Friday, July 11, 2014

House Oversight Hearing On Embassy Construction Gets No Cooperation



For your use and enjoyment, here is yesterday's House Oversight Committee hearing on new embassy construction. Part 1 of 3, anyway. More to come, as they are posted on the Committee's website.

Check out Chairman Issa's angry opening statement. At the 9:45 minute mark he delivers a warning, not to the witnesses, but rather to "people who are listening today, in Washington today, at the State Department, [who] understand they have stonewalled our requests" for disclosure of documents concerning embassy design and construction. He further accuses those unnamed persons of disguising documents to delay responses, in contempt of Congress's oversight role. "This Committee is reaching the end of its road with State Department stalling."

Oh yeah, there is more to come on this issue.

3 comments:

TSB said...

GWB: The Iraqi Kurds have long been an independent self-governing state, so I am pleased to see that development.

Anonymous said...

TSB: I waded thru about 2/3 of that hearing and heard a lot about stone walls, facades and looooong delays in Brisbane..or was it Port Moresby?

I don't see these congress people getting anywhere fast no matter how furious they fume. The Chi-Coms on the other hand seem to know what they are doing. I wonder what their OBO people are up to? gwb

White Nile is starting out great!

TSB said...

That was Port Moresby (New Guinea), which evidently is Chaffetz's favorite example of OBO malfeasance, since he went there and heard complaints from the embassy staff. Oddly, that's the one example where OBO has a solid defense (it actually wasn't their fault).

The Chi-Coms built a new embassy in Washington a few years ago. It's a total bunker. Hardly any windows, much less glass facades. I think the Chinese, like most countries, build embassies only in places where they have a lot of important bilateral business. We build them everywhere, even in Port Moresby.