top three diplomatic Success Stories you can share then. What would be the headlines in the Washington Post tomorrow . First and foremost i would say its the Successful Transition from president karzai to the new president. That was not diplomatic in its nature. Yes, sir, it was. So that had everything to do with the embassy . The United States embassy was deeply endangeredjnger engaged in that success. All right. What are the other two . Again i dont think either of those countries would deny that the United States and our embassies in both of those countries have played critical facilitying role inging inging facilitating roles. We have made a substantial longterm success in terms of some of those things i mentioned in my initial testimony of helping create a sustainable afghan government, which is able to provide Core Services for its people, which is standing up its military, which is obviously a department of defense role but also an embassy role, which is providing educational services, which is providing health services. Well follow up. My time has expired, but i would welcome your follow up. I recognize the gentleman from virginia. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Welcome to our panel. Mr. Blanc, im going to ask you to pull the mic closer so we can hear you. Obviously its a balanceingeing act, security and diplomacy. On the other hand sometimes security can circumscribe our ability to carry out our mission in a country because security can become so tight. Would that be a fair characterization from your point of view . Sir, i think thats absolutely a fair characterization and were constantly looking for that right balance. Thats going to vary from country to country. Is it not . Yes. Our challenge in kabul, afghanistan, is different from month to month. Speaking of which, when mr. Lynch and i traveled together to kabul several years ago, we stayed on the compound but i think there were like little wooden buildings that we stayed in, but they certainly werent reenforced. We were on the Embassy Compound. At least at that time we werent overly concerned about our personal security. There had been some lobbing of grenades or rocket shells into the compound as i recall, but not while we were there. Either that or maybe the embassy wasnt overly concerned about congress. Has the situation deteriorated so much that thats what were concerned about now . The situation in kabul has substantial changed over time. Starting in 2002, where it was relatively permissive to a number of years it is a different stage right now. The government of afghanistan at the end of last year took full responsibility for the security of their country. They are exercising that responsibility quite well. They are standing in the face of a vicious onslaught, but there is still a real, you know, result in terms of everybodys personal security americans, afghans, as that transition settles in. Yes, sir, the situation has changed. Actually the verb i used deteriorated . Deteriorated, yes, sir. You would agree with that . Okay. Taliban networks have shown themselves to be dedicated to trying to attack western and afghan institutions in kabul starting a couple of years ago and it has reached quite a crescendo. The numbers of attacks and the different types of attacks have been very difficult to handle. In some cases they have been very successful. In many cases they have been unsuccessful either through efforts of the kabul government Kabul Security forces. Sometimes it is western Security Forces like ours that have protected the people and made sure their people were safe, but it is undeniable that the number of attacks has grown tremendously in kabul. Thank you. I think thats something that these two underscored in terms of the environment were facing in kabul. Ms. Muniz, mr. Courts in his testimony today recounts the comments of a state Department Official explaining the challenge bewe faced with the surge in afghanistan. State was not going to act on any recommendation that would delay getting the contracts awarded and the facilities built. Is that a fair statement from your point of view . Would you elaborate . I think thats a fair statement. I would qualify only that we wouldnt do i think you used the word or the quote used the word any. Thats right. There are some recommendations that we might have considered worthwhile to delay the award of a project. I would put security among the highest requirements but the goal has been to press forward with the construction of the facility. My time is running out too. The security situation has deteriorated in kabul not just for us, but for everybody. Thats tragic and needs its own examination. In your view, ms. Muniz the decisions we made and executed is the compound more secure today than it was, say, when i was there back in 09, 010 . I believe it is significantly more secure. The ability to move 900 people into safe Office Buildings is a huge milestone. In november nearly 300 into another residential facility, so i would say yes. Thank you. My time is up, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Now i recognize the gentleman from tennessee. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I would like to place a few comments on the record. First of all, i want to say that i strongly agree with mr. Micah in talking about how ridiculous the waste of all this is the excessiveness of all this is and he mentioned the taj mahal and the fiscal times reported this year the state department allocated 1. 11 billion to cover the 2009 2010 construction costs. The embassy will have 1487 desks. This is in a country, that according to another publication, says were reducing our afghan presence from 32,000 troops to 9800 by years end with half that number remaining in 2015, only a small force to protect the Kabul Embassy. I mean, were practically all leaving, but were spending almost 2. 2 billion. This is in a country that has a total gdp of just slightly over 20 billion. 20. 3 billion. 30 million population. The people over there have to get by on an average of less than 2 a day. They must just be astounded. They must be laughing at us on how much money weve been spending over there. You know, ive seen for years the easiest thing in the world to do is to spend other peoples money. I remember edward rindell who later became governor of pennsylvania and later became the National Democratic chairman, when he was mayor of philadelphia, in testimony before the house ways and Means Committee many years ago, he said government does not work because it was not designed to. Theres no incentive to save money so much of it is is squandered. Theres no incentive for people to work hard so many do not. That was his quote and certainly this seems to me that mega hundreds of millions have been squandered and are still be squandered over there. Last month david keen, who spent 27 years as head of the American Conservative Union and is now the opinion editor of the washington times, he wrote this at our failed attempts at nation building. He said, as a result of our wars and our attempts of nation building in the middle east, there is a generation of Young Americans who have never known peace, a decade in which thousands of our best have died or maimed with little to show for their sacrifices. Our enemies have multiplied and our National Debt has skyrocketed. And i think that all of the people who have any responsibility or role at all in going along with the construction of this massive project in afghanistan should be ashamed. I think its very sad what weve heard here today. And i just wanted to place those comments on the record. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Well know recognize the gentleman from illinois. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Id like to ask about the Inspector Generals report from october. Mr. Chairman id like to request that the report actually be entered into the record. Without objections, so ordered. Thank you. Thank you for being here today. In this report from october the Inspector General raised a number of problems and id like to get your responses to some of these. The state departments contract requires egis to maintain documents of training and security clearance. 49 required personnel training or investigation documents. Can you explain why the documentation was missing . Early on when we took that contract over, there were took an existing work force over and it took a little bit of time to get all the documentation and the records right. The entire program up to wps standards, which ewe did. We worked in concert with the state department. All of our records are up to date. The state department comes in and addudits our records. The same exact record that exists in kabul exists in our washington office. They found one discrepancy in a document. It was added in after that. So the documentation thats complete now. Theres nobody that goes out to afghanistan that doesnt have a clearance and doesnt have the appropriate training whether theyre u. S. Or tsn, thirdCountry Nationals from nepal. Their report actually says seven citizen employees working in various positions in kabul had no documented security clearance investigations. Yes, its either when we assume the work force from another contract, that documentation didnt exist or we got it up to standards. We have no further problems in documentation or clearances. They questioned about 8 million let me just quote the amount. About 4 of the contract. They said those invoices 57 invoices, are possibly of those invoices 8 or 57 were possibly unallowable or not supported in accordance with contract requirements. Do you know what those invoices were for . They were either for labor or for reimburseable items. We have provided we work with state department. We provided all the documentation required to have the appropriate back up for those invoices and weve worked with them since that audit was out. Independent of the ig audit, egis conducted its own audit of the first year of the contract on its own with its own people and presented all of the discrepancies and clarified all the discrepancies. We looked at over 71,000 line items and compared a document to an accounting program. We are now proceeding on auditing the contract on our own without any requests from the government or the aig. Do you know how much was allowed or disallowed . Im not aware of any disallowances at this point. We presented all the documentation to the state department, and they have not come back to us with any disallowances to the best of my knowledge. If there were, it has to be minor. The audit that we conducted verified that. So youre saying the gaps in the billable hours in some of the issues with those invoices were partially as a result of you taking over the contract and you fixed those problems . Right. Thats part of it. When you take a contract over in in any instance where you take an existing work force over, the scope of work changes. In a situation like afghanistan, we went into and state department understandably said we dont want those posts anymore. We dont want those posts. We want these. So move the people around, change the classifications. It took awhile to get that up to speed and properly invoiced. We found that approximately 75 of any discrepancy occurred in the first four months of the contract and we have a good process controlled documentation system now so that does not occur again. Thank you. Ambassador hays, id like to know the igs view of the status of the outstanding findings particularly with respect to those questions of costs. Would you help us schedule a followup to make sure those fixes have taken place . Sure. Do you have any idea whether or not those problems have been fixed and those processes in place are adequate . I conducted inspections of those facilities in february of 2014. I did not participate in the audit or the compliance of that but i can pass on concerns to the ig himself and he will get back to you. Out of time. I now recognize the gentleman from wisconsin. Thank you. I guess this will be for mr. Starr. First of all how many buildings are in this compound total . About when were done in kabul . So there was an existing chancery built in 1971, which was the starting point. Another Annex Building was built and completed in 2005 with three residential facilities. The 2009 and 2010 projects will provide for another unclassified annex and another classified annex and three more residential buildings, in addition security, utility, and support buildings are also included in the scope of the project. So at least tenplus, whatever . Okay. How many people are in these are going to be based in these facilities when youre all done . The program that drove the facilities is 14087 desks and 800 beds. So how many basically the delta is between the u. S. Direct higher staff that sleep on the compound and those who work in those buildings but dont necessarily sleep on the compound. How many total people are based or work in the compound . Let me turn that over to jared and to greg. Obo builds to the sort of hard facility requirements, but there are many support workers and security who dont have desks in the facilities, but who work around the compound. For a comprehensive number, i would turn to them. In broad numbers, there would be 5,000 people on the compound between direct hires and security staff. Theres still Planning Decisions being made about the future Security Cooperation office and other agencies that will come under the embassy umbrella. Just kind of hits me as high thats all. Of those 5,000, how many are afghans themselves . I dont have locals guess. About 850, 900. Okay. About 1 5. Could we get we dont have it right away today but just because it hits me as a high number. What do these people do . Sir we can provide that. Its the smaller portion that are direct hire u. S. Staff that are doing the work of what we think of as diplomacy. The larger portion are the people necessary to support the staff given the very unique circumstances in kabul whether thats the security staff or the life support staff especially as the military mission draws down and we lose some of the services that the department of defense has provided and need to provide for ourselves. Services, to be blunt the embassy cant provide on the economy to provide, it has to provide for itself. Of the 5,000 how many are military personnel . Right now of the 5,000 the number is pretty small. That number is likely to increase over the out years because as the military mission changes, there will be a Security Cooperation office that will eventually be part of the embassy that will oversee the assistance we provide the afghan National Security forces. Those decisions are being made right now. Just a guess. You told me there 5,000 total. 100, 200, 300 . Just guess wildly. Maybe 100. We have almost 5,000 civilian personnel that we anticipate having in afghanistan . Is that the deal . Youre combining whats the case right now and what will be the case over time. Over time, that percentage will be a larger number because of the cooperation of the security office. Okay. Okay. Then we have a question for, i guess im running out of time. Well, was a Risk Assessment done at the kabul site and if it wasnt, why not . Thats the final question. Risk assessments are always done before the award of a largescale project, so our team goes out and understands with the contractor what are the risks that we might encounter. A formal Risk Assessment, the way we lay it out as a separate assessment, was not done 50 . Five zero. To clarify, page 16 of the report says between the 2009 contract and the 2010 contract states should have conducted four Cost Containment studies and six Risk Assessments. However for the 2009 contract, state confirmed it did not conduct either type of assessment. Because of the value of the 2009 contract, two separate Cost Containment studies would have been required. Also no Risk Assessments were performed and no Risk Mitigation plan was developed, so your answer is a little shy of the reality, at least according to the gao correct . I would argue that the policy that the gao is referring to and that narrow interpretation of a separate Risk Assessment being conducted during or before award of a project, that is true. But Risk Assessment, when you look at it on its face is going to the post understanding what the risks are, how are you going to get materials in, are there changing situations on the ground that are going to impact your project those are all things that are analyzed and are known and are included in the Cost Development for these projects. And that was done with the 2009 project. Understand that the budget for the 2009 project was developed in advance of knowing there was going to be an increase in staff. Any number of mr. Courts, is that what happened . Well i would again just point that the Risk Assessment and Cost Containment study that they did in 2010 did point out some of the risks that eventually materialized and by the way one of those was difficulties with the Land Transport of materials, so some of these risks were known in advance. State predicted them in the 2010 study. If they had done the 2009 study perhaps they would have had more time to develop some mitigation strategies. And perhaps we would have delayed award of a contract that is getting people into safe facilities as quickly as possible. They werent safe. Now theyre way overbudget. Were missing over hundreds of millions of dollars. The overall project is coming in three years late. It was supposed to be done last year and now its not supposed to be done until 2017. Whats the case to be made that youve made bypassing all the bureaucracy. Youve put people in a better situation, because you have two independent people whove come in and looked at that and i think disagree with that analysis, and as regards to the security on page 17 of the report, ds officials were not sufficiently involved in the Cost Containment study, and it goes on for a full paragraph. Thats the frustration. Just reading this, this is why were having a hearing you would get the impression that theyre not even talking to the Diplomatic Security. We addressed that a little bit earlier, but that should be part of before you do 2009. It should have been part of 2010. But it evidently wasnt done according to the report. Am i wrong . I believe you are. Well, this is why we have this hearing. Ds cited, this is from the report, ds is cited in the policy as an interested office according to the aten delist, no one from Diplomatic Security participated in the meetings related to the study. You have a pretty hard case to make that you were taking security at the top of your list and putting it in there when they werent even invited into the meeting. They were invited to the meeting. So they were noshows . Mr. Starr, your staff just said were not showing up not worth our time . Congressman i think our people decide at that one particular meeting that there werent equities that we were necessary to be there. I want to emphasize something. Le and i know that there are individual points that can be brought out and looked at by ig and gao. And by many cases they bring very important things to our attention, and we correct those things, but i dont want to leave you with the impression that ds and obo dont Work Together very closely to ensure that the physical security the standards in our buildings are always . She just said that your people dont show up at her meetings. At one particular meeting on thats not what this says. Thats not hawhat this says. I didnt just make this up and say hey, lets pick on state. Im reading a gao report which pretty much concurs with what the Inspector General found. Its 27 over budget, you missed it by hundreds of millions of dplars theres no master plan, and its the biggest expenditure we have in an Embassy Compound complex that weve ever had in the history of the United States of america. So you have a really hard case to tell me that were doing things better and everythings good, just move on nothing to worry about here. Thats a 2 billion expenditure, and its not yet finished mr. Chairman i would disagree with your characterization. Tell me what you disagree with. That we are not providing safe and secure facilities. It is true that they are behind the original schedule but we are building safe and secure facilities. During the entire time that we were there in our temporary facilities, we have never lost a person on our compound. Even with the temporary facilities. And were building better ones today. Can our coordination be improved . Yes, the ig and the gao pointed out that there were problems and lydia and i have worked to ensure that those problems dont continue. There is always room for improvement, and i quite frankly, would wish that we could have brought these projects in faster because moving the people out of temporary facilities faster gives them even better protection. Weve been responsible for providing them protection during this entire time and i think weve done a very good job. But none of us minimized the problems that have occurred in this environment as we tried to struggle to bring these buildings in but i will tell you that you know, while we appreciate gao and ig and they do bring a lot of good things to our attention, not everything can be characterized as off base here. We are delivering, although youre correct, it is behind schedule and it is over budget. Now recognize the gentleman from oklahoma yeah mr. Russell. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and mr. Muniz, i wanted to make a correction. It was mr. Hays and his testimony that spoke about the International Construction and Safety Standards, and this was causing some unnecessary delays between obo and state. And so i would like to ask you mr. Hays. You spoke to these International Construction and Safety Standards causing these delays. What were those . Well the International Standards standards standards of construction which obo works to are the same that you would apply to Embassy Berlin or a building in downtown d. C. They require a building to be built in the way that is safe sound for a longer period of time. The dod regulations authorize more flexibility, especially in war zones, and we raised the issue that obo and ds should look into the department to find more flexibility to move quicker in war zone situations. More expeditiously. Dod has that authority. They have a work around for a number of International Standards for specific areas like iraq and afghanistan. Thank you. Mr. Blanc you spoke about a closed border and i can understand what that does in afghanistan or anywhere, what, though, if we should have Something Like this that happens again, with such a large footprint now. Can you foresee a time where we would need to reduce a footprint and be streamlined to be more effective, because now we have these 5500 personnel, and if this happens again, which its not unlikely and certainly those routes get interdibted. What do we do about that . Well, sir, i think if i could say two things. First of all, even during the interdiction of those routes they were able to use a whole variety of logistics. In the unfortunate event this happens again, we would again initially fall back on creative logistics. I think your question in principle, are there conditions under which we would look to draw down the Diplomatic Mission in kabul, the answer is of course. We are always looking at a whole variety of questions. The immediate security situation, how effective is the team being, what specific needs do we need to fill either in the professional Diplomatic Service or what might we no longer need to contract, what might we be able to do on the economy in afghanistan. Those are all questions that we address on a i dont, i certainly, i certainly dont underestimate the complexities of the problems. I guess my concern is were seeing a pattern. Were seeing a pattern where weve become so cumbersome with it. It becomes cumbersome to get things there. It becomes cumbersome to secure things, it becomes extraordinarily expensive and wastes resources, and i would just think that a nation of 31 million souls with the types of problems that we have that we can be efficient, but im not hearing that. Instead, what im hearing is in particular from mr. Starr which, look, everyone at this table, i have no doubt is dedicated to this nation. I mean, look at your resumes. Theyre not only impressive but longserving, and i have the highest respect for all of you and youve done it from administration to administration and for that i sincerely thank you. But i guess the pattern that we are seeing now is just an increasing infrastructure where it just grows and grows and grows, and it requires more security and more security and more security. And the last question that i have is for mr. Galeno. I have no doubt they can conquer anything they encounter language barriers. In a nokidding combat situation, you have an american compound and now you have ger gerkas, how are you mitigating that . We have a gerka workforce. Youre quite right. Theyre selected from a wide pool. I get that. But how are you mitigating the language barriers in a combat environment . And theyre vetted for language in nepal first and then when they go through training in jordan, amman jordan, we dont just train them and test their skills with weapons, we test their language understanding and their ability to speak english. So all of these gerkas are English Speaking . Yes, sir. So why do we need why do we need what . Why do we need nepalese then . If theyre all proficient in the language, why was this an issue . Let me just say this. Its a requirement and not every nepalese gerka on our post can read the Washington Post