breed -- questioning. nearlyen, we have spent 100 billion dollars in afghanistan already, however, we continue to make some of the same mistakes we have done in iraq. one of the lessons learned from your testimony that you pointed out is we should begin rebuilding only after establishing sufficient security . given the fact that we have seen press reports this morning that the president is considering leaving no troops in afghanistan after our withdrawal in 2014, how will this security vacuum impact our reconstruction efforts in afghanistan based on the lessons learned in iraq? >> i think my interview with secretary pineda on this point shed some light -- secretary panetta on this point shed some

light on what is occurring in afghanistan. he said to me the inability to negotiate a basis for considering u.s. build your presence in the post 2011 agreement left the u.s. without important leverage in a rack. american pet capacity to push greater change within the government of iraq. i would saysson from the iraq experience, from secretary pineda's experience -- respective, and one that should be listened to. we look forward to afghanistan, that lesson not to be kept in mind because the truth is, the last quarter in iraq. iraq has been the most devastating quarter since the summer of 2008. a lot of cause for that, certainly what is going on in syria, but the rule of law is not under control in iraq. thepeaking of syria, due to

, theng bloody conflict needs will continue to increase and u.s. might be asked to assist in serious reconstruction effort in the near future. nothing beyond afghanistan, what would you suggest for either one of you, our plan should be for post al-assad syria in the reconstruction efforts and how withcost would be involved what those could be and what many mistakes might be repeated their? >> at a minimum, we should be actively planning for participating in a multilateral stabilization and reconstruction operation in a post-al-assad syria. we should be planning now. we should've been planning for a while. the u.n. is doing that and he has publicly said or expressed frustration the lack of

multilateral engagement, that it is impossible to project the cost but we do know the devastation in syria is massive and thus the stabilization and rebuilding of the country will take time. but what should be clearly on the table and would be if there was a you so go inexistent, identifying the contractors. the oversight, how much of money would be manage. ensure wetrols to effort fraud, waste, and abuse of the kind we saw in a rack dosh iraq and afghanistan. >> mr. ambassador? >> i agree that we should be andning how -- now, should've been planning long ago for syria after the al-assad regime falls. whether we do that depends on many things, for example, whether the government is firmly to us. planning for that

contingency. i believe there's been some planning being done by the office of conflict stabilization and operations at the state department. >> if i could interrupt you, you talk about the bureau of conflict and stabilization operation. it was established in november 2011. preceded by the organization you lead, the office of coordination for reconstruction and stabilization . even though the bureau concentrates more on small crises, do you believe we should increase the capacity of the existing euro with the state department or establish a new center would you propose all the u.s. office for contingency operations, and what if there be more redundancy between those two entities? >> i think there is a

possibility for duplication if usoco was established. on the civilian side, the court would be planning, and integrated core of government professionals. what you have right now, and staff.anning a conscious decision was taken to reduce the core. conceivably, could be done in that office or with stewart's proposed for usoco. there does not seem to be an interest in the state department for doing that. even when i was , he did -- in charge not seem to be a readiness on the rest of the building to use

it. it was something of a foreign entity in the state department. >> thank you very much. thank you for good answers. >> thank you. 2.0 want to explore. you talked about facilitating host country by and. i wanted to speak to why that did not happen in iraq and you also recommended ensuring security before rebuilding begins. i wonder while that is important, the extent to which we can do that and whether there is concern and actually prolongs and slows the

reconstruction of infrastructure , state institutions, the other things that need to happen question mark if you could speak to both of those. invested or herbst, as it relates to syria, if that is the as a-- ambassador herbst, relates to syria, if that is the sort of thing that usoco would do, when is it ever relevant, when is the security situation and who deems the security situation addressed well enough to be able to come in and do these other things? you.ank first, on the consultation point, part of it was the shift to occupyrewar plan and rebuild, which became the policy just over 10 years ago. a significant shift from spending $2 billion to $20 billion and $60 billion. the route the -- the reality

was, we were planning on leaving by the end of september 2003. and thus there was no commitment to consultation with that plan to short stay. when we shifted to a significant infrastructure base rebuilding program, the planet sort of evolved with and among the was contractors that were identified and was developed by the .oalition authority it did not engage with the iraq is enough. that is their first-person testimony to me about what happened. more importantly, it was not thought of before hand, the need to consult and the commitment to it and the deference to host and on the security front, the key is assuring sufficient security, not absolute security. it is a proportional metric. the less secure in the environment,

the smaller the project. the more secure, the more substantial you can pursue. >> to follow up on that, in iraq, you have the assessments being done both about security and about engagement. , thoseabsence of usoco assessments were being done by our ambassador and those assessments were being done by the generals on the ground. where are they on this proposal? did the generals or the ambassadors feel that they would have benefited by having this? >> he supports the idea of having it. >> when the u.s. is operating overseas, the ambassador in iraq and with the u.s. operates

elsewhere, it is ambassador who heads the effort in the country. the commanding general heads the defense operations. i understand what was said. where would it fit in this command? >> the mission is discrete and will to find. clarity will provide certainty to both agencies and the contractors. it would be somewhat like fema. its mission is to oversee the relief or reconstruction activity in the affected country. the president would declare it over. the purported chain would be like mine. reporting to the secretary of defense and the secretary of state and national advisor.

>> when would we hit that point in syria? in afghanistan, at what point has that designation been made? >> in syria, once we decide the decision is appropriate for us, that is when you have a government in damascus or any margin government that we know we can work with and conditions on the ground are sufficient for us to go in. to make that call, you need to have experienced professionals on the ground and hopefully within syria as well to offer that express political advice that is needed to make that decision. that is why you need a core of professionals devoted to this type of problem. it is widespread around the world.

>> without this core of professionals, we are not able to make the decision of when there is a government we can work with? shouldn't it be much more that goes into the discussion of when to get involved or to wait until there is a government we can work with? >> we should be involved as soon as we see a crisis brewing. we should put our intelligence assets and are best professionals on the ground to assess what is happening. do we need these professionals in order to make these decisions? my sense in looking at our experience in iraq and afghanistan is that it would be helpful if he had this type of analysis before political leaders decided to go in in this very serious way. the decisions in both cases proved to be false. >> thank you. one of our iraq vets is recognized.

>> thank you. i think the big thing we want to know is not should we be involved, but how to do it either? in egypt there is turmoil. i think it is important that the u.s. stays engaged with foreign aid as they go through this time of instability. i think it is important to recognize that in iraq, again i think there were mistakes made in postwar. i think we should have gone in with more troops. we should have had a plan. we should've had a plan for law enforcement. we should've gone on tv and said that if the work with the iraqi government, continue to go to work because you have a job. as we look at this, something i want to explore is what is the

difference between what happened in germany and japan post-world war ii and what we saw in iraq? is it reasonable to expect any kind of development aid of ground that can succeed in a highly unstable environment? >> that is a core lesson from iraq and afghanistan that you must have sufficient security before engaging in substantial rebuilding reconstruction activity and development and aid. that costs us billions of dollars and too many lives. we issued a report last summer that found 719 lives were lost while individuals were involved in reconstruction related at tivoli. better planning and better capacity and better integration among the agencies would have averted the kind of things that we saw.

and implement effective oversight. that way you could be averted in syria. >> thank you. >> our occupation in germany and japan succeeded because our presence was accepted. >> when the saddam statue fell, did we have the legitimacy at that point? >> given the complexity of our relationship with the arab world, even when the statue came down, i believe that we had a chance we could have established

some legitimacy. we could've established law and order. we welcome those to continue working in the government. there are many fundamental mistakes that we have made. mistakes because we were not sensitive to the culture of the location. even had we done everything right, it would be difficult than in germany and japan. i will give one example from japan. there was a critical decision not to remove the emperor of japan. emperor sent to the japanese people, cooperate with these americans. we had no such wisdom in iraq. >> you're suggesting we should have a saddam hussein as president? >> no. we took out tojo.

that is a very different kind of fish. >> thank you for that question. iraq, important lessons learned. we are naïve if you think americans never have to be in that situation. thank you for your hard work. looking forward at where we are, my big concern is number 2014, the year to pull out afghanistan was pulled out of a hat. when you look at afghanistan today, something like 60% of afghanistan are under the age of 20. an amazing young demographic. they are waking up in afghanistan. the military has control of the entire country. this is a force against resurging taliban. when we look back at the united

states and our gang kids or whatever are reading history books, they will look at this finite and now on of time. they will look and see what america did with its position of power. to either lead to a world of chaos or russian leadership or will america be that shining city on the hill? i yield back. >> thank you for your service. >> i would say to my friend from illinois that i appreciate his fingering some of the early stakes that were proved to be catastrophic. we have accused the ambassador with way too much power with no lateral decisions that undercut military and the state department for having to have

our country -- i commend a book that documents this. >> you and i have traveled to iraq together. two things and we have to be concise -- two things that came up in that visit that stayed with me. the idea that the military was going to become a distribution entity. it is one thing to have some small things to fix a problem here and bolster the role of rebuilding communities and not just being seen as occupiers and invaders, but this ballooned with little scrutiny. i wonder is part of your final report if you could talk about that.

second, i remember when we were traveling in a limited way around baghdad. it was the story of a power plant or purification plants that we built. we give no thought to the capacity of piping in baghdad. we have this brand spanking, shiny, new thing we could point to and returned on the switch and tens of thousands of baghdad water pipes burst. they were not retrofitted to handle this new capacity. there were examples like that were we did not get it right. maybe it was because we did not have the right people on the project. i wonder if you can talk about that. >> thank you. clearly as audits demonstrate,

extended far beyond -- that is a good idea. it could help address hearts and mind issues. what happened instead was we had projects like the baghdad enterprise that ballooned up, including a painting of a mural that entire project certainly -- that is great work if you can get it. it didn't advance our national security interest locally. it instead hinder them. congress responded by projects at $1 million.

that should be done at the pentagon. they should be program of the -- ensure training is done. on the water treatment system, it was the largest project that we did in iraq. the civil infrastructure project. as we documented in our evaluation of the, it was only operating at 20% after turnover. it is an example of what happens when you do not carefully consult and effectively oversee and ensure that proper execution is happening at the local level. it was beyond their means. as you pointed out, there is so much waste, it is impossible to document.

by contrast, the parallel water treatment project, it was a smashing success. it provides fresh water to the people of the capital city. why? because they committed to it. sustainment is a huge issue in future operations. >> thank you. >> thank you, madam chair. gentlemen, appreciate your time. we talk about fraud, waste, and abuse and we talk about transparency and oversight. we talk about this a lot, but we never hold the person accountable. with the money we look at spending in iraq, i think $6 billion is what we have come in close to $100 billion in afghanistan, without the oversight, when we go back,

american people are tired of that. we have got to change our foreign policy. in japan and germany, they surrendered. no one surrendered here. you have an unstable government and trying to rebuild is almost insanity. we need a clear, defining goal. now we're looking at syria. i want out specifically what you see as a role of the government in the middle east? is there a different way we can approach the middle east instead of going in there and bombing and people dying and we have to look at rebuilding with the waste, fraud, and abuse? the question is if you could give us a scenario of how money is given to this agency and how it is tracked so we do not get

into this again? i think you will be involved in somewhere in the future and i would not like to see that. i think the men and women need to stay here and make america strong. >> you asking the question if we could provide stability in the middle east. i think it is safe to say that it is beyond our means to provide stability in each and every country in the middle east. >> i agree. >> we will bankrupt ourselves if we try. we can promote stability and we can also is specific countries at specific times make a specific difference was that we have to be careful before we go in. we need to have excellent intelligence and have goals that are sufficiently limited so we can achieve them.

that means you have to look carefully every time before we try to intervene. we have a serious core of professionals and leaders with wisdom and humility. >> thank you. >> this is what usoco would do. it would reduce the costs and oversee such operations by ensuring that there was at that planning. it would not rely on coronation on the ground as operation begins, which is what occurred in iraq and afghanistan and did not work. that coronation must move to integration so that there is a capacity that exist before the operation begins.

and it is done at a time to make sure that there are controls in place so that the projects and programs succeed in the fraud, waste, and abuse are avoided. >> i was reading about the army corps of engineers, and it was billions of dollars. how do you get better than the united states of america? it is not acceptable that we say to taxpayers that we need more money and we are borrowing 43 cents on the dollar to send over there. if we do not have experts now, what are we doing? >> accountability is the key. there was no one in charge for the rebuilding program, and when the contracting held its hearing on afghanistan and said who is in charge, they could not provide an answer.

mike brown was there when fema failed. there was no one there to fire when an operation does not go well. it is not coordinated. there is no one identified with accountability for the operation. >> i yield back. >> the gentleman is recognized. >> thank you again for the witnesses. the contrast of the quality and service of our men and women in uniform compared to the conduct described in this report is really stark and very disturbing. i want to ask three separate questions. first is, what role does the pervasive corruption in iraq play in this effort?

you know in the report, page 104, the united states invested over $67 million in anti- corruption efforts, and despite the support for the fight against corruption, little change between 2003 and 2012, and that iraq remains consistently one of the most corrupt countries in the world. i remember from my visit, hearing from a constituent who was part of the group about the challenges. i would like to hear about whether or not that is the pervasive local corruption impacting the reconstruction efforts. second, i would like to hear about the police development program. apparently, they wasted over $200 million to train iraqi police that baghdad did not need or want. how did that happen? how does a program that no one

wants occur? how do you conclude that this new agency would provide the kind of streamlining and oversight that we have a right to expect? the american people see what this report says and become enraged about the cities across america and are told we do not have the resources to build our own country when we see the colossal waste in iraq. it is probably a source of great rage from the american people. those three issues, please. >> thank you. the corruption issue in iraq continues to limit its capacity to grow and for making progress out of the situation in which it is currently mired. the cheap oversight entity told me when i interviewed him last year that corruption has become an institution in iraq.

moneyes the form of laundering. that drains the economy of its resources and keeps the of the population in stricken circumstances. the police department row graham failed to succeed because of the lack of consultation with the minister of interior. when we did the audit, we met with the minister and he said to us that it was shaped and formatted in a way that do not really meet his needs. upon the issuance of the audit, it was concluded early this because of the lack of -- this late into the program,

there was a consultation problem. usoco would address the fraud, waste, and abuse issues by ensuring accountability and transparency throughout the process. most importantly it would promote integration. if you accept that and accept the fact that our current system is not promoting or advancing capacity, and i think reform is necessary. there is no other proposal on the table. there is no other office in place within the executive ranch that is advancing that interest. that interest is ultimately tied to our national security architect for protecting your interest in the region and not implementing this kind of reform would leave us worse off. >> a follow-up question. an audit was done in 2012. conductedcy options

by the central bank and up to $800 million was laundered money transport illegally under false pretenses. this presents the possibility that up to $40 billion was leaving the country annually because of corruption. what percentage of that is american taxpayer money? >> that is all iraq money -- oil and gas money. it is not u.s. money. iraq'smes from an audit, oversight entity. >> thank you. i yield back. >> another wonderful iraq vet is recognized. >> thank you, madam chair. this is a dialogue. this is one of the things that i think needs to happen. what is interesting coming to

the table, i think there is an interesting correlation. there are different aspects of this. going into iraq as he did, it is not the best way to go about it. the question i have and i think one of the core professionals that you mentioned -- you keep mentioning usoco. 75% dod and the state involvement usually would be higher, especially -- is that something that you see? the state department, if we are there, do we need to be higher?

>> yes. the state department was given policy authority over the reconstruction program. if authority in one agency and the contract capacity in another agency. i saw it repeatedly on the ground and that led to friction and that led to failure. >> that has been clear of a lot of things going on in syria. our job is to go in and help. and we have got a concern here. the very things that you're talking about when you start looking at syria or egypt or anywhere else, is as being involved militarily is different than iraq and afghanistan. my concern goes back to if usoco is implemented, what is your estimated costs?

>> $25 million per year. >> i have looked at the appendix in the draft bill. is it a standalone? where is the direct report? >> it reports to the secretary of defense and the national security advisor. >> that i see as an issue. >> i report to the secretary of state and the secretary of defense. it makes sense. these are unique operations. it is a creature of the modern era. >> and also directed by the president, correct? >> that is correct. with senate confirmation. >> the president could fire that person? >> that is right. >> one of the last things that you stated was planning in advance and plan for contingencies and have a backup plan ready to go. in world war ii, with all the

history that you big, and the first couple of years we were winning the war and then came the as akin to the reconstruction. what i found troubling in iraq is that things were suddenly there and what do we do and how do we do this? we will not discuss the actual reasons -- but that is a concern for me. be looking at usoco being an agency at the front end? for military involvement needs to be there on a large scale? would you repeat the problems of iraq and go in before the fighting is over or are we looking at something where they would finish it and secure it and then begin rebuilding process?

>> it would be the latter. you want to make sure -- the ultimate goal of usoco is to provide national command with options. a range of choices -- nature of the aid that you provide to country x, syria not limited by circumstances. in iraq we plan to liberate and leave. we plan to be gone by september. within six weeks of arriving come we shifted to occupy and rebuild with no structure in place to sustain such an operation. >> i appreciate your work. lookingthe concern forward is implementation of usoco what we call a different environment with iraq standing alone and then have the smaller areas of how that would fit in long-term?

those are things we need to discuss. that is the hot spot right now that we had to deal with. it also concerns me deeply that we are discussing those numbers and taxpayer dollars. these are dollars that men and women do not understand when we send it overseas and we do not have a defined role. that has contributed to the distrust that americans feel. we have to restore that trust. i yield back. >> very good. excellent point. we have been joined by the ranking member of the full committee, mr. ingle, thrilled to have you. doing all right? >> thank you. >> thank you to your son for his service. >> thank you and also to your family.

my son also served in usaid. this does not make me an expert in the military or in the state department. i want to say that. i try to have many discussions with my son about this. he runs a wine bar incidentally. you can see he has changed his direction. here is what i want to say -- when i read this memo from our chair lady, thank you for the memo, one thing that jumps out to me is that sigir says that dod manages an amount of the reconstruction fund. that should be a red alert that duty should not be managing reconstruction.

i am very proud of the military. you mentioned how they are professional and trained. but i question whether or not their training is in redevelopment. my son trade to be an artillery officer, which he was. it is a different job and training to do redevelopment. theink that is one of mistakes he made. having the defense department manage reconstruction. number two, you talked about usaid and maybe what i would respectively suggest is that maybe of that bureaucracy, usoco, i think one of the

failings of government is that every time an agency doesn't seem to be doing well, instead of looking to see what the real problem is, we decide to create a new problem. maybe i want to respectfully suggest is that maybe usaid is not funded? maybe it does not have the authority it needs. maybe if they were in charge every the construction rather than the military, maybe we would have a different outcome. i'm not sure that either usaid fully funded or professionalized integrating that we would like it to be, that our reconstruction efforts were worthwhile either in iraq or afghanistan.

we could save that for another day. >> thank you. you raise a valid question. we use the bureaucracies that we have. conceivably you can re-create usaid. an agency based almost entirely on contractors, you would have to hire many more professionals. you would have institute a cultural change. the assistance community in the united states and around the world believes very much in assistance for assistance sake as opposed to assistance and direct support of american national interest. there are wonderful

professionals at usaid. that is not the type of culture that would do the operation correctly. given how usaid functions today, wonderful job. you are probably need faster and more efficient by creating a usoco then tried to re-create it with usaid. >> did you want to comment? >> i concur. usaid today functions chiefly as a contracting out of its work. about 80%. to observe it within one agency has been attempted at state. ultimately, policing it within any one agency whether the state or dod would infuse the operation with that particular bureaucracy biases.

by pulling it out, even on a new culture that ensures your key point that it would be that reconstruction mission. i totally concur with that. it would be to ensure civilian lead for our operations. having this bidding war almost -- >> thank you. >> thank you, madam chair. general petraeus was correctly

critical and i am curious was it assumed that those folks not have wanted to participate in a new iraqi government are was there evidence that led to that? byi think it was influence the iraq leadership and the shia leadership those pushing the removal of former sunnis. that led to the essentially as has been described to a firing of the government. the capacity was difficult to fill and took years of training and government assistance. >> appreciate that. for the rule of law efforts that were undertaken and i remember when i was there, we

sent detainees there and what not. was there any measurable success in the time and resources that we have put into in the rule of law while we were there? i know you said it deteriorated recently. i know what was going on in '07 and '08. was that a failure? >> i think he was also the chair of the council in iraq. it indicated he was satisfied with the support on a number of rule of law projects, especially for that major crimes task force. 44 judges were killed in iraq over the last 10 years. was much intimidation of the judiciary are by terrorist -- of the judiciary evidence by terrorist.

over time, that security improved. >> in terms of the corruption, there were some serious examples of waste of taxpayer money. is it the case that sometimes the corruption is embedded, that is are there no limits to the operations it can achieve in rooting out corruption question if that is the case, do you think that is part of what found when we got there? >> there was a culture of corruption. to some extent, it affects the region. saddam organized a formalized a corrupt system of patronage. as the iraqis have told me, the culture is constitutionalize it

in the system now and much is being lost to money laundering. it is their duty, their system and sovereignty to address it. they are beginning to address it. too much has been lost over the last 10 years. >> in terms of the surf project, i remember that was being done when i was there. someemed to me there were benefits. i did not have a chance to be a report every praise that. do you think that was in effective use? >> our special report on that demonstrated significant reporting -- when they were manage at a limited level.

that was the initial plan. there should be 25-50,000. tens of thousands of projects at that level accomplished. especially the local brands. they help the local businesses accomplish projects. when they became $10 million projects and extended beyond likes of deployed elements, there was loss of oversight. >> you would not advise us to get involved in nation building type of an enterprise in that region right now? >> i think we should be careful before we make any decisions at the present time.

>> thank you. i appreciate the witnesses. >> thank you. now we will recognize mr. vargas of california. >> thank you. i think i have figured out the button here. thank you. >> you are supposed to learn that in your second year. [laughter] >> it took me about two or three. thank you, madam chair. the information that you provided, i think for most americans when he think every building, you think of the marshall plan. i certainly do. one of the things that you bring out in the report, you think of the lessons learned. you focus on small programs and projects. the marshall plan did not begin until two years after the war ended and it was because we had

that fear of the spread of soviet communism. i looked at the numbers, i recall the numbers being gigantic, and we spent $13 billion when we had a gdp of $258 billion. it was a rather large amount of money. there was controversy with it, but at the same time people understood and the american people got behind it and said those are our allies, they are enemies, but they will be allies long term. i appreciate the timing. the second part is important, that europe was going to be

friendly. this does not seem to be the case with iraq and afghanistan. it has the american people at some unease because every dollar we give to israel, we say it is fantastic and they are going to be friends, but every dollar you spent on iraq or afghanistan it does not feel right. >> two points. on the marshall plan, you're right. we spent two years planning for it. that was the element of planning to a successful rebuilding program and it is proven to the success of the marshall plan. also curious, the marshall plan's operational entity reported to two cabinet secretaries, so there is precedent for that.

with regard to receptivity of the local populace him and there is a lesson from iraq on that, there were two rebuilding programs in effect in iraq. the one in kurdistan, the northern three provinces, were successful. that is reductive of your core report that insuring local stability, local consultation, local engagement are key to a successful program and projects. >> how about you, ambassador? >> there is no question that our intervention in germany and japan was successful even before the marshall plan. that is because as we have all mentioned, the japanese and germans accepted our presence as legitimate in the wake of their defeat. in iraq, that was never accepted except among the kurds, and they look to us as natural friends.

the shia were repressed under saddam, but they did not see us as friends. our intervention in iraq was going to be much more difficult in the post-military phase because we were not accepted. >> that is the unease that the american people feel. there is a real unease that we have as americans that we are spending so much money there that in a few years, when we leave, they are not going to be our friends. they are going to see the world differently than we do, and our allies in the region are going to be their enemies. they are not going to line up on the same side. >> that is the reason why we need to be cautious as we decide to engage these countries. >> any other comment?

>> usoco would insure caution because it would offer options. usoco would provide accountability and transparency that i think would assuage those just concerns the american people have about their dollars being wasted in these operations. >> thank you. >> thank you, and we thank our excellent witnesses for wonderful testimony, and to conclude our subcommittee, i will read into the record the seven final lessons from iraqi based on the final report from the inspector general. number one, create an integrated military office to plan and be accountable for

contingency rebuilding activities during some stabilization operations, number two, to begin rebuilding after establishing sufficient security and focus on small programs and projects, three, ensure full host country engagement in project selection. four, securing commitments to share costs, possibly through loans and sustain completed projects after their transfer. five, require robust oversight of sro activities, six, preserve and refine programs developed in iraq like the provincial team reconstruction program that produced success when used judicially. and seven, plan in advance, plan comprehensively, in an integrated fashion, and have backup plans ready to go. excellent, gentlemen. we appreciate your testimony.

we look forward to working with you in the months ahead. with that, the subcommittee is adjourned. >> thank you, madam chairman. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> the house ways and means subcommittee on health holds a year on the obama administration's recent decision to delay penalties for the employer mandated portion of health care lot at 10:00 a.m. eastern. last week, the treasury department announced the employer reporting requirements would apply in 2015 instead of 2014 as originally expected. at 2:30 eastern, the senate agriculture committee looks into a chinese company's plan to purchase smithfield foods. the committee will examine how the government reviews for

acquisitions of the u.s. company. in a few moments, look at today's headlines and your calls and to eat live on "washington journal. " the house will resume legislative business at noon when members consider more amendments to the energy and water spending bill. in about 45 minutes, we will be joined by representative peter welch from vermont and chris gibson, a new york republican to talk about a bill that would require any military intervention in syria be authorized first by a joint resolution of congress. in light of the plane crash in san francisco last week, we will look at airline safety regulations affecting foreign characters -- foreign carriers and the west. formerst is the

transportation department's inspector general. in our spot by the magazine serious, we will discuss the national review cover story about the small town that is home of remington guns. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] " is next. " is next.n journal host: house republicans plan to meet behind closed doors this afternoon to discuss a way forward on immigration reform. we will get more details on that coming up on "washington journal." good morning on this wednesday, july 10, 2013. former president george w. bush will push for immigration reform in a speech at the bush institute and we will cover it on c-span.org. a house ways and means panel is holding a hearing on the obama decision to delay the employer mandate of the health care law and we will have coverage