    [House Hearing, 110 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

     ALLEGATIONS OF WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE AT THE NEW U.S. EMBASSY IN IRAQ

    =======================================================================

                                 JOINT HEARING

                                   before the

                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
                              AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                                    and the

                             COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
                             AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                 JULY 26, 2007

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 110-61

                                   __________

    Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

      Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
                                   index.html
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                  COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

                     HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman
    TOM LANTOS, California               TOM DAVIS, Virginia
    EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York             DAN BURTON, Indiana
    PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania      CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
    CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York         JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
    ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland         JOHN L. MICA, Florida
    DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio             MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
    DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois             TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
    JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts       CHRIS CANNON, Utah
    WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri              JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
    DIANE E. WATSON, California          MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
    STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts      DARRELL E. ISSA, California
    BRIAN HIGGINS, New York              KENNY MARCHANT, Texas
    JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky            LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
    BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa                PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
    ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of   VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina
        Columbia                         BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
    BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota            BILL SALI, Idaho
    JIM COOPER, Tennessee                JIM JORDAN, Ohio
    CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
    PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
    CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
    JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
    PETER WELCH, Vermont

                         Phil Schiliro, Chief of Staff
                          Phil Barnett, Staff Director
                           Earley Green, Chief Clerk
                      David Marin, Minority Staff Director

             Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs

                    JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman
    CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York         CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
    STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts      DAN BURTON, Indiana
    BRIAN HIGGINS, New York              JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
                                         TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
                           Dave Turk, Staff Director

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page
    Hearing held on July 26, 2007....................................     1
    Statement of:
        Demming, Karl, engineering and construction manager, KBR.....    25
        Owens, John, former employee, First Kuwaiti Trading and
          Contracting Co.; and Rory Mayberry, former employee, First
          Kuwaiti Trading and Contracting Co.........................    79
            Mayberry, Rory...........................................    86
            Owens, John..............................................    79
        Williams, Major General, retired, Charles E., Director,
          Office of Overseas Building Operations, U.S. Department of
          State; William Moser, Deputy Assistant Secretary for
          Acquisitions, U.S. Department of State; Patrick Kennedy,
          Director, Office of Management Policy, U.S. Department of
          State; and Howard J. Krongard, Inspector General, U.S.
          Department of State........................................   108
            Kennedy, Patrick.........................................   118
            Krongard, Howard J.......................................   121
            Williams, Major General, retired, Charles E..............   108
    Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
        Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
          the State of Maryland:
            June 7th cable...........................................    56
            KBR report dated May 25, 2007............................    42
        Davis, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State
          of Virginia, prepared statement of.........................    15
        Demming, Karl, engineering and construction manager, KBR,
          prepared statement of......................................    27
        Kennedy, Patrick, Director, Office of Management Policy, U.S.
          Department of State, prepared statement of.................   119
        Krongard, Howard J., Inspector General, U.S. Department of
          State, prepared statement of...............................   123
        Mayberry, Rory, former employee, First Kuwaiti Trading and
          Contracting Co., prepared statement of.....................    88
        Owens, John, former employee, First Kuwaiti Trading and
          Contracting Co., prepared statement of.....................    81
        Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
          the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............    23
        Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the
          State of Massachusetts, prepared statement of..............    19
        Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the
          State of California
            May 25th cable...........................................    32
            Prepared statement of....................................     5
        Williams, Major General, retired, Charles E., Director,
          Office of Overseas Building Operations, U.S. Department of
          State, prepared statement of...............................   111

    ALLEGATIONS OF WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE AT THE NEW U.S. EMBASSY IN IRAQ

                                  ----------

                            THURSDAY, JULY 26, 2007

            House of Representatives, Subcommittee on National
                Security and Foreign Affairs, Committee on
                Oversight and Government Reform, joint with the
                Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The committee and subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at
    10:10 a.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon.
    Henry A. Waxman (chairman of the Committee on Oversight and
    Government Reform) presiding.
        Present: Representatives Waxman, Davis of Virginia,
    Maloney, Cummings, Kucinich, Tierney, Watson, Lynch, Braley,
    Norton, McCollum, Sarbarnes, Shays, Platts, Cannon, Duncan,
    Issa, and Westmoreland.
        Staff present: Phil Schiliro, chief of staff; Phil Barnett,
    staff director and chief counsel; Karen Lightfoot,
    communications director and senior policy advisor; David
    Rapallo, chief investigative counsel; Theo Chuang, deputy chief
    investigative counsel; Margaret Daum, counsel; Christopher
    Davis, professional staff member; Earley Green, chief clerk;
    Teresa Coufal, deputy clerk; Matt Siegler, special assistant;
    Caren Auchman, press assistant; Zhongrui J.R. Deng, chief
    information officer; Leneal Scott, information systems manager;
    Dave Turk, staff director, National Security and Foreign
    Affairs Subcommittee; Andrew Su and Andrew Wright, professional
    staff members; Davis Hake, clerk; Steve Glickman, counsel;
    Kerry Gutknecht, staff assistant; David Marin, minority staff
    director; Larry Halloran, minority deputy staff director; Keith
    Ausbrook, minority general counsel; Ellen Brown, minority
    legislative director and senior policy counsel; John Brosnan,
    minority senior procurement counsel; A. Brooke Bennett and
    Emile Monette, minority counsels; Nick Palarino, minority
    senior investigator and policy advisor; Patrick Lyden, minority
    parliamentarian and member services coordinator; Brian
    McNicoll, minority communications director; and Benjamin
    Chance, minority clerk.
        Chairman Waxman. The committee and subcommittee will please
    come to order.
        Today, the committee is holding a hearing on the State
    Department's single largest construction project in the world,
    the $600 million U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. This is the first
    oversight hearing Congress has held on this immense project.
        We will hear today from the State Department witnesses that
    the Embassy will be built on time and under budget. I hope they
    are right.
        Billions of taxpayer dollars have been squandered on
    contracts in Iraq. There should be at least one major project
    that is done right.
        But there are red flags involving the Embassy complex that
    should not be ignored. On July 5, the Washington Post ran a
    front page article that described ``a cascade of building and
    safety blunders'' in the facility being built to house the
    Embassy security guards.
        This facility was built by the same company, First Kuwaiti,
    that is building the main Embassy. It was delivered to the
    Embassy with the assurance that it ``meets and exceeds''
    contract requirements. It passed the inspections required by
    the State Department and it seemed like a success.
        But when the kitchen equipment was turned on for the first
    time in May, the appliances didn't work. The electrical wiring
    melted, creating a serious fire hazard. Embassy officials
    cabled Washington: ``Poor quality construction . . . [l]ife
    safety issues . . . inherent construction deficiencies . . .
    left the post with no recourse but to shut the camp down in
    spite of the blistering heat in Baghdad.''
        Over 2 months later, the base for the guards remains
    shuttered.
        As we will learn today, there are other red flags. The
    oversight and management of the Embassy project appears to be
    in disarray. The State Department agency responsible for the
    day to day oversight of the project is the Office of Overseas
    Buildings Operations [OBO], but the OBO appears to be in a
    raging battle with the State Department officials in Baghdad
    who will ultimately live and work in the new Embassy.
        The conflicts are so severe that the senior OBO official
    who is supposed to be on the ground in Iraq, monitoring the
    construction of the new Embassy has been banished from the
    country.
        It does not help matters that there are only three career
    State Department officials onsite to oversee this massive
    project. Everyone else is a private contractor.
        The project has also been beset by allegations that the
    prime contractor, First Kuwaiti, has used forced labor to build
    the Embassy, violating the laws against human trafficking and
    sending exactly the wrong message to Iraqis and the rest of the
    world about U.S. respect for human rights.
        This committee called this hearing to investigate these
    allegations. As the principal oversight committee in the House,
    that is our job.
        Unfortunately, the State Department has taken exactly the
    wrong approach to our inquiry. The Department has gone into
    full bunker mentality, stonewalling the committee's document
    requests and obstructing our efforts to conduct legitimate
    oversight of the Embassy project.
        The committee sent a letter on July 10th requesting
    documents in preparation for today's hearing. We asked for a
    list of eight discrete, clearly identified memos, reports and
    cables. We also asked for a set of broader documents including
    communications, briefings and meeting minutes. We informed the
    Department that we wanted the eight documents we specifically
    identified before today's hearing. The rest could be produced
    afterwards.
        In response, the committee was told almost daily that these
    documents were on the way. We were told: They are being
    gathered. They are being reviewed. They are in the approval
    process. They will be there tomorrow.
        But aside from two incomplete cables, none of the documents
    were provided. Finally, 2 weeks after we requested these eight
    documents, we issued a subpoena for the documents. The due date
    was yesterday at 4 p.m. The Department produced none of the
    documents by the deadline.
        Just this morning, the State Department faxed over a
    handful of documents that were required under the subpoena.
    Some of these documents raise even new questions.
        In one e-mail exchange, the Senior Coordinator of the State
    Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
    writes that he has ``strong concerns about allegations of human
    trafficking among state contractors in Iraq.''
        The State Department official in charge of overseeing the
    Embassy project instructs his staff, ``Do not respond to these
    folks as you can see no matter what you say you cannot win.''
        The fact that the Department is resisting congressional
    oversight doesn't mean that the project is failing, but it
    inspires no confidence in the Department's assertions that
    everything is on track.
        We have also received limited cooperation from the State
    Department's prime contractor on this project, First Kuwaiti.
    We sent an invitation to company officials to testify here
    today, but they refused. We asked to interview knowledgeable
    First Kuwaiti officials, but they refused. We asked for a
    telephone call to ask questions, but again they refused.
        First Kuwaiti did make a substantial document production to
    the committee and did provide a written statement, but from the
    standpoint of the U.S. taxpayer, its refusal to testify is, to
    me, another red flag.
        The State Department awarded First Kuwaiti a contract to
    build the largest U.S. Embassy in the world. The company is
    being paid a half a billion dollars in taxpayer funds, yet it
    is acting as if it is unaccountable to Congress and the
    taxpayer.
        There is one party in this process that did cooperate with
    the committee, and that is KBR. KBR has provided the documents
    we asked for, gave a briefing to committee staff and agreed to
    testify here today, and they took these steps even though they
    knew that I have been outspoken about my concerns about other
    KBR projects in Iraq.
        Despite the obstacles we faced, today's hearing will raise
    important questions about the Embassy project. Witnesses will
    describe evidence of substandard labor conditions and shoddy
    construction work. Internal cables will reveal a Department at
    war with itself.
        My goal is to use this hearing to begin to sort through the
    claims and counterclaims that envelope the Embassy project. We
    won't answer every question that has emerged about this
    secretive project, but if we can shed more light on some, we
    will be doing our job.
        I hope the Embassy project opens on time and under budget,
    but real questions about the project are being asked and these
    need to be addressed.
        This is an unusual hearing in that it is being held as a
    joint hearing of the full committee and its National Security
    Subcommittee. The hearing is being held jointly in recognition
    of the extensive work that the subcommittee has been doing for
    the past several months to examine the allegations of human
    trafficking by First Kuwaiti.
        For this reason, after Ranking Member Davis is recognized
    for his statement, Subcommittee Chairman Tierney and
    Subcommittee Ranking Member Shays will be recognized for their
    opening statements, and then we will go directly to the
    witnesses.
        [The prepared statement of Chairman Henry A. Waxman
    follows:]

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 43507.001

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 43507.002

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 43507.003

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 43507.004

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 43507.005

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 43507.006

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 43507.007

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 43507.008

        Chairman Waxman. Mr. Davis.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        In my opinion, this could have been a good hearing. It
    could have been a thoughtful examination of how the State
    Department's Overseas Building Operations Office constructs
    diplomatic facilities under difficult conditions in some of the
    most inhospitable parts of the world.
        It could be a responsible assessment of incidental and
    systematic problems encountered by an ambitious program to
    build more secure embassies, particularly the effort to
    complete the State's largest single project ever in Baghdad,
    Iraq, in the middle of a war zone. It could, but I am afraid it
    won't.
        Why? Because, as I think the chairman would acknowledge,
    this hearing is a little bit premature.
        Based on media reports alone, the committee scheduled
    today's testimony before completing a thorough investigation of
    thinly sourced, sensationalized charges of shoddy construction
    and labor abuses.
        In what has become an unfortunate modus operandi,
    politically charged allegations are marching miles ahead of the
    proven facts. Whenever a news story jumps to a convenient
    conclusion to back suspected administration malfeasance or
    misconduct, the committee rushes to see how they can elevate
    mere questions, concerns and speculation before the real fact-
    finding.
        As I have said before, it is oversight by firing squad.
    Ready. Fire. Aim.
        The most significant waste, fraud and abuses we are likely
    to uncover today may be our own. So what are we really aiming
    at today?
        The allegations of waste, fraud and abuse at the new U.S.
    Embassy in Iraq cited in today's hearing title are based
    primarily on an exchange of State Department cables detailing a
    dispute over an entirely separate construction project, the
    security camp adjacent to the Embassy, a completely separate
    contract. Both projects were built by the same contractor,
    First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting, but the camp was
    designed as a temporary collection of prefabricated trailers
    and support structures while the 592 million Embassy compound
    involved full-scale construction of permanent buildings.
        In the short time we have had to pursue claims of
    substandard materials and practices, we found nothing to
    suggest the intramural spat over who is responsible for
    expanding and changing design elements at the temporary camp
    has any implications whatsoever on the quality of work at the
    permanent Embassy.
        But here is a fact that does have an impact on the risk of
    waste, fraud and abuse. Both projects were built under firm
    fixed-price contracts, the kind the majority generally prefers.
    First Kuwaiti got the work only after no U.S. contractor
    offered to meet the ambitious 24 month schedule while facing
    substantial financial and logistical risks, building in a war
    zone on those terms. They wanted a cost reimbursement
    arrangement.
        Under the fixed price vehicle, disputes over electrical
    wiring loads and dripping pipes can have little impact on
    ultimate costs. In effect, we are here litigating a punch list,
    the usual inventory of fixes and finishing touches generated by
    any project this size.
        Allegations about labor abuses and human trafficking
    violations are far more serious, and it appears the State
    Department took them seriously. We can be proud of U.S. labor
    protection but shouldn't be naive about the applications
    elsewhere in the world.
        Nevertheless, complaints about working and living
    conditions were referred to the State Department Inspector
    General who, in conjunction with the IG for the Multi-National
    Forces in Iraq, conducted onsite inspection and interviews with
    foreign workers and U.S. personnel. The State IG team found
    ``nothing that caused us to believe that trafficking in persons
    violations had occurred at the site.''
        The military IG did find illegal and deceptive hiring
    practices by recruiting agencies, but it found no evidence of
    the alleged abduction, abuse, overcrowding or unsanitary
    facilities. In fact, the MNF-I IG concluded of the 58 living
    areas inspected, the State Department facility ``rated in the
    top third with above average quality of life conditions.''
        Against those findings, we have claims by disgruntled ex-
    employees who may have pending or potential financial interests
    against the Government. Their accusations should be evaluated
    very carefully, something we have not had the opportunity to
    do. They may sound atrocious. Someone saw passports in a safe
    or boarding passes marked Dubai on a flight to Iraq.
        But today we will get one side of the story. Only further
    inquiry will tell us if the passports were stored voluntarily
    or whether anyone boarding a charter flight in Kuwait was
    confused about its destination.
        Another reason not to take these allegations at face value
    is that they have been thrown at an extraordinarily effective
    Federal agency. Under the leadership of General Charles
    Williams, the State's Bureau of Overseas Building Operations
    has completed 47--47--new, secured diplomatic facilities in 6
    years on schedule and all within budget. He brings
    unimpeachable credentials to a difficult job, coming out of
    retirement at the request of his friend, Colin Powell.
        After logging 2,000 flight hours in helicopters in Vietnam,
    General Williams finished a 29 year Army military career
    successfully, completing major construction projects with the
    Corps of Engineers. He knows how to build. He has proven his
    dedication, his skill and his integrity.
        I question whether we will prove anything else here today.
    Nevertheless, I thank the witnesses for their time and
    perspectives.
        [The prepared statement of Hon. Tom Davis follows:]
        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 43507.009

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 43507.010

        Chairman Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
        Mr. Tierney, the chairman of the subcommittee.
        Mr. Tierney. Good morning and thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
    want to thank you and Ranking Member Davis for allowing the
    National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee to jointly
    hold this hearing.
        There are many questions raised by the construction of this
    enormous 65 acre, 24 building walled fortress of an Embassy in
    Iraq.
        What will it mean to Iraqis? Will most Iraqis react like
    one quoted recently in the Los Angeles Times article, who said
    they are not leaving Iraq for a long time, and he called the
    Embassy a symbol of oppression and injustice?
        What purpose does an Embassy serve if nearly 1,000 of the
    State Department officials are only rarely permitted to
    interact with Iraqis outside the Green Zone, an essential part
    of their job, as questioned by the American Foreign Service
    Association, the professional body representing State
    Department employees?
        What does it mean that our military is planning on co-
    locating at the Embassy site and how will this be interpreted?
        Is this reminiscent of the even larger Somalia compound
    that was dismantled by looters after the overthrow of the
    dictator, Mohamed Siad Barre, and does it foretell the planned
    Lebanon Embassy now said to be located in the heart of
    Hezbollah-controlled territory?
        Is it bigger than it should be if you really expect Iraq to
    stabilize and not as big as it needs to be for the nerve center
    of an ongoing war effort, as the L.A. Times quotes a State
    Department advisor and Council on Foreign Relations senior
    fellow as saying?
        But the purpose of our hearing today is to look at the
    construction of the Embassy itself. Our new Iraq Embassy is not
    only our most expensive Embassy to date. It is also supposed to
    become a beacon of freedom and democracy in Iraq and throughout
    the Middle East.
        Still, as Chairman Waxman has noted, very troubling
    allegations have come to the subcommittee's attention that this
    proposed beacon of freedom was built quite literally on the
    backs of workers from Nepal, the Philippines, Pakistan, India
    and Ghana, just to name a few nations.
        We have heard allegations that some third country nationals
    working for the prime contractor, First Kuwaiti, had to pay
    recruitment fees amounting to more than a full year of salary,
    fees as high as $3,000 with salaries as low as $7 a day.
        We have heard of workers, essentially waylaid to Iraq,
    being told they were going to work in Dubai and given boarding
    passes to Dubai but being transported instead to Iraq.
        We have heard of verbal abuse, physical assaults and
    physical intimidation, the First Kuwaiti managers brandishing
    weapons.
        We have heard of workers living a dozen or two dozen or
    even more in a single trailer measuring 40 feet by 10 feet.
    That would essentially be the breadth of this two rows of seats
    and about the width as well.
        We have heard of inadequate medical care, of a lack of
    safety training and equipment and about deaths not adequately
    explained.
        We have heard of workers unable to return home whether
    because their passports were withheld or because of threats or
    because they faced a year's salary penalty if they resigned. I
    might note that the withholding of passports by employers is an
    act forbidden by the U.S. Government.
        Our first panel today consists of former workers from the
    Embassy site who will tell us what they themselves have heard
    and seen. We take these allegations very seriously.
        Unfortunately, however, it appears that not everyone may
    have done so. We have learned during the course of our
    investigation that a number of officials in our own State
    Department may have looked the other way when confronted with
    these disturbing or inconvenient allegations.
        Our State Department is supposed to be the face of U.S.
    diplomacy to the world. Unfortunately, when it appears that
    when it came to the workers used to construct our flagship
    Embassy in Iraq, some State Department officials may not have
    kept their eyes wide open. For example, it has become clearer
    and clearer that little to no forethought on labor issues had
    been done during the contract award and in the vetting of First
    Kuwaiti.
        It appears that State Department officials have largely
    taken a hands-off approach with respect to First Kuwaiti's
    relations with its third country workers, and we have heard
    about the State Department's own Office to Combat Human
    Trafficking pressing for action from General Williams and from
    other top officials in the Bureau of Overseas Building
    Operations and from the State Department Inspector General and
    receiving what can only be described as the cold shoulder.
        We have a State Department Inspector General who reportedly
    allowed First Kuwaiti itself to select the workers to be
    interviewed, an Inspector General who apparently didn't even
    interview those alleging abuses and an Inspector General who
    didn't use interpreters despite the fact that only 10 percent
    of the worker population was fluent in English.
        I sincerely hope that what we hear today from our State
    Department witnesses dispels and explains those troubling
    stories our investigation has uncovered. I hope we hear that a
    strict adherence to on time and on budget does not mean the
    trampling of workers' rights and dignity.
        It is important that all of us in the U.S. Government
    recognize that our words and our actions matter. Our words and
    our actions matter both because others in the world are
    watching us and listening to us but even more importantly
    because they reflect on who we are and who we should constantly
    be striving to become.
        Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.
        [The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]
        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 43507.011

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 43507.012

        Chairman Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Tierney.
        Mr. Shays.
        Mr. Shays. Mr. Chairman, when it comes to U.S. citizens and
    foreign nationals working in our embassies abroad, there is
    absolutely no question that their safety and security must be
    our top priority, and we also have the significant
    responsibility to examine alleged waste, abuse and fraud in
    Government. We need to look at the State Department and its
    contractors in the construction of the new $600 million U.S.
    Embassy in Baghdad.
        I support today's oversight efforts. Unfortunately, what we
    have today is potentially a one-sided discussion about
    allegations found in some recent articles and Internet blog
    entries. In terms of preparation and research, the minority
    staff have been rushed through more than a half dozen
    interviews this week, many of which were given with just 5
    minutes notice of, and just last night the committee still had
    not received key documents from the Department of State.
        So although the facts are still muddled, this is what we do
    know. A recent construction guard camp near to but separate
    from the Baghdad Embassy is running on schedule. It appears
    there were some electrical problems, but it is still not clear
    whether it was these problems that resulted in a temporary
    delay in the occupation of the camp or other construction and
    installation deficiencies.
        On the one hand, we hear from the Department of State the
    project is currently on schedule and within budget. On the
    other hand, we hear from contractors and whistleblowers that
    the construction is suffering massive problems with the fuel
    tank, sprinklers, air conditioning, heating and electrical
    system among other things.
        In reality, this is a complex, high-risk project in a war
    zone, so certainly there will be some issues with the building
    system. But we are still lacking hard evidence to make any
    assessments.
        The other side of today's hearing is allegations of
    potential human trafficking and labor abuses. We cannot take
    lightly these allegations of human trafficking and labor
    abuses. Human trafficking is modern day slavery and something
    that affects every nation on every continent around the globe,
    including the United States, and we must put an end to it
    wherever we find it.
        In 2000, my fellow members and I drew a line when we passed
    the Trafficking Victims Protection Act making human trafficking
    a Federal crime. Between 2001 and 2006, the Department of
    Justice has prosecuted over 360 defendants, secured 238
    convictions and guilty pleas, and had opened 639 new human
    trafficking investigations. That is how seriously the United
    States takes this issue.
        So it makes sense when individuals, some of whom are here
    today with us, raise concerns about possible labor abuses or
    inhumane conditions, the Trafficking in Persons Office in the
    Department of State and the Inspector Generals from the Multi-
    National Force-Iraq quickly took action, observing the
    employees, interviewing workers and inspecting facilities on
    the site in Baghdad. In fact, the State and MNF-Iraq Inspector
    Generals in their three reviews did not find anything to
    indicate human trafficking violations had occurred.
        However, serious questions about possible illegal and
    deceptive hiring practices by recruiting agencies are still
    being pursued, and it is reported the Department of Justice has
    recently opened their own human trafficking investigation to
    pursue these allegations.
        I commend each of these agencies for taking this matter
    seriously and continuing with their investigation.
        I look forward to today's hearing but wish we had more
    information and had spent more time preparing this
    investigation before commencing this hearing. Nevertheless, I
    do appreciate the opportunity to participate in today's hearing
    and thank each of the witnesses for providing their testimony
    for the record.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        [The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
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        Chairman Waxman. Thank you very much, Mr. Shays.
        I want to now call forward our first witnesses, Mr. Karl
    Demming. He is the engineering and construction manager of KBR.
        Mr. Demming, we are pleased to have you with us today to
    testify and to give us your analysis of what has been
    happening.
        It is the policy of this committee that all witnesses that
    testify take an oath, so I would like to ask you, if you would,
    to please stand and raise your right hand.
        [Witness sworn.]
        Chairman Waxman. The record will indicate that you did
    answer in the affirmative.
        Mr. Demming, your prepared statement is going to be in the
    record in its entirety. What I would like to ask you to do is
    to give your testimony.
        We do try to keep the oral testimony to around 5 minutes. I
    am going to have a clock. It will be green, but then it will
    turn orange when it indicates you have 1 minute left and then
    red when the time is up.
        If you feel you need to go over to summarize it, fine, but
    we do want all witnesses to try to keep within the timeframe,
    so we can hear from everybody.
        We are happy to have you here.
        There is a button on the base of the mic. Be sure it is
    pushed in, so it is activated. When you have done that, I want
    to recognize you to proceed.

        STATEMENT OF KARL DEMMING, ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION
                              MANAGER, KBR

        Mr. Demming. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        My name is Karl Demming. I am currently employed as a
    technical professional leader, Specialties for KBR in Baghdad
    in support of USMI, the U.S. Mission in Iraq.
        Under the LOGCAP contract, I oversee KBR's engineering and
    construction work in Iraq. I arrived in-country soon after the
    invasion in 2003. I have been on the ground there ever since.
        I am a participating electrician, practicing, and have been
    a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
    for more than 30 years.
        You asked KBR to assist the committee in its inquiry
    regarding the Baghdad Embassy security force guard camp, and I
    am here to do so. The guard camp and the new Embassy are being
    constructed by another contractor. KBR did not design or
    construct either one. Once the guard camp is complete, KBR will
    provide support services to the personnel who will be housed
    there.
        I am a native Californian. I grew up in Burbank, went to
    Burbank High and later the Los Angeles Trade Technical School.
    I joined the U.S. Army in 1971 and returned to Burbank after my
    tour of duty.
        I began work in the electrical field in 1975 and in the
    course of my career have had the opportunity to work in many
    aspects of this field, for example, power generation for the
    Federal Aviation Administration and the Marine Corps and
    electrical systems and construction positions for International
    Controls, Carnation, Lockheed, and Anheuser Busch.
        I have held State of California electrical and HVAC,
    heating-ventilation-air conditioning, contractors licenses and
    an L.A. city supervisor's license. I also owned and operated my
    own electrical firm. I worked on a wide variety of projects
    where the IBEW supplied the work teams.
        I was a member of the National Guard from 1975 through
    1997, and I volunteered for the Gulf war and served in Saudi
    Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait as a staff sergeant with the Guard.
        I moved to Denver soon after leaving active duty and worked
    on multiple construction projects at Denver International
    Airport. At night, I also taught the IBEW's electrical
    apprenticeship program.
        I began working for KBR in May 2003. After an initial
    assignment in Basra, I began working in Baghdad on several
    power generation projects related to the U.S. Embassy Annex. In
    November 2006, I was promoted to my current position.
        Under the LOGCAP contract, KBR provides a variety of
    support functions to the United States and Coalition personnel
    in Iraq and Afghanistan. As part of that work, every day KBR
    provides meals, laundry and other support services throughout
    theater. Specific to today's discussion, KBR was asked to
    prepare to provide similar services at the Baghdad Embassy
    security force camp.
        As I mentioned before, KBR did not design or construct
    either the guard camp or the new Embassy compound, but as the
    company prepared to support personnel at the guard camp, KBR
    participated in several site visits and was asked to conduct a
    technical inspection of the facilities. This is not unlike
    having an inspection done before buying a house.
        My team and I carried out these inspections, and earlier
    this week, at the committee's request, I briefed the
    committee's bipartisan staff on our findings. I am here today
    to answer any questions you may have.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Demming follows:]
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        Chairman Waxman. Thank you very much for your testimony. I
    have questions, and I know other Members will as well. We are
    going to proceed recognize Members 5 minutes at a time.
        The Iraq Embassy is the largest construction project at the
    State Department. It has a price tag of $600 million, and its
    successful completion is an essential part of the
    administration's strategy for Iraq.
        The first part of this mammoth project to be completed was
    a base for the security guards. It was delivered to the Embassy
    this spring by the prime contractor, First Kuwaiti, with the
    assurance that it meets and exceeds contract requirements.
        My understanding is that KBR was hired by the State
    Department to run the guard base and prepare meals for the
    guards. As a result, KBR entered the facility after it was
    turned over to the Embassy to see how the equipment was
    operating.
        Mr. Demming, I want to ask you about the problems KBR found
    in the construction of the guard base when you tested the
    facility.
        I understand you were part of a KBR team that was involved
    with the process of starting up the dining facility in the
    guard camp after First Kuwaiti finished assembling it, is that
    right?
        Mr. Demming. That is correct, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Waxman. On May 25th, the Embassy sent a cable back
    to Washington to the Overseas Business Operations Office or OBO
    that described some of the problems you encountered with the
    process. I would like to make this cable part of the record
    today and without objection that will be the order.
        [The information referred to follows:]
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        Chairman Waxman. Paragraph three of the Embassy cable says
    that on May 14th, KBR was in the process of initiating the
    dining facility when the wires began to melt, is that right?
        Mr. Demming. That is correct, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Waxman. Paragraph four of the cable states that
    some of the appliances were not working properly and there was
    a burning smell. It also says that the staff received
    electrical shocks. In your opinion, was this a serious safety
    issue and why?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, Mr. Chairman, it was a serious safety
    issue. I will explain why as layman as I possibly can.
        The grounding issues and the personnel injury as far as
    coming in contact with any of the metal equipment such as
    commercial type cooking equipment and such in the facility as
    well as the type of facility it is. They are trailers or
    modular units, and they are steel or metal of construction.
        Chairman Waxman. At that point, the cable says you had shut
    off all the equipment and could not serve any meals.
        Paragraph seven of the Embassy cable states the initial
    assessment by the KBR electricians was that the gauge of the
    electrical wiring is too small for the electrical load required
    and that most if not all of the wiring will need to be
    replaced.
        It then says a followup inspection by KBR identified
    additional electrical issues that required corrective action.
        Can you tell us more about the problems you found?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. In regards to the
    electrical cable, the equipment that this cable was feeding, we
    call them circuits and they are protected by over-current
    devices. The system does not work properly if it is not
    designed properly.
        We did not have the design drawings or plans at that time.
    So we were merely there to assist in starting this facility up,
    so we can serve the first meal on May 15th.
        During that time, these issues arose and we did have
    personnel that were getting shocked or electrocuted mildly at
    the facility. We did shut the power off to investigate and
    assist the contractor, Overseas Building Office, to find these
    issues and try to remedy them.
        Chairman Waxman. Well, the cable mentions problems with the
    grounding, electrical feeds, split wiring, wiring not contained
    in junction boxes.
        Paragraph 11 of the Embassy cable states that on May 24th,
    10 days after the meltdown, OBO said the wiring had been
    corrected. You came back on May 25th, the next day, but you
    still found continuing concerns with the wiring, according to
    the cable.
        How can it be that OBO thought it had fixed the problems
    when it really hadn't?
        Mr. Demming. Mr. Chairman, we don't monitor what those,
    that entity does out there on that camp. We are directed by our
    client--at that time it would be the U.S. Army--to perform
    these tasks and only upon direction do we actually act.
        Chairman Waxman. Well, the wiring failed once. First
    Kuwaiti fixed it, and OBO checked it, but there were still
    problems if what you are telling us is right, something appears
    to be seriously wrong with the management and oversight of this
    project. This doesn't mean that the rest of the Embassy project
    will be plagued by similar problems, but it obviously raises a
    major red flag.
        The State Department said the guard base was fine, that it
    met and exceeded requirements. It turned out to be a fiasco.
    The $600 million question is whether we are going to discover
    the same kinds of problems when the Embassy is turned over to
    the State Department this fall.
        I want to recognize Mr. Shays for 5 minutes as well.
        Mr. Shays. Mr. Demming, first, you deserve a tremendous
    thanks for serving your country by serving overseas in Iraq for
    so long in your capacity with KBR, and I thank you for that.
        Mr. Demming. Thank you, Congressman.
        Mr. Shays. What I want to do is just be clear. We are not
    talking about the $600 million Embassy. We are talking about a
    temporary camp designed to house workers who would work on the
    $600 million Embassy, is that correct?
        Mr. Demming. To my understanding, Mr. Congressman, that
    BESF was the Baghdad security force camp.
        Mr. Shays. Is the answer yes?
        Mr. Demming. This would be for the security force.
        Mr. Shays. What you are talking about now is a facility
    that is temporary, designed to hold the security forces or the
    workers or whatever, correct?
        Mr. Demming. Correct.
        Mr. Shays. OK. We are not talking about a permanent Embassy
    problem, correct?
        Mr. Demming. This does attach to the big Embassy campus
    itself.
        Mr. Shays. I am not trying to suggest that we should have
    problems in a temporary facility, but I want us to make sure we
    are not mixing the two right yet.
        Now it is my understanding that the OBO, the Overseas
    Building Operations, is a State Department agency that had
    basically written out the specs for this temporary facility and
    that when KBR got there, they felt that the facility was not
    adequate, is that not true?
        Mr. Demming. That would take some explanation, Mr.
    Congressman.
        Mr. Shays. Well, first off, isn't it true that this was a
    facility that was built according to the specs of the State
    Department and when KBR got there, they said this isn't going
    to be able to handle all that we need? Isn't that true?
        Mr. Demming. Can I explain to that?
        Mr. Shays. Well, first off, tell me if it is true or not
    and then explain.
        Mr. Demming. That is true.
        Mr. Shays. OK, now explain.
        Mr. Demming. OK. What the issues were when KBR was asked to
    perform operation and maintenance logistic services at the
    guard camp itself, we have certain equipment and support
    mechanics that require trucks, fire trucks, fuel trucks and
    etc. At that time, we did not have a lot of information.
        Mr. Shays. I need a shorter version. The bottom line is are
    you trying to say they should have known that it was not going
    to be adequate?
        Mr. Demming. No, sir. We could not get our equipment in
    there to perform that O&M. That was our pushback.
        Mr. Shays. Are you a witness today to have evidence about
    the Embassy itself and that the Embassy itself has major
    construction problems?
        Mr. Demming. No, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Shays. Your thrust today is just to say there may be
    indication of some problems with the full Embassy because there
    are problems with this temporary site or are you just here
    because you were requested to be? What is your motivation for
    being here?
        Mr. Demming. I was requested to be here or asked to be
    here, Mr. Congressman, to explain the difficulties and issues
    at the security force camp.
        Mr. Shays. Temporary site, OK.
        In your work in the United States, is this sometimes what
    is built sometimes doesn't meet the need of the person, of the
    client? Is this unusual?
        Is this event unusual, what you are encountering, what you
    encountered in Iraq?
        Mr. Demming. Comparing to Iraq, it is a very volatile
    environment. Unusual, I would say no, sir.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much, sir.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Do you have a second?
        Mr. Shays. Yes, I would be happy to yield to my colleague.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Is the problem here with the specs
    or is the problem with the construction?
        Mr. Demming. Mr. Congressman, KBR was never privy to the
    specifications that this entity was built by. We were going by
    the Unites States national electrical codes and some of the
    national building codes, the UBC and the UMC.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. So you don't have any information
    that the construction didn't meet the specs and there might
    have been a problem with the specs.
        Mr. Demming. That is correct.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. You don't have any information that
    there is anything wrong in the construction at the Embassy at
    all, do you?
        Mr. Demming. That is correct.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Thank you.
        Chairman Waxman. Mr. Cummings.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much. I want to thank you, Mr.
    Demming, for being with us today.
        Did I understand you correctly when you said that you are
    an electrician?
        Mr. Demming. That is correct, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Cummings. How long have you been that?
        Mr. Demming. Over 30 years, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Cummings. Now, Mr. Demming, I understand that after the
    wires melted at the guard camp, is that true? They melted?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, sir, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Cummings. Let me see if we can connect some dots here.
    After they melted, the Embassy asked KBR to conduct a technical
    inspection of the entire guard camp electrical system, is that
    correct?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Cummings. Were you a part of that in any way?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, I was, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Cummings. Mr. Chairman, I have a copy of KBR's report
    dated May 25, 2007, which I ask to be made a part of the
    hearing record.
        [The information referred to follows:]
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        Mr. Cummings. Mr. Demming, this report says that it is from
    Paul Chretien. Do you know him?
        Mr. Demming. Say that again.
        Mr. Cummings. I probably pronounced his name wrong. Paul C-
    H-R-E-T-I-E-N.
        Mr. Demming. Chretien.
        Mr. Cummings. Yes. Who is he?
        Mr. Demming. He is my electrical engineer. He works on my
    staff.
        Mr. Cummings. All right, so he works, he is under you?
        Mr. Demming. That is correct, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Cummings. All right. On page 1 of this report, it lists
    ``areas of concern'' and it says this: ``One of the greatest
    areas of concern is the use of counterfeit wire,'' which refers
    to a wire found which has a particular wire size printed on the
    insulation but actually has smaller, lower capacity conductors,
    is that right?
        Mr. Demming. That is correct, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Cummings. Did you actually obtain samples of the
    counterfeit wire?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, that is correct, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Cummings. Now that word, counterfeit, that is a pretty
    strong word, isn't it?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, it is.
        Mr. Cummings. In other words, it implies that somebody did
    something wrong, is that right? In other words, that is not
    proper, is that right?
        Mr. Demming. That is correct.
        Mr. Cummings. How did you determine what the size of the
    wire in the insulation was?
        Mr. Demming. When the team was inspecting on that technical
    inspection through the panels to further meet the needs of the
    direction that we received, they identified that first by
    looking at the cable that was installed. Further investigation,
    we found that the cable was marked, and on that cable marking
    it was marked for the required cable size.
        As further investigation went, the copper diameter size of
    the conductors inside the multi-conductor cable was thought to
    be smaller than what the stamped rating was on the jacket.
        Mr. Cummings. So, in other words, even if the
    specifications had asked for a certain thing, when you went to
    look at the wire, even if the specifications asked for it, the
    proper wire was not there, is that correct?
        Mr. Demming. That is correct.
        Mr. Cummings. I believe we have a picture of the
    counterfeit wires you found. Can we please display that on the
    screen?
        Where did you find this wire in the camp?
        Mr. Demming. This cable was at, this particular cable was
    going to the fryers from a panel inside the DFAC, the dining
    facility.
        Mr. Cummings. What problems might result from the use of
    such a counterfeit wire?
        Mr. Demming. Well, they might melt.
        Mr. Cummings. As they did.
        Mr. Demming. Correct.
        Mr. Cummings. After you did your report to the Embassy, the
    Embassy wrote this cable to OBO, and here is what they said:
    ``Several additional issues have arisen including discovery of
    counterfeit wire.''
        So they reported what you found to Washington.
        Now I want to show you what Washington said in response.
    This was written on June 7th, and I ask that it be entered into
    the record.
        [The information referred to follows:]
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        Mr. Cummings. The cable said this: ``We have also asked KBR
    and Post to identify any counterfeit wire and its location and
    they have not been able to do so.''
        Mr. Demming, first of all, did you understand what I just
    said?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Cummings. I am asking you, Mr. Demming. Did anyone at
    OBO ever ask you about the counterfeit wire you found?
        Mr. Demming. No, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Cummings. Did anyone at OBO ask anyone on your team
    about it to your knowledge?
        Mr. Demming. Mr. Congressman, to my knowledge, no.
        Mr. Cummings. Do you know why OBO would claim in this cable
    that they asked you for this when they didn't? Do you know?
        Mr. Demming. No, I do not know that.
        Mr. Cummings. One of the documents that the committee
    subpoenaed is a fire safety inspection report of the Embassy
    complex itself. We understand that this inspection report
    documents a number of serious safety risks similar to those
    that KBR found at the guard base, but the State Department
    won't turn this document over to the committee.
        That is not a good sign. Covering up serious safety
    problems at the Embassy does not make them go away.
        Again, this word, counterfeit, is very significant, is it
    not?
        Mr. Demming. That is correct, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
        Chairman Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Cummings.
        Mr. Davis.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. You showed the cable, this
    counterfeit cable, whatever, to the Embassy Post, is that
    right?
        Mr. Demming. That is correct, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. There is an inherent conflict
    sometimes between the Embassy Post and OBO in terms of what the
    specs should be. Everybody, they always are asking to try to
    get greater capacity, better walls, better flooring. In my
    experience, that has been true. They always want a little more
    and the State Department, to put these things on time and under
    budget, has certain specs.
        Do you have any evidence that this wire did not meet the
    specs?
        Mr. Demming. No, Mr. Congressman. I never saw the specs.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. I think that is the nub of the
    matter. I think what we have here is that if you looked at
    American standards in a permanent facility, you would have
    looked for a different kind of wiring that would have supported
    what you were trying to put in.
        This was a temporary facility. The specs that were written
    were one thing, and maybe they should have been something else.
        I am not an expert in this area, but what I am looking for
    is evidence that the construction here was, in fact,
    counterfeit which would mean they represented it would be one
    thing and it was something else versus what the specifications
    called for since this was a temporary facility.
        I don't know what the specs called for and we can ask this
    in our next panel.
        You don't know what the specs called for, do you?
        Mr. Demming. No, Mr. Congressman, I do not.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Thank you.
        I mean I think that is the point we are trying to get at is
    they have made a leap over here without looking at the
    underlying specifications in the contract. This was a temporary
    facility. They had a budget.
        Do you have any evidence that this would not have met,
    well, let me just ask this.
        What capacity did the customer require for its dining
    facility? Do you know how many people they were trying to feed
    there?
        Mr. Demming. There was 1,200 personnel that were to live on
    that guard camp, and they served three meals a day.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. What organization is KBR's customer
    for the O&M contract to operate the guard camp?
        Mr. Demming. Can you repeat that, Mr. Congressman?
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. What organization is your customer
    on the O&M contract to operate the guard camp? Who are you
    working for?
        Mr. Demming. The U.S. Army.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. So your contract was with the U.S.
    Army, and this was a State Department facility.
        Mr. Demming. That is correct, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Now what capacity does that customer
    require for its dining facility?
        Mr. Demming. Capacity as in personnel?
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Yes.
        Mr. Demming. There is 1,200 personnel.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Is that capacity different from the
    capacity the dining facility was built to support?
        Mr. Demming. I do not believe so, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Some have said that the reason for
    the problems with the wiring in the dining facility was caused
    by KBR installing more equipment than the facility was designed
    to accept. Now what is your view on that?
        Mr. Demming. That is not true.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. But you haven't seen the specs.
        Mr. Demming. I have not seen the specifications, Mr.
    Congressman, but most of the kitchen equipment, commercial type
    kitchen equipment, was already installed not by KBR.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Right. Now OBO says they repaired
    the damage soon after and that the wiring issue was resolved,
    is that correct?
        Mr. Demming. Those were the readily identified issues on
    May 14th that they resolved.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Did they resolve those issues?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Pretty quickly?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Is the dining facility that you
    inspected capable of handling the capacity required by your
    customer?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. What improvements need to be made to
    the dining facility in order to meet your customer's capacity
    requirements or are they already done?
        Mr. Demming. In our contract and according to preventive
    MED issues and some of the Army regulations, we are required
    certain things to happen as far as how hot the water must be,
    how much water we must have to properly sanitize and wash the
    dishes. The food storage, we are required in some instances to
    maintain several days of storage because of the environment
    that we are in.
        Situations like that, Mr. Congressman, are required that we
    brought to the attention that facility did not meet.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Did you have concerns about your
    contractual liability for the dining facilities during the
    contract for the camp?
        Mr. Demming. Just when we were asked to do the O&M services
    is when we brought up those concerns.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Do you know if KBR submitted an
    offer to build the Embassy compound?
        Mr. Demming. No, I do not know that, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. But once again just to clarify, you
    have no knowledge or no relationship between what was done at
    the Embassy itself versus this separate contract for the dining
    facility, is that correct, temporary facility?
        Mr. Demming. That is correct, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Tierney [presiding]. Thank you.
        Ms. Watson, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
        Ms. Watson. Thank you so much and thank you, Mr. Demming,
    for being here.
        In the OBO's cable responding to the Embassy's concerns,
    they essentially blame you at KBR for all of these problems,
    and I would like to have you respond to some of the statements.
        The basic argument seems to be that after the camp was
    turned over, KBR came in and added a lot of extra equipment
    that was never intended to be there. So let me read you what
    the OBO's cable actually says, and it is in paragraph three.
        It says this was a problem created solely by Post and KBR
    by putting additional equipment in the facility and not
    checking the electrical loads.
        The cable also says all such equipment appeared to be
    larger, higher power requirement than the manufacturer had
    intended based on our original specifications. This is the real
    reason for the facility overheating.
        So what is your response to that claim?
        Mr. Demming. Ms. Congresswoman, we did not provide any
    extra equipment to the kitchen facility other than the 20 foot
    by 8 foot container for a chiller or cooler unit which was
    placed outside the dining facility and wired to a separate
    circuit system as well as 20 by 8 foot container utilized as a
    freezer container. Those two items were brought over from the
    previous camp where the guards are living now, Camp Jackson, in
    order to store food there in preparation to move the guards
    over to the new camp and provide DFAC services by May 15th.
        Ms. Watson. Can you stipulate to that, the equipment that
    you brought in and the reason?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, ma'am. The equipment that we brought in
    was specifically for the additional food that was required and
    to start the DFAC services on May 15th.
        Ms. Watson. Is there a work order that would state that in
    writing? Was there a work order?
        Mr. Demming. There was some. There would had to have been a
    work order for us to do that, Ms. Congresswoman, and on the e-
    mail traffic, I have just been handed, from First Kuwaiti, on
    one of their preparations for a billing statement, they do
    include adding an existing chiller to be moved from the triple
    canopy camp and add existing freezer to be moved from the
    triple canopy camp. They were aware that these two items needed
    to be brought over and in working condition in order to meet
    the May 15th inaugural meal.
        Ms. Watson. Did you also check the electrical loads?
        Mr. Demming. We were asked to do the technical inspection
    after we received the administrative contracting letter to do
    the O&M on the camp, and upon that inspection is when we
    started to find some of the issues on the loads. However, it
    was not until the actual startup of the facility is when the
    events appeared.
        Ms. Watson. Did you document that inspection? Can we find
    it somewhere in writing what you found?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am.
        Ms. Watson. Now here is another statement that was in the
    cable. I am just repeating what the cable said. ``KBR confirmed
    and agreed specifically that they could manage and operate the
    facility based on the design.''
        Is that true?
        Mr. Demming. I am sorry, Ms. Congresswoman. Can you say
    that again?
        Ms. Watson. I will repeat it, yes.
        ``KBR''--you--``confirmed and agreed specifically that they
    could manage and operate the facility based on the design.''
        Did you know what the design was?
        Mr. Demming. No, Ms. Congresswoman. I really can't answer
    that. That might have been something from upper management, but
    to my knowledge we did not accept that based on design.
        Ms. Watson. So there was no confirmation.
        Mr. Demming. That is correct.
        Ms. Watson. From you, OK.
        Mr. Demming. From me.
        Ms. Watson. Now here is another statement. ``KBR created
    the problems and are now trying to put this matter on the
    construction of the camp.''
        This says that KBR created the problems. What is your
    response to that?
        Mr. Demming. That is not true, Ms. Congresswoman.
        Ms. Watson. And you stipulate to that? You are under oath.
        Mr. Demming. Yes, ma'am.
        Ms. Watson. The cable not only blames KBR for the problems
    but also suggests a motive, and this is what was said in the
    cable.
        Mr. Tierney. Just finish up if you would, please. Thank
    you.
        Ms. Watson. OK, I will go real quickly.
        ``These items do not represent any health or safety risk as
    outlined in the 25 May cable and will not stop Post from
    occupying the camp if they desire. For whatever reason, it
    appears Post and KBR simply do not want to operate the camp for
    other reasons which have nothing to do with the construction or
    equipment installed as part of the original scope.''
        Do you have any idea what is being said and does KBR have
    other reasons for not wanting to operate this camp?
        Mr. Demming. No, Ms. Congresswoman. I do not understand the
    justification of that statement.
        However, if I may, I would like to respond to your question
    about the safety of the camp. On May 15th, I received an e-mail
    from my electrical superintendent working out there, describing
    how our guys have gotten shocked touching up against the frame
    of the trailer. None of our wiring was powered up at the time
    of the modifications that we were doing over there for the May
    15th meal.
        So they shut down the breakers one by one to find the
    cause. One of the feeds for the oven had actually melted. This
    was a feeder wire to the ovens, equipment KBR did not supply,
    that actually melted and came into contact with the trailer,
    causing personnel in there to get shocked or electrocuted.
        It did not trip the circuit breaker, the over-current
    protection, because it was improperly grounded. That is another
    safety issue that we discovered during the May 14th startup.
        This goes on, ma'am.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
        We can cover that maybe another time. Thank you, Ms.
    Watson.
        Ms. Watson. I will continue to probe this if we have a
    second round.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Westmoreland, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Westmoreland. Thank you and thank you for coming to
    testify.
        Are you aware of any labor abuse that was involved?
        Mr. Demming. No, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Westmoreland. Let me ask you another question referring
    to some of these pictures that were submitted. Are you familiar
    with the pictures that have been submitted?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, I am, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Westmoreland. The last picture shows and I know the
    exact term for it but shows the measurement of the wires.
        Mr. Demming. That is correct.
        Mr. Westmoreland. Could you tell me what those numbers
    actually say on that picture?
        Mr. Demming. That is correct. On the top picture, the
    micrometer reading is the cable that we buy, that we have had
    in stock from our purchases. The 3.9 is the diameter dimension
    of the copper wire inside that cable. It is a multi-conductor
    cable.
        If you take the diameter divided by 2 squared and do some
    mathematics, you get the area in millimeters of that cable
    which comes to a little over 10 millimeters. That is referred
    to as a 10 millimeter square conductor or multi-conductor
    cable.
        The bottom picture shows the suspect counterfeit cable
    marked clearly 10 millimeter square. With the micrometer gauge
    on that, it is reading 2.8.
        Again, if you do the mathematics, Mr. Congressman, the area
    square of that conductor will come out to 6 millimeters. That 6
    millimeter difference is a significant amperage load difference
    on that cable of what it is capable of carrying.
        Mr. Westmoreland. Thank you.
        I notice you have a calculator there next to it. So I am
    assuming that you just can't do this in your mind. It takes
    some type of calculation to come up with these millimeters. Is
    that correct?
        Mr. Demming. That is correct, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Westmoreland. How many electricians have you ever seen
    on the job that carried around one of these whatever those
    things were with a calculator?
        Mr. Demming. Micrometer.
        Mr. Westmoreland. Have you ever seen any electricians have
    those in their nail pouch or their screwdriver belt or
    anything?
        Mr. Demming. No, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Westmoreland. OK.
        In some of the other pictures, I noticed, and I am in the
    building business. I have never seen red, blue and yellow
    wires. There seems to be some type of color coding for these
    wires. What are the different colors?
        Why are some of the wires blue, some yellow and some red?
        Mr. Demming. Mr. Congressman, that type of cabling and
    color coding is indigenous to that region.
        Mr. Westmoreland. I am sorry.
        Mr. Demming. That type of color coding and cabling is
    indigenous to that region.
        Mr. Westmoreland. OK.
        So when I look at the panel box and I see red, yellow and
    blue, that would be some kind of indication that somebody might
    have a language barrier or something, but he would know to plug
    the red wire in the red and the yellow into the yellow and the
    blue into the blue.
        Mr. Demming. Typically, just like the United States, Mr.
    Congressman, we have black, red, blue as an indication of
    phasing, and this is the same configuration. Just they use
    different colors over there, and that would be considered what
    we say RYB which would be the same as black, red, blue.
        Mr. Westmoreland. I have been in the construction business
    a long time and seen a lot of panel boxes, and I have never
    seen any that had the color codes for the cables to go into,
    but I understand that.
        Not only is there maybe something lost, I guess, in
    interpretation or in wiring diagrams or differences in building
    codes or whatever, but also the thickness of this wire would be
    something if you were using metric or American or whatever to
    try to get in place that this was only a 6 millimeter.
        Do you know if by just cutting that wire with your hand
    that you would have noticed any difference?
        Mr. Demming. Mr. Congressman, I might be a little rusty on
    that after being in the administrative portion of this industry
    for a while, but the gentlemen that are in the field and do
    this every day, it is very typical for them to distinguish the
    differences on sight.
        Mr. Westmoreland. OK, and let me ask you another question.
        You mentioned the ground wiring to the boxes, and I looked
    and I couldn't tell where the ground wire would go. I didn't
    see the bus bar, I guess, or whatever on the box itself. But
    how much would it cost to run a ground wire and hook it to
    these panels?
        What is an estimate? Are we talking about $10 million, $1
    million, $100,000, $1,000? What would be the cost to correct
    this grounding situation and really replace?
        Mr. Tierney. Mr. Westmoreland, we are going to let him ask
    that first question, if we might, because your time is expired
    and I do want to hear the answer. Then we will move on. Thank
    you.
        Mr. Demming. Mr. Congressman, I could not give you a price
    on the cost of that because of the intricacy of the
    construction involved. The cable has already been run. In some
    spots and areas of the camp, they have poured concrete roadways
    over, and this would have to be tallied up as square footage.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Westmoreland. Just to followup on that, just one
    question, just one quick thing.
        Mr. Tierney. If you can keep it very, very, very brief.
        Mr. Westmoreland. Why would you have to run a ground wire
    under a road? I am confused about that.
        Mr. Demming. That is the way they ran the feeders, Mr.
    Congressman.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
        Mr. Lynch, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding this
    hearing.
        Thank you, Mr. Demming, for helping the committee with its
    work.
        I am going to let this electrical thing go at some point,
    but it would seem to me. I spent 20 years working, strapping on
    the work boots and working on a constructionsite before coming
    to Congress, and I know my way around a constructionsite. This
    is a pretty basic mistake here. This is basic.
        Either the people doing the work at the very basic level
    should have recognized what they were doing. If they knew what
    they were doing, they would have known this was wrong. That is
    the workers themselves, the workers themselves wiring this job
    for the intended purpose. It should have been painfully obvious
    that they were making huge mistakes here.
        Then if you go to the next level, the foremen or forewomen
    that are supervising the actual work, they should have known.
    Then, of course, whoever is above them, the supervisors on the
    site, they should have known. Then the quality control people
    who are supposed to be checking this work, they should have
    known.
        This is like putting your pants on backward. This is
    something that should have been obvious to anybody who was
    familiar with electrical work, regardless of what country,
    regardless of what standard. This was just totally
    unacceptable.
        When you turn the appliances on and the wires start to
    melt, you know you have yourself a problem. So I think this is
    something that is inherent in the whole system here. It is not
    a technical misreading.
        I have been over to Iraq seven times now, and a lot of that
    time has been spent reviewing Iraq reconstruction projects,
    working with Stuart Bowen.
        Every time I go to a job site, and it is the same
    everywhere, whether I visit Al Qaim. KBR has a project up there
    at the border entry on the Syrian border. I go through there,
    and I try to talk to the workers and had an Iraqi interpreter
    which was to no purpose because they were all from India, all
    these workers from India.
        Then we visit a water sewage treatment facility up near
    Irbil, and they are all Pakistanis. So I couldn't talk to them.
        We went to a couple of projects in and around Baghdad. They
    were Chinese and Korean.
        It just makes me wonder. Here we are. We are trying to sell
    democracy to these folks, the Iraqis. We are pumping in $12
    billion a month there, and yet every job I go to the Iraqis
    aren't working.
        It is like we have our policy wrong. If we are going to
    convince them democracy is the way to go, you don't do that
    through the Defense Department. The way you show them that
    democracy works is to provide them with jobs. If they were
    employed, maybe instead of employing, and God bless the Indians
    and the Pakistanis and the Chinese and the Koreans, but they
    have major problems in Iraq right now.
        We are providing the money. We are providing the
    construction projects. We are supposed to be providing the
    oversight and the supervision. It seems to me that you don't
    export democracy through the Defense Department. You do it
    through the Commerce Department, the State Department and
    letting these folks go to work and actually seeing what a
    normal life is like.
        Take these people out of employment. The unemployment rate
    in Iraq among males between ages 18 and 35 years old is
    probably up over 50 percent. Put some of these folks to work.
        I know you are probably not the guy responsible for that
    decision, but somewhere someone along the line ought to figure
    out that if we put some of these Iraqis to work instead of
    bringing in the lowest wage workers from around the world and
    exploiting them, it might help the situation there.
        Is that the practice?
        I mean everywhere I go, it seems to be that the workers are
    from somewhere else. Even though there is a ton of unemployed
    Iraqis all over Iraq, doing God knows what, we seem to be
    employing through our tax dollars, through government
    contracting, we are employing everybody but the Iraqis. I just
    want to know if that is the policy and is that something that
    you have seen.
        Mr. Demming. Mr. Congressman, I employ over 300 Iraqis in
    the engineering and construction side of KBR's support for
    USMI.
        Mr. Lynch. Out of how many people?
        Mr. Demming. That is out of 400 and some odd people.
        Mr. Lynch. So 75 percent of your entire department.
        How about KBR on the ground in Iraq, how about the total
    number there?
        Mr. Demming. I am not understanding your question. I am on
    the ground in Iraq.
        Mr. Lynch. No, no. I am talking about Kellogg Brown and
    Root, all your operations.
        Mr. Demming. Oh, the whole operations, I don't have that
    information.
        Mr. Lynch. All right. I will let it go at that. Thank you,
    Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Lynch.
        Mr. Issa, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Demming, it is kind of interesting. This is a hearing
    in search of an enemy, and I keep wondering how many and when
    they are going to turn on you because obviously this has been
    the Democrat agenda from day one. Halliburton, once managed by
    the Vice President. KBR, owned by him. Obviously, you are bad
    guys as a result.
        It is sort of interesting that you are here today as a
    neutral observer, somebody to give us information. It is sort
    of amazing when it is convenient, KBR is what it is, an
    incredibly knowledgeable global builder who understand the
    right way, the wrong way, the expeditious way to do things.
        Do you see any irony there in your role?
        Mr. Demming. I will defer that comment.
        Mr. Issa. You are a wise man. I see the irony, fortunately,
    for both of us.
        I am not an engineer, but I did once operate an engineer
    company for the Army and did a little other work. What this
    rat's nest looks like to me is like most of the 20 by 20's we
    in the Corps of Engineers built.
        It looks like every piece of temporary expeditious building
    that ever went on when you didn't go for permits and you used
    romex or whatever you had to go from point to point to get a
    job done. Is that what it looks like to you?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, it does, Mr. Congressman. I would just
    like to iterate that in the National Electrical Code, Article
    590, temporary refers to 90 days or less.
        Mr. Issa. Would it surprise you to know that 75 percent of
    Fort Ward when I was there was temporary buildings? They were
    built in World War II. I know I look old, but I wasn't there in
    World War II or in 90 days after.
        Mr. Demming. No. No, Mr. Congressman. I was stationed there
    prior to going overseas with the U.S. Army in 1971.
        Mr. Issa. Now the State Department estimate--I know you
    don't have an estimate--is that to do the basic compliance
    wiring for the items that are shown here, it is $4,000 to
    $6,000 to correct that. I am assuming that they are going to
    drive in a ground on the building side and pick up a new ground
    there.
        Is that something that if you were having to retrofit this,
    you would figure you could do, and with the labor force cost
    there, you could do for $4,000 to $6,000, just a rough guess,
    to correct it, simply to make it safe?
        Mr. Demming. Mr. Congressman, I can't comment on that
    price. We run a different system to make things safe because of
    the ground and the environment over there. It is called a solid
    grounding system.
        Mr. Issa. OK. I understand. It is probably more than we can
    get into for how we would establish a ground, but basically let
    us switch to another question.
        You have operated out of construction trailers for a long
    time, haven't you?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Issa. You consider them temporary.
        Mr. Demming. No, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Issa. You don't consider a construction trailer
    temporary? Please, you don't have to say Mister and
    Congressman.
        Mr. Demming. A construction trailer, yes, I do. The
    environment that we are in there at this particular point in
    time, it is running over 90 days.
        Mr. Issa. No, no. I understand that, but I just want to
    make sure I understand that construction trailers aren't
    permanent. The connection, the actual drop, the electrical drop
    to a construction trailer is a separate consideration. It is
    done normally with a black multi-conductor that comes down. You
    do different connections on a constructionsite.
        Mr. Demming. That is correct.
        Mr. Issa. OK.
        Often on a constructionsite, and I am not making any
    apologies for this kind of wiring, but these wires and how they
    are run, these things, they are often done expeditiously, quick
    order. Is that true on a constructionsite?
        Mr. Demming. The typical wiring is on the startup of a
    project or the ending of a project or during a project is done
    hastily.
        Mr. Issa. Was anyone killed as a result of these mistakes?
        Mr. Demming. When I first landed on the ground in 2003, we
    did have several soldiers get electrocuted to death, sir.
        Mr. Issa. As a result of these trailers?
        Mr. Demming. As a result of bad wiring.
        Mr. Issa. These trailers?
        Mr. Demming. Not these trailers. I am not sure of the
    actual.
        Mr. Issa. OK. I just wanted to find out because that is a
    separate concern and each accident investigation should be
    done.
        Last question because my time is expiring and it is an
    important one, and I think it is one that we all need to have
    an answer to.
        In this combat zone, if you do not source materials at a
    fairly expensive amount directly from a known source, if you
    simply buy on the local market or through intermediaries in
    Iraq, is it likely to get counterfeits and is that one of the
    reasons that KBR and other prime contractors pay extra to have
    known sources they are buying from in the region rather than
    picking up on the domestic market?
        I am particularly referring to the micrometer measurings
    and the counterfeits that obviously got into this project.
        Mr. Demming. That would be a concern, but it is not common
    or atypical. We have acquired the proper material in-country
    through local purchasing.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Issa.
        Ms. Norton, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this
    hearing.
        The State Department, we have been hearing for months now
    as well as other civilian employees have eschewed going to Iraq
    even in the safe zones. We are trying to get our soldiers out.
    We hope we would leave Embassy employees there. This hearing is
    important to establish whether it is safe for people to be
    there and whether the United States of America is making it
    safe.
        I understand that you have brought some pictures with you,
    and I am going to ask a series of questions to try to get to
    responsibility here. We can look and say, well, you could
    always fix that. I would like to know who is responsible.
        We are now looking at this picture before you. Could you
    describe for us what the problem is as you see it in your
    expertise?
        Mr. Demming. Ms. Congresswoman, this particular picture
    here is showing the cabling branch circuits from all the other
    areas of that particular section of modular unit of the DFAC.
    This is underneath the DFAC.
        Ms. Norton. This is what, sorry?
        Mr. Demming. Underneath the DFAC, underneath the floor.
        Ms. Norton. What is the specific problem that you see?
        Mr. Demming. OK. If you look at the cabling there, the wire
    nuts which show the connections where the wires may have been
    spliced together, we call them wire nuts, the little red
    things. Typically are installed in a box with a cover.
        Ms. Norton. And it is not with a cover, what is the
    problem? What is the problem?
        What is the danger? What is the problem?
        Mr. Demming. These splices are not done correctly according
    to any standard or code. There is no supporting on the wire as
    well as some of the construction. The holes going through the 2
    by 4 typically require about an inch and a quarter from the
    edge. You can see the holes are drilled right at the edge which
    would allow for a nail to puncture the cable.
        Ms. Norton. Did KBR do this? Was it done prior to KBR?
        Did First Kuwaiti do it? Who did this?
        Mr. Demming. This is the BESF camp. KBR did not perform the
    construction on this camp.
        Ms. Norton. Can we go to the next picture? Would you
    describe, looking at this picture, if there is a problem, what
    is the specific problem?
        Mr. Demming. I believe what the photographer was trying to
    depict here is there is no ground bar in this panel. This would
    be the submain panel that is fed directly from the main panel
    from the generators.
        Ms. Norton. When you say ground bar, make layman dummies
    like me understand what you mean.
        Mr. Demming. I am sorry. Excuse me, Ms. Congresswoman.
        Ms. Norton. And what the specific problem is from the point
    of view of not having the ground bar.
        Mr. Demming. There is always the availability of being
    shocked, and there is no protection for the over-current
    device, the breakers there, to operate properly.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you.
        Let us go to the next picture. Would you describe the
    problem there, the specific problem in layman's terms?
        What are we looking at? What is the problem in layman's
    terms?
        What is the danger?
        Mr. Demming. As you can see, the feet and this receptacle
    is on the floor, improperly installed.
        Ms. Norton. So the feet, that is where you plug?
        Mr. Demming. Correct. That is a receptacle.
        Ms. Norton. What is the problem with that?
        Mr. Demming. It is on the floor, installed improperly. It
    would be subject to water and moisture every time they clean
    the DFAC.
        Ms. Norton. Who did this? Did KBR do it? Was it done prior
    to KBR arriving on the scene?
        Mr. Demming. This was done during the construction of the
    BESF camp, not by KBR.
        Ms. Norton. Let us go to the next picture. Next picture,
    please. Describe what this picture is. If there is a problem,
    what is the problem?
        Mr. Demming. OK. These are 100 amp panels installed inside
    the dining facility. Again, you have to look really close at
    these pictures. The grounding where the green wires are, the
    main ground going back to the main panel, is not correctly or
    non-existent.
        Ms. Norton. So what is the problem from the point of view
    of somebody in the building, for example?
        Mr. Demming. This again, there is a prelude to electric
    shock and a safety hazard, and the over-current devices won't
    work properly.
        Ms. Norton. Next picture, please. Would you describe any
    problem, if you see a problem?
        First, tell us what this is a picture of and if you see a
    problem, would you tell us what the problem is?
        Mr. Demming. During one of the technical inspections we had
    after the event where people opened up some of the commercial
    cooking equipment installed by others in this DFAC, on the
    right side where the brown, blue and yellow cables are
    connected to that terminal strip, are incorrectly terminated
    there and the phasing is incorrect.
        Ms. Norton. With what result, perhaps?
        Mr. Demming. That would cause. We have a hot wire on the
    neutral as well as on the line, so that would cause a short or
    400 volts instead of 230 volts for operation. That may cause a
    fire.
        Ms. Norton. Did KBR install these cables or were they
    installed before KBR arrived on the scene?
        Mr. Demming. This was again, Ms. Congresswoman, installed
    by others.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much, Ms. Norton.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Tierney. Ms. McCollum, you are recognized for 5
    minutes.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        When I am in a kitchen, whether it is here or if I am
    visiting someone, and I do travel. I am in a lot of developing
    countries. I have confidence that when I plug something in, I
    am not going to receive an electrical shock because there is,
    as you described, an international code, correct?
        Mr. Demming. I am sorry, Congresswoman. Can you speak a
    little louder?
        Ms. McCollum. When I travel somewhere and I travel
    internationally, and I am in developing countries quite often.
    I am in U.S. embassies. I am in USAID hospital facilities or a
    small type, the equivalent of a Motel 6, not even a four star
    hotel but just staying some place. I have confidence that when
    I go to plug something in, when I go to flip a switch, that I
    won't be electrocuted because there is an international
    standard, correct?
        Mr. Demming. Not necessarily, Congresswoman.
        Ms. McCollum. Well, I am certainly seeing that, based on
    what you are showing me here, I should have very little
    confidence of anything that has been paid for by U.S.
    taxpayers' money, that there has been any kind of international
    standard followed based on these pictures that you showed me.
        You would have no confidence without inspecting something
    yourself before you plug something in, in this compound, based
    on what you have shared with us today, correct?
        Mr. Demming. Let me see if I understand your question,
    Congresswoman. The countries you have been in, developing
    countries, the environment is atypical.
        Ms. McCollum. I am saying U.S. buildings that I have been
    in where U.S. employees are staying or where the USAID has
    built a hospital or a clinic or embassies, that I should feel
    fairly confident that if I flip the light switch, I am not
    going to be electrocuted.
        Mr. Demming. Correct.
        Ms. McCollum. But from what I am seeing here and from you
    have shown me, especially in a kitchen area where there is
    water and grease and a lot of electrical appliances being
    plugged in, that I would be a fool to have any confidence that
    if I plug something in or flipped a switch if I was a worker
    there, that I might not be severely shocked or even
    electrocuted.
        Mr. Demming. Hopefully, the entity that would release the
    building or facility prior to it opening to the public would
    have made these inspections and corrected all those faults, and
    that is kind of the position that we are playing here right
    now, Congresswoman.
        Ms. McCollum. So that when you have your employees go in
    there and they plug something in or turn on a switch, that you
    don't have a worker that is severely injured or possibly even
    killed by this poor workmanship.
        Mr. Demming. That is correct.
        Ms. McCollum. I found it interesting, one of the questions.
    You had spoken about counterfeit wiring earlier, and someone
    said well, if you follow the specifications, there isn't a
    problem. Specifications don't ever call for counterfeit wiring,
    do they?
        Mr. Demming. No, Congresswoman.
        Ms. McCollum. No, I wouldn't think so.
        Specifications wouldn't call for, as you described in here,
    an outlet on the floor of a dining area where there is going to
    be water because people mop it up.
        To have a non-waterproof, flush-mounted plug-in as one of
    the pictures showed, that wouldn't be a specification that a
    U.S. contractor would expect going into a dining facility,
    would they?
        Mr. Demming. There are codes that regulate that type of
    installation, Congresswoman.
        Ms. McCollum. In your opinion, before KBR comes into take
    over running the facility and using it to prepare the meals,
    would you have assumed, because U.S. taxpayers' dollars were
    being used to construct this, even if it is temporary, this
    dining facility, there would have been some oversight, some
    inspection to make sure that when you walked in that day, you
    could have plugged in the equipment, flipped a switch and
    started operating as you had planned?
        Mr. Demming. We do perform those inspections prior to
    operating or taking over a facility, Congresswoman.
        Ms. McCollum. What was your reaction when you sent the
    cable saying that there were problems, when you went up the
    chain of command, saying that there are problems with this?
        What was the Government's reaction, who had contracted out
    and paid for this service? Shocked? Surprised? Had they
    inspected it?
        Mr. Demming. They showed concern, Congresswoman.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Ms. McCollum.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Tierney. Mr. Sarbanes, do you have any questions?
        Mr. Sarbanes. Just a couple, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Tierney. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you.
        Mr. Demming, KBR's connection to all this, I am trying to
    understand. This is a basic factual question. In terms of First
    Kuwaiti, was the prime contractor for this base camp or guard
    camp that was put together, and KBR was coming in behind for
    what purpose? Can you just tell me that again?
        Mr. Demming. We were asked to care for the facilities under
    an operations and maintenance agreement with the Department of
    State Facilities Management and our client, the U.S. Army. When
    we performed the technical inspection prior to accepting the
    operations and maintenance agreement is when we started
    noticing.
        Mr. Sarbanes. So First Kuwaiti was not a subcontractor to
    KBR in this instance.
        Mr. Demming. No, Congressman.
        Mr. Sarbanes. But has First Kuwaiti been a subcontractor
    for KBR in other situations?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, sir, Mr. Congressman. We have used First
    Kuwaiti for other services as a subcontractor.
        Mr. Sarbanes. In connection with this Embassy project or
    with other things separate from the project?
        Mr. Demming. With other smaller projects.
        Mr. Sarbanes. The problems that you discovered or found
    when you got there, for the moment, all your knowledge is that
    related to this guard camp. You don't have any knowledge yet
    that there are similar problems in the other parts of the
    project, the larger Embassy project. Is that what you said?
        Mr. Demming. That is correct, Congressman.
        Mr. Sarbanes. Are the teams of people that were deployed on
    this guard camp, whether electrical teams or others, are they
    completely separate from teams that might be deployed to other
    parts of the project, as far as you know, even though they are
    all First Kuwaiti employees?
        Do you understand what I am asking you?
        Mr. Demming. No, Mr. Congressman. Could you repeat that?
        Mr. Sarbanes. The First Kuwaiti employees who would have
    worked on the guard camp, would any of those employees either
    have worked on the other parts of the Embassy project or is
    there a possibility they will work on the Embassy project going
    forward?
        Mr. Demming. I can't answer that, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Sarbanes. But that is certainly possible, wouldn't you
    say?
        Mr. Demming. I would imagine so. It is not a very big
    place.
        The extent of some of the other contracts we use First
    Kuwaiti for is mainly concrete, providing concrete, not any, no
    projects to this extent.
        Mr. Sarbanes. I was looking through the submitted testimony
    of First Kuwaiti, and they said here with respect to the guard
    camp that although constructed by First Kuwaiti, it is a
    project separate from that of the Embassy with separate
    budgets, different First Kuwaiti management teams and different
    State Department supervisors.
        I guess the implication of that being that whatever
    problems there may be associated with the guard camp are things
    that could be kind of confined to that because there are these
    separate management teams and separate budgets.
        But you have indicated it is certainly possible that the
    actual employees that would be deployed to work on an
    electrical component of the larger project could be some of the
    same employees that worked on this guard camp, right? I mean
    that is very possible.
        Mr. Demming. To my recollection, Congressman, I don't know
    anything about that. Our involvement over there is very limited
    as far as the correlation between.
        Mr. Sarbanes. Would you agree, though, that would certainly
    be something we would want to know, that you would want to
    know?
        You would want to know whether the folks that were
    responsible for this shoddy workmanship, where they are going
    next, what is their next project, what is the next footprint
    they are going to make on the larger Embassy project. I mean
    you would agree that would be something reasonable to know.
        Mr. Demming. I would like to defer that question, Mr.
    Congressman.
        Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you. I have no further questions.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Sarbanes.
        Mr. Cannon, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Cannon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
    holding the hearing and would like to yield to the ranking
    member, Mr. Davis.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Thank you.
        Let me just give a perspective. This is a punch list item
    we are talking about. You plugged it in. The wiring didn't
    work.
        This is a firm fixed-price contract. First Kuwaiti hasn't
    been paid a penny yet, to my knowledge. Do you have any
    knowledge that they have been paid anything, Mr. Demming?
        Mr. Demming. No, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. The way this works is they haven't
    been paid a penny. They have to fix it. They have to deliver
    it. We pay for it. We don't pay for it until it is perfect.
        It is not uncommon in construction whether they are complex
    construction projects or a temporary project like this, that
    things in the punch list go wrong. Sometimes there is painting
    speckled, something gets damaged and the like. Isn't that your
    experience, that there are usually numerous punch list items on
    inspections?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, there is, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Thank you.
        So let us put this in perspective. My understanding is the
    cost that it would take for these repairs, wiring and so on, if
    they need to be done--again we don't know what the specs were
    but we know what the expectation was--is $4,000 to $6,000.
        It costs more to hold this hearing than it would to fix
    this, and this is under a firm fixed-price contract.
        Let me just ask this. KBR does do business with First
    Kuwaiti, right?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. You have not found them an
    irresponsible contractor?
        Mr. Demming. Mr. Congressman, I don't deal with the
    contracts, only with the projects.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. But you deal with them on the
    projects. Have they been a bad contractor?
        Mr. Demming. They usually work for us in the capacity of
    providing something.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Do they do a good job or a bad job?
        Mr. Demming. They do OK.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. All of your knowledge that you have
    testified on today is about the temporary trailer area, not the
    Embassy, is that correct?
        Mr. Demming. That is correct.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. You have really no knowledge about
    the Embassy contract, per se, which was hyped in the headline
    for this hearing today.
        Mr. Demming. That is correct.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. I just wanted to clarify that. I
    think that is all I have. I would yield.
        Mr. Cannon. I would be happy to yield to Mr. Issa.
        Mr. Issa. Thank you.
        You are familiar in Iraq with the other temporary
    structures that are military, aren't you? You have seen the
    thousands of tents that our troops are in?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Issa. Have you looked at the electrical on any of
    those?
        Mr. Demming. We have in the past, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Issa. Just quickly, they have been there more than 90
    days, right?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, sir, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Issa. In some cases, we have had to replace canvas
    because it sort of eroded over the time of this war, isn't that
    your understanding?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Issa. In fact, what we have is laid on top of the
    ground, black double-insulated, multi-conductor running to
    those tents from my experience. Is that roughly your
    experience?
        Mr. Demming. Typically, on the unit that I run with the
    USMI, Mr. Congressman, all our cabling if it is going to
    ground, even a tent, is buried. It is put under ground a
    minimum of 2 feet of 750 millimeters. This is for safety
    purposes. In case there is an event or an IDF attack, we have
    to run.
        Mr. Issa. I understand they have been going back and
    retrofitting. Perhaps I should have said on my first of many
    trips to Iraq this is how they did it and they have been going
    back and retrofitting.
        Have you been involved with other combat engineer type
    operations, though, over the years in support or past
    experience? Have you seen how they typically go?
        Mr. Demming. No, Congressman.
        Mr. Issa. Well, let me just run you through my limited
    experience. Typically, you come in. You roll a trailer in. You
    roll out some black multi-conductor of the correct amperage.
    You hook it up. You put the other end on a generator. You crank
    it up. You got a light bulb going and a couple of plugs.
        Then as you have resources, you come back and do updates
    and modifications as you need to be. By the way, no excuse for
    any safety violations, no excuse for bare wires or absence of
    grounds.
        But isn't that sort of the normal way you do it in a combat
    environment when you bring in temporary structures is you get
    the things up and operational and get people out of the
    elements and then you do continuous refinements and
    improvements? Has that been your experience?
        Mr. Demming. Mr. Congressman, I believe the standards for
    that would 281-1.
        Mr. Issa. But isn't it true that the Corps of Engineers in
    a combat environment operates under what is necessary to
    accomplish the mission? Isn't that your understanding in a
    combat environment?
        Mr. Demming. I was not a combat engineer, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Issa. OK, maybe that was a luxury you didn't have.
        Isn't it true that these trailers were made in another
    country and brought in and that many of these flaws which
    needed to be corrected--the State Department says $6,000
    worth--would normally happen if you had a one time
    subcontractor and you are trying to get things done in a combat
    environment on a temporary basis in order to accomplish a
    mission?
        Isn't that reasonable that you take the trailer and make
    the retrofit because you can't afford to wait another 4 months
    to get structures?
        Mr. Demming. Yes, Mr. Congressman.
        Mr. Issa. Thank you.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
        I just have one question before I let you go, Mr. Demming,
    and I thank you for your patience.
        Given your experience and given your observations out
    there, knowing that the same company has done the camp area as
    well as the Embassy, would you advise that we ought to have any
    concern about the electrical wiring in other parts of the
    Embassy?
        Mr. Demming. I am sorry, Congressman. Can you repeat the
    last part of that.
        Mr. Tierney. Given your experience, given your observations
    and understanding that the same company that is the contractor
    for the work that you have been talking about is the same
    contractor for the Embassy, ought there be some concern about
    the wiring in other parts of the Embassy?
        Mr. Demming. I would really rather not make that
    determination here.
        Mr. Tierney. I am asking for an opinion, so you don't need
    to make a determination. I am asking for an opinion based on
    your background and your observations.
        Mr. Demming. I would like to defer that opinion, Mr.
    Congressman.
        Mr. Tierney. I know you would, sir, but I am asking for
    your opinion.
        Mr. Demming. My opinion, there may be concern here.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Demming.
        I want to thank you very much for your testimony today and
    thank the members of the panel as well. You may be happy to
    leave that table if you would, and the other witnesses will
    come on.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, point of order, I
    thought we were doing a second round.
        Mr. Tierney. No, sir, we are not.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Oh, OK.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Demming.
        Mr. Demming. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Tierney. We will take about a 1-minute break here while
    the second panel gets up here.
        [Recess.]
        Mr. Tierney. The committee and the subcommittee will now
    receive testimony from our second panel.
        I would like to introduce the members of our panel, the
    witnesses that are here to offer information about First
    Kuwaiti labor practices from their perspective. Mr. John Owens
    is the former First Kuwaiti construction foreman on the Embassy
    project and Mr. Rory Mayberry is the former First Kuwaiti
    subcontractor medic on the Embassy project.
        Thank you both for being here today and for sharing your
    testimony and experiences. I know it took courage to come here
    and to participate.
        As for your full statements, they are going to be entered
    onto the record and transcript.
        You may give a brief account of that if you like. You have
    5 minutes to talk. You might want to summarize your testimony
    so you try to get it in the 5-minutes. I will try not to cut
    you off but may remind you if you are going over.
        It is the policy of the committee and of the subcommittee
    to swear you in before you testify, so I ask you to raise your
    right hands and stand if you would.
        [Witnesses sworn.]
        Mr. Tierney. The record will please reflect that both
    witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
        Again, I ask you to proceed and remember the 5-minute rule
    if you could.
        Mr. Owens, I ask you to go first.

       STATEMENTS OF JOHN OWENS, FORMER EMPLOYEE, FIRST KUWAITI
        TRADING AND CONTRACTING CO.; AND RORY MAYBERRY, FORMER
          EMPLOYEE, FIRST KUWAITI TRADING AND CONTRACTING CO.

                        STATEMENT OF JOHN OWENS

        Mr. Owens. Thank you to Chairman Waxman and Chairman
    Tierney and the members of the full committee for inviting me
    to testify here today.
        My statement will address labor abuse, human trafficking
    and other concerning issues that I personally witnessed on the
    constructionsite at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
        My name is John Owens. I have worked on construction
    projects for many years, and since 2002 I have worked on U.S.
    Embassy projects. My specialty is architectural finishing.
        After I finished working with the U.S. Government on the
    construction of the Embassy in Cambodia, I went looking for a
    new project and I signed on with First Kuwaiti to work on the
    U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. They signed me on as a general foreman
    on the constructionsite. In all, I was employed by First
    Kuwaiti for approximately 8 months from November through June,
    from November 2005 to June 2006.
        When I arrived at the site of the U.S. Embassy, the biggest
    thing that hit me right off the bat was I wanted to know where
    all the Americans were. Based on my experience working on other
    embassies, I was used to seeing more Americans onsite to manage
    the construction and direct the workers. It turns out there
    were two other Americans onsite. However, they were not
    employed by First Kuwaiti. They were employed by
    subcontractors.
        I would like to take a moment to describe conditions on the
    site in a little more detail.
        This was a man camp and by nature not the most pleasant of
    places to be, yet the conditions were deplorable beyond even
    what a working man should tolerate. Foreign workers were packed
    into trailers very tight.
        There was insufficient equipment and basic needs like shoes
    and gloves. If a construction worker needed a new pair of
    shoes, he was told, no, do with what you have, by First Kuwaiti
    managers.
        The contract for these workers said they had to work 12
    hours a day, 7 days a week, with some time off on Friday for
    prayers.
        A few people from India told me they were making $240 a
    month. A guy from Sierra Leone told me got paid $300 a month. A
    Pakistani worker told me he made $900 a month, but he had to
    pay additional costs for his own work permits and visas, and
    afterwards he told me he probably averaged about $300 a month.
        Many of the workers were verbally and physically abused,
    intimidated and had their salaries docked for as much as 3 days
    pay for reasons such as being 5 minutes late, sitting down on
    the job and other stuff.
        Because I was the only American onsite working for First
    Kuwaiti, many of the workers thought I had some kind of power
    that I could help them with their problems. Many workers often
    came to me and told me that they hadn't been paid overtime,
    that their salaries were short, and they also came to me with
    their health problems, often asking me if I could go offsite to
    get some medication for them.
        It is not uncommon for a construction company to use native
    workers or even foreign workers to build an Embassy. I have
    witnessed this at other Embassy constructionsites that I have
    worked on. However, I do believe that if more Americans were
    onsite at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, the abuses I witnessed
    would not have been taking place. No American company would
    ever treat people the way I saw people being treated on that
    job.
        As I think of it, given the size of this job, my experience
    tells me that the State Department would usually have far more
    American staff members on hand to oversee the construction
    project.
        I would like to touch briefly on the issues of human
    trafficking, human trafficking that I believe I witnessed
    there. When flying from Kuwait to Baghdad, I saw a bunch of
    workers in the boarding area with boarding passes for Dubai. I
    was the only one in the group that had a boarding pass that
    said Iraq on it. When I asked a First Kuwaiti manager, he told
    me to be quiet and don't say anything. If Kuwaiti customs knew
    they were going to Iraq, they wouldn't let them on the plane.
        When we landed, these workers were taken away on buses.
    There was nobody manning the customs stations, and I just
    walked through without checking. Nobody asked for my passport.
        Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I believe that I
    had more experience in building embassies than anybody else on
    the site. The Embassy was not far enough along for me to use my
    specific skills, so First Kuwaiti put me to work as a security
    liaison among other tasks.
        I think the American people might understand what was going
    through my head over there as I watched this abusive and
    unprofessional practice taking place. I kept thinking it would
    get better. I kept telling myself it would get better. But
    after more time had passed and things didn't get better, I felt
    bad all the time and I realized it was time to resign and maybe
    speak up for those that don't have a voice.
        This ends my statement. I would be pleased to take your
    questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Owens follows:]
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        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 43507.046

        Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Owens.
        Mr. Mayberry, you may proceed with your opening statement
    if you wish.

                       STATEMENT OF RORY MAYBERRY

        Mr. Mayberry. I would like to thank Chairman Waxman and
    Chairman Tierney and other members of the full committee for
    allowing me to come testify today.
        I believe I am one of only a few Americans that have
    recently worked on the site of the new Embassy in Baghdad. My
    impressions about how the construction was being managed left
    me incredibly disturbed.
        My name is Rory Mayberry. I am an emergency medical
    technician. Based on my professional experience and the fact
    that I have spent 4 years as a medical technician in Iraq, I
    was contacted by MSDS Consulting, LLC, March 2006.
        MSDS had seen my resume and wanted to contact me and
    contract me out to First Kuwaiti, the company that was
    constructing the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Under the contract, I
    was to provide emergency medical services on the site of the
    Embassy.
        I went into this contract with the same good faith as I did
    with all my other contracts. I wanted to use my medical skills
    to stop people from dying in a dangerous place.
        According to my contract, I reported to First Kuwaiti
    managers in Kuwait City where I signed my paperwork and
    received photo identification. Nothing led me to be concerned
    at this point.
        A few days later, I was given my flight information to
    Baghdad. At this point, First Kuwaiti managers asked me to
    escort 51 Filipino nationals and to make sure that they got on
    the same flight as I was headed to Baghdad.
        Many of these Filipinos did not speak any English. I wanted
    to help them to make sure that they got on the flight OK, just
    as my managers had asked me. We were all employees of the same
    company was my feeling.
        But when we got to the Kuwait Airport, I noticed that all
    their tickets said that we were going to Dubai. I asked why.
        A First Kuwaiti manager told me that Filipino passports do
    not allow Filipinos to fly to Iraq. They must be marked going
    to Dubai. The First Kuwaiti manager added that I should not
    tell any of the Filipinos that they were being taken to
    Baghdad.
        As I found later, these men thought that they had signed up
    for jobs to work in Dubai hotels. One fellow I met told me in
    broken English that he was excited to start a new job as a
    telephone repairman. They had no idea that they were being sent
    to do construction work at the Embassy.
        Well, Mr. Chairman, when the airplane took off and the
    captain announced that we were headed to Baghdad, all you know
    what broke out on the airplane. The men started shouting. It
    wasn't until the security guy working for First Kuwaiti waved
    an MP-5 in the air that the men settled down. They realized
    that they had no other choice but to go to Baghdad.
        Let me spell it out clearly. I believe these men were
    kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work on the U.S. Embassy. They
    had no passports because they were confiscated at the Kuwait
    Airport. When the airplane touched down in Baghdad, they were
    loaded onto buses and taken away.
        Later, I found out that they were smuggled into the Green
    Zone. They had no i.d., no passports and were being smuggled
    past U.S. security forces.
        I had a trailer all to myself in the Green Zone, but they
    were packed 25 to 30 a trailer, and every day they went out to
    work on the construction of the Embassy without proper safety
    equipment.
        I went out on the constructionsite to watch. There were a
    lot of injuries out there because of the conditions these men
    were forced to work in. It was absurd.
        I had been hired based on my experience with OSHA
    guidelines and compliance, and I saw guys without shoes,
    without gloves, no safety harnesses and on scaffolding 30 feet
    off the ground, their toes wrapped around the rebar like a
    bunch of birds. One guy was up there intoxicated on
    painkillers, and I had to yell and scream for 10 minutes until
    they got him down.
        I was afraid of blowing the whistle on this because I
    didn't want to end up outside the walls of the Green Zone and
    left to fend for myself. I stayed in Baghdad at the site of the
    U.S. Embassy a total of 5 days before I was sent home.
        Once I got home, I contacted the military about what I had
    witnessed. After much delay and e-mail traffic, the military
    told me in fact the State Department is in charge of the
    Embassy construction.
        I have read the State Department Inspector General's report
    on the construction of the Embassy. Mr. Chairman, it is not
    worth the paper it is printed on. This is a coverup, and I am
    glad that I have had the opportunity to set the record
    straight. I look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Mayberry follows:]
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        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 43507.052

        Mr. Tierney. I want to thank you both for your testimony.
    Your testimony in written form has been put on the record
    already by unanimous consent as I noted earlier.
        Let me start the questioning by asking Mr. Owens. Did you
    observe any physical abuse of workers on the site?
        Mr. Owens. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. What is it that you saw?
        Mr. Owens. Guys getting shoved to the ground.
        Mr. Tierney. By who?
        Mr. Owens. First Kuwaiti managers and just generally being
    pushed around, shoved to the ground, yelled at, screamed at,
    that kind of stuff.
        Mr. Tierney. Did you report those incidents to First
    Kuwaiti or to the OBO?
        Mr. Owens. No.
        Mr. Tierney. Did you ever witness any First Kuwaiti
    officials carrying firearms or weapons on the compound site?
        Mr. Owens. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. Are you aware that according to the contract
    that First Kuwaiti had with the State Department you needed
    permission to carry a weapon on the site?
        Mr. Owens. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. Did either of you witness First Kuwaiti
    officials, managers or foremen verbally abusing third party
    national workers?
        Mr. Owens. Yes.
        Mr. Tierney. You indicated you had, Mr. Owens.
        Mr. Mayberry, did you?
        Mr. Mayberry. I didn't hear the question.
        Mr. Tierney. Did you witness any verbal abuse by foremen of
    the nationals?
        Mr. Mayberry. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. To the best of your knowledge, any third
    country nationals, how did they take that abuse and what
    reactions resulted?
        Mr. Mayberry. What I had seen, they would cower down to
    them. They would stop talking. Anything that they had to say,
    they would literally cower down to the management team.
        Mr. Tierney. Mr. Owens, what was your experience?
        Mr. Owens. Yes, that is correct. They would back down.
        Mr. Tierney. Mr. Owens, are you aware of any instance where
    a laborer was held or detained against his or her will?
        Mr. Owens. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. What would happen if a laborer wanted to leave
    the work site?
        Mr. Owens. They wouldn't be. The triple canopy guards would
    stop them. They wouldn't be allowed unless they could sneak
    over the wall.
        Mr. Tierney. Did you witness any opportunity where that
    occurred?
        Mr. Owens. Yes.
        Mr. Tierney. Would you tell us about it, please?
        Mr. Owens. One night, 17 Filipino workers went over the
    wall to find another job in the Green Zone.
        Mr. Tierney. How were you aware of that?
        Mr. Owens. They told me.
        Mr. Tierney. Did you see what happened as a result of their
    attempt to go over the wall?
        Mr. Owens. Well, when they went over the wall, First
    Kuwaiti sent somebody out to look for them and they brought
    them back.
        I guess they told the ones that got a job with another
    company. They were told. The company was told they would get
    sued if they kept that worker, that First Kuwaiti had paid to
    bring them to Iraq. So, you know, they were supposed to work
    for First Kuwaiti.
        Mr. Tierney. Were you aware, Mr. Owens, of any worker
    safety protection programs or training that was in place at the
    work sites?
        Mr. Owens. None whatsoever.
        Mr. Tierney. How did that compare to other workplace safety
    programs or Embassy construction projects on which you have
    worked in the past?
        Mr. Owens. The whole time I was on the site, I never saw
    one safety meeting, not one. But on other, all of the other
    Embassy jobs that I worked on, there was a safety meeting every
    week.
        Mr. Tierney. Did you ever report the lack of safety
    meetings or incidents of that to any other official?
        Mr. Owens. Yes, I spoke with Mary French, the project
    director.
        Mr. Tierney. What reaction did you get from her?
        Mr. Owens. It was a conversation. I noticed that there was
    a lot of guys on the job that weren't wearing hard hats and
    they were wearing turbans, you know, where they just take cloth
    and wrap it around their head, and I asked her. I said, how can
    they get away with that?
        Mary told me that the hats were against their religion.
    They couldn't wear a hat. They had to wear the turban.
        So I said, well, that really won't do much good if a piece
    of rebar falls, you know, falls on them.
        She told me that they believe in inshala which means God
    willing if they are going to get hurt or not going to get hurt.
        Mr. Tierney. Did the workers have access to safety
    equipment: hard hats, protective eyewear, appropriate footwear?
    Was there access to those things?
        Mr. Owens. Yes, I believe they pretty much did, but we were
    running out a lot. You know. A lot of guys would have to wait.
    It would be ordered.
        Mr. Tierney. Did you observe any injuries on the workplace?
        Mr. Owens. Yes.
        Mr. Tierney. Would you tell me about that?
        Mr. Owens. I just seen guys falling through stacked rebar
    before concrete pours, guys falling through it. There was one
    pretty bad accident where a guy fell off of a building because
    he wasn't roped off properly, but he was already on the ground
    by the time I got there.
        Mr. Tierney. Mr. Owens, were you ever contacted by the
    State Department Inspector General, Howard Krongard, regarding
    the allegations that you have made on abusive labor practices
    by First Kuwaiti?
        Mr. Owens. No.
        Mr. Tierney. Were you ever contacted by Deputy Inspector
    General William Todd?
        Mr. Owens. No.
        Mr. Tierney. Were you ever contacted by anyone who
    identified himself or herself as a staff member of the State
    Department Inspector General?
        Mr. Owens. No.
        Mr. Tierney. Mr. Mayberry, were you ever contacted by the
    State Department Inspector General, Howard Krongard, regarding
    allegations that you have made about abusive labor practices by
    First Kuwaiti?
        Mr. Mayberry. No, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. By Deputy Inspector General William Todd?
        Mr. Mayberry. No, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. By anyone identifying himself or herself as a
    staff member of the State Department Inspector General?
        Mr. Mayberry. No, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. Have either of you been questioned by the
    Department of Justice with respect to their investigations?
        Mr. Mayberry. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. Mr. Owens.
        Mr. Owens. Yes. The Justice Department, yes.
        Mr. Tierney. I notice that my time is expired.
        Mr. Davis, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Well, thank you very much.
        I want to thank both of you for your testimony.
        Let me just ask you for the record. Did each of you write
    your statement that you submitted this morning?
        Mr. Owens.
        Mr. Owens. Yes, sir, I wrote it, but somebody spell checked
    it for me.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Mr. Mayberry.
        Mr. Mayberry. I wrote my own, sir, and somebody spell-
    checked.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Who was somebody? GAO?
        Mr. Mayberry. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Because we have a document here
    saying that a document came from GAO that was put in there.
        That is all they did is spell check it?
        Mr. Mayberry. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Let me ask you, Mr. Owens. Several
    press articles report that you have a False Claims Act lawsuit
    pending against First Kuwaiti, is this true?
        Mr. Owens. I am here today voluntarily to speak only about
    human rights violations that I observed.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. And do you have a claim pending
    against First Kuwaiti?
        Mr. Owens. I am sorry.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. You told the committee yesterday you
    didn't.
        Mr. Owens. I am sorry.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. You told the committee yesterday--
    let me just finish. You told the staff yesterday that you did
    not. That could be a false claim if, in fact, you have, but
    there have been press reports that you do.
        I am asking you now under oath to clarify that if you would
    like to. Otherwise, we will proceed accordingly.
        Mr. Owens. I am not legally permitted. No. I am.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. You are under oath.
        Mr. Owens. I am under oath, and I am legally prevented from
    answering that question.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Not before a congressional
    committee.
        Mr. Tierney. The Chair acknowledges, Mr. Davis, that I
    believe if there were such a suit, it would be a sealed suit.
    He probably would not be able to talk about it.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. It wasn't sealed in the Wall Street
    Journal when they reported it. I guess what is more disturbing
    is yesterday he told the committee he did not have anything
    pending. So that could be a false claim, and we will explore
    that later.
        How long were you in Iraq working for First Kuwaiti?
        Mr. Owens. Approximately 8 months, November 2005 through
    June 2006.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. In your written statement, you said
    ``I felt so bad that I just realized I had to speak up.''
        If, in fact, you have a lawsuit coming against First
    Kuwaiti--which I think we can assume we have because if it is a
    sealed order obviously you do--wouldn't you say that publicly
    smearing the defendant is also to your monetary advantage?
    Wouldn't it be?
        Mr. Owens. I am legally prevented from answering that
    question.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. I think we get the picture.
        How many flights did you take over to Baghdad?
        Mr. Owens. How many flights?
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Yes.
        Mr. Owens. I believe four.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. How many of those flights did you
    notice the problem with the boarding passes saying Dubai?
        Mr. Owens. One.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. The State IG's limited review of the
    conditions at the Baghdad Embassy did not have the same
    assessment that you did. The Inspector General, the independent
    Inspector General, did not have the same assessment regarding
    human trafficking that you did.
        Have you read the State IG's report?
        Mr. Owens. Yes, I looked at it.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. What is your reaction to it?
        Mr. Owens. As far as the trafficking?
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Yes, also in terms of people living
    in the trailers and being cramped and everything else.
        Mr. Owens. OK. As far as the trafficking, I only can tell
    you that I just told you what I saw on that particular flight.
        As far as the work, the conditions of the people working, I
    can only tell you what I saw while I was there. He came later.
    I don't know. I wasn't.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. So it might have been cleared up,
    OK.
        Now if I understand correctly, you are currently residing
    in Cambodia.
        Mr. Owens. That is correct.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. And that you were there at the start
    of the week.
        Mr. Owens. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Who paid for your travel here today?
    The taxpayers?
        Mr. Owens. Yes.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Have you had any problems relating
    to your security clearance with the U.S. Government?
        Mr. Owens. Not to my knowledge.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Was your security clearance valid
    when you signed a contract to work at First Kuwaiti?
        Mr. Owens. As far as I know, yes.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Who was sponsoring your clearance?
        Mr. Owens. Hardline Installation.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. When you signed a contract with
    First Kuwaiti, were you also under contract to work for another
    company?
        Mr. Owens. When I finished the Embassy in Cambodia, I
    signed a contingent offer to go to Nicaragua and work on the
    Embassy there. That job got construction delays. So I e-mailed
    Nicaragua and told them I can't wait until you are ready for
    me, and then I went to Iraq.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Did First Kuwaiti ever complain to
    you about your job performance such as drinking on the job or
    being late for work?
        Mr. Owens. No.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. You never had any complaints? Did
    you know that you were being destined for Iraq on that plane?
        Mr. Owens. Yes, I did.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK.
        Do you know whether those other employees signed documents
    indicating that Iraq was their destination or not? Do you have
    any knowledge of that?
        Mr. Owens. I just saw their boarding passes were for Dubai.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Let me just say I see my time is up.
        I just want to note one thing on Mr. Mayberry, that he is a
    previous whistleblower on another case against KBR who
    testified here earlier today. So he is an experienced
    whistleblower, and I know that he will look forward to our
    questions.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Tierney. That would be to drive home the point that he
    doesn't want to tolerate bad things that are happening, I
    guess.
        Ms. Watson, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. No, just that he is experienced, and
    the record speaks for itself. That is what it is about.
        Mr. Tierney. Ms. Watson is recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Issa. Mr. Chairman, could we have regular order,
    please?
        Ms. Watson. If I may, please, I believe this is my time.
    Thank you.
        I want to thank these two gentlemen for coming here. There
    is no intent on our part to abuse you or to give you leading
    statements. I would hope that you would be straightforward when
    we raise these questions and not feel intimidated. That is not
    our intent.
        The way I do it, I try to get to the truth. If something
    that I ask you is misleading or you don't understand it, ask me
    to clarify it. I don't intend to have you make statements that
    you wouldn't make under other circumstances. I just want to set
    the ground rules.
        I am going to direct this to Mr. Mayberry. I have been
    reading through some background information, and it seems like
    the safety conditions and standards where you were working
    within the Green Zone were not what we would require on other
    jobs. True or not true?
        Mr. Mayberry. True.
        Ms. Watson. Was there an incident of a gentleman that was
    just described up on a high bar without safety equipment, he
    fell and broke his back?
        Mr. Mayberry. No, ma'am, he didn't. This gentleman didn't
    break his back.
        When I had seen him up on the scaffolding, he had no
    harnesses on at all, and I had noticed that he was kind of
    dancing around and having fun, and that is when I had started
    yelling and screaming to get him off of the site and off of the
    scaffolding because he had no harness. It is not a place to
    play.
        It took about 10 minutes. Once they got him on the ground
    is when I found out he was intoxicated. The intoxication that
    he had, he had a pocket of some sort of painkiller that he got
    from the clinic, and that is what he was taking. I couldn't
    find a translator to get the full story of why he was taking it
    or what the pain was being treated for.
        I talked to First Kuwaiti management in regards to this
    gentleman, and they said, put him back on the site and tell his
    foreman to work him somewhere else.
        Ms. Watson. Now let me just ask you, the project was being
    managed by First Kuwaiti?
        Mr. Mayberry. Yes, ma'am.
        Ms. Watson. Mary Francis was the overseer?
        Mr. Mayberry. It was my understanding that Mary French was
    the Embassy project manager over the whole facility.
        Ms. Watson. I see.
        Who was she employed by? The U.S. Embassy?
        Mr. Mayberry. The State Department.
        Ms. Watson. So she was to oversee. The employer was First
    Kuwaiti?
        Mr. Mayberry. Yes, ma'am.
        Ms. Watson. All right. Who was directly responsible for the
    health and the safety of the employees on the project?
        Mr. Mayberry. First Kuwaiti.
        Ms. Watson. I see.
        First Kuwaiti has personnel there on the project?
        Mr. Mayberry. Yes, ma'am.
        Ms. Watson. That would be Mary French.
        Mr. Mayberry. I don't know the relationship with Mary
    French and First Kuwaiti. All I know is I was introduced to
    Mary French of the State Department. She wanted me to work for
    her. Once I got on to meet with the First Kuwaiti people, they
    informed me I was to work for him.
        So I, in turn, sent e-mail stateside to find out exactly
    what the contract stated as and which company I was actually
    working for.
        Ms. Watson. Who would you say was responsible for the
    health and the safety of those employees?
        Mr. Mayberry. That would be First Kuwaiti.
        Ms. Watson. I see. Now were their employees Kuwaitis?
        Mr. Owens. No, ma'am.
        Ms. Watson. Who were their supervisors, their overseers?
        Mr. Owens. The management staff of First Kuwaiti. All of
    the ones that I worked with were Lebanese.
        Ms. Watson. I see.
        Mr. Owens, Mr. Mayberry, is it true that the workers on the
    project were denied access to the PX or the BX?
        Mr. Owens. That is correct.
        Ms. Watson. I see. Is it true that they could not go in
    there and get medications for whatever was ailing them?
    Whichever one.
        Mr. Owens. That is correct.
        Ms. Watson. Was this issue ever taken to Mary French?
        Mr. Owens. Yes.
        Ms. Watson. What did Mary French do about it when there
    were injuries, scratches, cuts and so on? What did she do about
    that, not allowing them to go into the PX?
        Mr. Owens. She didn't do anything.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Ms. Watson. Your time is expired.
        Ms. Watson. Thank you.
        Mr. Issa, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Issa. Mr. Mayberry, apparently, this isn't the first
    time you have been in front of us. On June 13, 2005, you were
    in front of the Senate's all-Democrat Policy Committee, is that
    true?
        Mr. Mayberry. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Issa. At that time, oddly enough, you were, I would say
    vilifying, but I will use the term, speaking about failures of
    KBR, a division of Halliburton, is that right?
        Mr. Mayberry. Correct.
        Mr. Issa. In this previous employment, when you were hired
    by a division of Halliburton, KBR who testified immediately
    before you as skilled contractors which they are, you went on
    for a very long time talking about many of the same things that
    are going on here today, isn't that true?
        Mr. Mayberry. No, it is not.
        Mr. Issa. So when you talked about they were supposed to
    feed Turkish and Filipino meals but they didn't, they were
    supposed to pay something but they didn't, isn't that somewhat
    similar to what we are talking about today?
        Mr. Mayberry. No, sir, not at all.
        Mr. Issa. When you were talking about KBR in 2004, you were
    talking about a really good company that was doing their job
    and respecting the taxpayers' money, right?
        Mr. Mayberry. Sir, I did not hear the beginning of that
    through the noise.
        Mr. Issa. What I am understanding is you are a professional
    whistleblower. This is not the first time that you have taken a
    job for a relatively short period of time and then come talked
    to Congress about what you have seen.
        If this is such a bad place and there are so many abuses,
    is there a particular reason you keep coming back to these
    employers?
        Mr. Mayberry. Well, first let me address your--
        Mr. Issa. No, no. Answer my question. My time is very
    limited here.
        Mr. Mayberry. No, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. Mr. Issa, if you can't ask the witness a
    question, then kindly give him the courtesy of letting him
    answer.
        Mr. Issa. Mr. Chairman, this is my time in regular order.
        Mr. Tierney. Try to use questions and answers then, please.
        Mr. Issa. Mr. Chairman, if he would answer my question.
        I asked if this was the first time. You said it wasn't.
        I asked if you are a professional whistleblower. You
    started answering another question.
        Because you weren't responsive, I asked why do you keep
    taking jobs in Iraq if in fact all you seem to observe is a
    very dangerous place.
        Would you answer just that question, why you keep taking
    jobs in Iraq if it is such a bad place in which contractors do
    terrible things? Is that for the purpose of whistleblowing or
    is that for the purpose of receiving a payroll and doing a good
    job, which is it?
        Mr. Mayberry. It is in regards to supporting the United
    States and my armed forces is why I take contracts into Iraq.
        Mr. Issa. OK. Thank you very much. I appreciate the answer
    that you go back to Iraq out of patriotism to work for
    contractors.
        How much were you paid when you worked for KBR? What was
    your annual salary?
        Mr. Mayberry. I am legally prevented from answering that
    question.
        Mr. Issa. Mr. Chairman, could you instruct that telling
    what your salary was there is not a legal restriction as far as
    I know?
        Mr. Tierney. The witness will make that determination.
        Mr. Issa. OK. The witness is refusing to answer.
        Mr. Tierney. I think we recorded the witness--
        Mr. Issa. Mr. Chairman, this is my time. Thank you.
        Mr. Owens, I am a little concerned. I am going to ask you a
    question that I think you were asked, but I am going to give
    you one more chance to answer.
        Yesterday, did you tell the staff, bipartisan staff, when
    they asked the question of were you in fact in litigation, you
    said no. Is that true, yesterday?
        I am not asking about today or whether it is true, but did
    you say that yesterday?
        Mr. Owens. Here, under oath, I am legally prevented from
    answering that question.
        Mr. Issa. So, Mr. Owens, are you saying that you are
    legally prevented from answering the question about what you
    said yesterday to congressional staff?
        Mr. Owens. Here, under oath, I am legally prevented from
    answering that question.
        Mr. Issa. Mr. Owens, are you taking your rights under the
    fifth amendment? Are you asserting your rights to protect
    yourself from incrimination here today?
        Mr. Owens. As far as the fifth amendment, no.
        Mr. Issa. You are not? You are not.
        So you are not refusing to answer to protect yourself from
    any false statement you may have made yesterday?
        Mr. Owens. I have made no false statements under oath.
        Mr. Issa. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask that the
    witness be subpoenaed to be compelled to answer the question as
    to what he said to our staff yesterday relative to what he is
    refusing to answer today. I think that is a reasonable request,
    and I would ask the Chair to entertain that.
        Chairman Waxman [presiding]. As I understand it, the
    witness is under an order because of a sealed court case not to
    talk about the litigation, is that the understanding?
        Mr. Owens. I am legally prevented from answering that
    question.
        Mr. Issa. Mr. Chairman, my request for the subpoena is as
    to what he said to our staff on a bipartisan basis yesterday,
    not what he is prevented from saying but what he may have said
    yesterday because otherwise I think we have to bring our staff
    in front of us to determine whether or not there is a truthful
    answer or not. That is all I am asking for.
        We do have an obligation to find out whether the witnesses'
    other testimony is likely to be truthful based on whether they
    said truthful things to our own staff on a bipartisan basis.
        Chairman Waxman. Well, I will take it under submission. I
    am not prepared to accept your recommendation.
        Mr. Issa. I appreciate that. If I could just reclaim the
    time I would have had, I will be very brief.
        Mr. Owens, you and Mr. Mayberry both said that you only had
    your testimony here today, to the ranking member, you said that
    it was only for spell check, is that correct?
        Mr. Owens. Yes. I wrote it out, and they checked it for me.
        Mr. Issa. When GAO reports to us that they worked with the
    witnesses, it implies to me that you had conversations or
    correspondence or discussed what was going to be in your
    statement in preparation for making it. Is that true?
        In other words, you had conversations about what would be
    in your statement or some other communication before you wrote
    it, before they spell-checked it. Is that the correct order?
        Mr. Owens. I answered questions that they asked me.
        Mr. Issa. But we are talking about your opening statement
    for both of you. Did you write your opening statement without
    ever talking to GAO or did you operate in an environment in
    which you had discussions with Government officials, wrote your
    statements and then they spell-checked them?
        Mr. Mayberry. Could I address this?
        Mr. Issa. Yes, Mr. Mayberry.
        Mr. Mayberry. Thank you.
        We were instructed that we needed statements wrote. We
    wrote those statements once we left the meetings yesterday. We
    started on those statements.
        Mine was completed and forwarded to an e-mail address that
    I was provided which was Andrew Wright and David Turk. They
    both had my statement prior to being contacted again by the
    gentleman, David Turk, that he had somebody that could be a
    third party and look at my statement and spell check it and
    punctuate the statement.
        Mr. Issa. I appreciate that.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe that it has been clear
    that there was a meeting, then a statement, then a spell check.
        I yield back.
        Chairman Waxman. The gentleman's time has expired.
        The Chair now recognizes Ms. McCollum.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Owens, where were you born?
        Mr. Owens. Long Island, NY.
        Ms. McCollum. You were a product of the school system
    there. You are a proud American. I am assuming that you, like
    Mr. Mayberry, as a U.S. citizen, went forward to do this job
    and work on other embassies. Why? It is dangerous work, and it
    is work that takes you away from those you love.
        Mr. Owens. I like working on U.S. embassies. It is
    interesting the way they are built, and I enjoy construction
    work.
        Ms. McCollum. I appreciate your doing that.
        Mr. Mayberry, you said that you felt that this was a way in
    which as a U.S. citizen--I am paraphrasing so please correct me
    if I am wrong--that you were giving back to our country by
    doing the job that you were doing.
        Mr. Mayberry. Yes, ma'am.
        Ms. McCollum. As American citizens, as people who are proud
    of this country and knowing that this is a U.S. Embassy
    facility that is being built, it appears to me, Mr. Owens, that
    you were quite alarmed when you found out that there were
    individuals on the plane, coming to work on a U.S. Embassy,
    something that you were very proud of doing, that had no idea
    what their destination was going to be. In fact, they thought
    it was a very different destination.
        How did that make you feel as an American?
        Mr. Owens. On that plane ride, hardly nobody spoke any
    English. I don't know what those guys were thinking. Like I
    said, they had boarding passes for Dubai. I don't even know if
    they could have read those boarding passes.
        I don't know, but all I can say is they looked very
    confused the whole time I saw them, and it bothered me a little
    bit. It just kind of made me feel bad because I think some of
    those guys were really scared once they found out where they
    were.
        Ms. McCollum. Mr. Owens, did you see any of them after you
    were on the ground on the site, the individuals you were on the
    plane with?
        Mr. Owens. Yes. I made friends. There were two boys from
    Sierra Leone on the plane, and I had worked in West Africa
    before. So we had a lot in common to talk about, and I made
    friends with them, and I saw them onsite after.
        Ms. McCollum. Did they know that they were coming to
    Baghdad?
        Mr. Owens. The two Sierra Leoneans didn't know they were
    going to Baghdad, but they had boarding passes for Dubai.
        Ms. McCollum. But they had boarding passes for Dubai.
        Mr. Owens. That is correct.
        Ms. McCollum. In your encounters with any of the other
    individuals that were there, even though there were great
    language barriers, were any expressing confusion that they were
    there in the wrong place and that they needed to be some other
    place?
        Mr. Owens. I had heard that from a lot of people over
    there. Whether it was the exact people on the plane, I don't
    know.
        It is not a nice thing to say when I say that they kind of
    look alike, but they all dressed alike and their facial
    features. It would have been hard for me to remember one from
    the plane ride and see him in a crowd of 200 people and know
    that it was him.
        Ms. McCollum. Mr. Owens, I really appreciate your honesty
    in answering my questions.
        Mr. Mayberry, what was your impression as an American, as a
    citizen, for not only the way that you saw the workers being
    treated but for stories that you heard or things that you can
    tell us that you witnessed about individuals feeling that they
    were all of a sudden in the wrong place at the wrong time?
        Mr. Mayberry. I had seen the reaction on the airplane when
    the captain came on board the PA system and stated that the
    plane was headed to Baghdad. I witnessed the reaction in that
    airplane.
        At that point, I was in fear for my own safety. No. 1, I
    was the only American on that whole airplane. The captain and
    the crew were not American, and the men on that airplane with
    me were not American.
        Once the men started getting upset and a weapon was pulled
    out of that back closet in the tail of the airplane by First
    Kuwaiti's manager, that is when I got a little more jumpy and
    kind of stayed to myself.
        The fear in the faces that I seen was remarkable. I never
    want to see it again.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Mayberry. I want to thank you
    both as American citizens, people who are proud of the work
    that you do for your country and when you see something that
    you think is wrong, feel that in this country with freedom of
    speech and freedom to speak your mind openly to your own
    Government, that you felt like you were able to do that today.
        I want to once again thank you very much for coming
    forward.
        Mr. Owens. Thank you.
        Chairman Waxman. Thank you, Ms. McCollum.
        The Chair wants to recognize himself for his 5 minutes and
    yield to Mr. Tierney to ask some questions.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Chairman, I would just like to start by bringing you
    up. I know you had to go to another hearing on a very important
    matter.
        In your absence, because you came back in the middle of Mr.
    Issa's question, there was some discussion or inference from
    Mr. Issa about one of the witnesses' failures to comment on
    whether or not there was a particular lawsuit or whether he
    said there was a lawsuit.
        If, in fact, there is what is commonly known as qui tam
    lawsuit pending, if there is such a thing, it would be a sealed
    lawsuit as I mentioned before and Mr. Issa well knew. I think
    in that case of a sealed document, any party to that case would
    not be allowed to talk about it in public.
        I suggest that perhaps that we consult with the Department
    of Justice just to make sure that is firm and then let all the
    members of the panel know that so there won't be any
    disagreement on that, if that is acceptable to the chairman.
        Mr. Mayberry, let me ask you when you were first hired.
        Chairman Waxman. Will the gentleman yield?
        Mr. Tierney. Sure, I yield
        Chairman Waxman. Are you saying, in effect, that Mr. Issa
    was aware of the fact that they couldn't talk about this issue
    and then he was trying to impeach them, knowing they couldn't
    talk about that issue?
        Mr. Tierney. Well, I believe he was in the room when I
    clarified that the first time. I would have to check with
    people on that. Assuming he was, then he would have known at
    least my comments. Whether he agreed with it or accepted them
    or not is another thing.
        Chairman Waxman. The gentleman will proceed.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
        Mr. Mayberry, you were hired by First Kuwaiti as a medic.
    Will you tell us what you know or let us know a bit about the
    medical facilities that were available to workers when you
    arrived at the Embassy site?
        Mr. Mayberry. When I arrived at the Embassy site, the
    medical clinics, they looked more like a break area. They were
    filthy inside. There were beds in there and gentlemen laying on
    them and sleeping on them.
        On the reception counter, coming into the clinic, were all
    these little blister packs with different colors of medication
    in them, and I asked what they were. One of the Indian medics
    that spoke a little bit of English stated that it was the
    medication that they use.
        I went over to the second medical facility which was on the
    constructionsite and found the same there.
        So at that time, I had a meeting that afternoon with Mary
    French of the State Department. She had asked me what my first
    look around the camp was, and that is when I had started
    talking to her about the lack of supplies, band-aids. The day I
    got on camp, they were using paper towels and toilet paper and
    duct tape as bandages.
        So I talked to her about the supplies, and she had stated
    that it was First Kuwaiti's responsibility. I went to First
    Kuwaiti and asked for supplies, and they said they don't have
    any.
        I, in turn, turned to the military for assistance, and at
    the time the military provided me with eight jump packs which
    are very close to emergency room quality. Two of them were
    supplied to the State Department, two of them for each clinic
    and one per ambulance, counted for all eight bags.
        Now when I got into Kuwait, the medical equipment and
    supplies would have been a whole different story if I had
    gotten my luggage. My luggage was happily camped out in Dubai
    with the airplane that I was supposed to be on.
        Mr. Tierney. Did you make a report to the Department of
    Defense and the Human Trafficking Office in the State
    Department about the condition of the medical facilities?
        Mr. Mayberry. Sir, my report was filed with the State
    Department, Mary French. It was filed with First Kuwaiti
    management. It was also filed through the medical facility in
    Baghdad. The medical facility in Baghdad sent it up a chain of
    several offers to a State Department doctor.
        Mr. Tierney. When was it that you were making these
    observations, what month and what year?
        Mr. Mayberry. March 2006.
        Mr. Tierney. Now in September, September 18, 2006, a
    contract modification was added to the First Kuwaiti contract
    dealing with medical services. It added $1.375 million to the
    contract. The provision noted that these extra funds were to
    pay for ``a medical trailer, all medical instruments, doctor,
    dentist, eight nurses, two ambulance teams, cleaning services
    for the medical facilities and consumables.''
        I guess we can infer from the existing medical facilities
    and staff prior to that contract modification, that there may
    have been a difference.
        Did what I just describe in that contract modification
    comport with what you saw in March 2006? Was that the condition
    of the facilities?
        Eight nurses, two ambulances, a doctor, medical
    instruments, medical trailer, cleaning services, consumables,
    were all those things in good condition when you were there in
    March 2006?
        Mr. Mayberry. To be honest with you, sir, the only thing
    that was in good condition at those clinics was the Indian
    nurses.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you. I yield back.
        Chairman Waxman. The gentleman's time is expired.
        Ms. Watson.
        Ms. Watson. I don't understand the use of the term,
    professional whistleblower, and to accuse our witnesses of
    being professional whistleblowers is an inference to doing this
    for professional gain.
        Let me ask Mr. Owens and Mr. Mayberry. Was your motivation
    professional monetary gain when you reported what you saw were
    misdeeds, what you saw were violations of codes, what you saw
    was maltreatment, Mr. Owens?
        Mr. Owens. I have never done anything like this before, you
    know, testify against anybody for anything.
        Mr. Tierney [presiding]. Ms. Watson, I am going to take the
    liberty of interrupting you only because we are not doing
    multiple rounds.
        Ms. Watson. Why was I called on?
        Mr. Tierney. It is not your fault. With Mr. Waxman coming
    back and forth, we prefer that you would not.
        Ms. Watson. Well, can they answer my question, please?
    Thank you.
        Mr. Tierney. I think he just did.
        Ms. Watson. Well, Mr. Mayberry.
        Mr. Tierney. I am sorry. You were distracted. He said he
    has never done anything like that before.
        So thank you.
        I want to thank both of our witnesses for being here and
    testifying today. I know it was not an easy thing to do. I
    appreciate the distances that you have traveled and the
    sacrifices that you have made.
        We will take about a minute break here in recess, we will
    the next panel come on directly afterwards. Thank you.
        Mr. Owens. Thank you, sir.
        Mr. Issa. Mr. Chairman, I just want to be recognized to ask
    that our staff be provided with the original documents in
    addition to the printed statements so that we can compare the
    original documents submitted to the Democrats with those that
    were in fact the final copies. That would be normally within
    our rules. Could I ask that those be granted as soon as they
    are available?
        Mr. Tierney. We will certainly take a look at that request.
        Mr. Issa. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        [Recess.]
        Mr. Tierney. The committee and subcommittee will now hear
    testimony from our final panel.
        I want to thank you all for your patience in waiting.
        Mr. Kennedy, I keep seeing you with different hats on.
        Mr. Kennedy. It is always a pleasure to see you, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Mr. Tierney. I take it you have moved?
        Mr. Kennedy. Yes, sir. I departed the Director of National
    Intelligence. I am now Director of Management Policy at the
    State Department.
        Mr. Tierney. I just thought there were like 8,000 Patrick
    Kennedys out there. I wasn't sure.
        I want to introduce our next panel of witnesses here to
    offer information about First Kuwaiti's labor practices.
        They are: Major General, retired, Charles E. Williams, who
    is the Director, Office of Overseas Building Operations, U.S.
    State Department; Ambassador Patrick Kennedy, Director, Office
    of Management Policy, U.S. State Department; Mr. William Moser,
    Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisitions, U.S. Department of
    State; and Mr. Howard J. Krongard, Inspector General, U.S.
    Department of State.
        I want to thank you all for your service to our country.
        I want to also indicate that your full witness statements
    will be entered onto the record and the transcript of this
    briefing. We ask that you try to summarize that as best you can
    within the 5-minutes. We will try to be a little lenient but
    appreciate that you will try to stay as close within that limit
    as you can.
        It is the policy of the committee and the subcommittee to
    swear witnesses before they testify.
        [Witnesses sworn.]
        Mr. Tierney. The record will please indicate that the
    witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
        Again, I am going to ask that you please keep your opening
    statement as close as you can to the 5-minutes on that.
        General Williams, perhaps you would care to start us.
        Mr. Moser, I think we put the name plates out different,
    But General Williams, if you want to start, then we will go
    from there.

      STATEMENTS OF MAJOR GENERAL, RETIRED, CHARLES E. WILLIAMS,
        DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF OVERSEAS BUILDING OPERATIONS, U.S.
    DEPARTMENT OF STATE; WILLIAM MOSER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY
     FOR ACQUISITIONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE; PATRICK KENNEDY,
       DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT POLICY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
        STATE; AND HOWARD J. KRONGARD, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S.
                          DEPARTMENT OF STATE

        STATEMENT OF MAJOR GENERAL, RETIRED, CHARLES E. WILLIAMS

        General Williams. Mr. Chairman, thank you and committee
    members. I am honored to be here to discuss the State
    Department's diplomatic construction project in Baghdad.
        I have a prepared written testimony, and I have asked the
    committee and it has agreed that it be entered into the record.
        I would like to begin today by putting the Baghdad project
    into the context of our larger Overseas Building Operations
    program. It has been my privilege to come out of retirement and
    serve as the OBO, Director of the Overseas Building Operations
    for the past 6\1/2\ years.
        Before coming to OBO, I worked in the private sector and
    served 29 years in the U.S. Army and the Army Corps of
    Engineers. My career spans in the construction field over 40
    years.
        In 2001, when I became the Director of OBO, the Department
    was building on an average of one Embassy per year. In 2006,
    OBO opened 14 new facilities. Our goal this year is to open 16.
        Our new Embassy compounds are multi buildings, state-of-
    the-art facilities, meeting the highest security standards for
    environmental energy and efficiency.
        My written testimony states that since 2001, with strong
    support from the Congress, OBO has completed 47 facilities. We
    have moved 12,566 U.S. Government employees out of harm's way
    by providing safe, secure and functional facilities, many
    located in the most dangerous parts of the world.
        In fact, since my written statement was submitted, updated
    numbers show that we have as of today completed 50 of these new
    facilities. We have had three more reach completion since we
    started this process.
        We currently have 31 additional facilities under
    management. OBO's construction portfolio today is valued at
    over $5 billion.
        OBO has revolutionized its management approach with an
    emphasis on discipline, accountability, results, transparency
    and credibility. In order to replace the 190 aging and
    unsecured Embassy facilities, OBO reorganized and streamlined
    the planning, design and construction processes.
        We engage often with the construction industry through our
    award-winning industry advisor panel and our contractor
    partners. We have a true alliance with the GAO and, in 2006,
    GAO found that OBO had reduced the time to construct new
    facilities by 2 years and 9 months from the 1980's and 1990's.
        We have also achieved a high degree of worker safety. In
    fiscal year 2006, the OBO accident rate was only 6 percent of
    the OSHA rate.
        Mr. Chairman, now I turn to the new Embassy in Iraq which
    is among the most challenging projects that we have undertaken.
        In 2005, Congress appropriated $592 million for this
    project. We plan to finish the project in 24 months, a
    timeframe consistent with the commitments we made to the host
    government. OBO established an office with the sole
    responsibility for executing the Baghdad project and briefed
    the concept to the Congress.
        The compound contains 24 buildings and occupies 65 acres of
    the 104 acre site. The Baghdad NEC, new Embassy compound--that
    is NEC--is not luxurious. Its offices and housing are
    equivalent to other new construction around the world.
        The project is on schedule. It is at budget with completion
    slated for this September.
        As to quality, OBO is proud of its employees' and
    contractors' work on this project. We have received numerous
    accolades from our tenants as to the extremely high quality of
    construction. It is among the best that OBO has managed.
        The Baghdad NEC, as with all of our new Embassy compounds,
    will undergo a standard accreditation process to ensure that
    the facility meets all applicable safety and security standards
    prior to occupancy.
        A punch list will most likely be generated consisting of
    items needing small corrections and modifications. A punch list
    is a routine feature of every building project whether you are
    dealing with a small remodeling project to your home or
    constructing a major building. For each new Embassy compound
    project, OBO aligns with the contractor to address these punch
    list items in an orderly manner.
        Mr. Chairman, I would like to turn next to the temporary
    local guard camp. The camp consists of--
        Mr. Tierney. Major General, since your comments are already
    on the record, I would add that you go proceed but try to wrap
    it up as best you can in the summary.
        General Williams. I will do that.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you, sir.
        General Williams. OK. The camp consists of prefabricated
    trailers where the local employees who supply guard service
    will reside.
        The issue of installing a temporary camp on some of the
    remaining 104 acres came up about 12 months after we were under
    construction for the new Embassy compound. We had a very
    ambitious period of 4 months to do this.
        We encountered 70 days of road closures. Obviously,
    trailers having to be brought one on a truck at a time, we had
    2 months delay. So this is what has caused the project not to
    be delivered when it was promised.
        Let me conclude with the emphasis that the responsibility
    of OBO is to build facilities that are required to our
    diplomatic standards and requirements overseas. We follow the
    direction of the Department on staffing numbers and
    requirements and build accordingly.
        I want to re-emphasize that the Baghdad new Embassy
    compound will meet standards, will be completed on schedule and
    within budget.
        I would be pleased now to respond to your questions.
        Thank you very much, Mr. Chair
        [The prepared statement of General Williams follows:]
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        Mr. Tierney. Thank you, General.
        Ambassador Kennedy, would you care to give your remarks?

                      STATEMENT OF PATRICK KENNEDY

        Mr. Kennedy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, members of
    the committee. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to
    testify before you today.
        I first want to offer you a brief perspective of someone
    who has served in Baghdad, and I also want to emphasize the
    importance of the new Embassy compound for the safety of our
    employees there.
        I recently became Director of the Office of Management
    Policy in the State Department. As one of my key duties, I have
    been charged by the Secretary, the Deputy Secretary and the
    Under Secretary for Management with ensuring that Ambassador
    Ryan Crocker has everything he needs within reason in terms of
    support of management.
        Now let me turn briefly to the subject of this hearing.
        I want to underline the distinction made by General
    Williams between the guard camp project in Baghdad and the new
    Embassy project. They are completely separate, both physically
    and contractually. The camp is temporary and largely a trailer
    park while the NEC is a group of permanent structures.
        I have been recently in Baghdad and also communicate
    regularly with Ambassador Crocker. I have been meeting
    regularly also with Chuck Williams. There is a quality
    assurance process in place, and there will be a vigorous
    inspection procedure prior to our acceptance of the NEC as
    there is for all our new Embassy compounds.
        On the guard camp, I view the exchange of cables between
    the Embassy and OBO as part of the creative tension that exists
    in getting any project right. There have been problems, but
    they are problems that First Kuwaiti is fixing as part of their
    acceptance of the guard camp, our acceptance of the guard camp.
    This is a standard punch list procedure that occurs on any
    construction project.
        Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. I am at your
    disposal for questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Kennedy follows:]
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        Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Ambassador.
        Mr. Moser.
        Mr. Moser. I do not have a statement, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Tierney. Mr. Krongard.

                    STATEMENT OF HOWARD J. KRONGARD

        Mr. Krongard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ranking member and
    thanks to all of you for inviting me to discuss the Department
    of State Office of Inspector General's memorandum on its review
    of the construction workers camp at the new Embassy compound in
    Baghdad which I will refer to as the NEC, the new Embassy
    compound.
        I personally have made two visits to the NEC
    constructionsite. The first visit was in November 2005. That
    visit to the NEC was a routine part of my trip to Baghdad and
    was not prompted by any specific allegations of wrongdoing.
        I walked and rode through most of the site including the
    camp which housed the construction workers, and I spoke
    randomly with members of the work force which consisted of many
    different nationalities. Nothing came to my attention during
    that visit, evidencing any trafficking in persons violations or
    human rights abuses.
        In the months following my visit, various allegations came
    to my attention regarding abuses and misconduct at the NEC
    including ones having to do with food, passports, entry into
    Iraq, pay, physical abuse, living facilities and medical
    facilities. Therefore, in June 2006, I contacted the Multi-
    National Force-Iraq Inspector General who had previously done
    inspections of conditions in camps in Iraq, and I proposed that
    we conduct a joint review of the construction workers camp at
    the NEC.
        At that time, we agreed to conduct the review together
    onsite in August 2006. Because MNF-I IG had experience in
    inspecting life support areas across Iraq and was planning to
    conduct a large number of such inspections, we agreed to use
    the work plan suggested by them. In mid-July, however, MNF-I IG
    was required to postpone the review indefinitely due to other
    higher priority matters.
        I, however, believed the allegations warranted an early
    review in spite of this delay. So the Deputy Inspector General
    and I traveled to Iraq in early September and carried out a
    review according to the work plan suggested by MNF-I IG for a
    review focused on trafficking in persons and the fair and
    ethical treatment of a foreign work force.
        It is important to note that the review was conducted in a
    necessarily limited scope. It did not constitute an audit. It
    consisted essentially of agreed upon procedures or limited
    procedures and was designed to provide negative assurance
    rather than attestation.
        The review included interviews with senior State Department
    officials and contracting authorities in both the United States
    and Baghdad, private interviews with workers of at least four
    nationalities, physical review of the entire NEC site including
    kitchen and dining facilities, medical clinic, recreational
    facilities, computer cafe, telephone access areas, commissary,
    management offices and other areas.
        It included inspection of the private living quarters of
    each interviewee and numerous other workers randomly selected,
    inspection of the various group facilities such as shower and
    lavatory, barbecue, religious, recreation and sport areas, and
    questions asked of workers we randomly encountered during the
    physical inspection.
        A summary of the responses received from the workers
    interviewed and the results of the physical inspection are set
    forth in the memorandum which is attached to my statement which
    has been publicly available for several months.
        Because my review was limited, I continued to seek
    additional inspection from MNF-1 IG.
        While that inspection was being scheduled, the management
    counselor and at least four other senior officials from the
    Embassy, including the regional medical officer and I believe
    the assistant regional security officer, visited the workers
    camp, provided observations that are included in the memorandum
    and reported that in general the camp was adequate for its
    purposes and the basic needs of food, housing and sanitation
    were being met.
        On two separate occasions in December 2006, an MNF-I IG
    team also inspected the camp. MNF-I IG's procedures and
    experience were significantly more extensive than my own. MNF-I
    IG found no evidence indicating the presence of severe forms of
    trafficking.
        After setting forth their inspections results, MNF-I IG
    concluded that except for recruitment fees illegal in some
    workers' country of origin, there was no evidence of
    trafficking in persons violations and of the 58 areas inspected
    by MNF-I IG across Iraq, the NEC camp was rated in the top
    third with above average quality of life conditions. A copy of
    MNF-I IG's report to me was appended to the memorandum as well.
        Based on all of the foregoing--including my November 2005
    visit, our September 2006 review, management's visit in
    November 2006 and MNF-I IG's two inspections in December 2006--
    nothing came to our attention that caused us to believe that
    trafficking in persons violations or violations of the type I
    mentioned at the outset here today and in the memorandum
    occurred at the construction workers camp at the new Embassy
    compound.
        At the appropriate time, I will be pleased to answer your
    questions. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Krongard follows:]
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        Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much, Mr. Krongard.
        Mr. Platts, you are recognized for 5 minutes for
    questioning.
        Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
    hosting this hearing.
        I appreciate all of our witnesses for your testimony, and I
    apologize coming in midway through.
        General Williams, you may have addressed this as I came in,
    but just to reiterate if you did or to clarify. The current
    project, as far as being on time and on budget, where do we
    stand on the time and budgeting?
        General Williams. Thank you, Mr. Platts, for that question.
        We are at 96 percent complete. We are in the pre-
    accreditation phase. We are on schedule to deliver in September
    as planned at the budget.
        Mr. Platts. What was the last part? At the budget?
        General Williams. At budget which is $592 million from a
    supplemental appropriation.
        Mr. Platts. I understand there is a number of contracts
    that relate to this complete project. Any of those are the cost
    type contracts?
        General Williams. We have no cost-plus contracts,
    Congressman, because we have experienced that we have done 50
    of these around the world over these last 6 years. We cannot
    control the costs in these very difficult places, particularly
    in a war zone, unless we use a firm fixed-price. This is a firm
    fixed-price contract.
        Mr. Platts. That has become the norm now.
        General Williams. That has become the norm, and our
    appropriators who support us here in the Congress concur in
    that and desire that.
        Mr. Platts. Of the contracts, there is one or more that are
    sole source contracts?
        Mr. Moser. There are actually two contracts that are sole
    source. The chancery compound for the construction of the
    unclassified areas of the chancery were sole source. That was
    done only after a competition produced no viable bidders. In
    other words, it was subsequent to the competition.
        The guard man camp that we discussed earlier today was also
    sole source, but that was done for the reasons in order to get
    a camp stood up as soon as possible so that guards could occupy
    a suitable facility and provide security to the facilities on
    the ground in Baghdad.
        Mr. Platts. Part of that basis for doing a sole source is
    if there is an urgent need.
        Mr. Moser. This one was done. The guard camp was done on
    the basis of urgent and compelling reasons.
        Mr. Platts. Who reviewed and approved those being sole
    source.
        Mr. Moser. The actual sole source justification was signed
    by Gregory Starr who is the head of the diplomatic security
    services. I think at that time he was one of the deputy
    assistant secretaries, deputy assistant secretaries in
    diplomatic security. It was reviewed by our attorney, our
    Acquisitions Attorney, Dennis Gallagher, and it was further
    reviewed by the head of the contracting authority who was part
    of my staff and that is Cathy Reed.
        Mr. Platts. OK.
        Mr. Chairman, I am going to yield the balance of my time to
    Mr. Issa. Thank you.
        General Williams. Thank you.
        Mr. Issa. I thank the gentleman.
        General Williams, this is the first time we have gotten to
    be together in this role, and I just want to commend you for
    your 6 years, certainly all your years of service but 6 years
    in which I have watched you turn around what was a national
    disgrace.
        The fact that we couldn't build safe embassies, have them
    delivered on time and certainly not on budget, you have changed
    all that. Whether it is the new center in Lebanon, I am not
    talking about the new Embassy but the visa center that you
    stood up there on time and when no one else had been able to do
    it in a decade. So you have made a great deal of progress.
        I just want to--Mr. Platts, actually finishing our
    question--having you take reference to the oversight and reform
    where it says allegations of waste, fraud and abuse in the U.S.
    Embassy in Iraq. Now as a matter of just pure fairness, is
    there any waste, fraud or abuse in the construction of the U.S.
    Embassy in Iraq when it is coming in on time and on budget?
        General Williams. Congressman, in my opinion, no. I travel
    all over the country, all over this world, 174 trips. I am in
    and out of Iraq.
        This project is going to be good quality. It is going to be
    accredited, and it is going to function. It is going to come in
    at or below the $592 million, and we are going to be on
    schedule.
        Mr. Issa. I thank you, and I just want to point out that
    $592 million is about what we are spending to be 2 or 3,
    actually 4 years late putting in something here at the House of
    Representatives. It is amazing that we can't find a way to
    build something right here in the shadow of the Capitol and
    come in on time and under budget.
        Just the opposite, we are double the time and double the
    budget and, by the way, although Washington is not the safest
    city, no one is going to call it Baghdad.
        Thank you. I yield back.
        Mr. Tierney. The gentleman yields back.
        Ms. Watson, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
        Ms. Watson. Thank you so much, and I want to thank our
    witnesses.
        Just yesterday, we passed a bill off the House floor that
    would prohibit permanent bases in Iraq. When this issue of
    building the largest Embassy in the world came to us, I thought
    it was very curious because we intend to leave sometime soon, I
    would hope, and we are investing all of this money in the
    Baghdad Embassy, about $600 million.
        I am wondering with the number of people--I think the
    population is somewhere around 68 million--we are building the
    largest Embassy in the world. That looks like we plan to stay
    there for a long time.
        Now what I understand is that the man in charge of the
    project for the State Department, James Golden, has not laid
    eyes on the constructionsite for the past 2 months and will not
    do so during the remainder of the project. Through interviews
    of Mr. Golden and his subordinate, Mary French, we have learned
    that the Ambassador ordered Mr. Golden to leave Iraq in May
    2007 and that he has not been allowed to return since then. In
    fact, Mr. Golden was escorted off the premises by armed guards.
        So, Ambassador Kennedy, this seems like an extraordinary
    step. Why did the Ambassador, Ambassador Crocker, expel Mr.
    Golden from the Embassy constructionsite he was supposed to
    oversee?
        I am compelled by what Major General Williams said, that
    this site is going to come in on time, come in on budget and
    come in with the kind of standards that will protect Americans
    and other people there.
        Ambassador Kennedy.
        Mr. Kennedy. Ms. Watson, the actual onsite project
    supervisor for the construction in Baghdad, who is delivering
    the project on time and on budget as General Williams said, is
    Mary French.
        Ms. Watson. Is she responsible for overseeing the project?
        General Williams. Yes. Yes, Congresswoman.
        Mr. Kennedy. Yes, ma'am.
        Ms. Watson. Well, why was Mr. Golden in that position and
    ordered out of Iraq?
        General Williams. Mr. Golden was never in the position as
    senior project director. Mary French was.
        Ms. Watson. Oh, so we have incorrect information in front
    of us?
        General Williams. Mr. Golden's function is managing
    director of our emergency project coordinating office under
    which the Baghdad project is one of the few. We have Harare. We
    have several projects under that.
        Ms. Watson. Is he still there?
        General Williams. He is not in Iraq. He is back doing.
        Ms. Watson. No, he is not in Iraq. That was the question.
        General Williams. He was never intended to be in Iraq
    permanently.
        Ms. Watson. Well, was he in Iraq?
        General Williams. No, he was never in Iraq permanently,
    Congresswoman. He made visits as I do and others do.
        Ms. Watson. Can you clarify something for me? I understand
    that Mr. Golden under his statement of work was to make site
    visits to Iraq, correct?
        General Williams. That is correct.
        Ms. Watson. OK. Did he ever make a site visit to Iraq?
        General Williams. Oh, yes, many times.
        Ms. Watson. That was my question earlier.
        General Williams. Yes, but he is not permanently stationed
    there.
        Ms. Watson. Hold on. Hold on. Yes is the answer.
        Now was he ordered out of Iraq?
        Mr. Kennedy. The Ambassador indicated that he felt
    comfortable that Mary French who was the onsite project
    supervisor would----
        Ms. Watson. Would you answer my question? Was Mr. Golden
    ordered out of Iraq? Am I making myself clear?
        Was Mr. Golden ordered out of Iraq?
        Mr. Kennedy. The Ambassador indicated that he did not wish
    Mr. Golden to come to Iraq on any further times.
        Ms. Watson. Very good. Can you tell me what led to that
    decision?
        Mr. Kennedy. There was a discussion about following
    procedures at Post, and the Ambassador indicated that he wished
    Ms. French, who was the onsite project supervisor, to finish
    the project as she had done so well all along.
        Ms. Watson. So Mr. Golden was there and got into a
    discussion with the Ambassador about the procedures, the
    oversight procedures, is that correct?
        Mr. Kennedy. No, it was not a discussion with the
    Ambassador. It was a discussion of operating procedures and Mr.
    Golden, as the General indicated, has other responsibilities,
    significant responsibilities such as our Embassy in Harare as
    part of his functions.
        Ms. Watson. Well, tell me this. If Ms. French was going to
    do the job that Mr. Golden thought he was to do and was told by
    the Ambassador to leave Iraq, then why did it take armed guards
    to remove him from the Embassy grounds?
        Mr. Kennedy. I can't since I wasn't there when Mr. Golden
    was interviewed.
        Ms. Watson. Can anyone at the table answer that?
        Chairman Waxman [presiding]. The gentlelady's time is
    expired.
        Mr. Issa.
        Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        General Williams, again, thanks for your many years since
    1960 of service to our country, service that I note you have
    done at very, very small compensation by comparison to private
    contractors. You have chosen to do that, I think, out of a
    sense of patriotism, and I very much appreciate it.
        Were you in the room for the previous panel?
        General Williams. I was in the side room, Congressman.
        Mr. Issa. OK, I appreciate that. I am going to followup on
    a little of that because you are the expert. You are the person
    with three decades in the Corps of Engineers and another two
    decades in construction.
        The estimate of the State Department, which would be you,
    was that these trailers had, at least in the specific
    allocation, $6,000 or $8,000 or less to make right some punch
    points of mistakes, some of them grievous but mistakes, bad
    wiring, absence of a junction box and so on. Is that your
    understanding?
        General Williams. Yes, Congressman, and let me just amplify
    here. For someone who served 2 years in Vietnam, I lived in a
    trailer park. I know what a trailer park is. I know the
    difference between a prefabricated trailer park and permanent
    construction. It is temporary.
        In my professional opinion after 40 years, you never get
    something that is temporary, correct. You are constantly
    improving it, and it is all a function of who follows who and
    etc.
        So none of this is alarming to the extent that it is
    putting us in a situation where we can't correct it. We have
    not paid the contractor. We have all protection there. These
    are punch list items. They happen on every single job. I just
    frankly don't see the issue here.
        It is temporary, defined to be anywhere from 1 to 2 years
    or less, and it is for an element that will not reside on the
    new Embassy compound.
        Mr. Issa. Thank you, General. You know I have characterized
    this as a hearing in search of a villain, so I don't see it
    either.
        The other day we did have some serious concerns about FEMA-
    delivered trailers. Out of 100,000, 120,000, some of them just
    flat were bad.
        General Williams. Right.
        Mr. Issa. Now that was here in the United States where you
    make a phone call, and the things roll in pulled behind
    somebody's pickup truck or they drive themselves in or they
    come in on flatbed.
        Can you characterize what it takes in a combat zone to
    bring in modular housing, trailers--heck--water, anything, what
    people went through and why you would accept something that
    came in that wasn't quite up to snuff and make it right later
    rather than wait 4 months to get somebody inside housing?
        General Williams. Thank you for that question, Congressman,
    because these trailers were manufactured in a plant somewhere
    in the Middle East. They had to be transported one trailer, one
    truck at a time. There were 380 trailers that had to be
    transferred from as close as Kuwait but even further than
    Kuwait.
        It was a monumental task. We had 70 days of road closures,
    and the trailers arrived. They were as we specked them out.
        Yes, they had the odor of formaldehyde because it is my
    understanding that this is used for other preventive measures.
    To make certain that there were no issues with our trailers, we
    followed the protocol that was laid out by the manufacturer and
    that was to air them out for a period of time. Our industrial
    hygienists that are part of my staff concurred with that
    protocol.
        I have learned from Post recently that there is no odor
    left. We are going to go one step further and continue to
    monitor those trailers to make certain that everything is fine.
        I think, Congressman, we have done everything that we could
    do, can do under the conditions that we have had to work.
        Mr. Issa. One final question because I think it is a
    cultural one in nature, and I am very concerned that we respect
    cultures of people we bring into countries. If somebody is Sikh
    or some other religion where they must wear a turban and they
    will not wear a hard hat, what has been your experience when
    you have to deal with that?
        What is construction done like in India and so on?
        Is there essentially a reasonable allowance that has to be
    made when you have that situation that is not consistent
    culturally with our norms? Because that was in the earlier
    testimony.
        General Williams. Thank you, Congressman.
        As I mentioned, I have been all over the world, every
    corner, every country, 170 different hosts and locations. We
    are working in about half of those.
        Culture is an issue. I am very sensitive, and I make
    certain that our staff is very sensitive to culture. We have to
    be.
        I meet and greet workers. I don't spend much time in the
    embassies. Everyone knows that. I shake hands with them. I take
    pictures with them. I talk with them, and I am very sensitive
    about their religious cultures.
        Mary French handled this as delicately as anyone could
    handle it. Mary is not new at this. She has 32 years of
    experience, a registered architect. She knows what she is
    doing. Twenty years with Marriott, she has built buildings
    before. She is very sensible and reasonable and careful.
        Mr. Issa. Thank you, General. Thanks again for your
    service.
        I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Issa.
        Mr. Tierney.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Krongard, if I might ask you a few questions on that, I
    guess it was three to four individuals that you interviewed
    when you went on your inspection.
        Mr. Krongard. The formal interview process was about a half
    a dozen, roughly give or take, and then randomly I would say I
    spoke to probably several dozen others.
        Mr. Tierney. So six?
        Mr. Krongard. Six of the formal.
        Mr. Tierney. That you formally interviewed.
        Mr. Krongard. And about some 50 or more others.
        Mr. Tierney. You took notes and put that into a report?
        Mr. Krongard. The notes were hard to take, and they were on
    the backs of things because I didn't want people to think I
    was, I didn't want to make them uncomfortable and think that
    they were being transcribed or anything. But I took notes, and
    they found their way into my report.
        Mr. Tierney. Now First Kuwaiti is the one that selected the
    individuals whom you would interview. Is that a typical way to
    operate?
        Mr. Krongard. Well, in this particular circumstance, I had
    no other way of doing that, but that is why I particularly
    wandered around and spoke, as I say, to several dozen others
    selected randomly.
        Mr. Tierney. Why was there no other way for you to do that
    in this instance?
        Mr. Krongard. I don't know how, who I would have selected.
    I didn't have a roster of the hundreds or even thousands of
    employees that they had, and it is correct.
        I mean people have thrown out this conspiracy theory that
    somehow First Kuwaiti stacked the deck. I can only tell you
    that my sense of the demeanor of the people that I spoke to was
    that they were being open and honest with me. The people that I
    randomly selected, I have every confidence were being open with
    me.
        But most important, sir, I was not there in Iraq. MNF-I IG
    was there. They do this all the time. They are the experts at
    this. They inspected 58 camps. So I asked them to do even more,
    and their formal interview was, I think, 37 people, and they
    were confident that they had open and candid responses.
        Mr. Tierney. On your interviews with about 10 to 15 percent
    of the people that fluently spoke English, why didn't you take
    a translator with you?
        Mr. Krongard. I did have a translator with me when I went
    randomly. I don't know where your 10 or 15 percent comes from.
        Mr. Tierney. Ms. French.
        Mr. Krongard. Pardon?
        Mr. Tierney. Ms. French.
        Mr. Krongard. I mean I just don't know that, but there were
    certainly a large number of people that did speak English. But
    during my wandering around, I did have a translator with me.
        Mr. Tierney. You mentioned a series of allegations that led
    you to undertake your investigation. Did you followup with the
    specific individuals who made those allegations?
        Mr. Krongard. Sir, I have, I was provided with the
    transcript of the interview that was given to Mr. Mayberry by
    the Trafficking in Persons Bureau. So I had Mr. Mayberry's
    testimony.
        Mr. Tierney. Did you followup and speak to him directly?
        Mr. Krongard. I had no reason to speak to him directly, and
    I, sitting here today, have no reason to. I had everything that
    he said. David Finney has published everything that he has
    said. Some of the things that he said I saw with my own eyes.
        Mr. Tierney. Well, let me point to what he said. He saw
    things in March. You went there in September. So you thought
    there was no reason for you to question him at all about any
    disparities or differences that might have arisen in that point
    in time?
        You didn't want to inquire deeper into his observations or
    serious allegations?
        Mr. Krongard. No. I had everything he said. By the way,
    sir, I had been there the year before. I was there before he
    was.
        Mr. Tierney. But you did a more intensive investigation the
    second time, if I am correct, is that right?
        Mr. Krongard. Sir, when I look right now at the transcript
    of his interview with the Trafficking in Persons Bureau and I
    see some of the allegations that were made, they were contrary
    to what I saw and experienced in every post around the world,
    and I have oversight responsibility for some 265 posts and
    missions around the world.
        The vast number of those have some disgruntled employee and
    they make all kinds of allegations and they may be true. I am
    not saying that they are not, but I can't possibly start out by
    saying that anybody who makes an allegation, I should
    personally interview.
        I was given this transcript of Mr. Mayberry, and I had all
    the things that he said in the newspapers and on 60 Minutes.
        Mr. Tierney. Other than the two site visits that you made,
    who else did you talk to in order to investigate the
    allegations?
        Mr. Krongard. I am sorry, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. Other than the individuals that you talked to
    on your two sites, who else did you talk to during the course
    of your investigation?
        Mr. Krongard. First of all, I didn't do an investigation. I
    have tried to point that out. This was not an audit. It was not
    an investigation.
        This was an agreed upon procedures and a limited review
    which I also did in conjunction with visits by the management
    committee or the management counselor. I did it in conjunction
    with two visits by the MNF-I IG who are really the experts at
    this.
        Mr. Tierney. They didn't go there until some time after you
    went. In fact, you tried to go there with them, and they
    weren't able to make it, and so you went on your own with the
    deputy, is that correct?
        Mr. Krongard. Yes, but not very long after. I was there in
    September. They were there in December.
        Mr. Tierney. But you are telling me that you took no
    responsibility in your position as Inspector General to do an
    inspection or to do an audit on your own on these serious
    allegations?
        Mr. Krongard. I believe that I did that, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. I mistook that because I thought you just said
    you didn't do a thorough audit or investigation.
        Mr. Krongard. I did what I thought was appropriate. I
    tested the credibility of the allegations. I looked at what was
    said, and I thought that I did an appropriate job, and I think
    today that I did an appropriate job.
        Mr. Tierney. My time is expired. Thank you.
        Chairman Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Tierney.
        I want to recognize myself.
        We have heard allegations about concerns raised by Embassy
    staff and KBR about the quality of First Kuwaiti's work on the
    Embassy complex guard camp. Given that this is the same company
    that is going to be responsible for the construction of the
    permanent buildings at the Embassy complex, I am also concerned
    about the quality of work on those buildings.
        We have learned that the State Department officials have
    had concerns about the design and construction of key systems
    at the new Embassy. John Archensky, the deputy director for the
    Iraq Project Construction Office, has told committee staff that
    in reviewing designs prepared by First Kuwaiti his staff
    identified concerns about the fire protection system, the HVAC
    system, the power plant that could have affected the operation
    of the Embassy facility. This office is the part of the OBO
    dedicated to the Embassy project.
        For example, there were concerns that under First Kuwaiti's
    design, there were not enough ductwork fans to evacuate smoke
    from a fire so that people could exit the building safely.
    Under First Kuwaiti's design, the wrong electrical materials
    for the fire alarm system would be used. Under First Kuwaiti's
    design, the electrical power system might not operate correctly
    when the building is fully up and running which could lead to
    blackouts.
        According to Mr. Archensky, the Iraq Project Construction
    Office sent back the fire alarm system designs to First Kuwaiti
    three times and each time got back designs that did not address
    their concerns.
        General Williams, is there any reason that First Kuwaiti
    ignored proposed corrections to design flaws identified by your
    staff?
        General Williams. Well, I don't think they ignored them,
    Chairman Waxman. Let me just explain this process.
        There is always on these Embassy compounds and of course in
    all the other construction that I have done, it is always give
    and take around designs and submittals and so on.
        We have an ongoing process where we invite the particular
    discipline that we might have concern about. In this case, it
    would be fire engineers. At my request, they made the normal
    visit out, and we want them to dig and look and turn over every
    rock. I expect a report to come back identical to the way it
    came back so that we can be more vigilant about it.
        We take that report. We use it as a quality assurance to
    make certain that things are done correct.
        Chairman Waxman. I appreciate that.
        General Williams. But the real, if I could.
        Chairman Waxman. Sure.
        General Williams. The real rights of passage, if you will,
    for everything that we build on an Embassy is an accreditation
    process which occurs, about to occur now on the new Embassy. It
    will judge how the Embassy was built because prior to
    building--I think you know this, Mr. Chairman--we have to
    certify to the Congress that around a design, this is what we
    are going to build.
        So the accreditation team comes back at about the 98, 99
    percent level and accredits that. That process will take place.
    There is no way to have or to put in place a new Embassy
    compound that does not meet our specifications. There is a lot
    of give and take.
        Chairman Waxman. General, I appreciate that.
        But when the installation work began, the construction
    office conducted an inspection of the fire safety system and
    identified the following problems. The inspection determined
    that First Kuwaiti had installed the wrong size conduits in the
    alarm system that had to be fixed. The inspection determined
    that the pipe for the sprinkler system were not connected
    properly and could break apart under pressure.
        Are you concerned about these problems that your staff
    identified or do you just hope that when you do the
    accreditation it is going to be corrected?
        One of the documents we asked to see before this hearing
    was the fire safety report that documented the problems we have
    been talking about. Mr. Archensky talked about this report in
    his interview with the committee staff. This is being withheld
    from the committee.
        I don't understand why it is being withheld. Hiding bad
    news will not make bad news go away. It usually compounds the
    problem.
        I want your response to this. Are you concerned about these
    problems that your staff has identified?
        General Williams. I would be happy to, Mr. Chairman. I am
    concerned about every single problem, and I think anyone who
    has been in an earshot of me for the last 6 years knows this. I
    turn over most of these myself when I go. I am looking for
    them.
        Any time a report comes in to me, I ordered the fire people
    to go out as I do on all of these. Go out and take a look. I
    send electrical people out. I send mechanical people out, etc.
        I want to be absolutely certain because there will be an
    accreditation process, and I want these things corrected.
        I have found with this contractor that there has never been
    any shyness on correcting what we bring to their attention.
    They want to get it right. They have tried very hard to get it
    right. They are not perfect.
        I have never seen a perfect project. There is always when
    you are installing something of this magnitude, there are
    things that are not exactly the way they should be, and that is
    the reason we have these checkpoints in the process. We have a
    good process. If you look at the 50 embassies that we have
    built, they will meet the test and the standard.
        Chairman Waxman. The guard camp went through the same
    process.
        General Williams. No. Guard camp is a temporary facility.
    It is not subject to the rigor of a permanent facility.
        Chairman Waxman. I see. So the fact that was all messed up
    with all sorts of problems shouldn't be taken as evidence that,
    one, you didn't have a process that worked and, two, the
    company that didn't work shouldn't be held accountable for it
    or thought maybe would be doing poor work on the Embassy.
        General Williams. No, Chairman Waxman. The company that
    built it should be held responsible for doing everything that
    they set out to do. As I mentioned earlier, we have not paid
    them, so the Government has no issue here.
        Any of these issues that we feel that clearly are on First
    Kuwaiti's plate, they have been or will be taken care of.
        But, as I said earlier, for someone who spent 2 years in
    Vietnam and lived in a camp, you never get a camp right. You
    constantly are doing things to it and it is sort of in the eyes
    of who comes after you. But we do the best we can with it to
    make it work.
        Chairman Waxman. My time is expired, but I just want to say
    that KBR complained that this wasn't being done properly. It
    still wasn't fixed. Then your own people went out and came back
    with the same problems. It still wasn't fixed.
        I just think that is an indication of a system that is not
    working the way it should, and that is why I am asking all
    these questions.
        It is Mr. Shays' time.
        General Williams. Is it possible for me to respond to that?
        Chairman Waxman. Certainly, go ahead.
        General Williams. Our people, my people did not go back to
    the man camp and come back and say that things were not done.
    What I recall is I have 80 union workers on this project, all
    Americans, and to make certain that this camp's electrical part
    was right.
        Chairman Waxman. Let me just say that I have a document
    that I am sure you have seen, and it says: ``Within this
    document are the results of the commissioning of the DS man
    camp on the west side of the new Embassy complex in Baghdad,
    Iraq. As noted within the enclosed documentation, the camp
    meets and exceeds the requirements of Section C of contract.''
        Then it goes through within the camp are the following
    structures, and it is certified.
        Well, I don't know what that is supposed to mean if it
    turns out they certify it and then it is not meeting those
    expectations.
        General Williams. Well, there is a punch list on every
    single piece of work that I think anyone has ever touched. This
    was KBR coming in, and they looked at things. We had, as my
    friend here said, some discussions about them, and we will
    correct those.
        Chairman Waxman. KBR came in after the punch list.
        General Williams. Yes.
        Chairman Waxman. So they came in after the punch list and
    said these things are not the way they are supposed to be.
        Mr. Shays.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
    you to the witnesses.
        As I have listened to today's hearing, I came in with an
    open mind, concerned particularly about, one, the cost of the
    facility that costs $592 million. That is a lot of money
    considering this is a rather big facility but recognizing that
    you are basically going to look to house everyone within the
    compound which makes it much more expensive.
        I am struck by the fact that there is really no contention
    that you aren't on time and that you haven't stayed within
    cost. So that is a significant fact to point out.
        There is no project that is not going to have issues about
    the quality of work in certain places. The issue is how have
    you dealt with it. I am struck by your testimony and the
    witnesses that testified that you have dealt with it pretty
    well.
        But who knows? Maybe there will be some report that finds
    something later that you haven't done well. The one thing we
    can be certain of is you have done a heck of a lot better job
    in building this facility in a war zone than we have done in
    staying within cost and within time in the visitors center here
    in the Capitol. That is very clear to me.
        What is disconcerting to me is the continual confusion of a
    workers compounds in temporary trailers, now temporary more
    than 90 days but not permanent. They are going to be taken down
    and mixing that up with the facility.
        Then when we look at the KBR's first witness, we are
    basically looking at something under $6,000 worth of mistakes,
    not tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, not millions,
    certainly not billions. So I am struck with that.
        What concerns me is the issue that it relates to employees.
    One, I would have liked these to be Iraqis. First, tell me why
    they couldn't be Iraqis and then I want to go from there.
        General Williams. Congressman Shays, we tried very hard to
    vett and get Iraqis to work. This was our first choice, at
    least the contractor's first choice.
        I will let my colleague, Ambassador Kennedy, speak to the
    difficulties of getting that process through.
        Mr. Shays. Give me the short version, not the long version.
        Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Shays, there are two issues here. One is
    that because of the security situation in Baghdad, the Iraqi
    employees are truly afraid to transit in and out of the Green
    Zone.
        Second, we have not been able to find an easy way to vett,
    run police checks, run security checks on Iraqis because of the
    problems that are currently present in the country. Therefore,
    we did not want to inject an element of bringing employees onto
    the site who might do not what we wanted them to do, to do
    something nefarious.
        So, first choice, hire local but if we cannot hire local
    for a variety of reasons, then we must go to alternate means of
    employment.
        Mr. Shays. Mr. Inspector General, I am looking at a
    document, and it says basically several NEC TCNs reported that
    fraudulent hiring practices were used during their recruitment.
    They stated the promises made and the terms of the original
    contracts presented to them in their country of origin were
    inconsistent with the actual conditions--low pay, longer hours,
    no days off--of their employment in Iraq.
        In all cases where deceptive hiring practices were evident,
    the workers originated from the Indian Subcontinent, countries
    of Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The
    deception was from recruiting agencies that were being paid by
    these workers if they accepted these jobs and traveled to Iraq.
        Additionally, some workers were told to sign contracts in
    their home countries in English even though they could not read
    or understand the text of the contract.
        That seems to be to be a pretty serious problem. While we
    can't necessarily call it slave labor, doesn't it suggest that
    the people who were contracting these people may have made out
    like bandits while the people who ended up working in Iraq were
    clearly being abused, given they didn't get everything they
    expected in terms of pay and given that their hours may have
    been longer, etc.?
        Put in context that. It seems to me that is a pretty strong
    indictment.
        Mr. Krongard. Yes, sir, it may well be. The question is who
    is it an indictment of, and it is mainly an indictment of
    recruiting practices in the Indian Subcontinent countries. I
    don't really have the jurisdiction.
        Mr. Shays. I know you don't have the jurisdiction, but
    maybe I could ask all of you to address it.
        This is what I think this hearing should focus on. We can't
    wash our hands of the fact that we asked someone else to do the
    recruiting and, in the end, we end up with people who have been
    in fact brought in, getting less pay, and not getting the
    employment they thought while the people who did it seem to
    have made out quite well.
        I guess what I want is what is the difference?
        Mr. Krongard. If I may, and I don't want to be in the
    position of defending these recruiters because I am most
    certainly not. I want it on the record that I very much
    disapprove of that. We have recruiters in this country who do
    things that I disapprove of.
        But I did go back to First Kuwaiti because I wanted to know
    whether they had any relationships with these recruiters or
    were sharing in the making out like a bandit as you say.
        What I was told and based on my discussions, limited though
    they were, it was supported that First Kuwaiti itself was not
    using recruiting agencies, that they did not have any direct
    relationships, that they did not share in any of the profits,
    that for the most part the people that they came in touch with
    who became employees on the new Embassy compound site had been
    hired by other construction companies on other sites and then
    had switched over to First Kuwaiti.
        Mr. Shays. Let me interrupt, though. It was our money that
    was paying these folks, wasn't it, ultimately?
        Mr. Krongard. No.
        Mr. Shays. I don't know how you can say no. Aren't we
    paying for the Embassy?
        Mr. Krongard. We are paying a fixed price for the Embassy.
    That is correct.
        Mr. Shays. Right, and so it may not be our taking and
    writing out a check to them, but it is basically our dollars
    going to be used in this Embassy, hiring contractors and others
    to do the job. Don't we have some moral responsibility to make
    sure that the employees who are working there aren't being
    taken advantage of?
        I would ask the indulgence of the Chair just to pursue it
    with the others.
        So do you have a comment on that?
        Mr. Krongard. I am sorry. I don't believe that I have any
    authority to enforce the laws of Nepal or Sri Lanka. I really
    don't.
        Mr. Shays. I am really not asking whether you enforce it.
    You were clear as to what you were saying. You were saying
    these people were taken advantage of.
        Mr. Krongard. Yes.
        Mr. Shays. But it seems to me that it rests on our
    shoulders because we are the ones who are ultimately paying the
    people to build this.
        Mr. Krongard. And, sir, I have advised the Department of
    Justice of that.
        Mr. Shays. OK. Let me ask the State, and then we will go
    from there.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        General Williams. Yes, just a quick note, Congressman
    Shays, before I pass to my procurement colleague.
        Every matter that relates to the human element in the area
    that I supervise is important as part of the preconstruction
    conferences with any contractor, American contractors, because
    you know they get their work done with foreign workers. So it
    is not just an isolated matter here for First Kuwaiti.
        We say to them, we expect you to be very, very much in line
    with our rules and regulations as much as they can.
        Mr. Shays. But they weren't.
        General Williams. Pardon me?
        Mr. Shays. It appears that they were not.
        General Williams. Well, no. We say this every time that we
    hear one of these allegations.
        Mr. Shays. General, I just have to say, saying it and
    somehow enforcing it with how we reimburse and so on, there
    should be some mechanism that holds us accountable.
        I realize I am a little over time, but I would like to just
    have Mr. Moser respond.
        Mr. Tierney [presiding]. Before you do, if you would just
    yield to me 1 second.
        Mr. Shays. Sure.
        Mr. Tierney. I think you are onto the nub of this part of
    the hearing. The subcommittee's part of the hearing is on this,
    and that is what we thought was important.
        We all know what we are dealing with here, and I don't
    think anybody is comfortable. I wouldn't suggest that any of
    you gentlemen are comfortable with what is going on.
        So the question is why don't we have it in the contracts to
    people like First Kuwaiti and for somebody like that, Mr.
    Moser? Why isn't it a contractual matter that they make sure
    that even if they try to outsource the hiring or if they accept
    the work?
        I mean I don't really buy that everybody just showed up.
    Three thousand people showed up, and they were actually hired
    by somebody else and just hopped over the fence to First
    Kuwaiti or whatever. But why aren't they responsible for the
    recruiters and the recruiters' bad practices and then that
    company is responsible to us so that this kind of thing doesn't
    happen?
        Mr. Moser. Well, Mr. Shays, I think to be honest with you,
    we do the contract according to the Federal acquisition
    regulations.
        Mr. Shays. I don't think your mic is on.
        Mr. Moser. Excuse me. I am sorry. The mic wasn't on.
        But to be honest with you, Mr. Chairman, we construct the
    contracts on the basis of the Federal acquisition regulations.
    In June 2006, we added to all of our contracts unilaterally the
    Trafficking in Persons clause in conformance with legislation
    by Congress.
        We take these very seriously, but at this time our reach
    does not extend to third country hiring practices. It is not
    within the terms of the contract. Even though we can have a
    discussion about whether that is a good idea or not, it is
    currently not within the legislative scope of the Federal
    acquisition regulations.
        Mr. Shays. Well, as the chairman said to me, we should make
    sure that we have impact there.
        I would just conclude, and I think all my colleagues would
    agree so I am not just taking a position that is unique to my
    own view. We are complicitous, and we have to make sure this
    does not happen. We have to make sure that in the process of
    trying to find people who can work at a facility, given it
    can't be Iraqis, that we are in essence becoming part of the
    problem of human trafficking.
        That is what I am concerned about at least as it relates to
    this hearing, and I know, Mr. chairman, that was your concern
    when we started this.
        Mr. Tierney. This is the reason for this hearing. I
    understand that the modification was made to the First Kuwaiti
    contract last year amongst a lot of other contracts because of
    legislation this Congress passed, sharing everyone's concern on
    that. They added the human trafficking clause. The President
    has made it very clear that he declared that there be zero
    tolerance for it when it came to human trafficking.
        But even under General Casey's tenure in Iraq, the
    Department of Defense confirmed that there were deceptive
    hiring practices going on at the time, excessive fees charged
    by overseas job brokers who lured workers into Iraq,
    substandard living conditions once laborers arrived, violations
    of Iraqi immigration laws, lack of mandatory awareness training
    on the U.S. bases concerning human trafficking.
        The General ordered in April 2006, that harsh actions be
    taken against firms that failed to return passports or other
    abuse practices. Contracts would be terminated. Contractors
    would be blacklisted from future work, and commanders could
    physically bar firms from bases.
        We have put that modification there. Are you telling us now
    that is not enough, that in order to hold the Kuwaiti company
    responsible for their subcontractors who are out there bringing
    people in under these bad conditions?
        It seems to me we need, one, a more intensive authority for
    Mr. Krongard to go in and inspect and audit and, two, we need
    to put some teeth into these things so it doesn't happen. I
    will just take the liberty of getting a response on that.
        General Williams. Mr. Chairman, we will clearly look into
    it. We take your counsel very seriously. This is a matter that
    if we can have more authority and provisions, I am sure that
    our procurement arm would be delighted to deal with that.
        Mr. Tierney. I thank you.
        As I think the testimony here today indicates--Mr. Shays, I
    think you will agree--inspections on a regular basis to see
    whether or not this is happening, contractual provisions to
    hold people responsible, not just to kick it down the road and
    say, gee, it happened in Asia or Southeast Asia, and then some
    accountability on that.
        Mr. Krongard. Sir, if I could respond to you as well
    because I agree with you.
        Mr. Tierney. Yes, Mr. Krongard, please.
        Mr. Krongard. I wish I did have more authority, and that is
    why I went to the Justice Department. I have had lengthy
    discussions with them about what their jurisdiction is.
        But I do want to say you mentioned their subcontractors. We
    still do not have any evidence that First Kuwaiti is in privity
    with or has relationships with these contractors, these
    recruiters.
        Mr. Tierney. I understand, but maybe we should find out
    whether that is the case.
        Mr. Krongard. I did the best I could.
        Mr. Tierney. Because it stretches the credibility of all of
    us here to think that every single worker for First Kuwaiti
    just happened to be in Iraq at the time, whether they are from
    Nepal or India or some place else and they took them from
    somebody else's handiwork of getting them into Iraq.
        Mr. Krongard. No. What happens is that the workers in these
    countries are recruited. They pay money to the recruiters, and
    the recruiters assist them just like college recruiters or
    something would do here and assist them in getting the jobs
    with First Kuwaiti or with somebody else.
        Mr. Tierney. People can't be turning a blind eye to that.
    People know how this process works, and it shows up on their
    doorstep. People have to take responsibility for it one way or
    the other. It starts with us, goes down to the contractor, goes
    right down to what is happening to those people.
        When you have to take $2,500 from somebody in order to get
    them for a job that pays $7 a day and then tell them they can't
    leave unless they pay $3,000 which is some of the testimony
    that we have in reports--it was before today--there is a
    problem here. I don't think any of you disagree.
        We need to do something about that, and that is the purpose
    of this hearing and this portion of this hearing.
        General Williams. We take your counsel, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
        Ms. McCollum, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Thank you
    for your patience.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to read a little
    more here.
        These workers reported that they usually raised money to
    pay for the recruiting fees by selling or mortgaging their land
    or house to a bank at 18 to 24 percent interest per year. Other
    workers borrowed money from family or friends in their village
    to pay these legal fees to recruiters, and in several extreme
    cases it went on that workers relinquished all pay between 9
    and 12 months of labor in order to repay their recruiting fees
    and interest.
        On page 2, No. 4, I believe these are your words: ``I saw
    no evidence of trafficking in persons violations other than
    illegal recruitment fees occurring. The workers were being
    paid. They had the ability to quit any time and, with some
    advance notice, return to their home country.''
        Are those your words?
        Mr. Krongard. No. What you read from first were the words
    of the Inspector General of MNF-I which is appended to my
    report.
        Ms. McCollum. This is attached to your report.
        Mr. Krongard. But I don't think I disagree with their
    conclusion that those things which were----
        Ms. McCollum. Excuse me, though. People who mortgage their
    homes at 18 to 20 percent interest per year, borrowed money
    from family and friends, basically said that they relinquished
    all pay for 9 to 12 months, you would agree then with the
    statement at the bottom that workers were being paid and they
    had the ability to quit any time at some advance notice and
    return to their home country?
        Mr. Krongard. Yes, they did have the right to do that.
        Ms. McCollum. They had the right to do that probably if
    they came up with their own airfare to get back home and could
    find their passports.
        I have a question, sir. Mr. Owens and Mr. Mayberry
    described people who had been brought into work, in their
    opinion, under false pretenses. Do you think that there is some
    validity to their statements based on what I just read and
    based on what you said about how this was subcontracted to
    somebody to somebody to somebody so nobody really knew what was
    going on when these people were recruited or what they had been
    told?
        Mr. Krongard. No, I don't think that is what we were. That
    is not what I was told, and that is not what I am saying.
        First of all, the people that I spoke to, and I didn't
    speak to.
        Ms. McCollum. I asked you if you thought Mr. Owens and Mr.
    Mayberry, based on what they testified, based on the proximity,
    the amount of time that they spent with these individuals,
    being in an airplane when destination Baghdad came over the
    speaker. I think most people around the world know where
    Baghdad is and what Baghdad translates in English.
        They seemed pretty shocked and seemed like they didn't
    think this was what they signed up for.
        Based on what I had just read and what has just been
    discussed by you gentlemen here for, in my opinion, horrific
    job recruiting practices that this in fact, what Mr. Owens and
    what Mr. Mayberry said, very well could have been accurate. You
    don't know that it isn't accurate, do you?
        Mr. Krongard. Neither I nor the MNF-I IG had found any
    reason to believe that the stories regarding the aircraft and
    people not knowing where they were going. We found nothing to
    support that.
        Ms. McCollum. But you don't know whether it is accurate or
    inaccurate, do you?
        Mr. Krongard. I have a lot of indication that it is not
    accurate. All the information that I have, other than from
    those two gentlemen, is that it is inaccurate.
        Ms. McCollum. Maybe General Williams, you were talking
    about security earlier. Is the site of the U.S. Embassy
    construction area, a secure area?
        General Williams. Yes, it is.
        Ms. McCollum. Does access to the Green Zone and the Embassy
    constructionsite require a security clearance?
        General Williams. That is set by the Green Zone. I defer to
    my colleague.
        Ms. McCollum. The Embassy constructionsite then, does that
    require a security clearance?
        Mr. Kennedy. The access to the Green Zone is not, does not
    require a U.S. security clearance. Access to the
    constructionsite, as General Williams can explain better than
    I, there are multiple layers within the constructionsite.
        Ms. McCollum. I have limited time. I understand that. It is
    already yellow.
        Have security background checks been done on all the
    individuals permitted inside of the Embassy construction zone?
        General Williams. When they were required, I have not
    received any information to suggest they are not.
        Ms. McCollum. All the employees of First Kuwaiti working on
    the site, do they all have security background checks?
        General Williams. They have been vetted through the system
    that is required for all workers on our sites.
        Ms. McCollum. So these recruiters when they were getting
    them in the villages and they were signing up their 18 and 20
    percent mortgages on their homes so that they could pay these
    exorbitant recruiting fees, they were vetted by these
    recruiters?
        General Williams. Congresswoman, I believe this was
    occurring in the countries where the individuals were.
        Ms. McCollum. Whose responsibility should it be for the
    security background checks? Should it be the U.S. Government's
    responsibility?
        General Williams. I will defer.
        Mr. Kennedy. Ms. McCollum, there is a distinction between a
    U.S. security clearance which is required and can only be
    granted to an American citizen to work in certain areas and to
    have either access to classified information.
        Ms. McCollum. I made it very clear I was talking about
    constructionsites, gentlemen. I wasn't talking about looking at
    how the alarm system is going to operate but the basic
    construction system.
        You said you couldn't hire Iraqis because they couldn't be
    vetted. So I am asking, who vetted these people?
        Mr. Kennedy. Name checks are run on workers, but there is a
    difference between a vetting name check and a security
    clearance, and that is what I am trying to explain is that
    there are, in effect, gradations and levels depending on the
    work involved, ma'am.
        Ms. McCollum. Well, Mr. Chair, my time is up.
        But I would be very anxious in finding out why we weren't
    able to really find out how these people were selected for this
    job. They came from countries--Pakistan, Egypt, Bangladesh, and
    India--where there are terrorism concerns, and the fact that
    they are in-country, working in a U.S. area, building a U.S.
    Embassy is a concern to me.
        Mr. Tierney. Mr. Kennedy.
        Mr. Kennedy. If I might, Ms. McCollum, I know your time is
    limited today, but I would be happy to come and see you,
    accompanied by a senior representative from our diplomatic
    security service, to explain the intricate process that we do
    go through, ma'am.
        Ms. McCollum. Mr. Kennedy, I think just providing that
    information to the committee would be fine. Thank you very much
    for your offer.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Ms. McCollum.
        Ambassador, let me just pry a second on that because I am
    curious. There were two aspects to your issue with the people.
    One was that Iraqis were finding it difficult to go into the
    Green Zone and back out. They had their own security they were
    concerned about, and I understand that.
        That may, in fact, be a stopper on that because my first
    question coming in here was why aren't we just hiring all the
    Iraqis. If we can hire Pakistanis, we should be able to do the
    same background check on all of them.
        Is that pretty much it, that we could do the same
    background check on everybody and hire, but it is really the
    second point that is a stopper?
        Mr. Kennedy. It is both, sir. I mean there are a number of
    Iraqis that are afraid to enter the Green Zone and, second, we
    are able to do the limited vetting that we do in some locations
    easier than we can do it in Iraq because of the lack of records
    and the ongoing strife there.
        Mr. Tierney. So it may be easier in Nepal and Pakistan and
    places like that than it is in Iraq?
        Mr. Kennedy. To do vetting.
        Mr. Krongard. Sir, could I make a point on that as well?
        Mr. Tierney. Sure.
        Mr. Krongard. Some 2 years ago, that was before some of
    you, and in conjunction with the Inspector General of the
    Department of Defense, my office issued an interagency
    assessment at an Iraqi police training program. One of the
    things we pointed out then, and I think it was well received,
    was that the recruits to the police forces were not vetted
    well.
        There has always been difficulty for us as Americans in
    vetting Iraqis particularly because you might find some
    terrorists in some of these countries, but in Iraq every one
    has a side. They have a religion. They have an ethnicity. They
    have a tribe. They are living in that war zone area.
        We were critical at that time of the vetting process, and I
    personally continue to be concerned about anything that would
    bring large numbers of Iraqis who are not well vetted into
    secure areas.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you for that.
        General, I have a point that I want to raise. Michael
    Michener from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor,
    DRL I guess we call it, I am informed that he sought access to
    the Embassy site in order to investigate allegations of labor
    abuse and reportedly he was denied access by Mr. Golden, by
    James Golden. Can you enlighten us on that?
        General Williams. No, I cannot. I heard the same thing. I
    checked with Mary French who is the keeper of the key to
    whoever comes on the guard site. She is very tight. She is very
    sensitive about what goes on, on that site.
        Congressman, just understand that our people are under
    tremendous pressure, and I know you have appreciation of what a
    war zone is, but it is wound up as tight as it can get every
    day. There is so much that Mary has to look at. One is
    security. We were concerned about this from day one.
        Mr. Tierney. Can I just interrupt you for a second because
    I want to make sure we get your answer right. I am not told
    that she refused anybody admission. I am told that Mr. Golden,
    without comment, refused Mr. Michener the access. Now Mr.
    Golden himself isn't even on the site.
        General Williams. Right, so I don't know that.
        Mr. Tierney. Would you inquire into that for us?
        General Williams. I will inquire, and I will get back to
    you on that, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. And get back to the committee on what is going
    on with that because I think that is important to know.
        General Williams. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. I assume, and you can tell me otherwise, that
    you have never resisted the initiation of an investigation by
    the Inspector General, by the Department of Justice or any
    other investigative body, even the DRL. Is that correct?
        General Williams. No, but when issues come to me in that
    regard, I report them to the Inspector General and the
    department in the State Department that is responsible for
    them.
        Mr. Tierney. I will tell you one more reason why that
    concerns me. I have a series of e-mails here that went from the
    DRL back and forth to Baghdad on that. The last one is from Mr.
    Golden, and it basically is to Mary French. It refers to an e-
    mail about this trafficking question and whether or not we can
    inquire of those matters or not. Mr. Golden responds to Mary
    French, do not respond to these folks, the DRL.
        I would be concerned about that. I hope you will look into
    that.
        General Williams. Well, I will look into it.
        Mr. Tierney. Because I think it is their job to inquire.
        General Williams. Sure.
        Mr. Tierney. We want them to do that, and I suspect you
    want them to do it.
        General Williams. That is right.
        Mr. Tierney. Last point for me before Mr. Shays adds his
    last one and we will let you go, and I don't know if Mr.
    Kennedy wants to answer this.
        I understand we are building or plan to build an Embassy in
    Lebanon, and there has been controversy reported recently that
    it is right smack in the area where Hezbollah are said to
    control. I am told recently that might now be on hold. Is it on
    hold or is it going forward?
        If it is on hold, exactly when was that decision made and
    communicated to you?
        Mr. Kennedy. As part of our ongoing process, the General
    working with the entire Department prepares a list, and we will
    build this Embassy next and then that Embassy. We had plans to
    build an Embassy in Beirut.
        In light of the recent events in Lebanon, there was a
    discussion within the Department and on July 6th, the Under
    Secretary for Management determined that the conditions on the
    ground in Beirut did not permit us now to proceed with the
    construction effort. That was communicated the following day to
    the General, to the Near East Bureau and to our Ambassador in
    Lebanon.
        Mr. Tierney. We are all aware that it was the Embassy in
    Lebanon, that going back and forth there seemed to be some
    discussion, at least on the wire, that the Ambassador and
    people in Lebanon were anxious that it not happen.
        There was pushback from the General. I guess from you or
    maybe Mr. Golden or others. This went back and forth until
    there was a decision made. Is that not accurate?
        Mr. Kennedy. There was a discussion about what is best to
    do. We sought the advice of the Ambassador, and the Ambassador
    made his recommendation, and the Under Secretary determined
    that conditions on the ground did not permit us to build that
    Embassy at this time. That was then communicated to all within
    the Department and to our Ambassador in Beirut.
        General Williams. And it was a very orderly process, Mr.
    Chairman, of give and take. So we arrived at a decision, and it
    is fine.
        Mr. Tierney. And so, as of July 6th, it is on hold.
        Mr. Kennedy. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. You will inform Congress as you move forward
    if there is any change in that.
        Mr. Kennedy. That is correct, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. Last question from me, I would like your
    reaction to a statement that the Embassy in Iraq is bigger than
    it should be if you really expect Iraq to stabilize and not as
    big as it needs to be the nerve center of an ongoing war
    effort.
        General Williams. Well, let me speak to that, Mr. Chairman,
    because we took great care before the appropriations committees
    and the authorizers before we moved forward. All of the plans
    for the execution of this project was presented to them.
        One of the issues that was on the table was availability.
    What happens if we go down? What happens if we expand?
        If you look at our site, you know it is sort of rectangular
    in shape. So we spread it out over the 65 acres to allow us the
    opportunity to jettison, cutoff, sell off, give away, whatever
    we were going to do with any one of the facilities, and we left
    the nerve center in the center of this footprint.
        Mr. Tierney. Hence, they call it the nerve center.
        General Williams. So we could get as small as needed to get
    and we could jettison off the rest. Our appropriators thought
    this was a good way to do it, so we can expand or we can
    shrink.
        Mr. Tierney. Good. Thank you for that.
        Mr. Shays, you indicated you had a further question.
        Mr. Shays. Just, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank our
    witnesses. I want to thank them for their work. I want to thank
    them for their dedication and to suggest that I also appreciate
    your candor in the area that we do need to address and that is
    the hiring practices of third parties.
        That is something that, one, we need to empower the
    Inspector General to have a little bit more oversight, and we
    need to make sure that we are not washing our hands of it
    because it is a third party. I think you all agree.
        That is the element of this hearing that I thought had
    merit. I will say the other aspects of it, I think, didn't. But
    this is the area that did in my judgment.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
        Mr. Shays. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, because I know that
    is what you intended.
        Mr. Tierney. Mr. Shays, that is exactly what this is.
        Mr. Shays. Let me make this point. I know this was the
    intent of this subcommittee's hearing.
        Mr. Tierney. It exactly was, and I thank you for that.
        Gentlemen, I think that there are only two things
    outstanding. One is there is a document request and another is
    a subpoena, and I would just like to get a date.
        I think Mr. Williams, Ambassador Kennedy and Mr. Krongard
    are the ones who want to be responding to that, if you can just
    give me a date as to when we can expect that material.
        Mr. Kennedy. We did get a number of materials to you today.
    There is a cover letter, Mr. Chairman. Our legislative people
    are in contact with you.
        There are a couple of documents that you have requested
    that we simply have not been able to identify a document that
    directly equates to your request, but we have no intention of
    hiding anything from you.
        Mr. Tierney. No claims of executive privilege or anything
    else.
        Mr. Kennedy. Not that I am aware, sir.
        Mr. Tierney. Mr. Krongard.
        Mr. Krongard. Sir, if I may, we did. I still to this moment
    haven't seen the subpoena. But when it was told to me
    yesterday, I spoke to people who responded to you and there
    were two things that were put in a letter, I think that came to
    you this morning. One is that I can tell you that I have
    nothing of any significance that hasn't been incorporated or
    referred to in my report.
        But there are things which do exist, and I am very
    concerned that to give up investigative materials like this to
    requests such as this at this time would be very, have a very
    chilling effect on my ability to carry out my statutory
    responsibilities.
        Mr. Tierney. Well, I am going to do you a favor then. I am
    going to have our committee work with you to see if you get
    beyond that before we do anything formal on that.
        If that proves to be the case, then certainly we will
    respect that. If it doesn't, we will talk to the minority and
    we will come back and discuss with you how we might get what we
    need without jeopardizing your responsibilities.
        Mr. Krongard. You understand, sir, that there is a
    distinction between the Department responding and the
    Departmental IG responding.
        Mr. Tierney. I certainly do. I certainly do.
        Mr. Davis.
        Mr. Davis of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, let me thank you.
        This panel gets to the nub of the issue on the third
    country nationals, an issue that I don't think has been a
    priority ever. It has been a unique problem, and I appreciate
    your candor on this, and I appreciate the chairman's calling
    our attention to it.
        As far as the other elements of the hearing, I think we
    could have gotten right to this and gotten right to the nub of
    it, and I thought the other was kind of, frankly, a little
    wasteful.
        But, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your bringing this to our
    attention, and I appreciate the job you are doing. Thank you.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much.
        I thank all of you again.
        [Whereupon, at 1:50 p.m., the committee and subcommittee
    were adjourned.]
        [Additional information submitted for the hearing record
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