help me understand why you saying in is here or think it is here if i thinkine secretary clinton has acknowledged that there were mistakes made and things needing to be changed in the a rb report. of course show cares about the loss of life of four american heroes. i wish in listening to sean smith s mother that someone in the state department reached out to her to really address the loss of human life and the loss of your choild in the way that you would expect our leaders to perform. but when it comes to hillary and benghazi we have started down the road. there is also a block on block
about the arb is that it is simply wrong and one of the reasons whistle-blowers are coming forward right now. gregory hicks, for example, has never been allowed to see the classified arb report which is pretty absurd when you consider he is the most knowledgeable person in-country that can testify as to what was going on and what the ambassador thought and said. so this is one of those challenges where they cut out the person most able to comment and then they say, but we interviewed him. interviews are a one-way process. review of a document before it goes out and understanding the concerns that gregory hicks had when he said that the arb was, if you will, incomplete or just plain wrong, and again, he s been cut out of classified documents. he can t even look at his own e-mails because, the state department has not been willing to allow this. this kind of treatment of course is part of what is business as usual when you become a whistle-blower. bill: i will get to one more point and o
budget? well, congressman engel, this is a bipartisan problem. since 2007, the department has consistently requested greater funding for embassy construction and diplomatic security, but with the exception of 2010, the congress has consistently enacted less than requested. most notably in 2012, the department received 340 million dollars less than requested, close to 10% less. now, over the last two years, cuts to the embassy construction, security and maintenance budget was almost 10% of that as well. now, the arb and i would refer to them because, now, they had an independent view of this, has recommended an increase in facilities funding to 2.2 billion per year to restore the construction levels that were called for in the 1998 arb report. but, i think it s also fair to make the point the arb made, consistent shortfalls have required the government to try
has recommended an increase in facilities funding to 2.2 billion per year to restore the construction levels called for in the 1998 arb report. the only other one that was ever public. and i would go back to something the chairman said because this was a point made in the arb. consistent shortfalls have required the department to prioritize available funding out of security accounts. and i will be the first to say that the prioritization process was at times imperfect but as the arb said the funds provided were inadequate. so we need to work together to overcome that. we are asking for funding for, for more marine security guards. for refilling the capital account so we can begin to do the kind of upgrades and construction that s needed. deputy secretary nides briefed house and senate appropriations and authorizing staff. we sent letters to the hours and understand leadership to ask for transfer authority
to prioritize and the department has attempted to do that, but i do think that there became a culture of reaction, you know, as the arb report says, husbanding resources and trying to figure out how to do as much with as little as possible. and so, although our prioritization was certainly imperfect, the funds provided by congress were inadequate. somehow we have to work on both ends of that equation. now, what can you do? well, first of all, we came up with a request to the legislative and budget staffs for transfer authority language, namely taking money we already had in this budget and letting us move it quickly to do what the arb told us to do, more marine security guards, more diplomatic security guards, more construction and upgrades. we were able to get that included in the senate version