[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 122 (Friday, July 27, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H8816]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             WASTEFUL EXPENDITURES IN U.S. EMBASSY IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Madam Speaker, the easiest thing in the world to do is to 
spend other people's money. And it never ceases to amaze how the 
Federal bureaucracy can rationalize or justify the most wasteful or 
ridiculous expenditures. But the lavish new embassy we are building in 
Baghdad and the staffing and expenses for it will just about take the 
cake.
  Here is part of a recent Fox News report: ``It's as big as Vatican 
City and makes foreign embassies dotting the tree-lined streets of 
Washington, D.C. look like carriage houses.'' But the barely finished 
U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is already prime for expansion.
  Due for completion in September, the $592 million campus is 
surrounded by concrete blast walls and features green grass gardens, 
palm-lined avenues, and volleyball and basketball courts. Available to 
embassy employees are a PX, commissary, cinema, retail and shopping 
areas, restaurants, schools, a fire station, power and water treatment 
facilities, a swimming pool, a recreation center, and the ambassador's 
and deputy ambassador's residences.
  And with months still to pass before it opens, Secretary of State 
Condoleezza Rice told a Senate subcommittee in May that additional 
staffing and housing needs have forced officials to add more structures 
to the now 21-building site. She asked for an additional $50 million 
from Congress to make that happen. In other words, almost $600 million 
is not enough. Then the budget for 2006 for the employees was $923 
million, not including salaries and expenses for about 600 employees 
from other Federal agencies and departments than the State Department.
  To a recent story from The Washington Post: ``Mention the U.S. 
Embassy in Baghdad to Lawrence Eagleburger and he explodes.
  `` `I defy anyone to tell me how you can use that many people. It is 
nuts. It's insane, and it's counterproductive. And it won't work,' says 
the Republican former Secretary of State and member of the Iraq Study 
Group.''
  Secretary Eagleburger said, ``I've been around the State Department 
long enough to know you can't run an outfit like that.'' And Secretary 
Eagleburger was reacting to a staffing level of 1,000, twice the size 
and 20 to 30 times the budgets we have at our embassies in China, 
Mexico and Britain.
  The Post story quoted a senior State Department official as saying, 
``Maintaining an oversized mega embassy in Baghdad is draining 
personnel and resources away from every other U.S. embassy around the 
world, and all for what?'' The story also said that counting 
contractors and Iraqi employees, the staff actually is not 1,000, but a 
staggering and astounding 4,000.
  Madam Speaker, I know that many people in our Federal Government want 
to think of themselves as world statesmen and to feel real important, 
but it is both unconstitutional and unaffordable for the U.S. to try to 
govern or police the whole world. And all this certainly goes against 
every traditional conservative position I have ever known.
  Above all, what we are doing building this Taj Mahal industry in 
Baghdad and allowing an almost $1 billion budget to operate is as far 
from fiscal conservatism as you can get.
  And finally, Madam Speaker, because a previous speaker mentioned 
General Petraeus's report, let me add this: There is a very important 
reason why our Founding Fathers, and throughout the history of this 
Nation our leaders, have always believed in civilian control over the 
military. The admirals and generals will almost always give positive or 
optimistic reports saying progress is being made. We have received 
positive reports from our top military leaders all through the war in 
Iraq. It is almost like the generals saying they're doing a bad job if 
their reports are not positive.
  Madam Speaker, we should admire, respect and appreciate our military, 
and I certainly do. But we should not worship them or feel it is 
somehow unpatriotic to ever criticize any Pentagon waste or any 
decision a general might make.

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