The Deep State by Jason Chaffetz

Author:Jason Chaffetz
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-09-17T16:00:00+00:00

Even More State Department Shenanigans

The second time I encountered a “minder” from the State Department was during a February 2014 visit to the U.S. embassy in Papua New Guinea. I was there to learn more about how changes in the embassy design process would impact cost and security for the construction of a new embassy in Port Moresby.

As secretary of state, Colin Powell had developed a process called Standard Embassy Design, or SED, which used a secure design template for each embassy, saving both time and money. It meant construction didn’t require reinventing the wheel each time with each new embassy. But when Hillary Clinton took over the State Department she worked closely with Senator John Kerry, and they reconfigured how the United States builds embassies. Clinton’s plan, called Design Excellence, emphasized openness and “customized artistic designs.” Right.

Within the bowels of the Department of State is the OBO, or Overseas Building Operations. Having reviewed a combination of inspector general (IG) reports and Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits, we found that the OBO seemed to be building embassies more slowly and more expensively than Powell’s State Department did under his SED plan. This was costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and slowing down the ability to secure embassies around the world. We were building fewer embassies and spending more, which leaves more people at risk. Some of the older embassies are in bad shape and are not secure.

After seeing what happened in Libya, I knew this lack of security was serious and needed to be addressed quickly. So this investigation took me to Papua New Guinea. Yes, Papua New Guinea.

I was also deeply concerned about the incredible waste of money and time in construction of our embassies. The State Department had started building an embassy in Port Moresby only to stop its construction partway through. They decided to expand and redesign the building, which meant starting over.

Now, you should know a little bit about Port Moresby: It is the largest city in the South Pacific outside of Australia and New Zealand. It has a 60 percent unemployment rate. It is filled with poverty, shantytowns, and serious crimes like murder and rape. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index rates it No. 5 on the list of ten least livable cities in the world.

The place is a dangerous horror, and Westerners are targeted.

So, the new embassy design would cost a few hundred million dollars more than the first design. Or, as CBS News reported, “The project estimate has ballooned from $50 million to $211 million, and according to an internal State Department document, there has been a ‘termination of the current work and shuttering of the site until a new construction contract is awarded.’”

This was an incredibly dangerous city. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that we needed a new embassy sooner rather than later. The existing embassy was in an extremely vulnerable situation because it was co-located with a bank that overhung the street parking, making both buildings an easy target for terrorists.

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