to u.s. embassy facilities. in the worst instance, the marine who was convicted of espionage and served nine years in prison, he apparently handed over blueprints for the embassy facilities. and then as thatoney trap scand public in 1987, the story also finally went public about the kgb embassy construction scam fiasco, and how russia was able to sew intrinsically compromise the basic building bones of our embassy. reporter: the new ambassador to moscow, jack matlock, arrived today. his first job, secure the embassy. the state department has asked the nation s top-secret national security agency to sweep the agency before secretary of state george schultz arrives in ten days. while marines allegedly compromised the current embassy, lack security was just as damaging next door at the new embassy now under construction. these officials believe the new offices are bugged top to
back channel with russia? i mean, he tries to y s ties to away, but this is a nation-state many consider an enemy. how do you explain that? he said in his statement kiselak said to him, hey, do you have at the transition offices a way to communicate securely with our generals? and kushner said no. by the way, that s not true. i worked on transitions. there are secure communications attrition offices. jared turned it around and said however we can go to the russian embassy and speak on secure communications channels with your senior officials in russia with those who have responsibility for syria. again, i don t know why he would do that. if he wanted to communicate government to government he would use u.s. embassy facilities or he would use the transition offices. so there are a lot of questions about that secure communications channel that were not answered in his statement today. your take, rick? i think it s not comforting either, but i think kushner s
straight to you. because it looked like certain things got straight to your inbox and the requests for more security did not. and while you re answering that, i want to instruct why i m asking that. you mentioned arb on a number of occasions again today. this is not the first arb. we had one after kenya and tanzania. that could not have been more specific. the secretary of state should personally review the security situation of our embassy facilities. that arb put the spoblt squarely on you. so with respect to that previous arb recommendation and in contrast, what did make your inbox versus what did not, did you personally review our security situation as the previous arb required? let me see if i can answer the many parts of your question, mr. chairman. personal e-mail came to my
you had mentioned on a nurmg of occasions today. this was not the first. we had one after kenya and tanzan tanzania. that could not have been more specific. the secretary of state should personally review the security situation of our embassy facilities. that arb put the responsibility squarely on you. with respect to that previous arb recommendation, and in contrast what did make your inbox versus what did not, did you personally review our security situation as the previous arb required? well let me see if i can answer the many parts of your question, mr. chairman. yes, personal e-mail came to my
well, as you indicated, they ve already had an attack on the embassy there, and certainly there have been multiple attempts to attack the embassy in the past, some successful, some less successful. al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, the al qaeda affiliate in yemen, has tried to bring down american airlines in 2009, american cargo planes in 2010. that said, this affiliate in yemen has also been under substantial pressure. something like 37 of their top leaders and senior operatives have been killed in u.s. drone strikes in the past three years. they held significant territory in southern yemen in 2011. they were pushed out by the yemeni army with some u.s. help. and so, you know, the chatter that may have prompted this ale alert, you know, it certainly, it s prudential to close these embassy facilities, but it may all wash out.