Your State Department At Work

McClatchy picks up the story and reveals exactly what kind of a State Department we have right now. I don't fault the career diplomats or the civilian employees of the State Department--these are people under siege from insanely corrupt and incompetent political appointees. The fault rests with whoever thought it was a good idea to let criminals run wild with taxpayer dollars in a war zone.

State Dept. retains manager of troubled embassy project
By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — A State Department project manager banished from Iraq by the U.S. ambassador and under scrutiny by the Justice Department continues to oversee the construction of the much-delayed new American embassy in Baghdad from nearby Kuwait, State Department officials disclosed Thursday.

James L. Golden, a contract employee, is still managing the $740 million project, said Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy, the department's top management official.

"Mr. Golden is still . . . our project manager, and still is working with the contractor, at their base in Kuwait," Kennedy said.

This is where a little bit spin enters the story. I can't tell whether they're proud or embarrassed. I can't tell whether they're trying to express outrage or just simply flip Waxman the bone and laugh hysterically:

One State Department official with detailed knowledge of the unopened embassy expressed outrage that his superiors haven't replaced Golden.

"I find it absolutely amazing that State senior management doesn't seem to think it a trifle odd that two people under investigation . . . are still making all the management decisions under this same contract," the official said in an e-mail. The official asked for anonymity because he feared retaliation by his superiors.


So it's either a Republican who is tired of waking up in the middle of the night terrified of prosecution or a Republican tired of waking up in a puddle because their conscience won't let them rest. I can't figure out which one it is anymore because, quite frankly, this is just the outrage of the morning, here on December 7, and we have a whole day to get through. We have a whole, entire day of revelations and wrongdoing to shove our way through. When the Pentagon dumps its bad news at 6:30PM, what then? How much outrage can you display in just one day with these people?

Golden and the Baghdad-based embassy construction coordinator, Mary French, have been implicated in a Justice Department criminal investigation into how embassy construction subcontracts were issued, according to current and former U.S. officials and congressional testimony.

Neither Golden nor French has been charged with any wrongdoing.

You'd need a measure of competence, shame, and humility to actually charge someone who's done something illegal with a crime in the Bush Administration. One need not apply if you're not willing to look the other way, shove money in your pants, and let people die because you can't do your job. This is your Republican Party at work, circa 2007.

Construction and safety problems have plagued the Baghdad embassy, originally scheduled to open in September. Kennedy and other top department officials have declined to provide a firm date for when it will be ready to house nearly 1,000 U.S. diplomats and staff.

Kuwaiti-based First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting Co. is constructing the embassy, which will be the largest American embassy in the world once it's completed.

Department officials defended the decision to leave Golden in place, saying it was necessary to provide continuity on the project. The department is working to overcome construction flaws that range from questions about the strength of blast walls to a fire-suppression system that failed inspection.

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker banished Golden from Iraq after an incident last May in which a mortar round damaged a wall at the new embassy that was supposed to be blast resistant. Golden, along with First Kuwaiti, attempted to repair the damage before an investigation could be conducted, U.S. officials said.

Crocker obviously doesn't matter, does he? Don't look to him for anything more than a polite complaint. Just a hint--you resign, you give a lengthy interview to 24 news outlets, and you go on TV and you say, "these incompetent sons of bitches are pissing US tax dollars away on a project that threatens the safety of US personnel and they're not doing anything about it."

Oh, and you'll laugh, you'll cry:

New details were made public a month later during a congressional hearing, in which it became known that the State Department's inspector general, Howard Krongard, had met personally with Golden and French despite warnings from his staff that such a personal meeting would "taint the investigation," according to a congressional report.

The two embassy project managers weren't mentioned by name in the report by majority Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Golden was referred to as a "person of interest" in the Justice investigation, and French as a "subject of investigation."

But Krongard divulged their names publicly. "I would like to tell you what exactly I was doing, both with Mr. Golden and Ms. French," he told the committee.

According to the committee's report, Golden hasn't returned to the United States or made himself available for a follow-up interview since the August meeting with Krongard. Krongard has since recused himself, at Justice's request, from the embassy investigation.

Many details of the probe remain under wraps.

Thank God Condoleeza Rice is on the job--no snark about her need to shop for shoes is necessary, is it?

More Corruption, Delays and Overruns in the Iraq Embassy Project

Image: McClatchy Newspapers

Even more problems with the new mega-bunker embassy in Baghdad are coming to light - and this time there is a criminal investigation into the construction contract. This criminal probe follows an investigation by Henry Waxman and the House Oversight Committee that was initiated a few weeks ago into the conduct of the IG for the State Department. Howard J. Krongard, the Inspector General for the State Department, has exhibited a persistent tendency to censor reports that might embarrass the administration, and has repeatedly thwarted investigations of the State Department and the problems with the embassy.

The problems started with the bid process.

When the State Department requested bids in 2005, exactly one came in, from J. A. Jones International of Charlotte, North Carolina. In spite of having a track record with the State Department, and having won embassy construction contracts in the past, the J.A. Jones bid was rejected because the estimated to cost was twice as much as had been allotted by State, and the company would not guarantee the June 2007 completion date. Additionally, the J.A. Jones bid was a cost-plus estimate, which frankly, is about the only way a responsible contractor would have bid the job, since the construction site was in a freakin' war zone...that was getting hotter every day. First Kuwaiti was chosen solely because it was willing to offer a fixed-price contract, in which cost overruns aren't passed on to the government.

"The only company in the end that would offer us a firm fixed-price (contract) was First Kuwaiti. The decision was made, and I believe rightly so, that firm fixed-price is the best protection for the American taxpayer. If an American company had bid a firm fixed-price, they might or they might not have won." said Patrick Kennedy, the State Department's director of management policy.

Unable to get a legitimate contractor to walk down the primrose path to potential financial ruin, the State Department Bureau of Overseas Building Operations (OBO) waived the law requiring open and competitive bidding, and awarded the contract to a firm from Kuwait, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Company. When the OBO issued the waiver, they described First Kuwaiti as "capable of completing the design and construction in accordance with the required schedule, budget and performance parameters."

That rosy assessment and vote of confidence was, to say the least, overblown. Four months after the embassy was supposed to be ready to open, it is not only not ready, but problems are still presenting. The most recent setback has been with the sprinkler system. When they tested it, the pipes burst at the junctions. In May, when electrical systems were tested they failed, and an investigation revealed that First Kuwaiti was using counterfeit wiring that fell short of the specifications.

You get what you pay for.

Counterfeit, sub-standard building materials are one way to turn a profit on a bad bid, I guess. Another way is to abduct workers from emerging and third-world countries and spirit them off to Baghdad against their will, then underpay them to the point that they are essentially slave labor. I realize that "slavery" is a strong word, but I am not the only one using it. "It is distressing to hear that our fellow Filipinos are being deceived into working in Iraq by unscrupulous contracting firms," Senator Mar Roxas of the Philippines said, upon hearing of the abduction of Filipinos to work on the embassy. "Unless we have officially accepted that the days of slavery are back, the government must act." (emphasis mine)

According to testimony by an American who spent a short period of time working as an Emergency Medical Technician at the embassy complex, Filipino workers were given tickets that indicated they were boarding a plane to Dubai, and were not told they were going to Baghdad until the plane was airborne. When they found out, and objected, a security guard reminded them at gunpoint that they were in no position to protest. They were indeed going to Baghdad, and there was not a damned thing they could do about it. The American EMT testified before the Oversight committee that conditions at the site "were deplorable, beyond what even a working man should tolerate." Foreign workers, he said, were packed tight into trailers, equipment was insufficient and basic needs went unmet. "If a construction worker needed a new pair of shoes, he was told, 'No, do with what you have' by First Kuwaiti managers."

He also said in his testimony that workers were routinely physically and verbally abused and another witness testified about the rate of on-the-job injuries. "There were a lot of injuries out there because of the conditions these people were forced to work in. It was absurd."

As if the substandard building materials, the shoddy construction, the missed deadlines, and the abduction and forced labor of third-world workers wasn't enough, the company has also been implicated in a kickback scheme with...wait for it...Kellogg, Brown& Root.

And all that corruption and malfeasance took place with the apparent complicity of the Inspector General for State, Howard Kronegard, whose job it was to provide oversight and prevent those very offenses.

***************

But wait! There's more!

You know how they say that it isn't the corruption that gets you busted, it's the cover-up?

That holds true here, as well.

In May, a mortar shell smashed into the complex, damaged a wall and caused what were reported as minor injuries to be sustained by people inside. The walls were supposed to be blast-resistant, but weren't.

The project manager, James L. Golden, contractor for State, attempted to alter the scene and conceal evidence of shoddy construction. According to documents and interviews, the IG for State, Krongard, reared his head once more and prevented State Department officials from investigating the incident.

When it came to the attention of Ambassador Ryan Crocker, he banished Golden from the country, yet Golden still oversees the project, as well as other projects for the OBO.

The OBO is headed up by a close personal friend of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, retired Army Maj. Gen. Charles Williams. Williams was hand-picked by his old friend and colleague to head up the OBO, and Williams apparently runs the OBO like a personal feifdom, going so far as to refused to let U.S. diplomats and congressional staffers onto the new embassy compound, according to congressional testimony given in July, and corroborated by a former senior official with first-hand knowledge of Williams and the OBO.

As recently as August, Williams assured the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the embassy would be ready for occupancy by the end of September.

"This and other incidents involving separate embassy construction projects raise concerns about the adequacy of the Department's management of our overseas building operations," committee chairman Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Cal., wrote to Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte on October 4.

The State Department declined to make Williams available for an interview and directed questions to Patrick Kennedy, the department's director of management policy.

As of this writing, the embassy is not move-in ready, and there is no clear indication when it will be. They have, however, complicated matters further by deciding after-the-fact to move General Petraeus and his entourage into the embassy, requiring space for an additional 250 people, and an expansion of the classified areas, because, in the words of Kennedy, "Crocker and Petraeus don't want to divorce."

Yet more problems, overruns and delays with the American embassy in Baghdad

The chickens of corruption just keep coming home to roost in the $529 million U.S. embassy/bunker complex in Baghdad.

Now it’s the sprinklers – when they tested them, pipes burst at the junctions.

The embassy is being constructed by First Kuwaiti General Trade and Contracting, and it has been embroiled in controversy and scandal practically since the groundbreaking. In May, when electrical systems were tested they failed, and an investigation revealed that First Kuwaiti was using counterfeit wiring that fell short of the specifications.

In September they were accused of engaging in a kickback scheme and in August the company was accused of abducting Filipinos and taking them to Baghdad to work on the construction of the embassy against their will.

The corruption of First Kuwaiti has not merely been enabled by Howard Krongard, the IG for State, he has aided and abetted the company in covering up shoddy workmanship and specious billing by impeding investigations into wrongdoing. The Inspector General has engaged in such egregious behavior that he now finds himself the focus of an investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In Henry Waxman’s crosshairs is no where for a partisan bureaucrat to be…

Former aids to Krongard have testified before the committee that Krongard did not pursue allegations that First Kuwaiti had a failed to construct blast-resistant external walls, as specified in the contract. In fact, the IG has taken the highly unusual step of investigating the charges involving the Filipino workers and First Kuwaiti himself.

The embassy, supposed to be the largest in the world, is supposed to eventually be the post of 1000 diplomats and embassy staff. It was scheduled to open last month, but the construction is so shoddy that the date of the opening has been postponed indefinitely.

Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter to Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte on Thursday complaining that he had been repeatedly assured that the building would meet its scheduled opening date last month. "Our new embassy compound in Iraq is apparently facing significant contractor deficiencies that will delay its opening for weeks or even months past its promised delivery date," Lantos wrote.

Sean McCormack, spokesman for the State Department said Friday that he could not say whether the delays were more than normal contracting delays, but he did indicate that Secretary Rice’s patience is wearing thin with the delays and the barrage of structural failures. "Obviously, with any large complex construction project, especially one that is happening in a difficult security environment, there is the possibility that the schedule will slide to the right," McCormack said. "Now, if you do end up well into 2008, certainly that is something that would raise questions in the secretary's mind, and I'm sure that she would want some answers. But at this point, I'm not aware we are at that point."