Hearing of the International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight Subcommittee - Activities of the Department of State's Inspector General

Interview

Hearing of the International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee - Activities of the Department of State's Office of the Inspector General

REP. DELAHUNT: The hearing of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight will come to order. Today's hearing is on the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of State.

As our sole witness today, it's our pleasure to have the distinguished comptroller general of the United States, Mr. Walker -- Mr. David Walker.

Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1885 that quite as important as legislation is vigilant oversight of administration; those are Woodrow Wilson's words. We can all agree that effective oversight is critical to improve the efficiency, economy and effectiveness of governmental operations, evaluate programs and performance; secondly, to detect and prevent poor administration, waste, abuse, arbitrary and capricious behavior or illegal and unconstitutional conduct; and probably as important, to inform the general public and ensure that executive policies reflect the public interest.

The Office of the Inspector General at State is responsible for providing both the secretary of State and the Congress with unbiased, reliable, accurate and comprehensive information, but in March of this year, the GAO, the Government Accountability Office, reported numerous concerns about the independence of the Office of the State Inspector General and with its inspection and investigative practices. But what I found most disturbing was that these problems are not new. In fact, the GAO was reporting on them back in 1979, yet apparently, little has changed over three decades.

I'm sure everyone here is aware of allegations made by current and former State IG employees against the current inspector general at the Department of the State, Mr. Howard Krongard. These whistleblowers accuse Mr. Krongard of politicizing his office by allegedly blocking investigations or glossing over problems, especially with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan, that could potentially embarrass the administration. We take these accusations very seriously. If they are true, they represent a serious abuse of office and particularly significant breakdown in the inspector general system.

But those allegations are not the specific focus of our hearing today. This hearing will instead look at the existing infrastructure, practices and policies of the inspector general's office. It will examine the inherent weaknesses of the office as it currently functions. Through our witness, we will explore how they significantly weaken the integrity and credibility of the State inspector general's office, and we will call upon the comptroller general to identify opportunities for improving the independence and equality of the work performed by the State inspector general. What happened with the oversight of the construction of the U.S. Embassy in Iraq is a particularly instructive example of some of the problems facing the Office of the State Inspector General.

In a recent hearing before another committee, Mr. Krongard testified regarding the work he had personally done on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. There have been numerous allegations regarding the Kuwaiti company contracted to build the embassy: charges of forced labor, physical abuse, trafficking in persons, withholding of workers' passports, intolerable living conditions and malnourished workers.

Despite the gravity of these allegations, Mr. Krongard did not conduct an audit, which is a specific kind of review with particular criteria enumerated in statute. These standards are established by law. Instead, he carried out what is known as an inspection: a much more loosely defined procedure that is only as thorough as the lead inspector decides it will be. There is enormous discretion when it comes to an inspection.

Mr. Krongard's inspection concluded that he did not find evidence to support the allegations. However, he explained in that particular hearing that he only interviewed about six workers of the hundreds who worked there, took notes on the back of things -- scraps of paper -- because he didn't want the people that he interviewed to be uncomfortable. And what I find particularly mind-boggling is that he allowed First Kuwaiti, the contractor under review, to select the employees for him to interview. As a former district attorney, I can only compare that to allowing a criminal defendant to select the witnesses for the prosecution.

With the seriousness of such allegations, one would easily argue that a much more substantial and robust approach for conducting oversight of this specific issue was needed -- in other words, a full- fledged, exhaustive audit.

But unfortunately, Mr. Krongard's inspections seems to capture two of the most significant deficiencies in the functioning or within the infrastructure of the Department of State Inspector General division. First, it relies too much on inspections as opposed to audits, and that's an important distinction to make. And second, these inspections are often led by career or retired Foreign Service officers or by political appointees like Mr. Krongard, which obviously raises concerns about objectivity and the appearance of conflict of interest.

Now, I'm sure many of these individuals are people of great integrity and substantial experience, but they ought not to be the lead inspector because the American people demand more.

Despite the concerns expressed about Mr. Krongard, the responsibility for these structural issues falls to Congress to address. It's our responsibility. If he were to leave his post tomorrow, these issues would still be there. As I mentioned previously, they have been identified as a concern for over 30 years, yet successive administrations and Congresses of both parties, Republican and Democrat, have been unable or unwilling to fix them.

To clearly understand these issues and to identify solutions, as I indicated earlier, we have before us the comptroller general of the United States, David Walker, to testify on his findings. But before formally introducing Mr. Walker, let me turn to my good friend and ranking member, Dana Rohrabacher, for his opening remarks.

Mr. Rohrabacher.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. DELAHUNT: Thank you, and we will go and vote. And I'm going to ask you to reflect in our absence and provide us with some suggestions in terms of how you would prioritize a legislative response that this committee may consider in terms of coming up with a proposal.

Thank you.

(Recess.)

REP. DELAHUNT: General Walker, thank you for your patience. I'm going to proceed and shortly we'll be joined by Mr. Rohrabacher and possibly Mr. Carnahan.

But let me pose a question. I noted in today's National Journal a statement by the spokesperson for the State IG that the inspector general, Mr. Krongard, said yesterday that budget restrictions not politics caused him to block a series of investigations into department activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Could you just respond to that statement?

MR. WALKER: Well, obviously, I can't attest to whether or not that's accurate or not. As you know, the State Department submits a budget to OMB. The inspector general is a portion of the State Department. They do not have the authority at the present point in time to submit their budget directly to the Congress as we do. In fact, there's legislation that's proposing for the ability of inspectors general to be able to submit their own budget rather than being subject to reprioritization or reallocation of resources within the administration submission. But I think these facts speak for themselves, Mr. Chairman, that resources are a real issue, but that's not the only issue.

REP. DELAHUNT: Let me just stay focused for a while on the resources issue.

You're correct when you state that there's a process within the various departments of the executive branch with OMB being the last stop, if you will, prior to budget submission. I don't think most Americans understand that process, and I find it very frustrating because we read today that the inspector general laments the fact that he doesn't have adequate resources.

How do we as members of Congress become informed of that if there is not the kind of legislation that you alluded to just now where we're directly involved? And yet, and correct me, it's my understanding that the Office of Management and Budget, OMB in the acronym, precludes or prohibits any statement on budgetary issues, and I'm referring not just to the inspector general of the Department of State but any department from responding to a question by a member of Congress. This seems to me to be a practice in an executive policy that inhibits transparency and denies us the information that we need when we cannot elicit from a witness what the realities are in terms of budgetary issues.

MR. WALKER: Well, if I can, Mr. Chairman, let me briefly describe for purposes of those who might be viewing how the process works and then respond to your question.

Having run two executive branch agencies prior to being comptroller general of the United States, typically what happens is each subcomponent of an executive branch agency will make a bid to the that department or agency on what they believe their budget should be. There then will be a scrub within the department or agency to determine what the consolidated department or agency budget submission would be to OMB. OMB then looks at that submission in the context of overall resource requirements for the federal government and gives the pass back back to the department or agency, which then has to make those numbers work. Once the administration submits its budget to the Congress, then administration officials are not allowed to second guess, rightly or wrongly, the decisions that have been made by OMB as to what to submit on the president's behalf.

At the same point in time, the Congress does have a certain level of detail that's provided to it. For example, when the State Department budget comes up, the Congress does get a certain level of detail as to how much money is going to each major function within the State Department. And in my opinion, one of the things that the Congress needs to do is to have some of the type of benchmarking information that I provided today to try to help make a more informed judgment about whether or not the resources that are being requested are reasonable in light of the responsibilities. And furthermore, I also think that Congress needs to move more towards results-based budgeting, not just focusing on responsibilities and resources, but what types of results are being achieved by the various entities with the resources and authorities they've been given. And we'd be happy to work with you --

REP. DELAHUNT: Let me get into that issue because I -- it's somewhat esoteric and arcane, but I believe it is of critical importance. That chart where it's so obvious that the entire State Department budget over a period of time increases by 55 percent; at the same time, the funding for the inspector general portion of the Department of State budget was reduced by 6 percent. That should send a warning shot across the bow, so to speak.

Here we are discovering our -- your report, and we're grateful to have that report, but I think it was Mr. Carnahan that spoke to the issue of fraud, waste, abuse of resources that have occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan over the course of the last four or five years. One would think that with the invasion of Iraq and, for that matter, the invasion of Afghanistan that a decision would have been made in the executive branch knowing that there would be substantial expenditures of American taxpayer dollars that it was necessary to ratchet up the inspection -- the inspector general's function to ensure that that money was being spent wisely.

Who's at fault? Is it we? Is it the administration? Is it a shared culpability? How do we go about remedying that? To me, that is just so obvious.

MR. WALKER: First, I think it's a shared responsibility, Mr. Chairman. Ultimately, under the Constitution, as you know, the Congress appropriates the funds. The president makes a bid and the Congress needs to use its professional independent judgment on what the appropriate amount should be given the roles, responsibilities and the results that have been achieved, and ultimately hopefully the president will sign that bill, and if not, then you'll be bouncing it back and forth. My view is that clearly, a better job needs to be done in looking at whether or not the resources are adequate given the responsibilities and in light of the results that are being achieved. I think results are just as important as resources versus responsibilities.

Keep in mind one thing with regard to Iraq. Iraq is a little bit different situation for the following reasons. We had many players on the field doing oversight work in Iraq. We have a special inspector general for Iraq, which has a number of personnel and its own budget authority. We have the Department of Defense inspector general doing work. We have the Department of State inspector general doing work. We have the USAID inspector general doing work, and then we have GAO doing work. So I think when you look at Iraq, one would have to look at an aggregate of who all is doing work, and as you know, Mr. Chairman, a primary responsibility for certain types of activities changed during -- within the last couple of years where certain responsibilities were transferred from the Defense Department to the State Department, and at that point in time, one would have expected there would have been an increase in --

REP. DELAHUNT: That's exactly the point that I attempted to raise, and you're confirming my own concern that we missed it. You know, and again, I like to think of it as an investment. We have those who advocate for smaller government. Well, smaller government on occasion does not provide for the results or for the return on the investment and we end up losing money.

Last night, I was watching C-SPAN, and Mr. Bowen and Joe Christoff from your office were addressing the House committee on foreign appropriations. And a question was posed by several members about the order of magnitude of waste and corruption -- was the word that they used. Both gentlemen responded that it was systemic, it was paralyzing in terms of the functioning of the Iraqi government, it was pervasive; they went on and on in terms of its description.

And again, I have -- I hold Mr. Bowen and Mr. Christoff in high regard, but the reality is while they might have -- in my judgment, they've met their responsibilities, but the Department of State and specifically the inspector general, as far as I can determine, are a non-factor in dealing with the issues that are obvious and apparent when we hear those kind of descriptions, and we're losing billions of dollars. And I agree, I think it's a shared responsibility, but with all due respect to the administration, they ought to have been here beating the drum over the last three or four years when it became more and more obvious that there was tremendous corruption that continues unfortunately in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

MR. WALKER: Well, Mr. Chairman, I would also note that next year is the 30th anniversary since the passage of the Inspector General Act of 1978. And I have said before and I'll say again, I think the time has come to take a look at what's working, what's not on a more comprehensive basis with regard to oversight and accountability in the federal government, and that 30th anniversary year may be an opportune time to do it.

REP. DELAHUNT: Yeah, we all try to find excuses, okay, whether it's a member of Congress, and I accept whatever share of the responsibility, you know, I might have. But we have to stop looking for excuses. And if we're going to mandate and task agencies to perform certain jobs, we've got to provide them the adequate resources and then set, as you indicate, performance result-oriented measurements so we know that we're getting a good return on the investment of taxpayer dollars.

I note in the report today in the National Journal that the spokesperson for Mr. Krongard indicates well, we had to spend money on inspections of embassies and consulate posts. Tell me if I'm wrong, but that's been waived I think since 1995, those inspections.

MR. WALKER: It's my understanding it's still in the law, but for about five years in a row, it's been waived on an annual basis.

REP. DELAHUNT: So they don't want to -- they're using that, if you will, as a rationale for the problems that have been put at their doorstep when in fact it's not accurate. What is accurate is that they have been underfunded by six -- by -- when compared to the overall budget by better than 60 percent and they don't have adequate personnel in terms of carrying out their responsibilities. And it's incumbent on the Department of State, the administration and the inspector general to stand up and say, "I don't have the tools; I don't have the tools to do the job."

Now, I know there are many other issues, and I want to ask a whole series of questions, but you feel free to comment on that, and I want to give Mr. Rohrabacher an opportunity to inquire and since there are two of us here, we can continue for as long as you have the patience.

MR. WALKER: I believe that there are a number of systemic issues dealing with the State Department inspector general's office, and I will be happy to make some specific recommendations when you ask of legislative proposals that might relate -- make sense. But I also believe there are a number of systemic issues that deal with inspector generals throughout government, including whether or not they ought to have term appointments, including how their budgets, you know, might have more transparency in the submission process. And so I think both are important issues and both need to be focused on by this Congress.

REP. DELAHUNT: Before I go to Mr. Rohrabacher, walk me through an inspection. To me, an inspection means, according to your report, a former Foreign Service officer, maybe presumably of ambassadorial rank, gets on a plane and goes to visit an embassy. What happens then? What is he tasked with? Is he there to make sure that the paperclips are being counted, that the air conditioning is working, or is he there to ensure that in his conversations with embassy or consular personnel that American foreign policy objectives are being met? And at the conclusion of that visit, does he report back?

MR. WALKER: It's my understanding that there are four primary objectives for an inspection: first, whether resources are being used and managed with the maximum degree of efficiency, effectiveness and economy; secondly, whether the administration of activities and operations meet the requirements of applicable laws and regulations; thirdly, whether there appears to be the existence of fraud or other serious problems or abuses or deficiency; and fourth, whether the policy, goals and objectives of the administration and the United States are being effectively achieved and whether the interests of the United States are being accurately and effectively represented. So that's what's supposed to be done. Now, the question is how do you do it and who does it?

REP. DELAHUNT: Is there a team that goes over or is it --

MR. WALKER: My understanding is typically more than one. It is a team. And first, let's deal with who does it, and then secondly how it's done.

Frequently, it's done involving Foreign Service officers, some of whom have ambassadorial rank, which do not have a current assignment and they are detailed to the Office of Inspector General or involved in these inspection activities.

Now, one can say well, obviously, themselves having been line officials, possibly having served as ambassadors overseas before, they would have some unique experience and perspective that one would may be able to draw upon and one might want to draw upon. But there's a difference between drawing upon the unique experience and perspective and having them in charge of doing these inspections because obviously they ultimately are going to be assigned someplace else and there at a minimum is an appearance of a conflict of interest.

Then the other issue that you have is how they're done. They're not done with near the degree of rigor that an audit would be done. Typically, what happens is you'll have questionnaires and you'll ask management to fill out the questionnaires.

You will end up interviewing a few people, maybe pulling a few documents, but the standards of evidence, the amount of work that's done in order to determine the voracity and reliability of the information that would be required under an audit, you know, is not the same. And so our concern is not just what's being done. We think there's too much time and effort being spent on inspections, and I'll have a specific recommendation on that.

Number two, we think that some of these inspections are being done by personnel that they shouldn't be done by, at least led by personnel that they shouldn't be led by; and number three, that we think that some of these things that are being done as quote-unquote "inspections" should be done as audits and therefore subject to a lot tougher standards than otherwise would be the case.

REP. DELAHUNT: I mean, I find it unusual that the inspector general himself would go to do an inspection and, as I related in my opening remarks, and I'm presuming that my -- those statements that I made are accurate -- would conduct an inspection in that particular -- with that particular issue being of such consequence. I mean, the largest embassy in American history, and yet one can only conclude that it was done in a very cursory fashion. But --

MR. WALKER: If I can, Mr. Chairman.

REP. DELAHUNT: Sure.

MR. WALKER: One of the things that I think is important to reinforce is that when your resources are constrained, it makes it that much more important that you have a plan that will allocate which -- whatever resources you have in a manner that you believe will generate the most value and mitigate the most risk.

REP. DELAHUNT: Again, going back to my former career as a prosecutor, I mean, there was such a thing that we call career criminal programs where we would do a review of the criminal records of those individuals who were before the court and obviously make different recommendations based upon their frequency of their violations so that those that were responsible for 90 percent of the house breaks in a particular community received special interest, if you will, from the prosecutor's office. If they were incarcerated, there was a dramatic decline in the incidence of house breaks in that particular community.

I can't imagine trying to meet all of the responsibilities that are tasked to the inspector general particularly if they involve some -- let's say Bermuda, for example. You know, Bermuda is not I would think a particular place of interest, but Iraq or Afghanistan, some other locale, where it's clear just from media reports and from reports coming back from, you know, the SIGIR and from the GAO indicate that these are real serious problems. Why there wouldn't be a reallocation of assets and resources into that particular locus, that particular venue, and do it, as I think you're suggesting, on a return on the investment or cost-benefit analysis, and it doesn't appear to be happening.

MR. WALKER: Well, I can't comment on whether it's happening of late. I can tell you that, you know, we've had concerns about whether or not it's been happening in the past. And the example that you gave is a good one. You have vast responsibilities. You have finite resources. You allocate those resources based upon value and risk and you measure what impact the outcome has been. And quite frankly, government needs to do that in every area. This is a -- this is just a, you know, a needle in the haystack, and we need to be following that approach --

REP. DELAHUNT: I mean, one could speculate that with -- if the inspector general had received comparable growth as the overall budget of the State Department that the return on that particular investment would have been well worth it. There could have been, and again, I know this is just speculation, but there could have been millions or hundreds of millions or billions of dollars that were saved through deterrence, through ferreting out where the abuses were early on, and it didn't happen.

MR. WALKER: Well, Mr. Chairman, I don't know what the return on investment is for the State Department IG. I do know that GAO's return is $94 to 1 (dollar) last year, and yet, that has not been reflected in our resource allocations either. So, I mean, there is a systemic problem with regard to the appropriations process which is beyond the scope of this hearing, but it is real.

REP. DELAHUNT: Well, I think your -- I don't know who sponsored the legislation to have DOS IG, you know, submit their budget directly to -- to bypass OMB at this point in time.

MR. WALKER: You know, it doesn't bypass --

REP. DELAHUNT: Doesn't bypass -- I mean, bypass that process, right.

MR. WALKER: But it provides more transparency over -- (off mike consultation).

Pardon me one second.

REP. DELAHUNT: Sure.

MR. WALKER: What it does, it's Mr. Cooper from Tennessee, and it's my understanding is is the IG gets to submit their number and then you also see OMB's number. So to the extent that there is a difference, it's transparent.

REP. DELAHUNT: It sounds like an interesting proposal.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. DELAHUNT: Thank you. I guess the moral of that story is don't buy a pig in a poke or something along those lines. (Laughter.)

REP. ROHRABACHER: Don't buy a pig from Sergeant Scrounger.

REP. DELAHUNT: (Laughs.) Yeah, from Sergeant Scrounger.

My concern -- let me just, you know, respond to the observations by Mr. Rohrabacher --it's interesting that it was post-Vietnam when the inspector general concept emerged in terms of legislation. Now, I don't know whether that was in response, most likely not, but what impresses me is to hear the comptroller general talk about for every dollar that we invest in GAO, we get $94 back in the reduction of waste and fraud. And while we can't avoid talking about Iraq and Afghanistan, it goes beyond just Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean, this is the Department of State with worldwide global responsibilities. And I think it's really important to have a system that is coherent and thoughtful and where the work is done to give a coherence to our foreign policy objectives by saving those limited resources that we have and using them most effectively.

My problem is -- and I think we all share in that responsibility. This isn't just -- I'm not bashing Mr. Krongard or beating up on the Bush administration, or Congress, whether it be with a Democratic or Republican majority, but we've got to stop making excuses. I mean, again --

MR. WALKER: Mr. Chairman, if it would help --

REP. DELAHUNT: Sure.

MR. WALKER: -- one of the things that you asked me before the break, which I want to make sure I get on the record because I think it's responsive to both your questions and Mr. Rohrabacher's, are what are some of the things you might want to think about legislatively as it relates to the State Department IG issue rather than the bigger issue. I think the bigger issue we probably ought to cover in a different forum.

First, we've recommended that the State Department IG enter into a memorandum of understanding with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Hopefully, they will do that, but I would say you should give them a reasonable period of time to do that, and if they don't do it, you may want to mandate it. Frankly, I don't know how much leverage the inspector general has with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security because the Bureau of Diplomatic Security is much, much bigger than the inspector general's office.

REP. DELAHUNT: Let me interrupt, Mr. Walker, because I think that that's an excellent recommendation. I noted in your report that there had been dialogue between DS and the IG and that they were working towards a memorandum of understanding.

If my ranking member would concur, I would ask that he and I instruct staff to communicate to the Department of State that in the not too distant future, we would like to review that memorandum of understanding, because again, and it's -- we can't get away from Iraq, but the department, you know, the Diplomatic Security now is in the headlines over conferring allegedly immunity on Blackwater personnel. And why wasn't the inspector general involved in that particular review? There could be a very good reason.

I want to let my friend now I'm not making an accusation or an allegation, but we ought to have an answer. And there ought to be some clarity so that if there is validity to these allegations that we know about them and that those that are on the ground in Iraq, if they have clarity and definition as to their roles and responsibilities, will act accordingly. But I'm making public what I will discuss later with Mr. Rohrabacher about having a follow-up and I'd like to work with, you know, with the appropriate personnel in your office to let them know that we're serious about that MOU.

MR. WALKER: And I've got four more for you. The second one --

REP. DELAHUNT: Keep going.

MR. WALKER: -- consider legislation that would preclude a member of line management, Foreign Service or otherwise, who is -- from serving as acting inspector general.

In other words, typically what happens is you have a senior executive within the inspector general's office who is assigned to that office on a long-term basis sort of as acting rather than moving somebody in from management who may be subject to a review by the inspector general's office at some point in time in the future.

REP. DELAHUNT: So what that does is that creates at least the perception of a lack of independence.

MR. WALKER: It deals with the very real perception of a potential lack of independence or conflict of interest.

Thirdly, rather than waiving the requirement, I would suggest that Congress repeal the requirement to do inspections of every embassy and consulate every five years. And when Congress has waived it for about five years in a row -- and that's totally contrary to allocating resources based upon value and risk. And the mere fact that Congress has waived it every year, if you're inspector general, you can't necessarily count on Congress waiving it every year, and it complicates planning and allocation of resources.

REP. DELAHUNT: Can you repeat that? Because I think that's important and I would ask my friend to pay close attention because while we do waive it customarily, in terms of the planning phase of the inspector general's office, they can't be reassured that it's going to be waived so that their ability to present a coherent plan based on some sort of risk assessment -- I mean, that jumped out at me, that recommendation, because I really want the inspector general to focus in on those concerns that deserve priority. It'd be great if there was enough resources to go around to do all of the mandates and tasks that we have assigned.

REP. ROHRABACHER: Would the gentleman yield for a question here?

REP. DELAHUNT: Sure.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. DELAHUNT: Mr. Walker, I don't want to continue to interrupt, but --

MR. WALKER: No, that's all right.

REP. DELAHUNT: What would -- how would you consider a repeal but a requirement to submit on an annual basis to this particular subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Oversight, the oversight plan by the inspector general to respond to the concerns that were expressed by Mr. Rohrabacher?

MR. WALKER: I think that's a very reasonable approach. I mean, as I said, there are ways you can get there without mandating any particular period of time by doing random samples, you know, such that nobody's operating with impunity -- which I understand your concern, Mr. Rohrabacher.

The fourth issue would be to reconsider whether and to what extent the inspectors generals' office should be doing inspections.

You know, inspections have been done since 1906, well before we had inspectors general. Certain functions dealing with inspections are really management oversight functions and they deal with the basic responsibility of management to have effective internal controls. They're not really audit functions, per se. And we'd be happy to work with your staff to talk about some of the options here, but I think this is a big issue. And once the decision's made here, then I think it would be appropriate to review the adequacy of the resources that the inspector general's office has given, you know, the appropriate role and responsibility that may make sense, you know, post that review.

So those would be several concrete suggestions that I think would go a long way towards addressing concerns that I have heard expressed by both of you and others.

REP. DELAHUNT: Well, Mr. Walker, I think those are excellent suggestions. I intend to, you know, have a discussion with Mr. Rohrabacher. Our staffs could work on formalizing them in some written document, possibly legislation, possibly, as I said, some sort of request to the appropriate undersecretary, assistant secretary, indicating that we expect copies in an ongoing way because this is the primary responsibility of this subcommittee.

MR. WALKER: Mr. Chairman, could I mention one other thing?

REP. DELAHUNT: Sure.

MR. WALKER: To reinforce the importance of considering the repeal of the five-year requirement for inspections, even if Congress waives it every year as they have for the last several years, typically they do it through it the appropriations process. That's my understanding. Well, that's not always a timely process, as we've seen in recent years.

REP. DELAHUNT: Well, and again, to be -- it really falls within the jurisdiction of the authorizing committee, not to make it a turf issue, that's this particular committee.

MR. WALKER: I agree. But rightly or wrongly, it's been done through the appropriations process.

REP. DELAHUNT: Well, the appropriators always tend to --

MR. WALKER: That has not been a --

REP. DELAHUNT: -- stray from --

REP. ROHRABACHER: We've got our own reconstruction around here, reconfiguring of the power structure we've got to do.

MR. WALKER: I know it's Halloween --

REP. ROHRABACHER: (Laughs.)

MR. WALKER: -- so we probably don't have enough time to be able to cover all of that.

REP. ROHRABACHER: Right.

REP. DELAHUNT: And I also want to note, too, that there were I think for a period of two and half years acting inspector generals. In your conversations with Joe Christoff, and I'm sure you have some relationship with the special inspector general for Iraq, do you think that there was a -- did it hurt our interests to have a inspector general's division, if that's the appropriate term, or branch or office, that was headed by someone whom was part of management whose career was predicated on having a positive relationship with those at the higher level in the Department of State, whether it be the secretary of State or the deputy secretary of State or whomever?

MR. WALKER: I can't say, Mr. Chairman, if it had any impact in the case of Iraq. Let's just say that, you know, it doesn't make sense. Why do you even want to raise the issue? I mean, it's something that frankly, it's not -- I don't mean you. I mean why have the issue there for anybody to raise? It's something that is one of the provisions that I'm suggesting that you consider legislatively to make it clear that the acting inspector general, if there has to be one, should come from within that office, somebody who is assigned to that office on a long-term basis, not somebody who could be temporarily assigned who could even raise this potential conflict of interest that may or may not have an impact, but it sure raises a lot of questions, and the risk is higher.

REP. DELAHUNT: Does the gentleman have any additional questions?

REP. ROHRABACHER: Well, I just think historically that, you know, we have these challenges that we provide lots of money for. I know that during the Spanish-American War, there was great problems with money that was spent unwisely. And we didn't -- and we were totally unprepared for that as well. And I know during the second World War, I mean, just this whole, if I remember, the -- reading "Catch-22" and some of the other accounts that it was not as well run as people would think, but as we've heard today about the mentioning of the Truman Commission and the important role that it played -- this is an important issue.

I hope that -- well, let's put it this way: I would hope that we can make sure that we correct the flaws of any type of endeavor that we are engaged in without undermining that endeavor. And whether or not we should be in Iraq, whether or not we should have committed our troops there, whether or not we should pull them out precipitously or immediately or long term, these are policy decisions that will not rise or fall based on whether or not there is corruption going on in the system in terms of whether or not we should do that, the validity of that concept. However, the success of the decision that's made through the democratic process in terms of the specific engagement can be determined whether or not -- by whether or not we manage the corruption level and the competency level of just the type of things we're talking about today.

So I look forward -- thank you very much for your testimony. I appreciate your service.

And thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for having a very I would say intellectual and I would say something valuable discussion on this today.

REP. DELAHUNT: Let me just echo the sentiments of Mr. Rohrabacher.

And, you know, I just want to make one final observation about your suggestion regarding inspections.

After reading the report and listening to you today, I concur with your conclusion that I want the inspector generals of the State Department to do things that are of consequence and that are serious. And it is time to in my judgment not go back and redefine what inspections mean, but to take that function and return it to the Department of State and have the inspector general do what I think was envisioned most likely 30 years was to make it really an audit function with specific standards and criteria and provide the necessary resources.

So I want you to know that I'm coming down where I think that you are, and that I think requires a discussion with the senior people at Department of State because they can assume that burden. They just got a 55 percent increase. And maybe they need more resources. I certainly would prefer to expend more resources in terms of diplomacy than expend them in terms of, you know, military invasions and conducting a war.

But, having said that, you also alluded earlier to a third task, which was investigations, which presumably is at a different level and more than an audit. Can you just briefly give us your understanding of --

MR. WALKER: Most inspections general, as you know, focus on audits, whether it be financial audits, performance audits or other types of activities, and investigations. Investigations are not performed in accordance with generally accepted governmental auditing standards. They're performed in conjunction with standards that are promulgated by the President's Council for Integrity and Efficiency, the so-called IG council headed by Clay Johnson, deputy director of OMB for management. They typically focus on allegations of criminal wrongdoing or serious impropriety, you know, whistleblower complaints, potential fraud, abuse of office, things of this nature.

My general view, Mr. Chairman, is is that inspectors general should focus on audits and investigations. The State Department has had this long-standing responsibility to do inspections. It's unique to the State Department. It's understandable that those should be done, but they're really more of a traditional management function. They're traditionally more of an internal control function. That would not preclude the inspector general from doing related work based on value and risk. For example, in Iraq or elsewhere, if it's deemed that that type of work should be done at the embassy because of the value and risk associated, it wouldn't preclude that. But the idea of encumbering the inspectors general office with the ongoing responsibilities on what basis to do inspections of embassies and consulates of any size all around the world I think needs to be reconsidered.

REP. DELAHUNT: If you know, Mr. Walker, how many -- the investigations piece, is that conducted at -- by the deputy director, by the counsel as you indicated, or would investigations be conducted by the inspector general within the Department of State?

MR. WALKER: Well, there are two kinds of investigations that are taking place in the State Department. The inspectors general's office, it's my understanding, has about 10 ongoing special agents, investigators. The Bureau of Diplomatic Security, it's my understanding, has about 1,500 special agents. And part of they that I talked about before is the need to work at a memorandum of understanding to make sure there's an appropriate division of responsibility because serious allegations of impropriety or fraud or abuse should be coming to the inspector general's office, and I can't say that they are with any reasonable degree of assurance right now.

REP. DELAHUNT: Well, again, let me thank you so much for your testimony. It was very informative and helpful. And I think -- I know I speak for Mr. Rohrabacher: We look forward to working with you to see if we can move forward. Thank you so much.

MR. WALKER: Thanks, and I just want to thank my staff on the record. Take care.

REP. DELAHUNT: They do a great job. (Sounds gavel.) We're now adjourned.

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