idealistic effort by a young senator from illinois who we were both right to believe would achieve greatness. i have had the opportunity to serve in your distinguished cabinet and worked with a white house chief of staff white house staff ably led by denis mcdonough. den has done much to make real the promise of our democracy. and each of the men and women i have come to know will be life-long friends. whatever my accomplishments, they could not have been achieved without the love, support and guidance of two people who are not with me here today, my parents nurtured and my accomplished brother william and made us believe in the value of individual effort and the greatness of this nation. my time in public service, which now comes to an end, would not have been possible without the sacrifices, too often unfair, made by the best three kids a father could ask for. thank you maya, thank you brooke, and thank you clay. and finally, i want to thank the woman who sacrificed the m
[inaudible conversations] good afternoon. this hearing will come to order. i think everybody for attending this hearing which we will examine the oig report on the phoenix issue. i would also like to ask unanimous consent, he is not here yet but that our colleagues david schweikert from arizona be allowed to join us here to address this issue. without objection, so ordered. also members we do have a series of votes that will start at 1:00. i apologize for that. this hearing was moved from its original schedule time because of the joint session of congress to hear the president of the ukraine. what we will do is immediately after the final vote move back as quickly as you can. we will resume the hearing as quickly as we possibly can so that we will not keep the witnesses waiting any longer than absolutely necessary. on the 26th of august, the va office of inspector general released its final report of the phoenix va health care system which defaulted to national attention af
acting secretary gibson recently stated that he was deeply disappointed not only in the substantiation of allegations raised by the whistle blowers but also in the failures within the department to take whistle blowers complaints seriously. within vha, the problem of intimidation, retaliation may be magnified by what some consider a protective culture of the medical profession. it is often thought to be against the code to point out colleague s mistakes or where a nurse or a tendant is told it is appropriate to question a physician or surgeon. the natural tendency is to close ranks, to not die that problems exist or mirs stestakes were ma. so after we listen to the testimony before us this evening from the whistle blowers, the office of special counsel and the va will anything change after we hear what the whistle blowers have to say and how do we fix this culture and encourage all va employees to step forward to identify problems and work to address the problems. changing
blowers complaints seriously. within vha, the problem of intimidation, retaliation may be magnified by what some consider a protective culture of the medical profession. it is often thought to be against the code to point out colleague s mistakes or where a nurse or a tendant is told it is appropriate to question a physician or surgeon. the natural tendency is to close ranks, to not die that problems exist or mirs stestakes were ma. so after we listen to the testimony before us this evening from the whistle blowers, the office of special counsel and the va will anything change after we hear what the whistle blowers have to say and how do we fix this culture and encourage all va employees to step forward to identify problems and work to address the problems. changing a culture is not easy. it cannot be done legislatively or 33inthrowing additional resos at it. talk is cheap. real solutions are hard to find. it is clear to me that the va as it is structured today is fundament
anywhere in the world, whether you be iran newsmakers in see thein scotland, you challenges. had enoughce we troops there to prove that we had their back, at that point, we got them kind of working together. how well together? out,the arab spring broke one of my cia officers was briefing me and said note the one city you do not see people demonstrated in the streets was one of those bad days from cairo to damascus, and there was iraq , baghdad, they were not demonstrated because they felt they had a role to play in their own government. eventually when the american troops pulled out, the american ambassador becoming a hostage in his own embassy without the cia platforms from the country to keep the ambassador informed and the u.s. military working with the iraqi military well enough d training isle perishable, but the nato training mission doing its job. they no longer had the awareness stalin-esque pa his senior officers. it was the first sign of stress. which would no