[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CONSTRUCTION COSTS AND DELAYS IN THE U.S. EMBASSY IN KABUL
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 9, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-144
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman
JOHN L. MICA, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland,
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Ranking Minority Member
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
JIM JORDAN, Ohio ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
TIM WALBERG, Michigan Columbia
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee JIM COOPER, Tennessee
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania
CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TED LIEU, California
MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
KEN BUCK, Colorado STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands
MARK WALKER, North Carolina MARK DeSAULNIER, California
ROD BLUM, Iowa BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
JODY B. HICE, Georgia PETER WELCH, Vermont
STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin
WILL HURD, Texas
GARY J. PALMER, Alabama
Sean McLaughlin, Majority Staff Director
Art Arthur, Subcommittee on National Security Staff Director
Cordell Hull, Counsel
Sarah Vance, Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on July 9, 2015..................................... 1
WITNESSES
Mr. Michael J. Courts, Director, International Affairs and Trade,
U.S. Government Accountability Office
Oral Statement............................................... 6
Written Statement............................................ 7
Ms. Lydia Muniz, Director, Bureau of Overseas Buildings
Operations, U.S. Department of State
Oral Statement............................................... 7
Written Statement............................................ 9
The Hon. Gregory B. Starr, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of
Diplomatic Security, U.S. Department of State
Oral Statement............................................... 9
Written Statement............................................ 10
Mr. Jarrett Blanc, Principal Deputy Special Representative for
Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. Department of State
Oral Statement............................................... 10
Written Statement............................................ 12
The Hon. Donald S. Hays, Senior Inspector, Office of The
Inspector General, U.S. Department of State
Oral Statement............................................... 13
Written Statement............................................ 14
Mr. Michael L. Gulino, President and Chief Executive Officer,
AEGIS LLC.
Oral Statement............................................... 15
Written Statement............................................ 16
APPENDIX
Opening Statement of Chairman Jason Chaffetz..................... 70
Questions for the Record to Assistant Secretary Gregory Starr,
submitted by Chairman Chaffetz and Ranking Member Cummings..... 74
Questions for the Record to Director Lydia Muniz, submitted by
Chairman Chaffetz.............................................. 79
Letter to the Hon. John Kerry from Chairman Mica................. 83
CONSTRUCTION COSTS AND DELAYS IN THE U.S. EMBASSY IN KABUL
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Thursday, July 9, 2015
House of Representatives,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:03 a.m., in Room
2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Mica, Duncan, Jordan,
Walberg, Amash, Gosar, DesJarlais, Gowdy, Farenthold, Meadows,
DeSantis, Buck, Walker, Blum, Russell, Carter, Grothman,
Palmer, Cummings, Maloney, Lynch, Connolly, Duckworth, Kelly,
Lawrence, Watson Coleman, Plaskett, Welch, and Lujan Grisham.
Chairman Chaffetz. Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform will come to order. I appreciate you being here as we
have a hearing today regarding the construction costs and
delays at the United States Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a
recess at any time.
Appreciate being here. This is an important topic. We have
so many Americans who have given their lives in Afghanistan,
who have sacrificed away from their families to serve the
United States of America and our interests there. We have a
duty and an obligation to make sure that they are well housed,
that they are safe, that they are secure, that they are able to
do their jobs and their duty, and yet after more than a decade
of fighting and great work by our United States military, we
are deeply concerned about what the State Department is doing
or hasn't done in Kabul to make sure that our Embassy facility
there is in proper order.
The State Department has invested or plans to invest more
than $2.17 billion in facilities. It probably makes it the
single most expensive facility that we have around the globe;
and if not the most expensive, certainly one of the most
expensive.
Is there a threat? Yes, there is a threat there. It is a
very dangerous place. Is it safe? No, it is not safe there. Did
we hire the right contractors to put in place to make this
happen? Evidently not. We've had to readjust contracts, we've
had to dismiss some people along the way. The budget that was
projected has now gone up more than 27 percent. Is this project
and this buildout in Kabul on time? No, it's not. It was
supposed to be open last year. Now it looks like it might be
2017, some 3 years behind schedule. Is there a strategic plan?
No. According to the GAO, there is not. Are there standards in
place? No, there are not, according to the GAO. Is there a
security plan for temporary facilities in place? No, there is
not.
And so after more than a decade, this seems to be a fiasco.
It is a mess. And one of the core questions is did we learn
what we were supposed to learn when we were in Iraq? Evidently
not.
Keeping Americans safe who work in the Foreign Service in
Kabul, Afghanistan, is a constant challenge. Just last week,
Taliban militants attacked a NATO convoy just 500 yards from
the United States Embassy in Kabul. There is an article in the
Washington Post dated July 7 saying a suicide bomber rammed a
car and an armored vehicle that was part of a NATO convoy here
in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, the second such attack
against coalition troops in a week. The attacks come a week
after militants targeted a coalition convoy near the United
States Embassy, killing 2 Afghan civilians and wounding nearly
30. The week before, militants stormed the Afghan parliament in
Kabul in broad daylight in what appears to be a coordinated
attack.
These incidents make clear we have to ensure our brave men
and women serving in these hostile environments are safe, and
one of the best ways to ensure their safety is to provide
secure facilities for them to perform their diplomatic
missions, but after an investigation by the GAO, are they safe?
No, they're not, and that's not acceptable.
Due to the mismanagement by the State Department, however,
it's not happening in Kabul, and as a result, American
diplomatic staff in Afghanistan are being exposed to
unnecessary danger.
Last July, the Government Accountability Office reviewed
the construction of the Kabul Embassy facility and found the
State Department failed to properly acknowledge known risks.
These risks include the award of a contract for work before the
contract site was even acquired, an unrealistic schedule for
work to be completed under, changes in the number of staff at
the complex, and changes in the design of the building and
security requirements.
Again, temporary facilities don't even have a security plan
at this point. And as a result of these failures, construction
would take more time, cost more money, leaving Embassy staff
less secure in temporary facilities. We would lay these out in
even greater specificity, but we would not want to give the
enemy an attack plan, but there are vulnerabilities, and we
have to address those.
In May, the GAO once again reviewed the construction of the
new Embassy complex in Kabul, and once again, the review
identified a number of significant but preventable problems.
The lack of planning by the State Department resulted in cost
overruns and delays. Construction is now projected to come in
at least 27 percent over budget and more than 3 years behind
schedule. Part of the project was originally expected to cost
$625 million. It is now estimated to cost at least $792
million. Because the State Department failed to properly plan
for the project, it's continuing to negotiate with its
contractor, so the current cost overruns could become even
larger.
One of the factors causing these delays and cost overruns
is the Department's failure to follow its own directive to have
a strategic facilities plan. As its name implies, a strategic
facilities plan outlines how a particular facility will be
developed and used. The need for a strategic facilities plan is
especially critical for facilities like Kabul, where there is a
high turnover in personnel.
One the things highlighted in the GAO report is that there
are constantly turnovers in personnel. And if you don't have a
plan, a new person coming in has a large and long learning
curve.
The State Department recently rescinded the requirements
for the development of a strategic plan for any facility, which
was a requirement that had been in place since 1990. So because
the State Department's poor planning and the use of temporary
facilities where Americans must live and work, they will
continue indefinitely in Kabul. In fact, amazingly, the State
Department recently requested an additional $124 million for
temporary facilities. It is unclear why State didn't do a
better job planning for permanent and secure buildings, which
resulted in the wasting of taxpayer dollars on temporary
facilities. It appears, at least to me, that the effort to move
towards temporary facilities is a way to get around some of the
requirements that need to go into good and better planning.
Not only does State not properly plan for permanent
facilities, it also has no standards for temporary facilities.
The State Department's own actions in Kabul make it clear how
critical such standards are. In its fiscal year 2008 budget
request, State expressed to Congress concerns about the threat
to the Kabul facility posed by incoming weapons fire. However,
as the GAO pointed out, quote, ``The only secure protection
measures specified in the 2009 contract for temporary housing
was shatter-resistant window film,'' end quote. That's it, a
little film on the windows. I'm no expert, but I don't think
shatter-resistant windows can stop a bullet, grenade, an RPG
and whatnot, and yet we ask our Americans to live there in this
high-threat environment.
In contrast, State contracted for the temporary offices to
have a higher standard level of security and ballistic
protection on the temporary housing that it built. This means
that employees were safer working 24 hours a day rather than
returning to their housing, where they should be able to rest,
relax, and be safe.
The lesson here is clear. When there are no standards or
guidance, the results are inconsistent and Americans are
unsafe. We have to do a better job of getting our folks into
safer, new facilities as soon as possible without incurring
additional costs: $2 billion, and you're still requesting
temporary facilities with no standards, no protection. We did
not learn the lessons in Iraq, and that is a crying shame.
We look forward to having this hearing and hearing the
answers and responses to that, but now I'd like to recognize
the ranking member, Mr. Cummings, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
As I listened to your statement, I just sat here and said
to myself: We're better than that. We're better than this.
And listening to your answers to the questions that you
presented, I think there's a lot to be discussed here this
morning, so I'm glad that you're holding this very important
hearing on the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan.
I'd like to make three main points that I think we all can
agree on. First and foremost, the safety of United States
personnel serving overseas is a top national security priority,
and it's critical to our country's interests throughout the
entire world.
Second, we recognize that the urgency of rapidly securing
U.S. facilities abroad may cost more for faster results.
However, cutting corners may have the opposite effect, and
careful, very careful stewardship of taxpayer funds is critical
to maximizing the protection of U.S. personnel because any
dollar wasted is a dollar that cannot be used to protect our
personnel abroad.
Kabul is one of the most dangerous places on the face of
the Earth. The State Department ranks it as one of the most
high-threat, high-risk locations for United States personnel.
The men and women who serve our country in Afghanistan
recognize these risks, and it is our job to honor their service
by taking all appropriate steps to provide secure facilities
for their work.
In 2008 and 2009, the United States rapidly increased the
number of personnel in Afghanistan to meet our Nation's
military and foreign policy goals, first under the Bush
administration and then under the Obama administration. This,
and I quote, ``surge,'' end of the quote, as it was called,
required facilities for United States troops and civilian
personnel, including those working side by side in provincial
reconstruction, the government--governance and stability
efforts.
Both Republicans and Democrats supported the surge. For
example, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain
argued that a surge was, and I quote, ``vitally needed,'' end
of quote, in Afghanistan and that delays would put American
lives at risk.
This dramatic increase in personnel created a difficult
challenge for State Department officials planning for facility
and security requirements. On one hand, they had to increase
the United States footprint on the ground in a safe and secure
way. On the other hand, they did not want to repeat the same
mistakes that were made in Iraq, where the United States
compound became a massive, expensive fortress, even as U.S.
presence subsided.
According to the Government Accountability Office, which
has an official testifying here today, and I quote, ``The
dynamic and unpredictable operating environment of Afghanistan
has produced changing facility needs that have continually
outpaced existing capabilities at the post,'' end of quote. GAO
also cited a senior State Department management official who
explained the effects of this rush to accommodate the surge.
State did not fully follow its cost and risk policies in part
of the urgency of the Embassy's facility needs, the security
environment, and challenges supporting the surge and Embassy
staffing that was occurring. Despite this urgency, however, GAO
also found that the State Department could have and should have
planned better. Could have and should have, but didn't.
According to GAO, the State Department contributed to
construction delays and cost increases by failing to follow its
own risk assessment and planning policies. There's something
awfully wrong with that picture.
The GAO also found that the Department's original contracts
did not include adequate security measures for temporary
facilities. This led to inconsistent security measures, more
contract modifications, increased costs, and further delays,
according to GAO.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for agreeing to
my request to invite Aegis here today. The people we hire and
train to protect our facilities are just as important to our
security as the walls we build. This company provides security
at our facilities in Afghanistan under a contract that is
scheduled to run through 2017 at a projected cost of $723
million.
In October 2014, the State Department's Office of Inspector
General issued a report with some very troubling findings. The
IG found that Aegis lacked required documentation showing that
its personnel underwent mandated security investigations and
training. That's the same company getting $723 million. The IG
also found that Aegis billed the government for more than $8
million in questionable costs, including through the use of
prohibited invoices. I am curious to learn what has Aegis
learned about billing and what personnel they have in place,
considering they're getting $723 million of hard-earned
taxpayer dollars.
The IG also found that Aegis held the passports--and this
is particularly troubling--of third-country nationals longer
than necessary, raising concerns about the company's compliance
with regulations about trafficking in persons. That is of great
concern to me.
In the past, our committee has investigated the actions of
private security contractors in Iraq, where we witnessed
shocking fraud and abuse. The current IG report does not
include findings of nearly the same magnitude, but these are
important areas that we would like Aegis to explain and explain
thoroughly. We understand that some of these issues may have
been addressed, and we thank Mr. Gulino for being here today.
Our goal is to make sure we carry forward our past
oversight to ensure that those lessons have in fact been
learned and anything that needed to be corrected was corrected
or is being corrected.
And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you again for this
hearing, and I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
I'll hold the record open for 5 legislative days for any
member who would like to submit a written statement.
We'll now recognize our panel of witnesses. We're pleased
to welcome Mr. Michael Courts, Director of International
Affairs and Trade at the United States Government
Accountability Office. Appreciate the work that you and your
staff do and appreciate your participation here.
We're also pleased to have Ms. Lydia Muniz, is the Director
of Bureau of Overseas Building Operation at the United States
Department of State. We appreciate you coming before our
committee again.
The Honorable Gregory Starr, Assistant Secretary of the
Bureau of Diplomatic Security at the United States Department
of State, a long-time servant at the State Department, and we
appreciate your participation here today.
Mr. Jarrett Blanc, Principal Deputy Special Representative
for Afghan and Pakistan at the United States Department of
State.
The Honorable Donald Hays, senior inspector at the Office
of the Inspector General at the United States Department of
State.
And Mr. Michael Gulino, president and chief executive
officer of Aegis, LLC. Again, welcome all.
Pursuant to committee rules, witnesses are to be sworn
before they testify, so if you will please rise and raise your
right hands.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are
about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth?
Thank you. Please be seated.
And let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in
the affirmative.
In order to allow time for discussion, we would appreciate
it if you would limit your testimony to 5 minutes. Your entire
written record will be made part of the record.
With that, we would like to begin with Mr. Courts.
You're now recognized for 5 minutes.
WITNESS STATEMENTS
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. COURTS
Mr. Courts. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Cummings, and members of the committee. I'm pleased to be here
this morning to discuss a number of challenges related to the
State Department's construction efforts at the U.S. Embassy in
Kabul, Afghanistan. This testimony is based on a GAO report
dealing with the subject that we issued in May of this year.
This work is part of a series of GAO engagements to review
State's efforts to manage construction and the efficiency and
effectiveness of other aspects of its operations overseas.
GAO was asked to testify this morning on the extent to
which construction costs and schedules have changed, State's
use of temporary facilities on the Kabul Embassy compound, and
State's planning for projected embassy facility needs in the
future.
The primary message of my testimony this morning is that
costs have risen and schedules have been extended significantly
for two construction contracts that State awarded in 2009 and
2010, and further cost increases are likely. State has also
built numerous temporary facilities in Kabul and will continue
to use them for the foreseeable future, but it lacks specific
security standards for them. Further, State's lack of strategic
facilities planning has led to coordination challenges and
could lead to further problems as State makes additional
investments to meet its future facility needs in Kabul.
My first point is that costs for the two construction
contracts have increased by about 27 percent from about $625
million to almost $793 million. The projected completion of
these projects has been delayed by over 3 years and is now
slated for the fall of 2017. State didn't follow its own cost
containment and risk assessment policies for those contracts,
resulting in lost opportunities to mitigate risks. When these
risks, such as delays in the sequencing of the two contracts,
eventually materialized, they led to increased costs and
extended schedules. As of March 2015, State and one of its
contractors were still negotiating the value of several
potential contract changes that will likely result in further
increased costs.
My second point is that State has billed over $100 million
in temporary buildings to meet space needs in the Kabul Embassy
compound, but it has no security standards that are
specifically tailored to these types of facilities. Lacking
specific standards or other guidance to guide such
construction, State inconsistently applied alternative security
measures that resulted in insufficient and differing levels of
security for temporary offices and housing. State subsequently
took corrective action that increased cost and extended
schedules. State likely paid more than it would have had the
security requirements been included in the original contract.
My final point is that State plans additional capital
construction investments to address interim and future facility
needs in Kabul, and it needs to improve its planning for these
efforts. The post's current facility needs stem primarily from
changing circumstances inherent to the operating environment in
Kabul, including changes in the security situation and new
capabilities that will be required as a result of the drawdown
of the U.S. military there.
While stakeholders within State are working to identify,
prioritize, and address the post facility needs, their efforts
lack a strategic facilities planning approach. This has
inhibited coordination and undermined the continuity necessary
to address the Embassy's emergent needs.
In summary, pursuing multiyear construction on an
operational embassy compound in a dynamic and dangerous
environment such as Afghanistan presents distinct challenges
and considerable risk. With construction investments in Kabul
currently projected to exceed $2 billion and likely to increase
further, addressing the challenges GAO has identified should be
a high priority.
Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Cummings, this concludes my
prepared remarks. I'd be happy to address any questions that
you may have.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Courts follows:]
For complete submitted testimony, please see the following
website: https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/construction-
costs-and-delays-at-the-u-s-embassy-in-kabul/
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you, Mr. Courts.
Ms. Muniz, you're now recognized for--am I pronouncing your
name right?
Ms. Muniz. Yes.
Chairman Chaffetz. Close enough?
Ms. Muniz. Yes. Close enough.
Chairman Chaffetz. You're now recognized for 5 minutes.
Tell me exactly how I should say it.
Ms. Muniz. Muniz.
Chairman Chaffetz. Muniz. I will improve. Thank you. You're
now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF LYDIA MUNIZ
Ms. Muniz. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings, and
members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to
appear before you today to discuss the U.S. Department of
State's construction projects in Kabul, Afghanistan.
From the beginning, the goal has been and continues to be
to deliver permanent, safe, and secure facilities to support
those serving in Afghanistan. The United States reopened its
Embassy in Afghanistan in December of 2001 using the existing
1971 chancery building.
In 2005, OBO completed a new office building, three new
residential buildings, and support facilities to sustain the
growing needs of the Embassy.
In fiscal year 2009 and 2010, OBO awarded two contracts to
provide additional capacity. The projects included additional
classified and unclassified office buildings; residential and
support facilities; as well as security and infrastructure
upgrades. They also provided nonpermanent facilities to meet
mission needs during construction and to provide capacity for
surge requirements. The total project budget was $881 million.
In spite of fluid conditions and the logistical challenges
of managing an ongoing construction project on an occupied
compound and in a war zone, I am pleased to report that the
unclassified annex with a capacity of 917 desks will be
completed this month. This November, the first residential
facility will be delivered with 226 residential units. In
October 2016, the classified annex, with a capacity of 320
desks, will be completed, and the following October will see
the delivery of the final two residential facilities, with 432
units.
When completed, the Embassy compound will have the capacity
for nearly 1,500 desks and over 800 residential units and
additional capacity if compressed.
These accomplishments have been and will continue to be
achieved in the face of significant challenges and
modifications. These include the termination of the fiscal year
2009 contract and modifications to the scope of the fiscal year
2010 contract; an increase in scope from 545 permanent desks to
1,237; additional security requirements as the security
situation in Afghanistan deteriorated; a delay in vacating
space needed by the contractor to build the unclassified annex;
modifications to the old chancery building to make it more
functional for post in the short term; the elimination of scope
planned for property adjacent to the Embassy compound occupied
by the Afghanistan Ministry of Public Health; and the closure
of the Pakistani border from November 2011 to July 2012,
temporarily eliminating the project's most direct ground
shipping route.
The cumulative impact of these changes is the addition of
over 2 years to the project's schedule and over $250 million.
The GAO report on Afghanistan suggested that the costs and
schedule to project increased due to incomplete cost and risk
assessments. And while these are important tools, I reject the
notion that more thorough assessments would have had a material
impact on the Kabul Embassy project. Instead, I would argue
that they would have risked further delaying delivery of
permanent facilities. The material changes and challenges to
the projects were not known and could not have been anticipated
at the time of development and award of the projects. Cost
increases and delays were unavoidable.
The GAO report also suggests that the Kabul project was not
appropriately planned for the mission's needs. I also reject
this notion. The Kabul project was planned, designed, and
awarded to provide the full complement of office and
residential facilities as well as all necessary support and
infrastructure required at that time.
Afghanistan is a fluid environment and differs markedly
from normal operations. It is unrealistic to expect the
development of a static master plan capturing all requirements
at the beginning of an 8-year project, as GAO advised. Periodic
reviews during and after the project are essential to ensure
that the mission's evolving needs are addressed.
Afghanistan construction is critical to the State
Department's mission. With every day and with every decision,
we do our best to deliver a platform that enables staff to
perform their duties safely and securely, and we will continue
this effort in cooperation with the Bureau of Diplomatic
Security, post, other stakeholders, and Congress, until our
work in Kabul is complete.
I look forward to answering your questions.
[Prepared statement of Ms. Muniz follows:]
For complete submitted testimony, please see the following
website: https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/construction-
costs-and-delays-at-the-u-s-embassy-in-kabul/
Chairman Chaffetz. Mr. Starr, you're now recognized for 5
minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE GREGORY B. STARR
Mr. Starr. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings, and
distinguished committee members, good morning. Thank you for
your invitation to appear today to discuss security and
construction developments at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul,
Afghanistan.
Our efforts in Afghanistan and our determination to support
the Afghan Government are among our highest--are the highest
importance to the Department and to the administration. I,
along with my colleagues in the Department of State, look
forward to working with you to examine the issues and
illustrate how we are collectively supporting the courageous
men and women who serve at this mission with safer and more
secure facilities.
Our national interests sometimes require us to operate in
very dangerous places. We identify the risks. We take
deliberate and prudent steps to mitigate them. The Department
has made important strides in that regard. I personally
discuss, plan, and strategize with my counterpart, Director
Lydia Muniz, in the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations on
at least a weekly basis, usually more than that. We plan with a
wide array of Department interlocutors, interagency partners,
and directly with the people managing security and the
construction projects at the mission in Kabul. However, we can
never foresee or mitigate all the potential pitfalls in an
unpredictable environment like Afghanistan.
In Kabul's high-threat environment, hostile actors
routinely target the U.S. and other foreign nationals.
Insurgents have employed a wide variety and range of attacks,
including suicide operations, small arms fires, improvised
explosive devices, assassination attempts, mortars, insider
threats, kidnappings, and complex attacks. Just last week, as
you mentioned, sir, there was an attack near our compound, and
like past attacks, our facilities and security measures
performed as they should, and continue to protect our people.
In addition to operating in a challenging security
environment and geographic location, we have had our primary
shipping and resupply route impeded and closed for extended
period of times without notice. The closure invariably slowed
our ability to get materials to the site, but we ultimately
found alternate routes, and our mission never ceased.
Embassy Kabul is not just a construction site. It's one of
the largest functioning embassies in the world with a large
number of direct hire and contractor personnel, which requires
significant support, including housing, office space, and
vehicles. Although we've experienced periods of elevated and
targeted violence, which has halted all movements by the
Embassy personnel at times, we have resumed movements and we
continue to build.
When my colleague--when my colleague at the Office of the
Inspector General has brought issues and deficiencies to our
attention, we've made changes in short order to ensure mistakes
are not prolonged or duplicated. We have learned lessons and
greatly improved operational efficiencies due to the thorough
inspection of the GAO and the OIG reports, and we thank them
for their contributions in helping us improve our operations in
Kabul and many places around the world.
Our facilities have proven time and time again that they
can withstand the most complex of attacks. Simply put, our
physical security countermeasures work. Building facilities in
this environment is not easy and it is certainly not without
risks, delays and unforeseen circumstances and costs. Due to a
fluid and evolving security environment, we must evolve and
adapt to the conditions and circumstances that are presented to
us. We work constantly to improve our practices and protect our
people. We continue to reevaluate. And at times, despite the
inherent setbacks it may cause, we must chart new courses in
order to advance the bigger picture of completing the mission
to secure our people.
As I close, I will say, and I am both confident and pleased
that, despite the many unforeseen challenges and setbacks,
Department personnel in Kabul are better protected, prepared,
and secured today. We look forward to working with Congress to
ensure that our people serving abroad, particularly in these
high-threat environments, have a safe platform for carrying out
the conduct of diplomacy.
I want to thank Congress for the resources that you have
provided over the years to strengthen and reinforce this
vitally important diplomatic platform. As the Assistant
Secretary for Diplomatic Security, I work every day with my
colleagues in the Department of State to ensure a safe
environment for our people, and with your continuous support,
we are doing that.
Thank you. And I will be glad to answer any questions that
you may have.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Starr follows:]
For complete submitted testimony, please see the following
website: https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/construction-
costs-and-delays-at-the-u-s-embassy-in-kabul/
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
Mr. Blanc, you're now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JARRETT BLANC
Mr. Blanc. Thank you. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member
Cummings, members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the future of
mission Afghanistan with my colleagues, Lydia Muniz from the
Office of Building--Overseas Building Operations, and Greg
Starr from Diplomatic Security.
Please allow me to begin once again by thanking the members
of the committee for your continued support for our mission.
The American people have been generous, steadfast, and brave in
supporting Afghanistan. I would particularly like to honor
again the dedication of thousands of American military
personnel, diplomats, and assistance professionals who have
served and continue to serve in Afghanistan.
We began our mission in Afghanistan in late 2001 to ensure
that the country would never again be used by Al Qaeda and
other extremists as a haven from which to launch attacks
against U.S. territory, citizens, or interests overseas.
History has taught us the terrible consequences of inattention
and disregard, and we must not repeat our past mistakes.
Since 2001, our goal has been to foster the development of
an Afghanistan that is sovereign, unified, democratic, and
increasingly self-sufficient, both economically and militarily;
in short, the development of Afghanistan as a partner in
efforts to combat Al Qaeda and other extremists who threat then
the United States and our allies. We cannot achieve this
without smart diplomacy and, by necessity, the presence in
Afghanistan of U.S. diplomats and development personnel.
Afghanistan is undeniably a dangerous place for U.S.
diplomats, and we understand the risks associated with our
working there. When we ask our people, our friends and
colleagues, to go into harm's way, we do so because their work
is vital to our national security, and we are all of us
obligated to provide them with the resources they need to do
their jobs safely and well.
Understanding this, the Department of State with support
from Congress has made significant investments to make Embassy
Kabul the safest, most effective platform possible to carry out
our roles, and we will continue to make improvements to adapt
to a variable political, security, and planning environment.
Ongoing construction and security upgrades based on our
best estimate of longer term political and security challenges
will create an embassy compound that is designed to minimize
threats and sustain U.S. diplomacy. Before the end of 2017, we
expect to complete construction on several projects that will
provide new hardened office space and living quarters to
accommodate permanent staff.
In keeping with President Obama's plan for a phased
drawdown of U.S. Military Forces and a normalization of the
U.S. diplomatic footprint to an embassy-based presence, we are
executing an options-based contract for life support services
that will reduce our dependence on the Department of Defense
support and increase our flexibility and self-sufficiency. We
are building satellite locations that house and support the
Kabul Embassy security force closer to the main compound,
installing advanced early-warning technologies, and enlarging
our facilities for threat prevention and response teams. We
continue to work with our Afghan partners to assess emerging
threats and develop effective prevention strategies.
Of course, none of these measures is perfect. While we
constantly examine our security methods to adapt to an evolving
threat environment, I want to be clear that no amount of
setback, no amount of security program will ever entirely
eliminate the risk our personnel face while serving in
Afghanistan.
We will continue to scrutinize the environment in
Afghanistan and our security footing to seize opportunities to
improve security where possible. We have demonstrated an
ability to be flexible as diplomats, surging our civilian staff
to support the military footprint, and now drawing down to a
smaller and more sustainable level, including by closing our
presences outside of Kabul.
To be effective, the business of diplomacy must be
conducted in person. The men and women of Mission Afghanistan
engage closely and continuously with Afghan institutions and
actors at all levels. The reporting they provide is vital to
informing an extensive interagency process that determines
long-term U.S. strategy. They build relationship with
Afghanistan with current and future leaders, making certain
that U.S. policymakers remain well informed and our positions
are heard. They oversee one of the United States' largest
assistance relationships, safeguarding billions of taxpayer
dollars. This work is critical to our efforts to fight Al
Qaeda, assist the Afghan Government against their insurgency,
and bolster legitimacy and durability of the Afghan State.
Since September 11, 2001, we have made significant progress
in degrading Al Qaeda's operational capacity in Afghanistan and
Pakistan. U.S. diplomacy has helped the Afghan Government build
a national army, a police force, and professional institutions
to provide improved security, education, and opportunity for
millions of Afghans. We have seen the country make great
strides in expanding its democratic institutions, culminating
recently in the first democratic transition in power in
Afghan's history. But many challenges remain.
Institutions must be further strengthened to give the
fledgling government further legitimacy. A once booming economy
has slowed and must be reinvigorated through innovation and
investment. And Afghanistan's ability to provide a self-
sufficient security apparatus must be bolstered in the face of
persistent threats in order to remain a capable partner at
counterterrorism operations and a responsible regional actor.
Fostering Afghanistan's development is the only way,
sustainable way, to address U.S. security concerns in the
region. And addressing these remaining challenges will require
continuing assistance and intensive day-to-day diplomatic
engagement. At the same time, we will continue to find ways to
address the real risks our team in Afghanistan faces.
Thank you very much, and I'm happy to answer questions.
[Prepared statement of Blanc follows:]
For complete submitted testimony, please see the following
website: https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/construction-
costs-and-delays-at-the-u-s-embassy-in-kabul/
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
Mr. Hays, you're now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DONALD S. HAYS
Mr. Hays. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings,
members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify
on behalf of the Office of the Inspector General for the
Department of State. My testimony will focus on the
construction projects and related security issues of the
Embassy in Kabul.
The Embassy is a fortified compound composed of two
adjacent campuses located near the center of the city. These
two campuses total 36 acres and are a mix of completed
structures, temporary offices, temporary office housing
facilities, and a construction site. The Department leases
several residences outside the Embassy walls to provide
adequate setback for enhanced security of those sections of the
wall.
At the time of our inspection, over 1,000 U.S. Government
employees were stationed in Afghanistan, and approximately
4,500 contractors were working in support of the Embassy
throughout the country. Due to the massive construction
underway at the Embassy compound, employees were forced to
weave their way between temporary housing offices, various
constructions sites to get to work. A number of agencies were
still in temporary facilities awaiting completion of their new
offices.
The inspection took place between February 2 and March 11
of 2014. We had 21 inspectors conducting over 600 interviews
and reviewing hundreds of documents and 70 oversight reviews.
When we arrived, the security situation was deteriorating
in and around Kabul, necessitating additional security projects
in Kabul and throughout the country. The team found the Bureau
of Overseas Buildings Operation and the Bureau of Diplomatic
Security were engaged in constructing a number of building
projects both in and off Embassy compound.
During our inspection, we reported that it spent $1.35
billion between fiscal years 2002 and 2013, some of which had
contributed by other bureaus for the Embassy-related
construction and physical security projects. These projects
include the expansion of warehouse Marine security guard
quarters, building of two hardened office buildings,
construction of new housing facilities, and other projects in
Kabul outside the Embassy, including the completion of contract
guards sleeping quarters and facilities for Embassy fire
department and motor maintenance facilities, and other
warehouse facilities.
The need for security enhancement to the exterior wall was
first identified and funded by DS in 2009. DS considered these
enhancements urgent, given the Embassy's location in the middle
of Kabul, large buildings adjacent to the compound, a growing
security threat. The team made classified recommendations in
our classified annex with regard to security enhancements.
Necessary security enhancements, temporary housing were
similarly characterized as urgent and funded by DS in 2011.
Approximately 70 percent of the 800 U.S. Government
employees and contract workers living on the U.S. compound were
housed in temporary containerized housing units, called CHUs,
at the time of the inspection. Most of these lacked adequate
overhead and side cover protection. This issue was also the
subject of recommendations in the classified annex of our
report.
During the course of the onsite inspection, both Embassy
senior management team and the OIG team expressed concern about
OBO's lack of progress on security improvements to the exterior
wall and temporary housing. Although DS designated funding for
these enhancements, they were not initiated, despite serious
implications of not completing them.
Based on interviews conducted by the OIG team, this issue
caused considerable friction between DS and OBO at the time,
specifically DS wishing that they expeditiously complete these
projects, while OBO stated that it wanted to proceed with the
projects only after design met international construction and
safety standards.
During the inspection process, the team raised its concerns
with OBO about the need for enhancements. In response, OBO's
project manager explained that there was a lack of progress due
to a number of factors, including the number of projects
underway, the limited space available for construction material
and equipment on the compound. As a result, the contractor
stated that it was required to phase in projects in order to
work efficiently and safely. The project manager stated that
despite the desire to enhance security involving the compound
wall and temporary housing, there was no way to carry out these
enhancements until current construction projects were
completed.
Upon our return to Washington, the inspection team raised
its concerns about the apparent inability of DS and OBO to work
together to find immediate solutions to these and other
security issues in Kabul. The team met with the Director of OBO
and the Assistant Secretary for DS on several occasions. They
stated they would increase coordination, work together to
address these situations. Subsequently, OBO Director
established a senior OBO working group to work with DS to
address urgent security-related projects. In a follow-on
meeting between the OIG and the Undersecretary for Management,
the Undersecretary assured the team that high level meetings
would be conducted to eliminate outstanding issues and to
proceed with the team's recommendations on security
enhancements.
In our classified report under the section ``Construction
Projects Management'', we recommend OBO coordinate with DS and
Embassy to develop and execute a master plan of all ongoing and
planned projects, including those funded by DS. To date, that
recommendation remains open and serious.
Thank you.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. Could you repeat that last? I
just didn't hear the last two sentences there that you said.
Mr. Hays. In our classified report under the section
entitled, ``Construction Project Management,'' we recommended
that OBO coordinate with DS and the Embassy to develop and
execute a master plan for all ongoing and planned projects,
including those funded by DS, and to date, that recommendation
remains open and is a serious concern.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Hays follows:]
For complete submitted testimony, please see the following
website: https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/construction-
costs-and-delays-at-the-u-s-embassy-in-kabul/
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. Okay. I didn't hear that last
part, and I appreciate your repeating it.
Mr. Gulino, you're now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL L. GULINO
Mr. Gulino. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings, and
members of the committee, thank you for the invitation and
opportunity to present testimony before this committee today. I
am pleased to represent Aegis and all of our employees
worldwide on this matter.
As a brief introduction, Aegis Defense Services is a U.S.
company based in McLean, Virginia. We provide security and risk
management, whose focus is to provide the support necessary for
our clients so they can undertake their missions in complex and
high-threat operational environments. We handle everything from
protective security to the facilities that house, feed, and
train our employees and canines. We employ some 1,400 people as
well as 73 canines, most of whom are performing critical
missions in Afghanistan.
Our team of dedicated professionals include employees from
47 of the 50 United States as well as foreign national
employees from Nepal and Afghanistan.
Beginning in 2012, under Task Order 10 to our Worldwide
Protective Services program, which I will refer to as WPS,
Aegis worked in close concert with the Department of State to
meet all operational and contractual requirements and to ensure
the success of the WPS security program in Kabul.
As the committee well knows, the Department of State Office
of Inspector General initiated an audit of the WPS program in
2012 and issued that report in October of 2014, and the audit
covered the startup period of the contract.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Cummings, we fully acknowledge
that were there some administrative and logistics issues in the
early part of that contract. Since that time and well before
the issuance of the OIG report, Aegis has worked in concert
with the Department of State to address and correct these
administrative and logistical issues. This includes ensuring
complete and reliable processes, thorough documentation for
record-keeping, stringent employee vetting, as well as accurate
timecard and billing administration.
The OIG report also raised concerns that Aegis retained
third-country national passports during visa processing and did
not post Trafficking in Persons, which we call TIPs, notices in
native languages. I want to assure the committee that Aegis
maintains vigilant human rights and TIPs compliance programs.
We've refined our systems, and we publish a status of all
passports being processed for visas to ensure that employees
are aware at all times as to where their a passport is and the
status of it. And Aegis has also ensured that TIPs posters are
displayed in English and Nepali at prominent locations
throughout the Embassy site where they work.
Also, over the past 5 years, Aegis has worked closely with
the Department of State and the DOD and the international
private security community to establish PSC.1, private security
contractor standard. This is what I call a supercharged quality
management ISO 9000-like system that will ensure compliance and
professional management of security contractors, with an
emphasis on vigilant protection of human rights. I'm proud to
report that Aegis was the first U.S. security company to earn
its PSC.1 certification. This is obtained through a vigorous
external and completely independent audit of our system both in
McLean as well as on the ground in Afghanistan.
Our employees and representatives abide by the Aegis code
of conduct, which is based upon our cornerstone core value of
integrity, further ensures our workforce culture and commitment
to respect, responsibility, diversity, and inclusion.
We also maintain stringent anticorruption and
whistleblowing policies as well as a policy of zero tolerance
for retaliation.
In conclusion, I'd like to thank the committee for the
opportunity to participate in the discussion and to thank the
Department of State for the opportunity to support its critical
operations in Afghanistan.
Mr. Chairman, I am proud of all the Aegis men and women for
their continued bravery, professionalism, high standards, and
exceptional work ethic.
I'd be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Gulino follows:]
For complete submitted testimony, please see the following
website: https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/construction-
costs-and-delays-at-the-u-s-embassy-in-kabul/
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
I'll now recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Ms. Muniz, you joined OBO in 2009, correct?
Ms. Muniz. Yes, that's right.
Chairman Chaffetz. And then you became the Director in
2011?
Ms. Muniz. I believe that's right.
Chairman Chaffetz. My understanding is you went to the
ribbon cutting there in Kabul in 2010.
Ms. Muniz. I believe it was a groundbreaking----
Chairman Chaffetz. Groundbreaking.
Ms. Muniz. --in 2011.
Chairman Chaffetz. Since you've been the Director, have you
been back to Afghanistan?
Ms. Muniz. No, not since I've been Director.
Chairman Chaffetz. This is our biggest project in the
world, correct?
Ms. Muniz. One of our biggest.
Chairman Chaffetz. What's bigger than this costwise?
Ms. Muniz. I would say there are several that are on the
scale, including Islamabad.
Chairman Chaffetz. Have you been to Islamabad?
Ms. Muniz. Yes. I was there with Assistant Secretary Starr
in November.
Chairman Chaffetz. And you think that's going to be in
excess of $2 billion?
Ms. Muniz. No, that won't be in excess of $2 billion.
Chairman Chaffetz. So is there any embassy complex that's
going to be bigger than this? This is $2.17 billion.
Ms. Muniz. I guess I would look at it this way: We have a
number of high-level and critical projects in the Department.
Chairman Chaffetz. All right. I----
Ms. Muniz. Kabul, Baghdad, Islamabad, the security
improvements that we're making at our consulates in Peshawar,
Lahore, Karachi. We cover the world. I have been to all of
those places.
Chairman Chaffetz. And we're going to have you come back
and talk about Mexico at some point because I would like you to
spend some more time. I know you were recently in Mexico City,
but some of those consulates in northern--in Tamaulipas, but
we'll come back to that.
Is there a strategic facilities plan for the Kabul Embassy
construction?
Ms. Muniz. So I'm very glad you asked about the strategic
facilities plan. I think it's important to note that the policy
that the GAO referred to, which had been suspended, applies not
at all to the type of project that is Kabul effectively. And
I'd like to quote from the policy that was revoked. I'd also
like to highlight the fact that you mentioned that this was
adopted in the 1990s and was just recently suspended. It was
repealed because the process had been superceded by an improved
process, but in the time in which it was in place, only 16 of
these facilities master plans had been done. So let me go first
to quote what they do and explain why Kabul was not an
appropriate place in which to do this sort of a facilities
plan, and then I can talk to you about the type of planning we
did do: The long-range facilities program will be directed at
those posts not covered in OBO's regular capital or security
capital programs. The long-range facility program is intended
to provide a clear definition to post requirements, such that
stakeholders and decisionmakers have the relevant data prior to
making decisions to fund and execute projects.
The decision based on the growth in staff and the growing
needs of our platform in Kabul had already--we had already made
the decision that we were going to invest in growth in Kabul.
The long-range facilities plan was a tool that was developed to
address those posts with nagging infrastructure and deferred
maintenance needs that were never making it onto our program
lists.
Now, back to the question of whether planning was
conducted, which I think is a very valid question. At the time
that we developed the scope for the Embassy Kabul compound, a
comprehensive plan was done for that compound as a standalone
facility, assuming a continued DOD presence until modifications
or drawdowns were made to that presence. So it was master
planned. That plan was designed and is currently being
executed.
That said, things do get messy when you're working on an
occupied compound around hundreds of temporary facilities where
you're squeezing the construction project in amongst those.
But, yes, a master plan was conducted. It was developed. It
was designed. It's being built. There are ongoing reviews of
what needs to be done in that environment because in the 6
years since the award of that project, we have had to do
continuous re-looks with post, with the Bureau, with DS about
what are new needs, what are evolving needs in a situation that
is continually evolving, but we started with a master plan and
will continue to make modifications to that plan until we have
the right combination of facilities and security features in
place in Kabul.
Chairman Chaffetz. I appreciate that long answer. And I beg
some indulgence here from my colleagues here as we now start to
ask some questions.
Is that master plan something you can provide to this
committee?
Ms. Muniz. Yes. I think--the reason I pause is that this
master plan is really made up of many documents, which sort of
look at all of the----
Chairman Chaffetz. No doubt--no doubt there are many
documents. All I'm asking for is I'd like the original plan,
and I'd like to see the updated plan because to hear you say
it, there's no problems, but to hear Mr. Courts and Mr. Hays,
you're spending hundreds of millions of dollars in addition to
what was originally planned. You're 3 years behind schedule. We
have people living in temporary facilities that aren't secure.
Let me read part of this page 16 of this GAO report:
Between 2009 and 2010 contracts, State should have conducted
four cost-containment studies and six risk assessments.
However, for the 2009 contract, State confirmed it did not
conduct either type of assessment.
You in your written statement wrote: I reject the notion
that more thorough cost or risk assessments would have had a
material impact on the cost or schedule of the Kabul Embassy
project. Instead, I would argue that additional assessments
would have risked further delaying the delivery of permanent
facilities.
You went to say: The cost increases and project delays were
not avoidable.
You also said: The GAO also suggested the Kabul project was
not an appropriate plan to take into account the mission's
needs in the maximum extent possible.
We're left begging, who should we believe? We have a very
independent--they don't seem to have an agenda, GAO. You have
an inspector general. They both come in and look at this and
cite a host of problems. I mean, look at the way Mr. Hays
concluded his assessment. We can't even get the DS people in
the same room having the same conversation with the OBO folks.
I'll go to page 17.
DS, Diplomatic Security, is cited in the policy as an
interested office. This relates to the cost-containment
studies. According to the attendee list, no one from Diplomatic
Security participated in the meetings related to this study,
and Diplomatic Security officials we spoke with indicated they
were not aware of this study and its security recommendations.
The fact that we can't even get Diplomatic Security to be part
of the discussion in one of the most dangerous places on the
face of the planet makes no sense to us.
So, in isolation, you're saying, we don't need to do better
planning, we don't--we have a great facilities plan, but I've
got two independent groups that have looked at this over the
course of more than a year saying you're wrong, that there is a
big problem. We in Congress are looking at funding this to the
tune of more than $2 billion. You're coming in 3 years late.
We've got people who live there that aren't secure, and you
still have hundreds of millions of dollars in front of you that
you need to spend.
We've always known that Afghanistan is dangerous. That is
not--there is no doubt that it has been dangerous and will
continue to be dangerous. I have been there. It is a fortress
of cement. It's a very difficult thing. We've got people that
we love, that we care about, that are sacrificing their lives
and their families and putting their--sacrificing for this
country, and they're living in a hooch that is substandard and
not secure.
So I have gone way past my time here, but I struggle to
figure out, since you became the Director, even the Deputy
Director, why do you think things are going better because
every metric I'm looking at is worse in this particular case,
every one.
Name one thing that is going better in Afghanistan since
you became the Director.
Ms. Muniz. I guess what I would say is, the way you've
constructed the sentence is complicated.
Let me be very clear about this. Kabul and Afghanistan are
incredibly complex, continually evolving environments. The
security situation has deteriorated. The numbers of desks have
gone up. The movement and post needs in and around an ongoing
construction project have continued to evolve.
Those projects were awarded since I have been there, and I
have watched the team work tirelessly with their colleagues in
Diplomatic Security to do the best that they can to accommodate
all of the changes----
Chairman Chaffetz. But the report says that Diplomatic
Security is not even in the meetings.
Ms. Muniz. If you could let me finish. And to keep the
project moving forward.
With respect to your comments on the value engineering
study, which I think is a valid point, Diplomatic Security was
invited to that meeting. There were no Diplomatic Security
items that were added to the value engineering list. Had there
been, we would have gone back to our colleagues at Diplomatic
Security----
Chairman Chaffetz. Well, they can't add them to the list if
they're not even in the meeting. That's the point of having
them in the meeting, is to get their perspective in a high-risk
assessment. We have been there for more than a decade.
I have blown past my time. I want to give Mr. Courts and
Mr. Hays an opportunity to offer some perspective, and then I
need to allow other members to ask questions.
Mr. Courts.
Mr. Courts. Sure. Well, I would just first acknowledge that
Kabul is indeed a very challenging environment. And there is no
way to completely eliminate all risk, especially in a place
like Afghanistan, and that is precisely why adequate cost
containment and risk assessment is so important in a place like
that, where the impact of the cost and schedule is so much
greater when problems are encountered.
And I think if State had followed its own policies earlier,
for example, as part of the 2009 contract, it probably could
have better managed risk. It may not have eliminated all of the
risk, but it may have better managed some of it. And if they
had done that earlier, it would at least have given State a
chance to develop mitigation strategies prior to soliciting the
2010 contract.
I would also note that when they did do a risk assessment
and cost containment study for the 2010 contract, they did
identify a number of risks, some of which did indeed come to
pass. One of them was a potential problem with the sequencing
of the two contracts. Another was the potential loss of the
Afghan Ministry of Public Health site that my colleague
mentioned.
So there were a number of things that were not
unpredictable. State actually did predict those problems.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
Mr. Hays.
Mr. Hays. Well, first of all, both the findings of our
report and the GAO pretty much mirror each other. We were
concerned about the lack of an overall plan that projected out
into the future. We were concerned about the security of our
people and the compound.
When we came back we raised these issues. There was tension
in the field between DS and OBO and between the field and
Washington. We addressed those both to Director Muniz and to
Greg Starr. They had agreed at that meeting to improve
coordination and collaboration. At a later date, in a meeting
with Director Muniz, she even established a working group of
her senior colleagues to work with senior colleagues in DS.
We believe that the coordination is improving, certainly in
Washington. We are not able to speak to the relationship in the
field anymore since we left.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
We now recognize Mr. Cummings for an exceptionally long
period of time.
Mr. Cummings. I just want to see if I can put all of this
in context a little bit.
Ambassador Hays, I would like to ask you some questions
from the view of the Inspector General's Office. I understand
that the staffing for the U.S. Embassy at Kabul significantly
increased since we reopened the Embassy in 2002. Is that right?
Mr. Hays. That's correct.
Mr. Cummings. In 2009, there was a bipartisan support for a
drastic increase in the troops and civilian personnel in
Afghanistan, and they commonly called that the surge. IG
reports cite the surge as directly impacting planning for the
Embassy compound and its construction contracts.
I would like to understand in greater detail just how these
staffing fluctuations have impacted the Kabul Embassy and also
how State plans to adapt to such changes. Last August, the
Inspector General's Office issued a report explaining that the
total number of American personnel working for the State
Department in Afghanistan grew, and I quote, ``from 340
Americans in fiscal year 2008 to a peak of more than 1,340 in
fiscal year 2012,'' end of quote.
Is that all correct? Is that right?
Mr. Hays. I believe that's correct.
Mr. Cummings. Now, these numbers reflect an increase of
almost four times in State Department personnel in Afghanistan
within 4 years. Is that right?
Mr. Hays. That's right.
Mr. Cummings. Ambassador Hays, do you know approximately
what percentage of those people worked in the Kabul Embassy.
Mr. Hays. As of the time that we visited, about 800
Americans were housed on the compound.
Mr. Cummings. All right.
Mr. Hays. I can't talk about how many there are now,
because they were talking about a downsizing over the next
year.
Mr. Cummings. Now, from what I understand, a number of non-
Americans also work at the Embassy, as do employees from other
agencies. For example, FBI, DEA, the Department of Homeland
Security have employees there who conduct important work at the
Embassy at Kabul.
Now, Mr. Blanc, from the Department's perspective, the
United States Government work in Afghanistan requires a larger
interagency presence at the Embassy that also fluctuates
depending on a variety of factors. Is that correct?
Mr. Blanc. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. These fluctuating staff levels must have
exacerbated the space challenges experienced by the Kabul
Embassy. Is that correct?
Mr. Blanc. Sir, that's absolutely correct. And as we noted,
the Department has tried to really be expeditionary and
flexible to surge our number of both State and other agency
colleagues when the military surge took place, and now to draw
down to a more sustainable level. At each of those decision
points we have been confronted with very variable political and
security environments in Afghanistan that we have tried to find
the best diplomatic ways to address.
Mr. Cummings. Now, Director Muniz, what about your
perspective from the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations.
How did the surge impact planning for the building of the Kabul
Embassy? And I have the same concerns, by the way, that the
chairman has, and I'm just curious as to your answer on that.
Ms. Muniz. I would say that it impacted the project pretty
dramatically.
Mr. Cummings. Could you put your mic up because we can't
hear you.
Ms. Muniz. Sorry. I would say that it impacted the project
pretty dramatically. But that said, we knew that we were
operating in an environment where we would be trying to adjust
to these changes. And so given the constraints, given the time
that we had, we moved forward with awarding the project as
quickly as we could and incorporating those changes as quickly
as you could.
In a perfect world, you know the final number of desks
years before you develop a project. You develop a design and
you award it and nothing changes. That's simply not the reality
in Kabul. And I think it would have been a waste of time to
wish that it was and to not continue to react to the changes in
the best way we could.
Mr. Cummings. So it's sort of like flying a plane and
building it at the same time?
Ms. Muniz. A little bit.
Mr. Cummings. This past May, GAO issued a report
concluding, and I quote: ``Since the Embassy reopened in 2002,
the dynamic and unpredictable operating environment of
Afghanistan has produced changing facility needs that have
continually outpaced existing capabilities at the post.'' Ms.
Muniz, do you agree with that statement?
Ms. Muniz. I do agree with that statement.
Mr. Cummings. And could you provide some examples?
Ms. Muniz. I mean, again, I think shifting numbers, I think
the fact that those numbers would delay the removal of
temporary facilities that are in the footprint or the path of
building permanent facilities, all of these things can
complicate the execution of those projects.
Mr. Cummings. But you heard what Mr. Courts said. He said
that he still thinks that you all could have figured all of
that out. He realized that there were things that were
unpredictable--am I right, Mr. Courts?--but there were certain
things that you could have done to move things along more
precisely.
Is that right, Mr. Courts?
Mr. Courts. That's correct.
Mr. Cummings. And do you agree with that, Ms. Muniz?
Ms. Muniz. I don't agree with that.
Mr. Cummings. Why not?
Ms. Muniz. I simply don't.
Let me give you one example. So the recommendation, the
risk assessment and the cost evaluation that were done to the
2010 projects that have been referred to, the cost savings
generated from the value engineering study were a million
dollars in a project well over a billion dollars.
The risks that were known at that time--so in an ideal
situation you don't award a project to two different
contractors, you award to one contractor and they go beginning
to end. The decision was made that there was an opportunity to
gain time and to get hardened facilities delivered or at least
a portion of those delivered faster. And so we took the
calculated risk and made the decision to move forward with that
approach.
Is it an ideal approach in sort of an ideal scenario?
Absolutely not. And I think that point is valid. But I think
that we understood the risks. We understood the value of doing
more assessment. But we also weighed it against the really
primary need of moving the construction project forward as
quickly as we possibly could.
Mr. Cummings. Ambassador Hays, you are from the Inspector
General's Office. In October, your office issued a report with
some troubling findings about Aegis and its work in
Afghanistan. I understand that you were not the individual who
worked on the report. Is that right?
Mr. Hays. That's right.
Mr. Cummings. But you're familiar with it, are you not?
Mr. Hays. I'm not familiar with the body of work that
supports that report.
Mr. Cummings. Okay. Well, let me direct the questions to
the other witnesses.
Mr. Gulino, you are the CEO of Aegis. Is that right?
Mr. Gulino. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. When the IG issued its report in October, it
raised serious questions about how Aegis handled passports from
third-country nationals that you hired to come to Afghanistan.
Specifically the IG found that your company held these
passports for much longer than would have been necessary for
visa purposes, raising the prospects of violations of the
standards against trafficking in persons. That's a very, very,
very serious thing, would you agree, issue?
Mr. Gulino. I agree. That's a serious----
Mr. Cummings. Trafficking in persons.
Mr. Gulino. Absolutely.
Mr. Cummings. Yeah. And let me read what the IG found, and
I quote: ``Aegis held third-party nationals'"--TCNs--
``passports for periods longer than necessary, had inadequate
trafficking in persons awareness training for TCNs, and lacked
posters in TCN native language requiring reporting of all TIP
violations, all of which increased the risk of inappropriate
practices that could lead to potential TIP violations.''
I know I heard you say that now you have got the posters
up. You should have had the posters up from the very beginning.
You are getting $723 million. Seems like you could put a poster
up. Would you agree? Hello.
Mr. Gulino. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Gulino, why did your company do that? Why
didn't you have the posters up? And why were you holding
people's passports?
Mr. Gulino. Well, let me address them separately.
Mr. Cummings. Yeah, please do.
Mr. Gulino. The passports weren't held longer than they
were required to be held. It's a difficult situation in
Afghanistan submitting the passports and the documentation to
the Ministry of Interior, and they don't turn them around as
quickly as we would like.
Where we failed initially was to keep the employees up to
date on the status of their passports. But I can assure you and
the committee that we don't hold them any longer than we need
to, and we do keep them advised of the status.
With regard to the posters, we didn't have posters
published in Nepali, and we should have done that, and there is
no excuse for it. It has been corrected.
Mr. Cummings. We shouldn't be hearing about these kind of
problems in the future. Is that right?
Mr. Gulino. Sir?
Mr. Cummings. We should not be hearing about these problems
in the future.
Mr. Gulino. That's correct.
Mr. Cummings. That is, Aegis holding people's passports
longer than it is supposed to, a company that we are paying
$723 million, placing people in a possible indentured servant-
type situation. We shouldn't be hearing about that, is that
right, not in 2015?
Mr. Gulino. That's correct.
Mr. Cummings. Now, in fact the Inspector General reported
that many of these workers complained, and I quote, ``that it
took 3 to 4 months to obtain a new passport resulting in the
contractor holding passports for approximately 4 months for
every 6-month visa.''
Mr. Gulino. Well, that's, again, it's a function of the
Afghan Ministry of Interior. We weren't holding them longer
than we needed to. We work with the Ministry of Interior to try
and turn those visas, multiple entries around as quickly as we
can. It has improved. But I can assure you, we don't hold
passports unnecessarily. It's just for the period of time that
we need to obtain its work permits and multiple entry visas.
Mr. Cummings. So now how do you--you said now you are able
to--you are in a position where you are informing these people
as to the status and what is happening with the passports. How
does that work? I mean, do they come to you and say--do they
have to come to you and say, ``What's happening with my
passport?'' Or do you go to them? How does that work?
Mr. Gulino. Well, the way it works is that our program
managers and all of the assistant managers work with the Nepali
captains of the various groups, the Gurkha Guard forces, and
they advise and they give them data, and it is published in the
breakrooms also.
Mr. Cummings. Well, it's interesting, and I want to make
sure you correct this, which was also found by the IG. It says
the IG found that your company had, and I quote, ``an absence
of detailed records in the contractor's passport control log.''
It's kind of hard to give them accurate information, give them
the information, when you don't even have the appropriate
detailed records. What's happening with that? Have you improved
that?
Mr. Gulino. Yes, we have accurate records. We know exactly
where everyone's passport is on the entire project.
Mr. Cummings. Now, Mr. Gulino, our committee has conducted
extensive investigations of security contractors operating in
Iraq, including the horrendous way they treated third-country
nationals they brought in under circumstances almost
resembling, as I said a little bit earlier, indentured
servants. I think we all agree that this goes against our most
basic values as Americans. And a key part of our oversight
responsibility is to ensure that lessons have been learned from
past mistakes. In that vein, we must be diligent in reviewing
the performance of the contractors that are hired to secure the
Kabul Embassy.
Ambassador Hays, let me just circle back as I close. I know
you were not the one who worked on the IG report, but we would
like to follow up on these findings. Can we schedule a briefing
for our staff to get an update on the inspector general's
findings in October?
Mr. Hays. I'm sure that we can find the appropriate time to
do so.
Mr. Cummings. Very well.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Chaffetz. And, Mr. Hays, following up on Mr.
Cummings questioning, can the State Department inspector
general review the documentation that is going on with Aegis
around the world?
Mr. Hays. I will bring this back to the attention of the
auditors who conducted this and see what they can do.
Chairman Chaffetz. If you could confirm with us that you
are actually going to do that, we would appreciate it.
Mr. Hays. Absolutely.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
We now recognize Mr. Mica, the gentleman from Florida, for
5 minutes.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My first question is to the director of the Bureau of
Overseas Buildings Operations. I think I heard you say that we
were--that they are going to--you spoke about opening more
desks or something being available. The chairman had asked
about, like, what had you achieved. But in your testimony you
said, like, in the next few days we're going to open a facility
with more desks? What was that?
Ms. Muniz. This month and in the coming weeks----
Mr. Mica. I can't hear you.
Ms. Muniz. This month, in the coming weeks we are opening
an unclassified facility with 917 desks.
Mr. Mica. Okay. Well, I was, you know, looking back at your
testimony, and some of what you've told us today, it sounds
like the desk report. We have gone from just hundreds of desks,
you said you will have 900 desks? And then when complete, the
project will have 1,237 desks. But we could actually grow to
17--well, we'll go to 1,487, and then the plan is to go to
1,771.
Ms. Muniz. So let me clarify. So what that does is it
breaks out the scope provided in the current project, in the
2009 and 2010 projects, so that's the 1,200 and the 600. If you
combine those with the existing facilities, when we started the
project, there was a building that we completed in 2009----
Mr. Mica. Well, again, I appreciate the desk report. People
don't understand that, I guess, the revenue in the entire
country that they get in is about $2.5 billion, and their
entire budget is $7.2 billion. Most of the rest is given money,
isn't that correct, approximately, for Afghanistan?
Mr. Blanc. I don't have the exact----
Mr. Mica. Well, I do. Okay, that's the exact figures. The
scope of this project is $2.2 billion and the emphasis seems to
be on desks. Isn't, by the end of the year, isn't the
administration supposed to have almost all the troops out? Mr.
Blanc, do you know?
Mr. Blanc. Sir, yes, we have----
Mr. Mica. By the end of next year. So we will have probably
one of the best arrays of desks that you have ever seen in any
post. I mean, now, how many people could there be in the entire
bureaucracy? I was over there, and I met with some of the
Foreign Ministry folks. Are we going to be buddy, like, three
to one. Does anyone know?
Mr. Blanc. If I may, and again this refers back to the
point that I have made that we have tried to be very flexible
and responsive in terms of our staffing in order to----
Mr. Mica. I know, but again a desk would suppose that a
person is sitting at it.
Mr. Blanc. Yes, sir.
Mr. Mica. Of course, vacant desks would be another matter.
But we are building--this is a $2.2 billion project. It's
probably the biggest infrastructure project in the history of
Afghanistan in a country that has revenue of about $2.5 billion
coming in, and we are supplying--we are going to have this
massive complex of desks. This is going to be the Taj Mahal of
desks and the Taj Mahal complex that the taxpayers are getting
ripped off for.
Mr. Blanc. If I may, sir, let me--I think there two parts
to your question.
Mr. Mica. I don't have enough time.
I want to go to, again, your company, sir, Aegis, is
British based?
Mr. Gulino. The parent is British and we have a U.S.
subsidiary that's----
Mr. Mica. Okay. One of the things that disturbed me--now,
who is your partner in Afghanistan, your major construction
partner?
Mr. Gulino. We have a----
Mr. Mica. Afghani partner.
Mr. Gulino. No, sir, we don't have Afghani----
Mr. Mica. No one in Afghanistan?
Mr. Gulino. We have a subcontractor, Contrack
International, they are also headquartered in McLean, that's
doing work for us.
Mr. Mica. Are half your employees from Afghanistan and half
from, where, the U.S. or other countries?
Mr. Gulino. Of the approximate----
Mr. Mica. Of the project.
Mr. Gulino. Of the 1,400, 300 are from Afghanistan.
Mr. Mica. The rest are brought in?
Mr. Gulino. Yes, sir. It is a little over 600 Nepalese and
about 400 U.S.
Mr. Mica. The thing that bothers me is I was out in Helmand
Province with some of our troops and they were looking at a
school building they showed me. They said this is the joke of
the province. He says, the Americans paid three or four times
what it would cost for this. We appreciated that, the school.
But it was the joke of the province.
What would you estimate the premium you are paying for
building in Afghanistan to be, three, four times what it would
normally cost?
Mr. Gulino. Well, there's a guide----
Mr. Mica. Again, I just give an anecdotal incident. But not
only the troops, but the locals told me that we are getting--
that the American taxpayer is getting ripped off on these
projects.
Mr. Gulino. We are not doing that kind of work for the
State Department.
Mr. Mica. Finally, I do have a letter, Mr. Chairman, I
visited one of our posts recently, a major post in Western
Europe. Mr. Issa and I had worked at the end of his tenure
going on post-Benghazi visits to some of our complexes and
trying to avoid another Benghazi. And one of the simple things
we found--that's a huge project, it is a money pit--but one of
the simple things we found was the lack of surveillance cameras
and their ability to also have high definition and get those
replaced.
When I visited within the last 2 weeks one of our major
posts in Western Europe, I found that one of the facilities did
not have those surveillance cameras. I said: Was the reason
money? They said no. Was it supply or something? They said: No,
it was the bureaucratic acquisition process.
I sent Secretary Kerry this letter. I would like this made
part of the record. And I would like a response to why we can't
acquire some of the small things that make a big difference in
security.
Chairman Chaffetz. Without objection, so ordered.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
We now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. Starr. Congressman, I will answer that question for you
in writing if you would like.
Mr. Mica. I would like that.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. I appreciate that. We look
forward to seeing that.
We will now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr.
Lynch, who has traveled extensively to Afghanistan, spent quite
a bit of time there. And I appreciate his efforts and sacrifice
for being there. But he is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know a lot of the
members on this committee have been in and out of Kabul and
Afghanistan on a bunch of occasions.
One of the most troubling aspects of our people working
there is not so much the security of the Embassy, which is
important, but from my experience going in and out has been the
real challenge, going from Bagram or Kabul International
Airport and then getting to the Embassy.
And Mr. Starr, and maybe Mr. Hays, or Mr. Courts, is there
any plan to have a helipad or some way? We are going to have
1,500 or 1,700 desks. We are going to have a lot of people. We
are going to have 4,500 contractors. We are going to have 1,000
employees. And I'm just concerned about something going
sideways there where the Embassy might be overrun or something
like that, and then we have got to get our people out.
We have had incidents from codels where, you know, going
through Massoud Circle or there is another rotary coming in
from the airport where my security staff had to get out of the
car and push people away from the Suburban that I was in. They
were upset about something. I couldn't figure that out.
But there's some real danger there going in and out of our
Embassy, from the airport to the Embassy. We just had a convoy,
a NATO convoy, you know, and a vehicle-borne IED recently. I
have given up counting how many attacks on the Kabul Airport by
the Taliban.
So they are focusing on that corridor. And I'm just
wondering if we're taking any precautions at all about getting
our people in and out of that area. And again, do we have an
evacuation plan if things really get bad there and we have got
to get our people out?
Mr. Starr. Congressman, thank you for the question.
Part of our job, and we do it everywhere in the world, is
to make sure that we have adequate evacuation plans for our
personnel, and not a single type of evacuation plan, but
multiple different plans. We could do short drawdowns of
certain personnel. We could lower our presence. Or they go all
the way to evacuation----
Mr. Lynch. Yeah, well, let's talk about Kabul.
Mr. Starr. We work closely with the Department of Defense.
Mr. Lynch. Okay.
Mr. Starr. We are in the midst of upgrading because of the
surge and the number of people that are going to be left behind
and the military leaving in large part. We are in the midst of
another revision of the evacuation plan, the NEO plan we call
it. We will ensure that we have the ability to get our people
out of that country. Given the size, it won't be overnight.
This is not like evacuating a 200-person embassy. But we will
work very closely with DOD.
Your other part of the question, sir, we are exceptionally
aware of the danger of the route, particularly Route White that
goes between the Embassy and the airport. We have been using a
mixture of air movements and ground movements, as appropriate.
The Embassy every single day reviews how they are going to move
people back and forth and what's the safest way to do it.
We have, I think because of our efforts, not suffered the
same types of attacks yet. I can't guarantee that we won't ever
have them. But we absolutely do our best and we use a mix of
air and ground movements.
Mr. Lynch. Yeah. Well, I would say given the history here,
we should expect, You know, further attacks on the Embassy, and
on the airport as well. We are spread out here between, you
know, Camp Alvarado and then Camp Sullivan, Kabul Airport. We
have got some properties there where we're spread out.
And I think the distance, it's about 2.5 miles, I think,
from--at least 2.5 miles, probably longer, from the U.S.
Embassy to Kabul Airport. That's a pretty long ride and those
roads aren't good. I'm just concerned about getting our people
out of there. Just practical stuff.
I'm going to--I don't have enough time to go over the
contract issue. I do think, Mr. Chairman, that we need to get
back on the ground in Kabul and go over all these documents and
figure out what the cost increase, what that delta is between
what we expected to see and what we are seeing now in terms of
cost.
And I'm not at all assured by the statements that the
quality of the work is good and we're on schedule and we're
under budget. And I think that's just bogus, you know. We heard
the same thing from Ms. Muniz's, one of her predecessors,
General Williams, about the Baghdad situation, that the quality
of the work was good and we're under budget and we're on
scheduled. And then when he was gone, the budget went from $500
million to close to a billion.
I was in Baghdad. I stayed at the Embassy last week. I
mean, I'm happy it's done. But in the meantime, we lost some
good Americans, electrocuted because of faulty code violations
and electrical systems that weren't grounded, things like that.
And I'm just concerned that we are having a repeat performance
here.
And we did let the contractor know that this was in
Afghanistan. So the added costs should have been baked in.
Afghanistan has never been a peaceful, not in my lifetime, a
peaceful place, and it was always a difficult environment to
operate in. So we shouldn't be shocked that a war broke out.
There has been a war going on there for 10 or 12 years, and
beyond that with the Soviets.
So it's always been a tough environment. So I don't like
hearing that over and over again, that that's the reason for
the cost increase. When we get a bid, we expect that to be
baked into the cost, that this is a construction project in a
difficult environment.
But I do appreciate you trying to help the committee with
it's work.
And I'll yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
We now recognize the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Walberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the
panel.
I have been in Afghanistan and Kabul several times, and I
think the most recent one was late 2010 that I was there. At
that time some of the temporary facilities used shipping
containers. I remember staying in hooches, trailers, and then
having meetings in shipping containers and temporary
facilities.
I assume these are still at the Embassy and in use, Ms.
Muniz. I'm correct?
Ms. Muniz. Yes, that is the case.
Mr. Walberg. How secure are they? Mr. Starr?
Mr. Starr. Sir, I would tell you that they certainly don't
come to the same level of security as a permanently built
building, but we have taken steps to surround them with either
concrete barriers to limit shrapnel, we have overhead cover in
forms of sandbags on many of them--most of them. We have
predetonation shields over the top of them so that a mortar or
rocket coming in predetonates them and the sandbags catch the
shrapnel. We have over 100 feet of setback from any of our
perimeter walls. We have high perimeter walls around them,
well-guarded and well-reinforced. We have bunkers on the
compound.
To the extent that we have to use these temporary CHUs, we
are very aware of the vulnerabilities that they come with and
do everything we can to mitigate them until we can bring the
buildings, the permanent buildings on line.
Mr. Walberg. Mr. Courts, I understand that GAO recommended
that State establish security standards for the temporary
facilities and that they did not accept these recommendations.
Is that correct?
Mr. Courts. The State Department partially concurred with
that recommendation. They didn't fully accept it.
Mr. Walberg. What were the problems with fully accepting
them?
Mr. Courts. Well, the State Department would argue that
there are office of Security Policy Board standards that apply
to all facilities overseas, including permanent and temporary
facilities, and that those are the standards that they hold
themselves to. But in actual practice, I think they would tell
you that the only buildings that actually meet those standards
are permanent structures. And as we noted, when State
contracted for the temporary buildings, they contracted for
buildings that had differing levels of security and didn't have
overhead cover.
I would also note that in 2008 the State Department
notified the Congress that they needed additional funds because
the threat in Kabul required overhead cover for their temporary
facilities. But in 2009 they contracted for temporary buildings
that did not specify the need for overhead cover.
Mr. Walberg. Let me give an opportunity for Ms. Muniz or
Mr. Starr to answer from your perspective on that question of
not accepting all the standards and where you are at now.
Mr. Starr. Sir, the recommendation to have different
standards for temporary structures has always struck us as very
strange. We try----
Mr. Walberg. But they are different facilities.
Mr. Starr. Well, the problem is that invariably, when I
have seen standards for temporary structures or interim
facilities, it's a lowering of the standard. What I'm afraid of
is that we will, by virtue of the fact that a trailer is a
trailer, we will have lower levels of security standards for
them rather than striving to meet the real standard.
An example, sir, is that for many years all we had was
construction trailers. Over the last several years, we have
developed a heavily armored trailer that we can now ship into
places, and we are using them in Adana and we are using them in
Peshawar, that allows us to much more closely meet the actual
real permanent standard. It is our goal to meet the permanent
standards to the extent that we can and not water down the
standards and have lower-level security standards for interim
structures.
Mr. Walberg. Ms. Muniz, did you have--I noticed you moved
toward that, and I don't want to cut you off if the answer is
there.
Well, I would assume that in 2009, I'm told that State
acknowledged that personnel should be housed in permanent,
hardened facilities. We are dealing with reality, I understand
the process. Our concerns today are the basis of the
questioning of how this has been a cost overrun, how it
continues on, the length of the process. But we have a large
number of American personnel using temporary facilities in
Kabul. I appreciate the answers that you want to go and strive
toward the permanent level, but these are not permanent, though
they seem to be existing an awful long time. I guess I have
heard your answer that you don't plan to develop standards for
temporary housing.
So knowing that my time has expired here, Mr. Chairman, I
would contend that the biggest question is, how do we finish
this project, complete it, complete it on time, and make sure
that it meets the standards necessary? I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. Do either of you want to respond to
that? I mean, the overuse of temporary facilities is a deep
concern.
Mr. Starr. Mr. Chairman, at the time that the Department
and the administration made the decision that we needed to
surge people in, we had no choice but to use temporary
facilities.
At the particular start of that period in 2009 and 2010,
some of the threats that we were facing were not the same types
of threats that we are facing today. We had had other buildings
built around us in the meantime that grew in height. That
presented a different type of threat. Once we saw that, we
started surrounding our buildings with cement walls and
sandbags.
We had not been subject to incoming fire, either mortars or
rockets, and even today it's a very, very infrequent type of
attack. Infrequent or not, we have taken the countermeasures
now by putting overhead cover on our temporary facilities,
building walls around them, putting bunkers in, making sure
that we have a radar system that's a duck-and-cover warning
system to give people the most amount of time.
I think it really goes to the point that we have to serve
in certain places and we have to take certain risks. I
understand that we had a surge. We had to go in with trailer
type of housing units and in some cases offices. We modified
those to the absolute best we can to actually try to mimic our
permanent standards, give them setback, give them bullet
resistance, give them shrapnel resistance. We make sure that we
do everything that we can. But at a certain point we have no
choice but to use temporary structures while we are awaiting
the permanent structures to be completed.
Chairman Chaffetz. The only problem I have with what you
said is it is just not true, and that was borne out in these
reports. And I can go in great specificity, but probably not in
this nonclassified setting. But for you to suggest that you
have done all those things in Afghanistan, that ain't true.
That is not true.
Mr. Starr. Sir, we try to do that as best we possibly can.
There are certain times that we have not----
Chairman Chaffetz. But you didn't. You did not. No, I beg
to differ, and believe me, if we can get these two, the GAO,
the inspector general, myself, and you, and whoever else wants
to be in that, that is not true. And I will show it to you.
They have pictures in it. And that's the concern.
Mr. Walberg. Mr. Chairman, may I just follow up and say I
think this goes to a bigger policy, and that is our whole
Afghan policy, that we are leaving State Department in a
situation like this without a significant policy on how to win,
keep, and secure Afghanistan.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
We now recognize the gentlewoman from New Jersey, Mrs.
Watson Coleman, for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
for your indulgence in the time allotted to get through some of
these interesting questions.
And thank you to the panel.
What is the condition of the wall, the wall that was the
subject of the report that I read last night? Is it complete or
is there a portion that's left?
Ms. Muniz. Let me take the first part of that question and
then I will turn it to my colleague, Mr. Starr.
That wall is currently in design and will be executed in
the context of the larger construction contract.
I appreciate the question because the issue of the request
for modifications to the wall came up in the IG report, and the
question about why this couldn't be done immediately. I think
the committee and folks need to understand that we have an
active construction project that included construction of a
wall in the context of the larger project.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. I understand that. I understand.
Ms. Muniz. So those modifications will be made in that
context.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. So the wall was considered very
significant in keeping those within the walls safe and secure.
So absent having that wall, I'm new, I have not been there,
what is keeping that facility and that compound safe?
Mr. Starr. There is a wall. There is our existing walls
that are composed of things like HESCO barriers that are 11,
12, 13 feet high, cement walls, steel panels. There is no area
around our facility that does not have a wall.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Of some sort.
Mr. Starr. They were interim types of security measures
that were put in place.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Does that mean that they're easily
compromised?
Mr. Starr. Not easily compromised at all, Congresswoman,
but we believe that there are newer technologies and better
types of technologies available today than those walls.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you. I appreciate the two of you
speaking to me first, because I have a question to both of you.
Ms. Muniz, what is exactly the role of the Overseas
Building Operations in the Embassy construction projects?
Ms. Muniz. OBO is the real property manager for the U.S.
Department of State for all of our facilities overseas. So we
design, we build, we buy, we lease, we sell. And obviously
construction is in our realm of responsibility.
We execute that construction based on, I would say, two
important factors. One is the number of desks or beds, the
number of people who are going to be in that facility. That is
a departmental decision that is made outside of OBO. So we take
those base requirements and turn them into buildings. And the
second piece of it is that we work very closely with our
colleagues in Diplomatic Security to understand the security
situation and make sure that any building we develop meets all
of the security standards that they require.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you.
Mr. Starr, what is your overall, what is the overall
responsibility?
Mr. Starr. I am the assistant secretary for diplomatic
security. I advise the Secretary of State and others in the
Department on the levels of security that we must have and
maintain. And under me, I have an organization that is a
security organization and a law enforcement organization
responsible for passport/visa fraud violations, other types of
violations, and the security of our personnel domestically and
abroad.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. So with regard to security issues, who
has the final say? Who has the final say in do this because
this is going to secure these facilities that are being built?
Is it OBO or is it you? Who breaks that tie if there's a
disagreement?
Mr. Starr. If there's a disagreement, I would say I win.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. You win, okay.
So my understanding is from the IG's report that there has
been this sort of tension between OBO and your entity. Where
are we on that? I understand that there has been a senior-level
study group or senior-level whatever, task force, put in place
to address some of these. What does that mean? How does it
work? And how is it working?
Ms. Muniz. I think we'll divide that question up.
The tension you describe and the IG described is a natural
tension. The OBO project directors on the ground are trying to
execute a project that has already been agreed to with all of
the parties and which has already been confirmed by DS to meet
all of the current security requirements.
To the degree that in the execution of the billion-dollar
project changes are recommended throughout, the teams have to
work very closely together to understand the impact of those
changes, the impact that those changes will have on the
execution, the costs, and the schedule of the long-term
project.
So I would say at the working level there is tension
because on the DS side they are thinking: This is what we need,
just do it now. And on the OBO side we are thinking: Okay, we
have a big project to execute, let's figure out how we make
this work in the larger project, and let's make sure we have
the prioritization agreed to.
The working groups that you referred to and this sort of
higher-level percolation is that those things are really worked
out and decided at the higher level. So if we see things not
moving forward, or obviously urgent security requirements that
need resolution but there isn't perfect clarity about which we
should do, which we shouldn't do, and when, that's when I sit
down with Assistant Secretary Starr, where one of my principal
deputies, Casey Jones, sits with his colleague, the head of
physical security, Wayne Ashbery, and we work these things out.
Mr. Duncan. [Presiding.] The time of the----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. So may I ask----
Mr. Duncan. The time of the gentlelady has expired.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Pardon me, sir?
Mr. Duncan. The time of the gentlelady has expired. So we
will go now to Mr. DeSantis.
Mr. DeSantis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Assistant Secretary Starr, while I have you here, I'm
concerned about the State Department's proposal to build their
own training facility in Fort Pickett in Blackstone, Virginia.
And I want to know, you know, FLETC in Georgia serves 91
different agencies. Why is that not sufficient for the State
Department's security service?
Mr. Starr. Sir, we studied FLETC, and we studied over 90
places to try to do the type of training we want. FLETC in
Georgia is an excellent facility. We train our agents there in
criminal investigations. But it is a law enforcement training
facility. It does not use the type of weapons that we use. It
does not have the capacity for the number of people, the
foreign service officers that we want to train. It is not ----
Mr. DeSantis. They have expressed their willingness to make
those accommodations, correct? They said that they would build
new driving courses, mock embassies, and let State Department
have primary control over that. So there is an acknowledgment
that that would need be done, but that could be done at half
the cost of what you are proposing to spend to have a facility
in Blacksburg, Virginia, isn't that the case?
Mr. Starr. No, sir. We don't believe the costs that FLETC
can build are significantly different than our costs. The GAO
study----
Mr. DeSantis. But what you believe and what they produce,
though, are two different things. So I think me and people on
the committee who are concerned about the State Department
being good stewards of the taxpayer dollars, I think we see a
cost discrepancy. So you can disagree with that, but I think we
see it's there.
So you were going to continue.
Mr. Starr. Sir, there is a GAO report coming out that will
talk to the numbers that we have put down and how they have
been carefully verified and the fact that FLETC's numbers have
not been so quite as carefully verified.
More importantly, sir, it is also a question that we need
something in this area. We are going to be moving thousands of
people a year to training. We believe that the Fort Pickett
site, which is a military base which can take the type of
weaponry that we are required to use, as was seen in our
defense of the consulate in Haaretz and in other places, is not
the types of training that FLETC does.
Our training has, unfortunately, come to the point that we
are much more closely aligned to the military in what we must
do in many cases than law enforcement and we believe that Fort
Pickett is certainly the better answer. Thank you.
Mr. DeSantis. But why, being close to Washington, why--I
mean, of the other agencies, presumably, I mean, they would
like to have people close, but they go to Georgia. I mean, why
can't people just train in Georgia if you had what you needed?
It seems to me that that wouldn't be a big deal to put people
on a plane and have them do the training course, then come
back, correct? They are not commuting from the State Department
to Fort Pickett on a daily basis. They are going to be there,
they are going to do the training, and then they will be back,
right?
Mr. Starr. Sir, the training is for foreign service
officers, Diplomatic Security agents, foreign security entities
that we are training. Many studies have shown that we need a
coordinated, consolidated training site. This would give us
this site at Fort Pickett. Most importantly, it allows us to
train with our partners, such as the U.S. Marine Corps Security
Battalion in Quantico, and do the types of training that we
need jointly together. They are going to have a very difficult
time getting down to FLETC Georgia to do the types of training
exercises.
And FLETC does not currently on their space, they have
acknowledged this, they cannot handle the type of weapons that
we use. They are looking at getting another military facility
30 or 60 miles north of FLETC Georgia that we would also have
to go to in order to use the weapons. We can train at Fort
Pickett.
Mr. DeSantis. That would not be worth doing it, that saves
a couple hundred million dollars for the taxpayer?
Mr. Starr. Sir, again, going back to it, I would suggest
looking at the GAO study that comes up.
Mr. DeSantis. Well, I will look at that.
Mr. Starr. We don't believe that it is going to----
Mr. DeSantis. What is your, right now, what is the cost?
Because the cost that the State Department has provided about
how much this will cost has fluctuated a great deal. So what
will be the costs to the taxpayer for Fort Pickett?
Mr. Starr. Four hundred and thirteen million dollars.
Mr. DeSantis. Okay, $413 million. I mean, it's gone from
$416 million, $907 million, $950 million. Now we are back down
to there. How long has that been the estimate?
Mr. Starr. Independent estimates conducted by GSA, our
building contractor, have brought it in at $413 million.
Mr. DeSantis. Okay.
Well, we are going to be conducting oversight over this,
because I think that there has been examples, I mean, there
were several billion dollars at State Department not accounted
for during Secretary Clinton's tenure, and, you know, we want
to make sure that we are getting bang for the buck for the
taxpayer.
I'm out of time and I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. [Presiding.] I thank the gentleman.
We will now recognize the gentlewoman from the Virgin
Islands, Ms. Plaskett, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning everyone.
I had a question, Director Muniz, about the surge and the
military civilian personnel and the need that that created for
immediate office space in the time that we were having the
surge. I know that this presented a challenge for the State
Department requiring the necessary amount of space to be built
quickly, safely, not doing the overruns and the mistake that
was made in Iraq, where we had this huge compound that was
built and we immediately downsized the number of personnel that
were there.
And in that instance we would be having a hearing about
cost overruns. And in this instance we are having a hearing
about something else, potentially.
So Ms. Muniz, do you agree that the State Department needed
to be careful not to overbuild on planning for the Kabul
Embassy?
Ms. Muniz. I would agree with that. But I would argue that
we have been careful not to overbuild, and in the end we will
not have overbuilt.
Ms. Plaskett. And why is that?
Ms. Muniz. Because we will have built to the number of
desks and the number of beds, the requirements that we need.
Ms. Plaskett. Okay. So unlike most embassies around the
world, in Afghanistan most U.S. Government employees not only
work at the Embassy compound, but they also live there, right?
So all the support services that we take for granted on a daily
basis here in the United States must be provided on that
Embassy compound as well in order to support the employees that
have to remain in that compound. Correct?
Ms. Muniz. That's absolutely right. Whether it's dining,
cleaning facilities, everything that you would do in a small
city is done essentially on that same compound.
Ms. Plaskett. Okay. And to meet the increased requirement
in the fastest way possible, hence, you have the temporary
facilities, correct?
Ms. Muniz. Correct.
Ms. Plaskett. And what benefits do those temporary
facilities provide? Does it better--and my sense is, does it--I
would think that it would help you to plan better for the
permanent because you have something in which people are living
in and functioning in on a temporary basis so that you can
accurately plan for the permanent structure.
Ms. Muniz. I think that's right, but I think fundamentally
it provides facilities in which all of the staff can live and
work until the permanent facilities are done.
Ms. Plaskett. Okay. And I would like to hear from some of
the other witnesses if they think that that's correct or not
correct.
Mr. Gulino?
Mr. Gulino. Yes, I do. I do believe that is correct.
Ms. Plaskett. And, Mr. Starr, what are your thoughts on
that?
Mr. Starr. Yes, I think it gives us an idea of whether or
not we can support the platform. I would say that we don't get
the efficiencies out of the temporary structures that we can
get out of our permanently built structures, and that's one of
the things that I think OBO factors into their planning.
Ms. Plaskett. Okay. And in building the permanent
structures to house all of the additional personnel and
planning that properly, was using the temporary facilities a
mistake?
Ms. Muniz. I would argue that it wasn't an option not to
use those temporary facilities. If the basic assumption is that
based on national security priorities the U.S. Government
needed to be in Afghanistan at the levels at which the
administration had agreed, the use of temporary----
Ms. Plaskett. On the date that they'd agreed to have them.
Ms. Muniz. Exactly. The use of temporary facilities was an
inescapable fact.
The second priority was continue to build the permanent
facilities as quickly as possible. Those were the two things we
were doing.
Ms. Plaskett. And so the expressed concern by GAO and the
IG regarding the use of the temporary facilities, you would say
what to that?
Mr. Starr. I think we all have concerns about using
temporary facilities. But as Director Muniz has said, when
faced with the situation that we need to surge people, it was
our choice. And I think we all have concerns about the length
of time that we use temporary facilities. But this particular
project, because we were having to build on the same site,
essentially, as using them, was very complex.
Ms. Plaskett. So the challenge is to build the temporary
facilities, but to move quickly into the permanent ones at the
right period of time in the challenged environment in which you
are in in Afghanistan?
Mr. Starr. Exactly.
Ms. Plaskett. Okay. Thank you. I yield back the balance of
my time.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentlewoman.
We'll now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Carter,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank all of you for being here.
Mr. Courts, I will start with you. In planning projects
such as this on this scale, are value engineering studies
important?
Mr. Courts. Yes, they are. That is a very well-established
practice that both the Federal Government and the private
sector have used for decades to reduce costs while still
maintaining the quality in the performance of a project, and
especially one of this size. It is also required by both OMB
and by OBO itself.
Mr. Carter. So it is required by OMB?
Mr. Courts. It is, yes.
Mr. Carter. Okay. Let me ask you, value engineering studies
are sometimes referred to as cost-containment studies.
Mr. Courts. Right.
Mr. Carter. Because that's what they're intended to do,
contain costs, and to make as sure as we can that we don't have
cost overruns, correct?
Mr. Courts. That's correct.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Starr, let me ask you. It's my
understanding that the State Department's Overseas Building
Operations didn't follow cost-containment policies in this
project. Is that correct, Mr. Starr?
Mr. Starr. I think Director Muniz would have a better
answer to that. My understanding is that certain ones were
done, certain may not have been--certain ones may not have
been.
Ms. Muniz. So I'm the director of OBO, so we are
responsible for conducting----
Mr. Carter. I understand that, and congratulations.
Ms. Muniz. Thank you. We're the ones responsible for
conducting the value engineering studies. And as I mentioned in
my testimony, we conduct those, they're valuable. We did not
conduct it in the 2009 project.
Mr. Carter. But you agree they are valuable?
Ms. Muniz. Yes, absolutely.
Mr. Carter. Okay, thank you. Thank you.
Mr. Starr, can I get back to you.
Mr. Starr. Sure.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Starr, my colleague from Florida earlier
talked about the proposed new facility being built near Fort
Pickett in Virginia instead of being built--or instead of
utilizing the facilities that already exist at FLETC in Glynco,
Georgia. Is that correct?
Mr. Starr. Yes, sir, Congressman. I want to answer your
question.
Mr. Carter. Okay. Yes, sir.
Mr. Starr. But I do feel duty bound to say we were brought
up to discuss Afghanistan.
Mr. Carter. I understand that. I understand that. But what
we're brought up to discuss is these cost overruns and the
waste of money by the State Department. I think more
importantly, that's what we are interested in.
Because as all of us know, when you're in a hole you stop
digging. And we're in a hole here and we need to stop digging.
And we don't let--we don't need to let happen what has already
happened before. We want to learn from our experiences.
Now, you said earlier that the cost of this new facility
would be $413 million if it were built in Fort Pickett, is that
correct?
Mr. Starr. Yes, sir.
Mr. Carter. Now, originally it was set at $950 million. How
did it get down to $413 million?
Mr. Starr. The Department of State started this project
looking at a hard skills training site only. At some point the
Department also asked a question: Should we, instead of just
using it for hard skills, combine all security training, soft
and hard skills? GSA was asked to look at that and GSA told us
that in order to do both it would cost about $900 million or
more.
We went back after that and said: That's not supportable,
we don't require the collocation of hard and soft skills. And
when we went back to GSA and said concentrate solely on the
hard skills security training, that's when the costs were
revised and showed that it is now $413 million. It does not
include----
Mr. Carter. Mr. Starr, it's been said that the greatest
threat to our national security is our national debt, and I
believe that to be true, and I'm very concerned about that. And
you say you're not here to discuss this, but you're here to
discuss Kabul. Well, we're here to discuss cost overruns and
the waste of taxpayers' money, and there is no better example
than this.
You've got a facility in FLETC that trains over 91
agencies, but yet you're saying that you've got to have one of
your own, that you can't utilize this. And I'm having trouble
understanding that when FLETC has already said that they could
do this at almost half the cost.
Mr. Starr. A, we don't believe they can do it at half the
cost. B, most of every one of those facilities has additional
hard skills, higher skills training facilities. The Secret
Service has its own higher skilled training facility than FLETC
offers. The Air Marshals have higher skills training centers.
The U.S. Marshals have higher skill training centers than
what's offered at FLETC.
Mr. Carter. So you believe that you can spend $416 million
and build another facility, a stand-alone facility, yet we
already have one that is available. Is there a report by OMB
about this?
Mr. Starr. OMB has looked at this. There is not a report
that I am aware of.
Mr. Carter. Can you provide me a report with them?
Mr. Starr. The GAO report is coming out very soon.
Mr. Carter. And will there be a report from OMB?
Mr. Starr. I'm not OMB, sir. I can't tell you that.
Mr. Carter. Would you work with me to request a report from
OMB?
Mr. Starr. Sir, I think the administration has made its
decision. We have made a decision that it is in the best
interest of all of us to move ahead with Fort Pickett. OMB has
responded to Congress several times that I'm aware of. A
request for OMB would--to them to respond to you would have to
come from them, not from the State Department.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Starr, I'm not going to accept that. And
I'm going to tell you, I'm going to continue to fight this
because I think you're wasting taxpayers' money. I think you've
got a perfectly fine facility that can be utilized without
building another one, without getting us further into debt, and
without wasting taxpayers' money like the State Department has
done time and time again.
Mr. Starr. I do not want to ever waste taxpayer money, sir.
I think that the outcoming GAO report will show that this is
not a waste of funding. We have to build 90 percent of the
facilities that we would have to build in Georgia--would have
to be built in Georgia as well as Fort Pickett. Georgia does
not have the facilities that we need.
Mr. Carter. They have proven, and they have said and they
have shown that they can do that at a lower cost.
Mr. Starr. No, sir they have not. And I think the outcoming
GAO report will show that.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I yield the remainder of my time.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. And an interesting topic, and
we will follow up on that.
We'll now recognize the gentlewoman from Michigan, Mrs.
Lawrence, for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Lawrence. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to the committee
that's speaking here today.
Ambassador Hays, according to the 2014 report, Aegis billed
the government without required documentation and with
inadequate invoices. What steps has the State Department taken
to ensure that the administrative and logistic issues are
addressed before the issuance of new contracting programs, and
how long does it take to identify or rectify these
discrepancies?
Mr. Hays. Ma'am, that was an audit report, and I was not on
that team, so I can't speak to the findings of that team, but I
certainly can get back to you through our legislative assistant
and give you the information you require.
Mrs. Lawrence. So you have read the audit?
Mr. Hays. I have not read that audit, no.
Mrs. Lawrence. Are there any other--who reads the audit,
then, once its issued?
Mr. Hays. The senior staff of the OIG. Individual teams
don't necessarily read each other's audits unless they're
conducting an inspection of that specific area. And we go from
area----
Mrs. Lawrence. Ambassador, let me go to a statement that
you have said, and hopefully you'll be aware of this. You
highlight in your statement the lack of coordination between
the Bureaus of Diplomatic Security and Overseas Building
Operations. And since this conclusion, what are the best
practices you can share with me to best manage these multiple
projects and the lack of space available to complete them?
Mr. Hays. Well, there were two recommendations that we made
in our inspection report: One was in the classified, and the
other was in the unclassified. The first one was that we needed
a dynamic master plan. And we raised that in our report, and we
raised it with Director Muniz. The second was that they put
together a management oversight team between the senior staff
of OBO and DS. To the best of my knowledge, they have done the
latter. Director Muniz has said what she has done on the first
issue.
Ms. Muniz. If I could add on the master planning, I'd like
to clarify a point that was brought up earlier by the OIG about
the recommendation for a master plan and the fact that that
recommendation remained open. We have a master plan for Kabul.
The recommendation is still open because we are waiting for
funding approval from Congress. We notified the OIG of that
fact in April of this year. So the plan is complete, but the
execution of the plan will not be approved until we receive
that approval from Congress. I just wanted to clarify on that
issue.
Mrs. Lawrence. I thank you for that. I want to go back to
you, Director Muniz, right?
Ms. Muniz. Muniz.
Mrs. Lawrence. I really want a sense of assurance. There
has been, and you must admit, some concern about the operations
in the past. Moving forward, are you positioned and empowered
to ensure that these concerns about lack of documentation,
master planning--because that's the concern. We can talk about
what happened in the past, but what I'm very passionate about
right now is in your role, and you've identified a couple times
that you are the Director and you have this responsibility,
where do you see us correcting these things of the past? And
you can't just keep doing the same things and expect a
different result. So I really want you on the record saying, as
the Director, how are you going to correct these concerns that
we have?
Ms. Muniz. Thank you for the question.
I think that we have very strong master planning programs,
and I've argued that we have planned, designed, and built on
those master plans in Kabul. My argument in Kabul is simply
that in these environments that are ever-changing, we have to
have a different approach, and we do have a different approach.
We can't develop a master plan at the beginning of a project
that was awarded in 2009 and expect that that master plan
remains static. What we are building in Kabul on the Embassy
compound is what we need, and we have evolving requirements
that reflect later phases of a master plan. So I think we have
in place the planning mechanisms and the budgeting mechanisms
to let Congress know the direction that we're going in in such
a kinetic environment, which is unusual.
Mrs. Lawrence. Thank you.
I yield back my time.
Chairman Chaffetz. And before she yields back, earlier, the
Director had agreed to give us the original plan and then the
most updated plan. What's a reasonable time that you'd provide
those to us?
Ms. Muniz. Well, let us get back to you after this. Those
plans exist, so in theory, we could get it to our folks in the
Department to get those to the committee, but I know that
there's a long queue of documents making their way to you, but
we will try to get those to you as quickly as possible. We can
also in the interim offer a briefing and walk you through the
entire master plan.
Chairman Chaffetz. That would be great. What I'm trying to
look for a specific date, just because--at what point do we
say, Hey, you're not fulfilling what you're said you were going
to do? We've had, unfortunately, these challenges in the past,
so I'm just trying to get you to agree to some sort of date.
You pick it, but I want it to be somewhat reasonable and
timely.
Ms. Muniz. Why don't we get those documents to you within
the month.
Chairman Chaffetz. By the end of July? Is that fair?
Ms. Muniz. Within a month. It's the 9th of July. It would
mean the 9th of August.
Chairman Chaffetz. Okay. By the 9th of August.
And we will invite you as well.
Mrs. Lawrence. Okay. Thank you.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. I appreciate that.
I will now recognize the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr.
Russell, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Russell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Starr, you're a smart man with a lot of security
knowledge. Is a footprint more secure if it's smaller or
larger?
Mr. Starr. A footprint, sir?
Mr. Russell. Uh-huh.
Mr. Starr. A larger one is going to require a lot more
resources to secure; not necessarily more secure, less secure.
I would tell you that our consulate in Haaretz, which was much
smaller than the Embassy, we successfully defended that against
a complex attack, and we've also successfully defended the
Embassy against attacks.
Mr. Russell. Well, I would agree with that. And, in fact,
at the Embassy in Kabul, even after it was vacated for a
decade, it was a secure building. It had to be breached by the
roof. When we went in there in the early days, I recall seeing
George Bush's picture on the wall with Mr. Shultz as Secretary
of Defense, 1989 calendars on the wall, Volkswagen Golfs in the
garage.
I guess this notion that we have to have 5,500 people on a
compound is just a mystery to me. How do you justify that?
Mr. Blanc. Sir----
Mr. Starr. Allow me to turn to my counterpart, sir. I'm the
one that's given the task to secure them.
Mr. Russell. We appreciate Ms. Muniz, and she has been
gracious to allow us to beat up on her in previous testimony,
but she has also stated clearly here in this hearing that any
dispute, which the GAO and the IG have laid out, which they're
in agreement, by the way, on security issues, and Ms. Muniz in
her testimony today said that any dispute on security matters,
you win; it's a deferment.
And so now what I see is this no desire to streamline
infrastructure. We see a support of the support, and then the
more support that comes in, it has to be supported, and then it
has to be secured, and then the logistics of that, and now
we've got 5,500 people, and we're guarding them with Gurkhas,
which I have great admiration for the Gurkhas. I've been in
environments with them, tough, you know, sharp knives, a lot
respect for them. However, we have created a situation where
this thing is massive. And you, by your own admission, in
talking about Haaretz and how it was defensible, how can you
justify this enormous footprint?
Mr. Blanc. Sir, I think that the point is that we obviously
have a different set of requirements for professional staff in
Kabul than we did in Haaretz. You know, in heart, I think
professional staff, we had 10 or a dozen. In Kabul, we are now
going to be running all of our operations in Afghanistan
because we've pulled back from short locations. We, of course,
have a much larger direct-hire population of people who are
doing the work of diplomacy, doing the work of development.
That number is drawing down in terms of the current agencies,
but it's actually going to go up because you're going to have
the Security Cooperation Office come under the Embassy umbrella
at a certain stage. You've got other agencies that are going to
stop being self-supporting at a certain stage.
And the truth is that in the current situation in Kabul,
you've hit the nail on the head, if you've got several hundred
people doing professional work, you're going to have thousands
more who are providing the life support services of a small
city, who are securing that, who are providing movement
security.
Mr. Russell. Look, in the early days all the way up to
2009, and we had an embassy there that was secured by a Marine
security company--by the way, they do that. That's part of
their mission. The Marines, they secure embassies. I mean, this
is no revelation to anyone on this panel. And yet we're talking
about this insatiable need for size and girth.
I don't know how--I guess my question, you stated in your
own testimony, Mr. Blanc, I appreciate you piping up, that the
Department of State needs to be expeditionary in nature. I
believe those were the words that you used. So how can a four
times increase in the operations since 2009 be expeditionary?
Mr. Blanc. Well, sir, I think there are a few things. First
of all, there are a number of security challenges in
Afghanistan that are obviously not normal to----
Mr. Russell. I'm aware of them. I even lived in a safe
house in Kabul. I'm very familiar with the security structure
and the dangers in Afghanistan.
Mr. Blanc. And I would say further, sir, the security
situation has evolved over time. When I first lived in
Afghanistan in 2002, the situation was very different and the
Embassy at the time was secured very differently. Now the
number of--you know, the security requirements for movement--we
talked about the road to the airport--the situation is very
different. And so, inherently, the support requirements have
also changed.
I would, though, challenge, sir, the idea that we have an
insatiable need for girth. In fact, the civilian staff surged
with the military surge and is now drawing back. And to the
extent that there is going to be girth, it's really going to be
girth from other agencies coming in under the State Department
umbrella. So I believe that the support services that we have,
both life support and the security support, are necessary. I
don't think that they can be replaced in Kabul at this time.
And I think----
Mr. Russell. But it's self-perpetuating.
And if I may ask for an indulgence, Mr. Chairman.
They're self-perpetuating, and the larger we increase the
footprint, the more need to increase the footprint. I mean, at
some point--and it's easy to see how it's happened. In fact,
the GAO and the IG agree, there's not been this strategic
master plan. And then we hear from Ms. Muniz, you said we can't
develop such a plan. My reply to that is, nonsense. Develop the
plan and then adjust it. We do that all the time at State. We
do it in the military. We do it in Congress even. I know that's
shocking to some people that we actually plan.
Ms. Muniz. That's precisely what we did. I argued that that
is precisely what we did. I did not say that was not necessary
or possible.
Mr. Russell. Well, then, you have mentioned, though, that
the regular plans, that the standard plans were not applicable.
Even in this testimony today, you said that the international
construction and safety standards needed to be taken into
account. How could those possibly be any better or different,
or we've not seen these international construction safety
standards, I believe is what you called them today. How would
that deviate from standard embassy designs with military
security in the early dangerous days and then you enhance it
later?
Ms. Muniz. I'm not sure which document you're referring to.
Mr. Russell. I'm not. I'm picking from your testimony
today----
Ms. Muniz. That's----
Mr. Russell. --and I quote----
Ms. Muniz. That's not my----
Mr. Russell. --international construction of safety
standards. So I'm as baffled by it as you are. What would those
be?
Mr. Starr. Congressman, the security standards are based on
the Overseas Security Policy Board standards. I actually chair
the Overseas Security Policy Board with the heads of the other
agencies that work overseas.
I would say that in our normal buildings that we build
around the world, and we incorporate those standards in--and
every building that OBO builds meets those standards--we're in
a situation where we have been asked to stay in what is
essentially a war zone, and that presents challenges even on
top of the regular Overseas Security Policy Board standards.
And these are some of the things that we've had to adjust to as
the security situation has declined.
Mr. Russell. And I appreciate that. And I know----
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman's----
Mr. Russell. I----
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman's----
Mr. Russell. I'm sorry----
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman's time is up.
Mr. Russell. --Mr. Chairman. If there's time later, I'd
like to follow up, if I may.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank you.
I now recognize the gentlewoman from New York, Mrs.
Maloney, for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Maloney. I thank you for holding this important
hearing, and thank you to all the panelists.
I just want to talk about really the security concerns that
we have in high-threat Kabul. The Embassy has consistently
remained one of the most, I'd say, high-threat environments for
our overseas personnel. And in February, in 2014, a vehicle-
borne explosive device killed two Department of Defense
contractors, and just last month, a suicide bomber targeted a
NATO convoy about 500 yards from the Embassy.
And so I'd just like to ask Mr. Gulino, your company,
Aegis, is a prime security contractor, and your employees are
on the front lines everyday in a very dangerous area. Can you
give us an overview of the security services your personnel
provide to the Embassy in this high-threat area, and can you
explain how Aegis personnel maintains a secure environment with
changing and often very challenging, to say the least,
political dynamics?
Mr. Gulino. Yes, I'd be pleased to. Let me first say that
the security strategy--the strategic plan for security is
developed by our customer, the Department of State. We hire the
very best people, and we deploy them according to the plan,
which is ever evolving, ever changing, based upon the
conditions in Kabul at any given time.
So, having said that, the services that we provide in force
protection are primarily in six areas: We provide static
security, which is kind of like going through a gate when you
come into the building here, obviously. We provide mobile
security, which is assisting in movement of people. We provide
convoy protection. We have explosive detection dogs, EDDs, that
are handled by trainers. And we provide what we call ELU, which
is basically elite protection for codels, people like yourself,
that come in. We have teams that provide protection to them.
And then, lastly and importantly, we have emergency response
teams. And those teams are positioned at strategic locations,
and they're typically in an MRAP-like vehicle, BearCat, they're
called, and they have a combination of EMTs, emergency medical
technician people, as well as guards, security personnel.
And, importantly, we train our people so that there's
someone on that team who is responsible for command and control
and makes the decisions as to what the appropriate response
should be based upon a call or a situation that comes in. So
those are the six areas that we provide services.
And I want to just say that we do have a mixture of the
three groups that I mentioned, including the Nepalis Gurkhas,
and they are quite good soldiers.
And I want to--for the record, I'd like to be able to say
that duty of care to our employees is of utmost importance.
And, yes, we didn't have some posters opened up in Nepali
initially, but we take care of our Nepalis. When that
earthquake hit, the first thing we did was pull all of our
employees. We found out--we gave them phones. We gave them
contact back to Nepal. For the ones that were in training in
Jordan, we gave them phone cards so they could call. We
determined that there were a few people that needed to go out
immediately. Fortunately, there were no lives of family members
lost, nor of employees on leave. We raised over $30,000 to give
to those employees to repair their homes.
Mrs. Maloney. Good.
I'd like to ask Ambassador Hays and Mr. Courts, given what
you've learned in your investigations and your oversight, I'd
like to hear what security recommendations would you put
forward? What ideas do you have that we could improve our
security in this area? Ambassador?
Mr. Hays. The dynamic in a war zone is extremely difficult.
The changing numbers of people going in and out, the policy
dynamic affecting the personnel in country, all of these play
into the need for solid planning, for worst-case-scenario
planning, for very close collaboration between the policy and
the implementers of both construction and security.
We believe that it is important to have long-range dynamic
planning. That means that not only do you have a plan out
there, but you also are working with others that are involved
in this constantly to make sure that that plan meets all the
requirements on the ground and that you put security first.
Mrs. Maloney. Okay. My time has expired. Thank you. Thank
you for your service.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
We now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr.
Meadows, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madam Director, I'm going to start with you to say thank
you. The last time you were here, I think Mr. Russell talked
about the fact that it could be contentious, would be maybe an
adjective or a verb to describe what went on that particular
day, but I also want to acknowledge the fact that after that
hearing, you made a personal attempt to come and not only brief
me and my personal staff, but to follow up, and in a time when
all the headlines are about a lack of cooperation. So I just
want to say, thank you, and----
Ms. Muniz. Thank you.
Mr. Meadows. So, Mr. Courts, let me come to you because Mr.
Starr is characterizing your new GAO report as going to be
giving him an A-plus, is kind of the direction that--I mean,
from his testimony just a few minutes ago. Would you
characterize the new report that you're going to be putting out
is something that we want to publish, I guess? Let's put it
that way.
Mr. Courts. Congressman, we have not released that report
yet to our original requesters, and I can't discuss it until
that report is actually released.
Mr. Meadows. All right. But Mr. Starr knows what's going to
be in that report?
Mr. Courts. He has seen a draft report, yes.
Mr. Meadows. So since you're not going to comment on that,
would you characterize his testimony as it being an A-plus and
as being accurate?
Mr. Courts. Congressman, I can't comment on that, as the
result--the report hasn't been released yet.
Mr. Meadows. All right. When will that be released?
Mr. Courts. We're still working that out with our client.
Mr. Meadows. Okay. So, Mr. Starr, let me come to you.
You've seen the report, or you've at least seen your draft. Is
your characterization of it giving you a glowing report, is
that accurate?
Mr. Starr. I think the report is a fair and balanced
report, sir. I don't think it's an A-plus for anybody. I think
that it's best that we wait until the report come out and
people can judge where we're going on the merits of the report.
Mr. Meadows. So your reference to it was only referencing a
short portion of that as it relates to your ability to provide
a secure location? Was that your testimony? I guess here's what
I'm finding, is we've got all kinds of testimony that's going
back and forth. And, Mr. Starr, my concern is, is here, as Mr.
Russell was talking about, we've got this big footprint. As I
understand it, we're bringing people in in helicopters into the
facility currently, is that correct, because it's too
dangerous? Other modes of transportation.
Mr. Starr. Yes.
Mr. Meadows. So if it is indeed that dangerous and the core
mission of the State Department is diplomacy, how do you
reconcile the two? I mean, because if it's so dangerous that we
can't get out and do our diplomacy, are we not just building a
military structure in Afghanistan?
Mr. Starr. Congressman, that's a very fair question. And
Jarrett, I think, has some comments on this as well, but I will
say one thing. The responsibility to protect our people at our
Embassy----
Mr. Meadows. I don't deny that. Let me just tell you, the
Director knows that I am with her on that particular----
Mr. Starr. But that's one portion of the mission, so that
we don't lose the platform. The second----
Mr. Meadows. That's not the core mission, though, Mr.
Starr.
Mr. Starr. Exactly, but the core mission is to conduct
diplomacy. And beyond securing the Embassy, we have to have
programs that get people out. We have to get them to these
meetings.
Mr. Meadows. All right.
Mr. Starr. We have to make sure----
Mr. Meadows. But do you understand how the American people
have a real hard time with this? We're spending a billion
dollars to create a facility that we've got to helicopter
people in and out of, that they can't really do diplomacy, and
they're saying, well, why are we doing that? I mean, why would
we do that, Mr. Starr?
Mr. Starr. I would argue that we are conducting diplomacy.
Mr. Blanc. Sir, if I may, I mean, I think that is exactly
the point: We are conducting diplomacy. There are some routes
in Kabul, including route to the airport, that occasionally get
and more and less dangerous, and our colleagues from Atlantic
Security take very good care to make sure that we have the best
available security in those instances, but I can assure you,
and I spend quite a bit of time there myself, our people get
out, they are hands-on involved with the Government of
Afghanistan----
Mr. Meadows. All right. So give me the top three diplomatic
success stories that you can share, then? I mean, you're saying
you're creating--what are the top three--what would be the
headlines of the Washington Post tomorrow, what are the top
three that they've accomplished?
Mr. Blanc. Sir, well, first and foremost, I would say it's
the successful transition from President Karzai to President
Ghani last summer.
Mr. Meadows. Okay. But that was not diplomatic in its
nature.
Mr. Blanc. Yes, sir, it was. That was deeply--that
involved--that was a----
Mr. Meadows. So that had everything to do with the Embassy?
Mr. Blanc. The United States Embassy was deeply engaged in
that successful transition, and there were----
Mr. Meadows. All right. What are the other two?
Mr. Blanc. So the next thing I would propose to you, sir,
is that we have seen a substantial change in the nature of the
relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan since President
Ghani came into office. That has been largely due to President
Ghani's courageous actions and reciprocation from Pakistan.
But, again, I don't think either of those countries would deny
that the United States and our Embassies in both of those
countries have played critical facilitating roles.
And then, finally, sir, I would say that we have had a
substantial long-term success in terms of some of those things
that I mentioned in my initial testimony of helping create a
sustainable Afghan Government, which is able to provide core
services for its people, which is standing up its military.
That's obviously a Department of Defense role, but also an
embassy role in the political aspects of it, which is providing
educational services, which is providing health services. I can
keep going, sir, but I am----
Mr. Meadows. Well, we'll follow up. My time has expired.
I'll yield back. But I would welcome your follow up.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
Now recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, welcome, to our panel.
Mr. Blanc--and I'm going to ask you to pull the mic closer
so we can hear you. Thank you.
Obviously, it's always a balancing act, isn't it, security
and diplomacy? We have to make our facilities secure so people
aren't harmed, including people who are serving in country, and
certainly not our diplomats, but on the other hand, sometimes
security can circumscribe our ability to carry out our mission
in a country because security can become so tight. Would that
be a fair characterization, from your point of view?
Mr. Blanc. Sir, I think that's absolutely a fair
characterization. And we're constantly looking for that right
balance.
Mr. Connolly. When I was--and that's going to vary from
country to country, is it not?
Mr. Blanc. Yes, sir.
Mr. Connolly. So your challenge in San Jose, Costa Rica, is
quite different than Kabul, Afghanistan?
Mr. Blanc. Not only that, sir, but our challenges in Kabul,
Afghanistan, is different from month to month and has changed
substantially over the course of our mission.
Mr. Connolly. Speaking of which, when Mr. Lynch and I
traveled together to Kabul several years ago, we stayed on the
compound, but I think there were, like, little wooden
buildings, little cottages we stayed in. I forget what they
called them. But they certainly weren't reinforced. And we were
on the Embassy compound. And at least at that time, we weren't
overly concerned about our personal security. There had been
some lobbing of grenades or rocket shells into the compound, as
I recall, but not while we were there, and we weren't, as I
said--either that or maybe the Embassy wasn't overly concerned
about Members of Congress being overly secure. I don't know.
Has the situation deteriorated such that we are now
concerned about that in Kabul?
Mr. Blanc. Sir, I'll start, and then I'll ask Mr. Starr to
continue. The security situation in Kabul has substantially
changed over time. I mean, starting from 2002, where it was
relatively permissive, through a number of years where it got a
little bit worse over time but was still generally permissive,
it is at a very much more difficult stage right now. The
Government of Afghanistan at the end of last year took full
responsibility for the security of their country. They are
exercising that responsibility quite well, they are standing in
the face of a vicious onslaught, but there is still a real, you
know, result in terms of everybody's personal security,
Americans, Afghans, everybody else, as that transition settles
in. And so, yes, sir, the situation has changed. And Mr.
Starr----
Mr. Connolly. Well, actually, the verb I used was
``deteriorated.''
Mr. Blanc. Deteriorated, yes, sir.
Mr. Connolly. You agree with that----
Mr. Blanc. Yes, sir.
Mr. Connolly. All right. Mr. Starr.
Mr. Starr. Taliban networks, particularly the Haqqani
network, have shown themselves to be dedicated to trying to
attack Western and Afghan institutions in Kabul starting a
couple of years ago, and it has reached quite a crescendo. The
numbers of attacks and the different types of attacks have been
very difficult to handle. In some cases, they've been very
successful. In many cases, they have been unsuccessful, either
from the efforts of the Kabul Government, the Kabul security
forces. Sometimes it is Western security forces like ours that
have protected the people and made sure that our people were
safe. But it's undeniable that the number of attacks has grown
tremendously in Kabul.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you. I think that's something that
needs to be underscored in terms of the environment we're
facing in Kabul.
Ms. Muniz, Mr. Courts in his testimony today recounts a
comment of a State Department official explaining the challenge
we faced with the surge in Afghanistan, and, quote, ``given
concerns about security in Kabul and pressure to get permanent
hard facilities built as soon as possible, State was not going
to act on any recommendation that would delay getting the
contracts awarded and the facilities built.''
Is that a fair statement, from your point of view, and do
you want to elaborate? In fact, would you elaborate.
Ms. Muniz. I think that's a fair statement. I would qualify
only that we wouldn't do--I think you used the word ``any,'' or
the quote used the word ``any.'' I think there's----
Mr. Connolly. On any recommendation. That's right.
Ms. Muniz. I think there are some recommendations that we
might have considered worthwhile to delay the award of a
project. I would put security among some of the highest
requirements, but I would say really the goal has been to
continue to press forward with construction of the permanent
facility. So that statement is generally true.
Mr. Connolly. And my time's running out too. All right. The
security situation has deteriorated in Kabul, and as you point
out, not just for us, but for everybody. That's tragic and
needs its own examination.
In your view, Ms. Muniz, the decisions we made and
executed, is the compound more secure today than it was, say,
when I was there back in 2009 and 2010?
Ms. Muniz. I believe it is significantly more secure. And
as I mentioned earlier, the ability to move 900 people into
safe office buildings is a huge milestone, and in November,
nearly 300 into another residential facility. So I would say
yes.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you.
My time is up, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
I now recognize the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Duncan,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think all the
questions that need to be asked have been asked, but I would
like to place a few comments on the record.
First of all, I want to say that I strongly agree with Mr.
Mica in talking about how ridiculous the waste of all this is,
the excessiveness of all this is, and that he mentioned the Taj
Mahal. And The Fiscal Times reported a few weeks ago, and it
said: This year the State Department allocated $1.11 billion to
cover the 2009, 2010 contract costs as well as other expenses
for constructing the facility. Once it is complete, the Embassy
will have 1,487 desks and 819 beds.
And this is in a country that, according to another
publication, says: We're reducing our Afghan presence from
32,000 troops to 9,800 by year's end, with half that number
remaining in 2015. Only a small force to protect the Kabul
Embassy and manage security would remain after 2016.
I mean, we're practically all leaving and yet we're still
spending, as Mr. Mica pointed out, almost $2.2 billion. This is
in a country that has a total GDP of just slightly over $20
billion, $20.3 billion, 30 million population. The people over
there have to get by on an average of less than $2 a day. They
must just be astounded. I think probably they must be laughing
at us on how much money we've been spending over there. And,
you know, I've seen for years the easiest thing in the world to
do is to spend other people's money. I remember Admiral
Rendell, who later became Governor of Pennsylvania and later
became the National Democratic Chairman, when he was mayor of
Philadelphia in testimony before the House Ways and Means
Committee many years ago, he said: Government does not work
because it was not designed to. He said there's no incentive to
save money, so much of it is squandered. There's no incentive
for people to work hard, so many do not. That was his quote.
And certainly it seems to me that mega hundreds of millions
have been squandered and are still being squandered over there.
Last month, David Keene, who spent 27 years as head of the
American Conservative Union and is now the opinion editor of
The Washington Times, he wrote this about our unnecessary wars
in the Middle East and our failed attempts at nation-building.
He said: As a result of our wars and attempts at nation-
building in the Middle East, there is a generation of young
Americans who have never known peace, a decade in which
thousands of our best have died or been maimed with little to
show for their sacrifices. Our enemies have multiplied, and our
national debt has skyrocketed.
And I think that all of the people who have any
responsibility or role at all in going along with the
construction of this massive project in Afghanistan should be
ashamed. I think it's very sad what we've heard here today. And
I just wanted to place those comments on the record.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank the gentleman.
We'll now recognize the gentlewoman from Illinois for 5
minutes, Ms. Duckworth.
Ms. Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to ask about the inspector general's report from
October on the Aegis contract to provide security.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to request that the report actually
be entered into the record.
Chairman Chaffetz. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
https://oig.state.gov/system/files/aud-mero-15-03.pdf
Ms. Duckworth. Thank you.
Mr. Gulino, thank you for being here today. In this report
from October, the inspector general raised a number of
problems, and I'd like to get your responses to some of these.
The State Department's contract requires Aegis to maintain
documentation of each employee's training and security
clearance, but the IG found 25 of 333 files, or 8 percent, were
missing 49 required personnel training or investigation
documents. Can you explain why the documentation was missing?
Mr. Gulino. Early on, when we took that contract over,
there were--we took an existing workforce over, and it took a
little bit of time to get all the documentation and the records
right, the entire program up to WPS standards, which we did. We
worked in concert with the State Department. All of our records
are up-to-date. State Department comes in and audits our
records. We keep dual sets of records. The same exact record
that exists in Kabul exists in our Washington office. They have
audited twice this year, and of those two audits, they found
one discrepancy, a document that--we typically they flag if we
don't have something--that needed to be added in, and it was
added in after that. So the documentation is complete now.
There is nobody that goes out to Afghanistan that doesn't have
a clearance and also doesn't have the appropriate training,
whether they're U.S. or whether they're TCNs, third country
nationals, from Nepal.
Ms. Duckworth. Now, were there any people there--so the
report actually says seven Aegis U.S. citizen employees working
in various positions in Kabul had no documented security
clearance investigations. So what you're saying is that they
had them. It's just--the documentation needed to be cleared up,
and that that problem has been solved?
Mr. Gulino. The problem has been solved. It's either one of
two things. Yes, it's either that when we assumed the workforce
from another contractor, that documentation didn't exist, and
we put it together, or the clearance wasn't appropriate. We
trained everybody, and we got all the documentation up to WPS
standards.
Ms. Duckworth. Okay.
Mr. Gulino. We have no further problems in documentation or
clearances.
Ms. Duckworth. That's good to hear.
The IG also reviewed invoices that were submitted by Aegis
totaling about $217 million, and they questioned about $8
million--let me just quote the amount--$8,642,485 in costs,
about 4 percent of the contract. They said that those
invoices--57 invoices are possibly--of those invoices, 8
percent, 457, were possibly unallowable are not supported in
accordance with contract requirements. Do you know what those
invoices were for?
Mr. Gulino. Typically they were either--well, they were
either for labor or for reimbursable items. We have provided--
we worked with State Department. We've provided all of the
documentation required to have the appropriate backup for those
invoices, and we worked with them since that audit was out.
And I also mentioned earlier that independent of the IG
audit, Aegis conducted its own audit of the first year of the
contract on its own with its own people and presented all of
the discrepancies and clarified all the discrepancies. We
looked at over 71,000 line items and compared a document called
a muster to a Delta accounting program to time sheets to
biometrics, and we are now proceeding on auditing the second
year of the contract on our own without any requests from the
government or the IG.
Ms. Duckworth. Okay. Do you know how much of that $8.6
million ended up being allowed or how much was disallowed?
Mr. Gulino. I'm not aware of any disallowances at this
point. We've presented all the documentation to the State
Department, and they've not come back to us with any
disallowances to the best of my knowledge. If there were, it
has to be minor. The audit that we conducted verified that.
We----
Ms. Duckworth. So you're saying the gaps in the billable
hours are from other--the issues with those invoices were
partially as a result of you taking over a contract, and you
fixed those problems?
Mr. Gulino. Right. That's part of it. We took--when you
take a contract over in any--in any instance where you take an
existing workforce over and a new contract, especially when the
procurement period is quite long, that is, from the time an RP
is issued until the contract is awarded, the scope of work
changes.
In a situation like Afghanistan, we went into it, and the
State Department understandably said, you know, we don't want
those posts anymore. Take 880 people. We don't want those
posts, we want these. So move the people around, change the
classifications. And it took some time to get all of that
properly documented and up to speed and properly invoiced.
The audit we conducted, we found that approximately 75
percent of any discrepancy occurred in the first 4 months of
the contract. And we have a good process control documentation
system now so that that does not occur again.
Ms. Duckworth. Thank you.
Ambassador Hays, I'd like to know the IG's view of the
status of the outstanding findings, particularly with respect
to those questions costs. Would you have a schedule--a follow
up with the appropriate officials in the inspector general's
office just to make sure that those fixes have taken place?
Mr. Hays. Certainly.
Ms. Duckworth. And do you have any opinion on whether or
not you think that those problems have been fixed and that the
processes in place now are adequate?
Mr. Hays. I conducted the inspection of the facilities in
February of 2014. I did not participate in the audit nor the
compliance of that, but I can certainly pass on your concerns
to the IG himself, and he will get back to you.
Ms. Duckworth. Great. Thank you.
I'm out of time. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
I now recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
I guess this would be for Mr. Starr. I want to follow up a
little bit on what Congressman Russell says. First of all, how
many buildings are going to be in this compound total, about
when we're done in Kabul?
Ms. Muniz. So there was an existing chancery built in 1971,
which was the starting point. Another annex building was built
and completed in 2005 with three residential facilities. The
2009 and 2010 projects will provide for another unclassified
annex and another classified annex and three more residential
buildings. In addition, security, utility and support buildings
are also included in the scope of the project.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. So at least ten plus. Whatever. Okay.
How many people are going to be based in these facilities
when you're all done?
Ms. Muniz. The program that drove the facilities is 1,487
desks and 800 beds.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. So how many people----
Ms. Muniz. So, basically, the delta is between the U.S.
direct hire staff who sleep on the compound and those who work
in the buildings but who don't necessarily sleep on the
compound.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. So we say--how many total people, say,
are based or work in the compound by the time we're done?
Ms. Muniz. Let me turn that over to Jarrett and to Greg.
OBO builds to the sort of hard facility requirements, but there
are many support workers and security who don't have desks in
the facilities but who work around the compound. So for a
comprehensive number, I would turn to them.
Mr. Grothman. Sure.
Mr. Blanc. So, you know, in broad terms, there are going to
be about 5,000 people on the compound between direct hires and
contract support staff, including security staff. There are
some ambiguities in this still because there are still planning
decisions being made about the future Security Cooperation
Office and other agencies that will come under the Embassy
umbrella.
Mr. Grothman. This kind of hits me as high. That's all.
Of those 5,000, how many are Afghans themselves?
Mr. Blanc. I don't have the local----
Mr. Grothman. I mean, guess wildly. I don't expect you to--
--
Mr. Blanc. About 850, 900.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. So about a fifth, a little under that.
Could we get, and you don't have it right away today, but just
because it hits me as a high number, what do these people do?
Mr. Blanc. Sir, we can provide that. What I can tell you is
that it's the smaller portion that are direct hire U.S. staff,
who are doing what we think of as the work of diplomacy. The
larger portion are people who are necessary to support that
staff, given the very unique circumstances in Kabul, whether
that's the security staff that Greg oversees or the life
support staff, especially as the military mission draws down,
and we lose some of the services that the Department of Defense
has provided, need to provide them for ourselves, services that
just, to be blunt, you can't--the Embassy can't rely on the
economy to provide, it has to provide for itself.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. Of the 5,000, how many are military
personnel?
Mr. Blanc. So, right now, of the 5,000, the number is
pretty small. That number is likely to increase over the out
years because as the military mission changes, there will be a
Security Cooperation Office that will eventually be part of the
Embassy that will oversee our security--the assistance that we
provide the Afghan National Security Forces.
Mr. Grothman. Okay.
Mr. Blanc. Those are decisions that are being made right
now, and I can't really tell you how they'll come out.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. Just to guess wildly, you told me there
were 5,000 total, you said a relatively small amount of
military personnel. What does that mean? 100, 200, 300? Just
guess wildly.
Mr. Blanc. Maybe 100.
Mr. Grothman. Maybe 100. So we have almost 5,000 civilian
personnel that we anticipate having in Afghanistan? Is that the
deal?
Mr. Blanc. So, again, you're combining what's the case
right now and what will be the case over time. Over time, I
expect that military number will be a larger percentage because
of the Security Cooperation Office.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. Okay. Then we have a question for--I
guess I'm running out of time. Well, was a risk assessment done
at the Kabul site, and if it wasn't, why not? That's the final
question.
Ms. Muniz. Risk assessments are always done before the
award of a large-scale project. So our team goes out and
understands with the contractor what are the risks that we
might encounter.
A formal risk assessment, sort of the way we lay it out as
a separate assessment was not done in the 2009 project, was
done in 2010, but I would argue that in all cases, we are
assessing the situation and know what the major risks are, and
those here included the security situation, growing staff, a
changing environment, but those were known at the time of the
award of the 2009 contract.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. My time is up.
Mr. Blanc. Sir, if I may just to correct. I'm being told
that the correct number for current military personnel is
closer to 50, between the liaison for the Embassy and the
residence support mission and the Marine force.
Mr. Grothman. You said total number is what?
Mr. Blanc. It's closer to 50 than 100.
Mr. Grothman. Fifty, 50?
Mr. Blanc. Five zero.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. Thank you.
Chairman Chaffetz. To clarify, page 16 of the GAO report
says, between the 2009 contract and the 2010 contract, State
should have conducted four cost-containment studies and six
risk assessments. However, for the 2009 contract, State
confirmed it did not conduct either types of assessment.
Because of the value of the 2009 contract, which was $209
million, two separate cost-containment studies would have been
required. Also, no risk assessments were performed and no risk-
mitigation plan was developed.
So your answer's a little shy of the reality, at least
according to the GAO, correct?
Ms. Muniz. I would argue that--the policy that the GAO is
referring to and the sort of narrow interpretation of a
separate risk assessment being conducted during or before award
of a project, that is true. But risk assessment when you look
at it on its face is going to the post; understanding what the
risks are. How are you going to get materials in? Are there
changing situations on the ground that are going to impact your
project? Those are all things that are analyzed and that are
known and that are included in the cost development for these
projects. And that was done with the 2009 project, but
understand that the budget for the 2009 project was developed
in advance of knowing that there was going to be a significant
increase in staff, that the border with Pakistan was going to
be closed for 7 months, and any number of other issues that
I've outlined in my testimony.
Chairman Chaffetz. Mr. Courts, is that what happened?
Mr. Courts. Well, I would again just point out that the
risk-assessment and cost-containment study that they did in
2010 did point out some of the risks that eventually
materialized. And by the way, one of those was difficulties
with the land transport of materials, so some of these risks
were known in advance. They predicted them in the 2010 study.
If they had done the 2009 study, perhaps they would have had
more time to try to develop some mitigation strategies.
Chairman Chaffetz. And part of the----
Ms. Muniz. And perhaps we would have delayed award of a
contract that is getting people into safe facilities as quickly
as possible.
Chairman Chaffetz. They're not safe. That's the point. They
weren't safe, and now they're way over budget. We're missing by
hundreds of millions of dollars. The overall project is coming
in 3 years late. It was supposed to be done last year, and now
it's not supposed to be done until 2017. So what's the case to
be made that you've made this huge progress by bypassing all
the bureaucracy, you put people in a better situation because
you've got two independent people who have come in and looked
at that and, I think, disagree with that analysis?
And in regards to the security, on page 17 of the report,
DS officials were not sufficiently involved in the cost-
containment study, and it goes on for a full paragraph. That's
the frustration. Just reading this, this is why we're having a
hearing, you would get the impression that you're not even
talking to the Diplomatic Security. And we addressed that a
little bit earlier, but that should be part of before you do
2009. It should have been part of 2010, but that evidently
wasn't done according to the report. Am I wrong?
Ms. Muniz. I believe you are.
Chairman Chaffetz. Well, this is why we have this hearing.
DS cited--this is from the report. DS is cited in the policy as
an interested office. According to the attendee delist, no one
from Diplomatic Security participated in the meetings related
to the study.
You have a pretty hard case to make that you were taking
security at the top of your list and putting it in there when
they weren't even invited into the meeting.
Ms. Muniz. They were invited to the meeting. We can prove--
--
Chairman Chaffetz. So they were no shows? Mr. Starr, did
your staff not--they just said, Forget it, I'm not showing up,
not worth our time?
Mr. Starr. Congressman, I think our people decided that
the--at that--that one particular meeting, that there weren't
equities that we were necessary to be there.
I want to emphasize something, though, sir. And I know that
there are individual points that can be brought out and looked
at by both IG and GAO, and in many cases. They bring very
important things to our attention, and we correct those things.
But I don't want to leave you with the impression that DS and
OBO don't work together very closely to ensure that the
physical security standards in our buildings are always----
Chairman Chaffetz. She just said that your people don't
show up at her meetings.
Mr. Starr. At one particular meeting on----
Chairman Chaffetz. That's not what this says. That's not
what this says. I didn't just come make this up. I didn't just
come say: Hey, let's pick on State. I'm reading a GAO report
that pretty much concurs with what the inspector general found.
And the reality is it's 27 percent over budget. You missed it
by hundreds of millions of dollars. You've got facilities that
aren't secure. There's no master plan. There's no plan for
temporary facilities. And it's the biggest expenditure we have
in an embassy compound complex that we've ever had in the
history of the United States of America. So you have a really
hard case to tell me that we're doing things better and
everything's good, just move on, nothing to worry about here.
That's a $2 billion expenditure, and it's not yet finished.
Mr. Starr. Mr. Chairman, I would disagree with your
characterization somewhat, but in certain cases----
Chairman Chaffetz. Which one?
Mr. Starr. --you're right. This one----
Chairman Chaffetz. Which part? Tell me.
Mr. Starr. This is certainly a very expensive project, it's
very large, but----
Chairman Chaffetz. Tell me what you disagree with.
Mr. Starr. That we are not providing safe and secure
facilities. It is true that they are behind the original
schedule, but we are building safe and secure facilities.
During the entire time that we were there in our temporary
facilities, we have never lost a person on our compound even
with the temporary facilities, and we're building better ones
today.
Can our coordination be improved? Yes. The IG and the GAO
pointed out that there were problems, and Lydia and I have
worked to ensure that those problems don't continue. There is
always room for improvement. And I, quite frankly, would wish
that we could have brought these projects in faster because
moving the people out of temporary facilities faster gives them
even better protection. We've been responsible for providing
that protection during this entire time. And I think we've done
a very good job, but none of us minimize the problems that have
occurred in this environment as we try to struggle to bring
these buildings in.
But I will tell you that, you know, while we appreciate GAO
and IG, and they do bring a lot of good things to our
attention, not everything can be characterized as off base
here. We are delivering, although you are correct, it is behind
schedule, and it is over the budget.
Chairman Chaffetz. I now recognize the gentleman from
Oklahoma, Mr. Russell.
Mr. Russell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Ms. Muniz, I wanted to make a correction. It was Mr.
Hays in his testimony that spoke about the international
construction and safety standards and that this was causing
some unnecessary delays between OBO and State.
And so I would like to ask you, Mr. Hays, you spoke to
these international construction and safety standards causing
these delays. What were those?
Mr. Hays. Well, the international standards for
construction, which OBO works to and has to work to because of
legislation, are the same that you would apply to Embassy
Berlin or a building in downtown D.C. They require a building
to be built in a way that is safe and sound for a longer period
of time.
The DOD regulations authorize more flexibility, especially
in war zones. And we raised the issue that OBO and DS should
look into the Department as a whole, look to find more
flexibility to move quicker in war zone situations more
expeditiously. DOD has that authority. They have a workaround
for a number of international standards for specific areas like
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Russell. Thank you.
Mr. Blanc, you spoke of land route delays, and I can
certainly appreciate what a closed Pakistani border does to
American anything or international anything in Afghanistan.
What, though, if we should have something like this that
happens again with such a large footprint now? Can you foresee
a time where we would need to reduce a footprint and be
streamlined to be more effective because now we have these
5,500 personnel? And if this happens again, which it's not
unlikely and certainly those routes get interdicted, what do we
do about that?
Mr. Blanc. Well, sir, I think if I can say two things.
First of all, even during the interdiction of those routes,
both the diplomatic and the military mission were able to
continue, using a whole variety of creative logistics. And I
think that in the unfortunate instance this happened again,
obviously working very hard on our relationship with Pakistan
to prevent it, we would again fall back on some creative
logistics.
I think your question in principle, are there conditions
under which we would look to draw down diplomatic mission in
Kabul, the answer is, of course, but we are always looking at a
whole variety of questions, the immediate security situation,
how effective is the team being, what specific needs do we need
to fill either in the sort of professional Diplomatic Service
or what we no longer need to contract, what might we be able to
do on the economy in Afghanistan. Those are all questions that
we address on a literal----
Mr. Russell. And I don't--I certainly don't underestimate
the complexities of the problems. I guess my concern is we're
seeing a pattern. We're seeing a pattern where we've become so
cumbersome with it. It becomes cumbersome to get things there.
It becomes cumbersome to secure things. It becomes
extraordinarily expensive. It wastes resources, and I just
would think that a nation of 31 million souls with the types of
problems that we have, that we can be efficient, but I'm not
hearing that. Instead what I'm hearing is, and particularly
from Mr. Starr, which--look, everyone at this table, I have no
doubt, is dedicated to this Nation. I mean, look at your
resumes: They're not only impressive, but they're long-serving,
and I have the highest respect for all of you, and you've done
it from administration to administration, and for that, I
sincerely thank you. But I guess my--the pattern that we are
seeing now is just an increasing infrastructure where it just
grows and grows and grows, and it requires more security and
more security and more security.
And the last question that I have is for Mr. Gulino. I have
no doubt of the ability of the Gurkhas to win almost any fight
that they're ever encountered in. Language barriers. You know,
we've seen the posters. Got all of that. In a no-kidding combat
situation, you've got an American compound and now you've got
Gurkhas. How are you mitigating that?
Mr. Gulino. In the first place, we have well over 400
U.S.--I didn't mean to imply by any means, I don't think I
did--that we have a Gurkha workforce. We have 600 Gurkhas, you
are quite right. They are selected from a wide pool of----
Mr. Russell. No, I get that. But how are you mitigating the
language barriers in a combat environment?
Mr. Gulino. And they are vetted for language in Nepal
first. And then when they go through training in Jordan, in
Amman, Jordan, at KASOTC training, we don't just train them and
test their skills with weapons. We test their language
understanding and their ability to speak English.
Mr. Russell. So all of these Gurkhas then are English
speaking or have understanding?
Mr. Gulino. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Mr. Russell. So why do we need posters then?
Mr. Gulino. Why do we need what?
Mr. Russell. Why do we need Nepalese posters? If they are
all proficient in the English language, then why was this an
issue?
Mr. Gulino. Well, let me just say this. It is a
requirement, and not every Nepalese Gurkha on our post can read
The Washington Post either from first page to the back page.
I think that as a matter of policy and procedure and human
rights we should have the posting of passports in Nepali. I
don't question for a minute we should have had it from day one.
We have it now and we will going forward. Anything that we
communicate to the Nepalese, we do it both in English, as well
as the Nepalese, including their contracts, their employment
contracts.
Mr. Russell. I thank the chairman for additional time, and
I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
I now recognize Mr. Cummings for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Courts, I would like to discuss GAO's examination of
two construction contracts at the Kabul Embassy. The first was
awarded in 2009. The second was awarded in 2010 to a different
contractor. Is that correct?
Mr. Courts. That's correct.
Mr. Cummings. Can you briefly describe the two sets of
projects that were contracted and their originally estimated
completion dates?
Mr. Courts. I believe that the 2009 contract was intended
to construct a number of temporary offices and housing. It was
also intended to construct an office annex, the unclassified
facility that my State colleagues have referred to, as well as
some additional warehouses, some compound access facilities,
some perimeter security features, and other things.
In the end that contractor ended up building mostly just
the temporary offices and housing, and the rest of those
requirements were transferred to the 2010 contractor.
Mr. Cummings. Now, what about completion dates? What were
the projected completion dates on the projects?
Mr. Courts. I don't have the projected completion date for
the 2009 contract at my fingertips.
Mr. Cummings. Okay.
Director Muniz, according to GAO's report, in 2011 the
State Department partially terminated the 2009 contract, and I
quote, ``in part due to concerns about contractor performance
and schedule delays,'' end of quote. Can you please explain
exactly the concerns were, what they were, and why was the
contractors--why were they terminated and what was the
performance issue and schedule delays?
Ms. Muniz. So the contract included both temporary
facilities and permanent facilities, and we knew that there was
a follow-on contract that would be building on that base and
adding permanent facilities.
We had concerns that the first contractor was not meeting
key milestones and would not be able to meet their original
schedule, which was the end of 2012, in a way that didn't
interfere with the execution of the fiscal year 2010 contract.
So the government terminated that contract for convenience.
Mr. Cummings. And have you experienced challenges
terminating this contract or other contracts due to contractor
delays?
Ms. Muniz. We do. It's a challenging circumstance. So we
want to require contractors to perform and we want to encourage
them to have a track record of serious performance. It's
actually under the Excellence initiative, one of the things
that we've pushed is going to best-value awards as opposed to
lowest cost, because we can hold contractors accountable based
on past performance.
It's complicated and we always weigh a termination and the
length of restarting with trying to push through with current
contractors. In the instance of the 2009 contract, without
going too much into it, we just had concerns that in the much
longer term it was going to become a challenge for our 2010
contract and we realized that it would be most effective to
terminate it with just the temporary facilities built and
transfer the permanent facilities to the 2010 contract.
Mr. Cummings. Now, Mr. Courts, according to GAO's report,
the rest of the contract was shifted to the second contractor
who was working on the 2010 contract at that point. Is that
correct?
Mr. Courts. That's correct.
Mr. Cummings. Your report also reveals that the estimated
completion date of the expanded 2010 contract has been pushed
out more than 3 years, until 2017.
Mr. Courts. That's correct.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Courts, would it be accurate to say that
part of this additional 3 years is due to the termination of
one of the contractors and the subsequent transfer of the
remaining contract elements to another?
Mr. Courts. I don't think there is any doubt that that
probably did add time, yes.
Mr. Cummings. And your report also mentioned additional
contract modifications. Were all of these modifications new or
did some have to do with the prior 2009 contract?
Mr. Courts. I believe there was a mix of both.
Mr. Cummings. Are you familiar with this, Ms. Muniz? Would
you know that answer?
Ms. Muniz. Which modification?
Mr. Cummings. I guess this would be the 2009 contract. Then
they had some modifications to that. Would that have been the
contract, Mr. Courts, the 2009 modifications, is that right?
Mr. Courts. Both the 2009 and the 2010 contract had
modifications.
Mr. Cummings. Okay.
Ms. Muniz. That's accurate.
Mr. Cummings. Okay.
Ms. Muniz. Both had significant modifications. Those were--
--
Mr. Cummings. And how did those modifications come about?
What happens?
Ms. Muniz. I was just going to answer that. Those were due
to the increase in desk requirements. And again, this is driven
by national security priorities and the increase in staff. I
would turn to Jarrett.
Mr. Cummings. Well, I'm going to--unfortunately, I'm going
to have to get to another meeting, but I just--I think there
are a lot of concerns here.
And I go back to something that Mr. Duncan said. And maybe
you all can answer this for me, because I think he said
something that just seems to be so accurate. He questioned,
what is the incentive for saving money? Do we have any, Mr.
Courts?
In other words, it seems like we spend and spend and spend,
and the chairman has been very clear that we haven't--that we
probably could do better. So what is the incentive?
And I have got to ask you this, Mr. Gulino. I'm going to
take one out of the--the chairman and I were just talking about
this. What do you pay these nationals, by the way?
Mr. Gulino. Salaries for the----
Mr. Cummings. Yeah, the nationals. You know, the ones that
you hold the passports up for. Those, those folks, Nepal.
Mr. Gulino. Oh, third-country nationals. They are paid in
the $40,000 to $50,000 range a year.
Mr. Cummings. $40,000 to $50,000?
Mr. Gulino. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. That's quite a bit of money for somebody over
there, isn't it?
Mr. Gulino. I think it's competitive with the requirement
for the----
Mr. Cummings. No, I mean, I'm glad to hear that and I would
like for you to get us some verification. I would like to see
the documentation. Do you have contracts with these people?
Mr. Gulino. Yes, I will send documentation. I will get back
to you on that to confirm the rates.
Mr. Cummings. And do they have benefits?
Mr. Gulino. They have insurance benefits, yes. They get a
bonus payment. At the end of their 1-year contract, they get a
bonus payment.
Mr. Cummings. And are they doing the same types of jobs as
other folks who are not nationals?
Mr. Gulino. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. And you're telling me that the rates would be
the same, comparable for people who are doing the same work,
whether they are nationals or not? Is that what you're telling
me?
Mr. Gulino. The rates are different for expatriates. For
U.S. performing similar types of work are slightly higher.
Because it's a market-driven thing. We can't hire U.S.
personnel.
Mr. Cummings. I understand that. But I'm trying to make
sure--I'm just trying to figure out what you are paying. And I
guess if you're using our dollars, which you are----
Mr. Gulino. Right.
Mr. Cummings. --I'm trying to make sure you--I want to know
what you're paying. And I want to know--I want detailed
information about that.
Mr. Gulino. Sure.
Mr. Cummings. Can you get me that?
Mr. Gulino. I would be happy to have our staff provide that
to you.
But the premise is this: If you don't need to hire all U.S.
personnel and you can use fully qualified third-country
nationals that operate in the same post, same kinds of jobs
with weapons, you use those and it drives the cost down.
Mr. Cummings. Yeah, I understand that, but I'm also
concerned, I'm trying to make sure we don't have a situation
where we've got people making peanuts----
Mr. Gulino. We don't.
Mr. Cummings. Yeah.
Mr. Gulino. No, sir, we don't.
Mr. Cummings. And let me finish. And then we've got
contractors, stockholders, and others who are making millions.
And I just want to make sure we--I read all of--I read your
statement and you talked about reputation, integrity,
compliance, and all this kind of thing, and that's good. But I
want to see some records as to what you're paying these people.
All right?
Mr. Gulino. Yes, sir, we'll provide that.
Mr. Cummings. All right, thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
I've got to wrap up with a few different questions and then
we will conclude this hearing. I appreciate your patience. You
have been here a long time.
Mr. Hays, part of what Mr. Cummings and I have discussed
and we will formalize is we are going to request of you that we
look at the contracts, really around the globe. I'm not
suggesting we do each and every market, but find a way to look
at how these security contracts work for the security. It plays
such a vital role and we have had some feedback in some
countries that these people are not being paid very well.
I'm not suggesting that is at all the case with Aegis. I'm
not suggesting that at all. I'm just saying, we would like to
look at it and feel more comfortable with it. And we will
formalize something with you.
There are two recommendations in the draft report where
there seems to be a bit of conflict, and I'd like to clarify
that, and if there's still conflict, there's still conflict.
But recommendation 2 on page 50 says: ``GAO recommends the
Secretary of State consider establishing minimum security
standards or other guidance for the construction of temporary
structures, especially those used in conflict environments.''
Second sentence of the response from State says: ``DS''--
Diplomatic Security--``does not support separate standards for
temporary structures.'' Why not?
Mr. Starr. It's still a disagreement, sir. We still
maintain that our goal is to try to meet the permanent
standards, the highest-level standards, as best we can. And if
we can't, then we have to look at what risk that entails. We
may have to give exceptions or waivers. But it is our goal to
try in those situations to meet the highest-level security
standard we can.
Chairman Chaffetz. And, Mr. Courts, why did you make that
recommendation?
Mr. Courts. Well, let's just point to the OSPB standards
that Mr. Starr referred to as sort of the goal that they are
trying to achieve. In reality, the only buildings that can
actually meet those standards are permanent structures.
They do have the waivers and exceptions process that Mr.
Starr referred to. That's supposed to be a process where
mitigation strategies are proposed and considered as a
condition for granting the waiver, and then a very conscious
and explicit acceptance of the risk, considering all of those
factors.
In actual practice, we found that State doesn't always
follow that policy, and in fact we found a number of instances
in Kabul with temporary facilities that did not have those
required waivers. So that process that was just described
wasn't followed there.
So we think something is not working. And establishing some
sort of standards--State is really uncomfortable with the word
``standards'' or other guidance, and they propose, perhaps,
some sort of template or some sort of lessons learned document
that takes lessons learned from the experience that we have
already had in Kabul and perhaps provide some information to
those that are procuring temporary facilities in conflict
environments in the future. And we think if they follow through
on that, they could perhaps meet the intent of our
recommendation.
Chairman Chaffetz. And I think part of the concern, at
least my concern, is that many of these temporary facilities
end up being not so temporary--I mean, many of these are there
for close to a decade, if not longer--and that it is much more
convenient, it's a lot easier, a lot less paperwork to just
deem it a temporary facility. Therefore, you don't have to
comply with all these other standards.
And so I think this is part of the problem that we got
ourselves in Libya. This is part of the problem that I see in
some of these other places. And granted, they are very
difficult, tightly configured situations.
But to say that there ought to be some sort of minimum
standard or guidance or--it's just--it seems like a reasonable
request. We are not solving that here, but it's something
that's on our radar and that we do need to solve.
On page 51, recommendation 3, develop--we may have
exhausted this--but ``develop a Kabul strategic facilities
plan. Such a plan should comprehensively outline existing
facilities''--and we will go through this as we give the staff
briefing.
So I appreciate you doing that. I don't have another
question about that.
And, Director, have you issued any official policies or
directives related to OBO's use of Design Excellence?
Ms. Muniz. We've revised many, many of our P&PDs, our
policies and procedures, to reflect our trying to do work in
different ways; again, to include doing best-value awards as
opposed to lowest cost when appropriate. I believe that we have
revised in probably the last 2 or 3 years over 30 P&PDs. We
could get you exact numbers on those and in which ways they
have been----
Chairman Chaffetz. I guess if you have issued directives
related to Design Excellence, is it reasonable by the August 9
meeting that you would provide us that--I mean, I'm hoping this
is just a photocopying exercise. This is not--I'm not asking
you to create anything new. I'm just trying to get a snapshot
of where are you at right now here today.
Ms. Muniz. So I guess what I would say is because in my
mind excellence is just a way of approaching our work and
always trying to do our work in the best way we can, there
isn't one policy written about excellence. It sort of permeates
through all of our policies. So if the request is for a copy of
all of our----
Chairman Chaffetz. I guess I'm looking at----
Ms. Muniz. --revised policies, we can get back to you on
that.
Chairman Chaffetz. We had standard embassy design, which is
something that was put forward by Secretary Powell.
Ms. Muniz. Yes.
Chairman Chaffetz. Design Excellence was changed by
Secretary Clinton. There was a new direction, a new approach, a
new--it's new, it's different. But what we haven't seen is what
is that directive? What is that plan? What is that strategy?
I've seen bits and parts of it, but it's not just some
nebulous: Hey, this is just a theory, we want to be great in
everything we do. It was a concerted effort to change the way
we were building embassies into a new Design Excellence plan.
Ms. Muniz. Absolutely. So when you ask is there one policy
that reflects that, I could give you general documents that
highlight what the Excellence program is. We could go to all of
the policies and procedures that have been changed to reflect
that. We could go to the standards, which are basically a
flexible set of standards that we provide all of our architects
and engineers to say these are the base requirements that you
need to meet in all of our buildings, and put our buildings
together like a kit of parts.
So we could give you many documents. I think you have
requested many of those already, and we are in the process of
giving those. So I'm happy, again, to have our folks work with
yours and to prioritize the list of things that you are asking
for and to make sure you get every single thing that you are
asking for.
Chairman Chaffetz. And this is sort of the recurring theme
here. I mean, we're asking for what was the plan for Kabul, and
there wasn't one. And what is the plan for Design Excellence as
opposed to standard embassy design, which was pretty clearly
defined. I mean, I think we have four different reports that
say----
Ms. Muniz. There are plans for both, and we can provide you
documents for all of those things if we haven't already.
Chairman Chaffetz. That would be great, because we have
been asking for a long period of time and we still haven't
gotten to that point where you could say: All right, now, based
on this, you should be able to understand everything we are
doing with Design Excellence. That's what we are trying to get
to. That's why we keep asking. That's the goal. But I need your
help in getting to that point. So I appreciate it.
Ms. Muniz. Understood.
Chairman Chaffetz. Okay.
Mr. Starr, you're involved in the construction of the new
embassy compound in Jakarta, Indonesia, correct?
Mr. Starr. Yes.
Chairman Chaffetz. Have you conducted any physical blast
testing for the facade or the outside of the Jakarta Embassy?
Mr. Starr. Not on that particular one. We have done
extensive blast testing on facades and glass facades and the
way to--and what levels they will meet. I am confident that
that building meets and actually exceeds our blast standards.
Chairman Chaffetz. But it has been the practice to do an
actual blast test on the facade that would be there in Jakarta?
Mr. Starr. No. In that case, it was within the design
engineering parameters that the blast engineers felt
comfortable that looking and reviewing the drawings, they said:
Yes, this meets the parameters.
We did blast testing on the London design because these
were very large and a different type of design, but the
parameters on Jakarta fell within what the engineers were very
comfortable with. Very experienced blast engineers. And they
are confident, absolutely, that it exceeds our blast
requirements.
Chairman Chaffetz. And can you provide us that
documentation?
Mr. Starr. Yes, I think we can.
Chairman Chaffetz. It is my understanding that we actually
conduct actual blast testing. You are telling me the reason,
the exact same materials, configuration, wall or facade that
has been used other places, that has gone through the actual
physical testing. In other words, is there anything different
about this facade or wall that is--that has not been used
before previously?
Ms. Muniz. So let me take part of that question, and then
we will turn it back to Greg.
So the curtain wall in--the curtain wall used in Jakarta is
not dissimilar to the curtain wall used in London to the degree
that those are curtain walls that have what we call an open
bite. As you know, there were tests performed on the London
Embassy and the performance in those tests went very well.
Chairman Chaffetz. But there were several times where it
did fail, correct?
Ms. Muniz. No.
Chairman Chaffetz. You're telling me they didn't do any
tests where they failed?
Ms. Muniz. I'm telling you there was one full-scale blast
test and it passed.
Chairman Chaffetz. But there were previous tests on that
wall that failed.
Ms. Muniz. There were component tests that were derived to
provide information for the final blast test, but there was one
blast test of the full curtain wall and it passed.
Chairman Chaffetz. Okay. That's not my understanding of it.
I mean, I think we actually have video of it. And so be careful
there. But I don't believe that the original tests that were
done on the blast wall in London passed.
Ms. Muniz. There was one full-scale test of the curtain
wall in London and it passed, and it passed with flying colors.
Chairman Chaffetz. Are you using the exact same wall in
Jakarta?
Ms. Muniz. We are not using the exact same wall. But when
you test, it is a similar--there are variations on the same
system. And once DS was comfortable that the open bite system,
which has been used for years in private industry, but not to
the security standards that the Department uses, when they were
comfortable from the results of the London test that this
solution worked, they accepted the calculations.
Many of these performance standards are met by calculation
and by engineers who have done this for years. DS and the
engineers who designed the curtain wall were comfortable that
the curtain wall met all of the standards.
Mr. Starr. Sir, we have done a tremendous amount of blast
testing over the years, and one of the things we do is test to
find out what works and what doesn't work. And in early stages
we often find things that don't work and then we correct them.
And then we eventually get to the point where we think we have
got a high level of confidence, and then we did the large-scale
test of all of the panels, and then that passed.
So failure at an earlier stage in blast testing gives us
the information to make the corrections and do the right things
so when we get to that engineering point we know we have a
product that works.
Chairman Chaffetz. And so how would you categorize where
we're at with Jakarta and its blast wall?
Mr. Starr. Sir, we wrote a certification to Congress. Any
time we build a building we tell you that that building is
going to meet or exceed the security standards and be safe and
secure for our people, our national security activities, and
our information. And we sent that certification to Congress,
and that building will pass everything.
Chairman Chaffetz. For the one in Jakarta?
Mr. Starr. Yes.
Chairman Chaffetz. And, Ms. Muniz, is the embassy currently
in Jakarta currently scheduled to be delivered as it's
originally scheduled, or if it is not due to come in on time,
when will it be done?
Ms. Muniz. Right now our contract completion is 2017. As
you might know, Jakarta was built on an existing Embassy
compound. So we were working with a very tight site, had a
multiphased project where the first phase had to--was to move
most of the Embassy function off the compound to allow for the
construction of the full Embassy. We encountered some
difficulties with the contractor in that first phase which has
delayed this later phase. We are working with the current
contractor, who is a very strong contractor, through the
project to see what time can be made up for. But right now
there are no final adjustments to the project's schedule.
Chairman Chaffetz. So it will be on time, or you think it
might be delayed but you just don't have a date yet?
Ms. Muniz. I think it might be delayed, as I said, because
of the performance----
Chairman Chaffetz. But you don't know.
Ms. Muniz. --of the first phase contractor, but we don't
have a date finalized. But when we do contractually, we can
provide it.
Chairman Chaffetz. And how is it compared to the original
budget?
Ms. Muniz. To my knowledge, right now we are on budget.
Chairman Chaffetz. Are there any anticipated requests from
the contractor for additional money to complete the Jakarta
facility?
Ms. Muniz. I would say, until a project is completed we
always anticipate that there will be requests for equitable
adjustments from contractors for any number of issues, to
include the issue with the first phase delays.
So I would say that we expect them, like we do on any
project, and we work through them. We manage to our budgets to
the best that we can, to include beginning to cut things out of
the budget of the existing building. So that's just an ongoing
process of managing just to the budget.
Chairman Chaffetz. So are you aware of any upcoming
requests for additional money to build and finish the Jakarta
Embassy?
Ms. Muniz. I believe I already answered your question but I
could answer it again. Like with any contract, we expect
through the life of the contract----
Chairman Chaffetz. No, I'm asking if you have any direct
knowledge that they are about to ask you for a lot of
additional money. Do you or do you not?
Ms. Muniz. I don't.
Chairman Chaffetz. Do you, Mr. Starr?
Mr. Starr. No, I certainly don't.
Chairman Chaffetz. I want to ask you just one more time.
The contractor indicated any intention to request an equitable
adjustment?
Ms. Muniz.
Ms. Muniz. I've answered this question a number of times.
Chairman Chaffetz. I'm going to ask you, because I
obviously know something about this. And I want you to be
direct and complete with--you act as if it's your money and
it's not. There is going to be some sort of consequence here.
There is obviously a lot of information that I have at my
disposal.
And I want to know if you are going to be truthful and
honest with us because you have yet to show or demonstrate to
the United States Congress that you can produce a project on
budget, on time, that is safe and secure. It hasn't happened.
We keep seeing overrun after overrun after overrun, Mexico
City, Jakarta, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Port Moresby, Jakarta. The
list is pretty long. London.
Ms. Muniz. Congressman Chaffetz, I can go through every one
of--if you want to have another hearing on the Excellence
initiative----
Chairman Chaffetz. Oh, we are going to. You are going to be
a regular visitor up here.
Ms. Muniz. I'm happy to do that.
Chairman Chaffetz. No doubt about it.
Ms. Muniz. I'm happy to do that. I don't have all of the
information----
Chairman Chaffetz. Then provide us the documents that we
ask and be forthright in your comments.
Ms. Muniz. We have provided you over 60,000 pages of
documents----
Chairman Chaffetz. I want to know what percentage. I'm
tired of the State Department telling me that they have given
us a certain number of documents.
We have been asking for very basic documents. For instance,
your testimony by a certain time, which was late. Everybody
else is on time except yours. It's just--it's unbelievable how
you respond to us. And we are not going to continue to stand
for that.
You're right, we will continue to drag you up here. We'd
rather not. We'd much rather have staff meetings and get this
information.
Ms. Muniz. And we have been having those staff meetings and
we have provided a great deal of information. I'm happy to
continue to do so.
All of the questions and the concerns that have been raised
about the Excellence initiative with respect to cost and to
schedule are valid concerns. But we have answers to all of
those.
And I'm also happy to report that of the four Excellence
initiative projects, or five, that you had requested, which
ones would we say are under Excellence, all are being delivered
on budget, on schedule. The only one delayed is because of a
new MSG activation, and we had to extend the contract to build
a Marine security guard quarters after the award of the initial
contract. Everything is as it should be.
Chairman Chaffetz. What are those four?
Ms. Muniz. One minute.
Vientiane, Paramaribo, Mbabane, Nouakchott, and N'Djamena.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
Two more questions. In Iraq, do you recall off the top of
your head--granted, the focus of this hearing is about
Afghanistan--the number of beds and desks built versus numbers
of beds and desks occupied? Do you have that number or is that
something you can provide this committee at some point?
Ms. Muniz. I think that's something we can provide. It's
not something I have off the top of my head.
Chairman Chaffetz. Okay. I hope it is not a difficult ask.
And we expect and would hope that you get that to us sooner
rather than later.
Chairman Chaffetz. Last question--set of questions here on
cybersecurity. Are you aware of any network disruptions or
cyber intrusions at the State Department that have affected
OBO?
Mr. Starr. Let me take this one. We have not--we have had
network intrusions. They have not affected any of our databases
and OBO was not affected by them. They affected our emails at
one point, but they did not affect any of our databases or our
systems.
Chairman Chaffetz. Is there any indication that any systems
containing sensitive information about our embassies' physical
security was either viewed or compromised, extracted, or hacked
into in any way, shape, or form?
Mr. Starr. I'm not aware of any information to that point.
Chairman Chaffetz. Nothing regarding your Department, Ms.
Muniz?
Ms. Muniz. Not that I know of. Not that I know of. We could
go back and look and ask the appropriate people, but I'm not
sure what you're referring to.
Mr. Starr. Sir, through the years, and I'm going back quite
a ways, there were incidents where some documents were
improperly handled, security violations were handed out, and
procedures were improved. I don't think--I don't believe there
has been any cyber intrusions into this.
Chairman Chaffetz. It's just over the last 12 months,
obviously, we have had a number of issues and incidents and
some very high-profile intrusions. We are on a regular basis
going to be asking departments and agencies as they come up
here if that's been affecting them in any way, shape, or form.
It's just sort of a general question that we're going to be
asking.
It's been a long hearing. Thank you for your time. We do
appreciate it. A lot of good men and women do a lot of good
service. They care about their country. They are working hard.
Please, we know and appreciate this.
This is part of the process in the United States of
America. It's what makes our country great. That's why our
Founders, in their infinite wisdom, set this up this way. And
that's our role and responsibility under the Constitution, and
we are going to fulfill it.
And we appreciate your doing your jobs. And again, we thank
you again for your time.
This committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:32 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
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Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
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