when you're buying food you're stimulating the farm economy, you're stimulating the economy in lot of and lots of ways. >> another misconception about snap is that people are free loading off of it because they don't want to work. >> the majority of able bodied people on snap work for a liing. they earn so little that they still qualify for snap. >> but snap is the last federal program one could accuse of being inefficient. >> there's so many who want to say that there's fraud in the program. the snap program the food stamp program that's the lowest -- one of the lowest error rates

of any federal program. 3.8%. but the den gration and the hue millation of people who find themselves in difficult straits some who never thought they would have to apply for the food stamp program that we would say no it's not what we're about. >> and we ought to tackle this program we can solve it and if we solve it you know what i think we could be a good example for the rest of the world. >> recently gave a speech at the end of it of a nutrition conference in rome to several months ago and he talked about the right to food and that it was our obligation a moral obligation to make sure that people have enough to eat.

>> america is one of the richest countries in the world but despite its wealth millions of americans can't afford to eat. congress you need to realize that hunger is a real problem in america. and that people need snap. >> as i tell my colleagues who say that the government shouldn't be funding programs like snap because we can't afford to my response is we can't afford not to. >> it's not a question of a program it's the question of who we are as a nation. >> congress it is your moral obligation to the citizens of america to prevent hunger. snap to it. >> to watch all of the winning videos and to learn more about our competition go to c-span.org and click on student cam. also tell us what you think about the issue these students addressed in their documentary obfacebook and twitter. >> state department inspector steve lynn eck testified at a senate hearing about the

department's efficiency and efficient fbiveness. his office has begun an inquiry into hillary clinton's use of a personal email server.

meeting will come to order. both of us are in order, so we will proceed. this hearing of the subcommittee on state department and usaid management, international operations and bilateral international development is entitled "improving the effectiveness of the state department." i'd like to begin by welcoming our witness, inspector general of the state department and broadcasting board of governors, steve linick. steve, thank you for being here today. i understand you changed your schedule to be here today, and we very much appreciate that and look forward to your testimony. the lyg is dedicated to assessing the state

department's programs and operations and making recommendations to strengthen its integrity, effectiveness and accountability. as such the oig is dedicated to detecting and preventing waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement. today's hearing will be an important opportunity to examine state oig's mission and oversight efforts. your new initiatives and to hear about any challenges that you face in carrying out your mission. it has come to our attention, mr. lynninick, that there are a number of things we can do in the state department in helping you with your job. i look forward to discussing that with you this morning and to get your insights. you may know, chairman corker's leading the effort to draft and pass into law the first state department reauthorization bill in 13 years. we certainly welcome your suggestions. with that, i'd like to thank and recognize our ranking member, senator kaine, and look forward to working with you on these important issues. senator kaine? >> thank you, mr. chair, and thanks to our witness, steve linick. we do begin hearing as part of a set of hearings about state department authorization. as chairman perdue mentioned we haven't done this in over a decade, so it's very important that we get to this work, and today's hearing is part of that effort. thank you for the testimony today and testimony before

other senate committees recently. and i also want to highlight your service as an assistant u.s. attorney in virginia from 1999 to 2006. you've got a long and distinguished track record as a public servant. oigs serve an essential and critical role in holding government agencies and officials accountable to citizens. there is a trend toward use of oigs, not just in the federal government, but in state and local governments as well, which is very positive. one of the newest state ig offices was created in virginia in 2011. and i look forward to your assessment of your office's strengths, challenges and priorities based upon your 19 months as service to the department of state. i know that you've highlighted a couple of issues in your testimony i'm particularly interested in -- ongoing coordination of oco accounts used in iraq, afghanistan and elsewhere. i also want to make sure that we can discuss what we can do together to ensure that the department of state is more quickly complying with and implementing important oig recommendations. but thanks again for your service, your testimony today and i believe this can be a

helpful exchange as we work toward the broader issue of both the effectiveness of your office, but state department reauthorization. thanks, mr. chairman. >> thank you. and then we're going to hear from our witness inspector general steve linick. mr. linick? >> chairman perdue, ranking member kaine, members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify regarding the work of the office of inspector general for the department of state and the broadcasting board of governors, the bbg. today i will be addressing four topics. first, i'm going to start by giving you an overview of oig's missions and priorities. second i'm going to describe some new initiatives my staff and i have put into place since i was sworn in almost 19 months ago. next, i'm going to discuss some of the most significant challenges facing oig, specifically, and the department as a whole. and finally, i'm going to talk about the impact of oig's work. let me start with an overview. because oig's focus is on the operations and work of the state department and the bbg, its inspectors, auditors investigators and evaluators focus on u.s. government operations worldwide, involving more than 72,000 employees and 280 overseas missions along with oversight of the departments and the bbg's

significant domestic operations. but our office is unique from others because oig has historically, and as required by law, served as the department of states inspection arm. let me turn to priorities. first, protecting people who work in the department is our top priority. oig has inspected physical security at overseas posts for years. however, since the september 2012 attacks on u.s. diplomatic facilities and personnel in benghazi, libya oig has stepped up its oversight efforts related to security. there is no doubt the department has made progress in improving overseas security. nonetheless, challenges still remain. through our inspection and audit work, we continue to find notable security deficiencies, placing at risk our posts and personnel. second, oig has enhanced its efforts to oversee the department's management of contracts and grants, which total approximately $10 billion in 2014. contract and grant management deficiencies

including lack of training weak oversight and inadequate monitoring have come to light repeatedly in oig's audits inspections and investigations over the years. lastly, we continue to be very concerned about the department's management of i.t. security. oig's assessments of the department's efforts to secure its i.t. infrastructure have found significant recurring weaknesses, including inad qualt controls around who may access and manipulate systems. i now turn to new oig initiatives. since joining the oig, my staff and i have implemented a number of new practices intended to enhance the effectiveness of our work. we have adopted the practice of issuing management alerts and management assistance reports in order to flag high-risk issues requiring immediate attention. another new initiative has been our creation of a new office in oig, the office of evaluations and special projects, also known as esp. this office complements the work of oig's

other offices by focusing on high-risk, special projects and evaluations of pressing concern to the department, the congress and to the american people. we also have enhanced our efforts to identify and refer appropriate cases to the department for suspension and debarment. next i would like to address two significant challenges facing oig that i believe impede oig's ability to conduct effective oversight. first, although the inspector general act requires oig to be independent, my i.t. infrastructure lacks independence because it is largely controlled by the department. while we have no evidence that our data has been compromised, the fact that the contents of our network may be accessed by large numbers of department administrators puts us at unnecessary risk and does not reflect best practices on i.t. independence within the ig community. second, unlike other igs, my office is not always afforded the opportunity to investigate allegations of criminal or serious administrative misconduct by department employees.

department components, including the bureau of diplomatic security, are not required to notify oig of such allegations that come to their attention. if we are not notified, we have no opportunity to investigate. this arrangement is inconsistent with the inspector general act and appears to be unique to the department. the departments of defense justice, homeland security, the treasury and the irs agriculture and interior defer to their igs for the investigation of criminal or serious misconduct by their employees. their igs have the right to decide whether to conduct the investigations themselves or refer them back to the agency components. particularly where senior officials are involved, the failure to refer allegations of misconduct to an independent entity like the oig necessarily

creates a perception of unfairness as management is seen to be investigating itself. finally, i would like to close by talking about the impact of our work. in my written testimony, i quantified some financial metrics demonstrating our positive return on investment to taxpayers. but financial statistics do not adequately reflect some of our most significant impacts -- the safety and security of people and the integrity of the department's operations and reputation. those are key 00:08:51 q&a motivators for our employees many of whom are on the road for long periods of time or would serve for extended periods at dangerous posts. i am honored to serve alongside and lead them. in conclusion chairman perdue, ranking member kaine, members of the subcommittee, thank you again for the opportunity to testify before you today. i take seriously my statutory requirement to keep the

congress fully and currently informed, and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, mr. linick. i appreciate your comments. we will begin -- i will begin the questioning today. we'll have seven minutes. senator kaine and i are the two members here. as the members join us, we'll have them engage as well. my first question follows some testimony that you gave about 2012 and the attacks there on u.s. diplomatic personnel in benghazi. the oig since then has stepped up its oversight efforts, as you testify. can you describe what those efforts are to improve the physical security? and also, how do you go about evaluating the security of other embassies around the world? >> senator, we actually assess security in two ways. first of all, we've looked at security from a systemic point of view. in a 2013 report on the accountability review board process, we looked at how the department implements accountability review board recommendations across the board. the accountability review board, as you know, is convened by the secretary,

where there's loss of life substantial injury, et cetera. we found in that report that after reviewing 126 recommendations from 12 different arbs between darus alum and benghazi, 20 of the recommendations were repeat recommendations, pertaining to security intelligence-gathering and training. and we found the reason why that occurred is because of a lack of sustained commitment over the years by department principals in making sure recommendations were implemented. in fact, we found many of the same recommendations in the accountability review board for the benghazi to be the same recommendations.>> i'm sorry, would that go back years, that practice of having recommendations like that, you know, the past decade or so? >> yes, sir. we looked at 14 years worth of recommendations over 12 accountability review boards. >> okay. >> and we found that in order to properly implement those recommendations, accountability had to be at the highest levels of the department. we've made recommendations to that effect.

we also look at security on a more targeted basis. as you know, we conduct inspections of posts around the world. every single inspection we do of an embassy involves a security inspection. we have highly qualified security inspectors who look at everything from whether or not the walls are high enough to whether or not there's a proper setback to whether their emergency action plans are properly in order. and we do that across the board, and you know, we do continue to find deficiencies when we go to various locations. the other way we do it is through our audits, and we do audits of various programs. for example, we reviewed the local guard force that protects our embassies whether or not they're properly vetted by security contractors who hire the guards and whether they are properly overseen by our regional security officers who have responsibility for making sure that they're doing

their job. so, those are the ways in which we conduct our inspections. >> how often do you do those inspections? >> well, we do about eight -- let's see, every eight years we're able to perform a domestic inspection, and every eleven years an overseas inspection. we try to get to as many locations as possible. but really, we use a risk-based approach. so, we do a survey and we find out if there are problems at any particular posts. we also look at a post and assess whether it's receiving a large amount of money for foreign assistance. if it's a high-threat post, we will take that into consideration as to whether or

not to go to a particular facility. and now that we have responsibility for joint oversight of the operation inherent resolve, we look at posts that play a role in that effort.>> well, i just returned from a trip out there, and i can tell you that the state department people are an amazing group, dedicating their careers to multiple assignments around the world, changing every few years. i was very impressed with their morale and their effectiveness out there. i'm encouraged by your testimony. i did have one question, though. you testified that you're having trouble with the five-year inspection requirement. help me understand what's involved in that as well. >> so, the foreign services act requires our office to conduct inspections once every five years. and i just want to just step back and make one observation about that. we are

unique among the ig community in that we have a statutory requirement to conduct these inspections, because we're also doing audits and investigations. so, that obviously, reduces our ability to do some of the other work. but on the five-year inspections, we're not able to meet that requirement. we simply don't have the staff. but i really think that a better approach, frankly, is to do it on a risk-based approach like we're doing it now. we try to get out to posts where there are truly, you know, where there are truly issues, whether we think they are financial issues or some of the other issues that i just mentioned but we're not able to get out every five years, and it would take an extraordinary increase in staff and resources in order to be able to do that. >> all right. let me change gears just a minute. as we work on this reauthorization bill in the full committee, what opportunities for increased effectiveness do you see? and this is a long-winded answer. i'll have time to come back. i've got about a minute left, so if you would give me just the highlights here. in terms of improving effectiveness at the state department. if you had the top two or three

priorities, what would you recommend, based on all of the work that you've been doing? >> in terms of items that would help the ig perform its job? >> right, right. >> so, i would say there are two issues that come to mind. number one is our ability to get early notification of misconduct involving serious or criminal activity and our ability to investigate that, at least decide whether we are going to investigate that and return it back to the department. so, that's sort of the number one. the second issue is what i mentioned in my oral testimony, is i.t. independence. we really need to be independent from 00:16:19 timothy m. kaine the department. we have a lot of sensitive information on our network. so, i would say those two things would be on the top of my list. >> okay. well, thank you, mr. linick. my time is up. i'll yield to senator kaine. thank you.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. i think my questions are going to go significantly more than seven, so i'll just do seven and then we'll probably have second rounds. and mr. linick i'll take them in the order that you did. i'm going to go missions and priorities, sort of new missions and then challenges. on the missions and priorities, i'm glad that your first one is protecting embassy personnel. like chairman perdue, i've been so proud of the people that i've met. you know, when you go to that id yod of facilities that we have around the world, you really are proud of the people. i went to the u.s. embassy in beirut. and when you see the memorial there to all of the folks in the state department who lost their lives in the '80s and '90s, it's very sobering, and the sacrifices are sometimes more mundane than that, but they're sacrifices of being away from family and serving in tough places. so, that's got to be number one. your written testimony suggests that you think that the focus on security improvements has not been one that is, i guess been subject to sustained oversight

from the state department leadership. i think that's the word that you used, in particular with respect to arb recommendations following benghazi. but i think more generally, when there are recommendations about security improvements, it sounds as if what you're testifying is that there's sort of really sharp focus on it, but then maybe wavering attention because of other priorities. could you elaborate on that a little bit because that should be all of our concern.>> let me say this, i think the department has taken significant steps in addressing our security recommendations. in fact, we are currently reviewing the department's compliance with the benghazi arb recommendations. there are 29 of them. >> yep. >> so, i'm encouraged by the steps they're taking. in terms â >> is that the kind of thing where you'll issue a report about, we've reviewed compliance with the benghazi arb recommendations and here's our assessment? is that foreseen? and when might that

happen? >> yes, sir. we are actually in progress with that report, and we should be issuing something probably in the next couple of months on that. >> okay. >> but in terms of implementation of recommendations, i think you got it right when you said what happens is, if they're not implemented from the top, they tend to be delegated out to the bureaus, and there's a dispersion of authority. so, implementation, the responsibility is delegated down the chain. with the changes of administration, institutional shift, there tends not to be the follow-through that you would want to see, especially with the benghazi -- excuse me, the arb recommendations over the years, and there hasn't been a loop back to the principals, the deputy secretary, the secretary on the progress of implementation of those recommendations. so, what we're

trying to say is, look accountability for those recommendations needs to be at the deputy secretary level. and i know the department is working on that and we're assessing that right now.>> one of the areas that i was very concerned about in reading the arb report -- and you may just want to highlight this briefly because if you're going report about this, we'll get the full report later -- but is the use of private contract security at some of the embassies or consulate facilities, whether there is sufficient vetting when private contract security is used. i know in benghazi, some of the private contract security were local folks. they were on sort of a work stoppage because of debates about pay that, you know, could have led them to be less than, i mean frankly, less than focused on doing the job because of some dispute with the state department over that. how was your review going on this question of do we appropriately vet local security when we hire them abroad?

>> so, that is an area of concern to me, because all it takes is one bad actor who's guarding our embassy for something to happen. and we did do some work on vetting security guards. we looked at six of them at various posts around the world, including some high-threat posts, and we found that all of them were not thoroughly vetting security guards. and again, you know, you have to make sure these guards don't have criminal background, criminal histories and there's a whole panoply of qualities that you need to check. so, not only do our -- not only do the companies who hire these guards have responsibilities, but also the department does in making sure they know who's guarding their embassies. so, we found problems with that, and this is an issue which we're pursuing. we're currently looking at the employment, how vetting is going with the locally employed folks at our embassies as well. so, this is just -- this is a constant issue that i think deserves a lot of attention, because i've said, all it takes

is one bad actor. >> is the responsibility for doing the vetting of local security fully on the state department's shoulders, or do the marine security guard units that are assigned to diplomatic posts have any responsibility over that role? >> no, the responsibility is really on both the contractors who are hired, but ultimately, it's the regional security officer who needs to make sure that he's satisfied with the guards that are selected. >> it segues nicely into your second mission, which is managing contracts and grants. i mean, security contracts are just a kind of contract. i'm on the armed services committee and we have a readiness committee hearing this afternoon where acquisition reform and managing contracts and grants is going to be the topic. so, i think this is a big-picture issue. and i notice that the next mission and priority you have of your three is maintaining i.t. security and i would suspect that that

may also tie into the managing contracts and grants, because i would imagine that some of that within the state department is done by outside contractors. am i right about that? >> i think that's right, yes. >> i've often heard it said in the northern virginia contracting community, which is pretty big, there's a lot of general concerns about sort of the acquisition and grant management workforce. so, to what extent, you know, to the extent that you have an opinion about this, in managing contracts and grants or maintaining i.t. security to the extent that it's contracted out, are there issues kind of on the personnel side about the size, the qualifications, you know, the numbers or the qualifications of our acquisition workforce that manage these contracts and grants? >> well, i think that -- i guess there are two issues here. we have definitely identified issues with the folks who are supposed to be managing the contracts at the department. there's not enough

of them. and we're doing one audit right now where we found that a contractor was submitting invoices, but the invoices -- there weren't enough contracting personnel within the state department to oversee those invoices, so they were just basically signing off without validating them and double-checking them. so there's that issue. there's an issue of lack of training. as well, we need contracting officers, grant officers who understand all the rules and so forth. we have a problem with the rotation. our rsos, our regional security officers at posts are also responsible for overseeing contracts and grants and they're rotating in and out, so there's a lack of continuity there. so, there's sort of a whole host. and there's also another significant issue is the maintenance of our contract files. we recently did a report where we looked at contracts over the last six years and found that there were $6 billion worth of contracts that were either incomplete or

missing. now, since then department has found some of those contracts. but you know, if you don't have the contract files, if you're a contracting officer, how do you ensure that the government is getting the goods that it's bargained for? >> i'm over time, but i'm going to come back to this when i come back. i'll pick up right there when i come back. mr. chair. >> thank you ranking member. senator johnson, you're up. >> thank you mr. chairman. inspector general linick, in your testimony, you're talking about a review that your offices has conducted. i don't believe -- was that 00:25:08 ron johnson under your guidance on the arb with benghazi? >> no, the benghazi ar bank completed right before i got there. >> but you have reviewed the process of that arb, is that correct? >> well, since i arrived, we've undertaken work to see how the department is complying with the benghazi arb recommendations, the other 29, how are they doing, what progress have they made.

>> that's what i glean from your testimony. do you have any plans whatsoever of still trying to get some answers to a number of unanswered questions that certainly i have in terms of, you know who knew what when, whatever happened to security quests, where were those security quests denied? where were the requests denied where security was turned down in benghazi? are you taking a look at that because the arb has not answered those questions. we've had several probes and i know there's a special committee in the house trying to get answers. but we're very frustrated. this is 2 1/2 years since the tragedy at benghazi and we still don't know some very basic answers to some very basic questions. >> well, there have been a lot of probes, as you've mentioned on this topic. we have been forward-looking. we've taken our resources and tried to figure out whether or not the department is currently complying with security guidelines and so forth and whether they are implementing the arb recommendations. that's

the direction we have been going. >> which is important. you know, obviously, we have to look forward. we need to make sure that, you know, these tragedies don't occur in the future. but from my standpoint one of the primary functions of the inspector general's office is not only that transparency, and not only the recommendations that are forward-looking, but also looking back and being the whole people accountable. and i'm just not aware that, you know, i think the primary actors in the benghazi instance have been held accountable. do you believe so? >> you know, we didn't look at that. obviously, the benghazi accountability review board made a number of conclusions on that. again, there have been a lot of reports, a lot of probes on that. you know, i'm happy to work with the committee if you think i should be looking at something in particular â >> oh, i do. >> as i said, i've been trying to take our limited resources and make sure that, at least try to make sure that we don't have another tragedy again through our inspections and so forth. obviously, we'll never be able to stop them completely, but that's â >> i guess one of the things i'd like to do is we had deputy

secretary kennedy in front of our homeland security committee, subcommittee. this was in the last congress. and i took that occasion, because he refused the invitation to testify before this committee on the same day. so, i took that opportunity to ask him a series of questions, which i did not get very forthright answers in the committee. and then we submitted those questions for the record, which we have not gotten any reply to whatsoever. so, i'm not quite sure how we can hold an administration accountable, how we can hold those officials that were at the heart of the matter, that made the key decisions that i think, you know, that were really derelict in their duty that resulted in the death of four americans, if we don't know who made the decisions. how do we actually hold people accountable? >> look, accountability is obviously part of our job, and we try to hold people accountable in the department

through a variety of mechanism, through investigations, our inspections, audits. the three -- there are three areas which i think pertain to accountability. one is accountability for implementing arb recommendations over time, and that's something that we have been focusing on heavily. the other is accountability for making sure our contracts and grants are overseen properly and our contracting offices are held accountable. the other area's making sure that there's accountability for the i.t. network, which has huge vulnerabilities. >> well, as you're aware, i'm certainly highly supportive of strengthening the office of inspector general, your ability to access information. i'd like to be able to strengthen congress's ability to actually get information from this administration. one of the things i will do is we'll submit a letter to you asking those exact same questions, and maybe you can have greater success in your role within that department as the independent auditor, the office of inspector general. maybe you

can get some of these questions that not only i think you should be asking, not only should i think the administration be asking, not only do i think this congress should be asking, but i think they're questions to answers that the american people deserve. the american people deserve to know the truth. they haven't got it yet. so, i'll submit that letter to your office and i would appreciate the help of your office in trying to get those answers for the american people. >> yes, sir. >> thank you, mr. linick. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. mr. linick, we're going to go start a second round. i know the ranking member's got other questions. i've got a few here. i'd like to change directions and talk about the i.t. point that you brought up in your testimony this morning. you mentioned that there have been attacks on the state department's network and that that compromises the ig's work relative to being on the same network. can you talk about that in a little bit more detail and talk about what you're doing to protect your independence and whether you need to be totally independent on a separate network? i mean, what is your recommendation

there? what are you doing to protect ig's independence? >> i think that your point is well taken to the extent that the department suffers from attacks. we suffer from attacks because we're on the same network. we've taken a number of steps since i've been in office. first of all, we've asked the department to agree not to come on to our system without asking permission. and we have finally gotten that agreement from the department. but we need more than that because right now we are sort of in a gated community, if you will, where we rent -- our i.t. system is, we rent our i.t. system, and the i.t. folks at the department have the keys to our i.t. system. so, they really have unfettered access to the system. if they wanted to, they could read, modify, delete any of our work. we have sensitive grand jury materials we have long -- >> i'm sorry to

interrupt. how far down in the state department organization does that access -- is that access provided? is that throughout the organization or â >> well, it's state department administrators have access to our system as well as any other system. >> so, during an investigation your files are open to the hierarchy of the state department? >> well, they're not open, but if an administrator wanted to -- and again, we don't have evidence of this -- if an administrator wanted to, he or she could come on to our system with their access. that's the problem. they come on to our system as it is with security patching and all, for legitimate reasons. >> so, how is that done in other departments? >> well, at the very basic level, departments differ in the way they handle it. generally, you know, there's a firewall or some sort of form of protection against that type of intrusion, because an ig

just can't protect confidentiality of witnesses and information if there is a possibility. now, the other way some igs do it, and this is the way i did it when i was the inspector general at the federal housing finance agency i had a completely separate system and network with my own e-mail address. i was completely off the department's grid. >> what keeps you from doing that here? >> well, i need money and i need the department's cooperation. i would like to be completely separate from the department to ensure the integrity of our system, but i also need the department to give us access to the same systems that we have now, and i've actually broached this topic with the secretary last friday and deputy secretary higginbottom. >> do you have evidence that the state department's network has been attacked, and does that affect you guys?

>> there has been -- there's evidence that it's been attacked and it has affected us. i can't really go into details because of the nature of the information. >> i understand that completely. so, what are you doing to protect the independence and how can you short of separating yourself on a separate network, which takes money, as you say, to protect the independence of your investigations?>> well, we've taken the first step in getting the department to agree not to come on to our system, but the next step is developing a firewall around our network. and again, this really depends on the department's willingness to do this quickly with us. the other thing we're trying to do -- we have published four, what's called fisma reports, over the last four years, where we found recurring weaknesses in the department's system, and that's given us a lot of pause, because i'm not so sure, if we have problems in the department's system, that obviously leads to vulnerabilities in our own system.

>> so, let me just be clear. are you -- don't let me put words in your mouth, but are you getting cooperation from the organization, the state department organization with regard to this particular i.t. issue, relative to independence? i think independence is critical if you're going to be objective in your evaluations. you've got to have access, but you also have to be protected in terms of the information confidentiality, as you just said. is it a cooperative attitude that you're seeing? i mean, is this something that's moving forward? can we bank on the fact that this is going to get taken care of or do we need to talk to the other members of leadership in the state department? >> well, i know that deputy secretary higginbottom is looking into this issue and she's been very receptive and helpful to us in general. i will say the process has been very slow. it took us months just to get the bureau of diplomatic security to sign an agreement not to come on to our system. without approvals. and

that's only in limited circumstances. so, it's a slow process, it's a big bureaucracy. and so, i'm cautiously optimistic. >> well, good. i'm going to yield the rest of my time and allow -- or ask senator murphy to have access to his questions now at this point. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you for being here today. i note that your official title is inspector general for the u.s. department of state and the broadcasting board of governors, and so i wanted to ask you just a few questions as to the second appendage on your title. you know, the work of the bbg is perhaps more important now than ever as we're fighting very sophisticated propaganda campaigns from non-state actors like isis or boko haram, but also from state actors like russia in their efforts to try to essentially buy up press outlets all around their periphery, having an

efficiently run broadcasting board of governors and all of their constituent entities is critical to the work that we do abroad. and yet, the previous reports on both the work culture and the efficiency of the operation have been damning, to say the least. i mean, you very rarely get ig reports that are as straightforward as at least the 2012 report was about the work culture at the bbg, and you had a much older report, i think from 2004-2005, that talked a little about just tremendous levels of redundancy and duplication within the organization. so, i guess my question is open-ended. i would just be interested to hear any updates that you have on what follow-up there has been at the broadcasting board of governors following that 2012 report whether you have information to

suggest that the kind of inefficiencies that were identified in earlier reports still exists and whether that's going to be a subject of further introspection or examination for your office moving forward? >> well, thank you for that question. the bbg, i would say is a work in progress, because as you noted, we did issue some damning reports within the last couple of years, primarily focused on leadership. it's a part-time board. there are conflicts of interest. they didn't have a ceo. we recommended that they hire a ceo. apparently, the ceo has only been in place -- there has been a new ceo, but apparently he's left. so, it's without a ceo again. there were morale problems. i must say, in the contracting and grant area there's room for improvement. we issued a report recently on their acquisitions, and we found violations of the antideficiency act conflicts of interest, problems with

their grants. so, it continues to be a problem. i know that the new folks who are over there are trying to address these issues. and we're working with them on following through. we actually issued some recommendations on contract and grant management pertaining to the bbg, and they're actually required by the appropriations committee to respond to some of those recommendations. so, this is a work in progress. we're on it. and we'll keep the committee briefed on this issue. >> again, i sort of, you know, read it as two different sets of problems. you've got a leadership vacuum there that continues and leadership deficiencies, and then you've identified structural issues with respect to how they contract. and also, again, an older ig report talked about

tremendous redundancies, duplication. you reference it as a work in progress, which is often a way of talking about something that's slowly getting better but far too slowly. do you -- if you identify those two problems as distinct, is one getting better at a rate that's faster than the other? is one a more lingering and festering problem than the other? >> i would say i think the leadership issue is probably getting better at a faster rate. there's a new board member since we issued our report and so forth, and i think they're really trying to address those issues. i think the contracting issue is not so much a structural problem, but just complying with the rules. the federal acquisitions regulations, just doing it right. so, i know they're working on that as well. since we have a more recent report on that, i would say that's probably the more pressing issue at the moment.

>> there's a bipartisan group of us in the house and the senate working on bbg reform. be hopeful to work with you and the folks that have worked this book of business as we move forward. thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> thank you. i think the ranking member has a few more questions.>> great. thank you. mr. linick, i just want to pick up where i left off. we were talking about the management of contracts, and you know, maybe some i.t. contracts. you were talking about in some instances doesn't seem to be enough management personnel. do you reach a conclusion about that? is there any degree to which that is because of the sequester? is it because, you know, choices have been made internally not to hire -- you know to hire more of one staff and less contract acquisition folks? what's your conclusion about that? >> you know, i think it's a matter of -- i mean, we don't have any work to support an opinion one way or the other

whether they're having problems hiring folks. from the work we've done, i would say it's really a cultural issue because contracts and grants have skyrocketed in the department over the last five, ten years, and the department i think is having problems keeping up with it and they're trying to do a better job and there have been improvements and they've accepted many of our recommendations in this area. so, i think it's an issue of priorities and where they want to put resources. i think it's a cultural issue. contract and grant management is not like diplomacy, so. >> yeah, that's not why anybody decides, i want to go to the state department. >> right. >> right. i had the same issue as governor of my department of transportation. they used to do a lot of projects and over time migrated to managing a lot of projects, but they didn't necessarily migrate their skill set from project engineers to

contract managers, so there was a common mismatch. maybe there's some of that going on. on your new mission, you talked about the use of management alerts and these management assessment reports that you do. has that been well received as you've been doing that within department of state? are folks responsive and respond positively to the alerts and reports that you give them? >> i think they've responded very positively. the majority of our recommendations in our management alerts have been accepted and the department's been working on them. and the purpose of them is really two-fold. one is to stop the bleeding. you know, if we're in the middle of an audit, we don't want to wait until the end of the audit to tell the department, hey, you've got a problem because somebody is cheating you, so let's try to stop the bleeding before it happens. and then the second thing we've been trying to do is to the extent that we find issues and recommendations unimplemented over the years, the point of the management alerts is to try to repackage it and aim it at leadership, a different set of

leadership, maybe a higher set of leaders, and then also repackage the recommendations so they can be more broadly applied across the department. so, for example, on the contract management, we've asked the department to sample, do a sampling of their contract files to make sure the files are in order across the board, to consider putting more resources into it, to consider to look at sort of how a work plan for personnel can be developed so they have enough grant officers and contracting officers. so, it has been well received. and in fact, the appropriations committee in their joint explanatory statement picked up on our recommendations and asked the department to respond to those recommendations, which they have. so, that really helped us out, having sort of congress's sort of endorsement behind the recommendations and support for complying with them. >> you did not flag this in

your oral testimony in the new challenge category, but as i read your written testimony, i would call a new challenge because it was handed to you in 2014 along with dod and what's the other agency? u.s. aid. >> so talk a little bit about the work that you guys are doing together to get a handle on the way we manage. >> so we have three that have developed in the last four month. we have operated united assistance for ebola and of course operation resolve, which is isil. we have been on the first one, excuse me, the operation resolve, we have been coordinating intensely for many months, and we have accomplished a lot. we became official in december. the inspector general was appointed, and since then we have been coordinated very

closely. we have a joint strategic plan that we published march 31st, which addresses how we're coordinating together. we are in the process of putting together a quarterly report, which is going to be published some time at the end of april, and the way we set it up is operation resolve outlined nine lines of effort in the initiative to address isil, one being governance, another count r messaging and there are others. and the way we split up our duties is to sort of -- state department is responsibility for some of the lines of effort, that would be within any wheel house. some of those lines of effort obtain to d.o.d., then they would do the audits and those. then we do them together. so we are jointly working on strategy. we are jointly working on program analysis and development, and we are jointly working on publishing the reports. we meet regularly. i'm

going to be going on a trip to jordan and turkey to oversee how the state department is addressing isil in those two areas. so it's been a robust, but difficult because we're taking it out of base. we don't have -- we don't have special resources for those. >> we may give d.o.d. oco but we haven't given you an oig oco, have we? let we switch to challenges. the chair talked about the issue, but i want to focus on, too, the issue about not being given the same ability as other ig offices to investigate wrongdoing. i think that's an interesting one, and i know you're seeking assistance from us as we do the reauthorization. >> as i looked at a footnote in your testimony, incidents or allegations that can serve as grounds for disciplinary action or criminal prosecution will immediately be referred to the oig or the bureau of diplomatic security or comparable offices

and exceptional circumstances, the undersecretary for management for state may designate an individual. so there's sort of a requirement that if there's wrongdoing that fits in the category, either or potentially somebody else will be notified. what would the norm be, like in another agency, in your previous work as an inspector general? is it dual reporting requirement? you know, report it to the diplomat and the oig? how would it normally -- kind of in a more normal way be structured? >> well, in those agencies that have a law enforcement component like ds. and dod with law enforcement components, dhs and so forth, their law enforcement components are required to notify them about allegations of serious or criminal misconduct. >> are required to notify the ig's office? >> correct. >> either by statute, or by regulation. and then the ig is -- has the discretion to decide whether it wants to take the

cases or ship them back. and that's the norm. and the reason that is because there are certain cases that may not be appropriately investigated by the host agency. so â >> and so your request of us would be in in a reauthorization that retry to structure that reporting language to the ig somewhat similar to the way d.o.d. would have it. >> exactly. where we're asking for what the other igs have in terms of legislation, and we would ask that if p that's -- that you track that legislation, that would be what we would like. >> mr. chair, i have two more lines of questioning. can i go ahead? another change that you asked for, or actually, i'm not sure that you had this in your written testimony, but i want to make sure we understand. the congressional budget justification includes a request to change out personnel authorities can be exercised to expedite reemployment -- to

support oversite of the oco operation. could you explain the rational for that request so we understand why you're requesting that. we want to be helpful if we can. >> so we have difficulties in our shop of hiring the right people with the right skills. to meet the demands of our mission. we have a unique mission that we have the inspection requirement. we need people to know how embassies run and securities. we have the three ocos. and we also have unanticipated special projects. like the accountability review board and numerous other projects that we have teams of people working on. so we're seeking more flexible hiring authorities generally. in terms of reemploying,

annuitants, we're only able to hire part time. many are doing inspections, so they can only work half a year. which creates tremendous lack of continuity. this enwe have to hire more of this em to get the job done. we would like to hire full-time. similarly, special general for iraq reconstruction, we have a special time hiring the folks. they have the skill sets, but they don't have competitive status. so we're looking for opportunities to grab them as well. well. >> that will be helpful to us as we tackle reauthorization. and finally the impact of your work. i found this kind of interesting. first paragraph you talk about the financial savings that you've cheafed by imply menation of reports. our recommendations to improve the safety of people and facilities, to ensure that

employees conduct themselves appropriately and our work to strengthen the integrity of the programs, operations and resources at the foundation of the department's ability to help ensure security. when i read that, i was kind of interested because when i was mayor of richmond, we had an author. and the auditor kind of looked at just the numbers. i guess the difference between the oig and the auditor is the oig is looking at the numbers but also looking at the broader mission. as i kind of interpret that testimony, we're going to look at the numbers and five savings. but at the end of the day, there is a broader mission, and first is protecting security of the personnel, and making sure folks don't do things wrong without consequence, and also promoting national security, and that's really what determines the success of an

oig's office and what the priorities are. you want to make sure the priorities are in the right order. is that a fair read of your testimony?>> and this is to protect department personnel. they are most important asset in the department. they are really heros. the folks who are at these dangerous posts. senator purdue said earlier that they do -- work. and we do need to protect them. and it's not just about the numbers. and we different from a lot of inspector generals in that we have the security mission, which makes the job so gratifying and great. and since benghazi, you've had to evacuate in calendar year 2014 the embassy in libya. and in calendar year 2014, have had to evacuate our embassy in yemen. these are not minor manners. when the u.s.

has to evacuate an embassy because of security conditions like this is a big, big deal. and so that demonstrates as much as we might wish the benghazi incident, we're just complete light lightning strike, not likely to secure again. we have to think they're going to be very important to all of us. correct? >> yes, sir. >> thank you, mr. chair. no other questions. >> very good questions. great answers. mr. linick, i just have one quick question here. and we can wrap this up. but i want to talk about your relationship to the line management, if you will, of the state department. one of the calls is you have security. you're looking at misconduct and the effectiveness of the state department itself because that affects all of the above. how would you rate the relationship of the ig, the state department, the state department leadership? are you

getting what you need? you mentioned resources twice. talk to us just a little bit about -- you said i.t. independence. you also talks about getting access to investigations to help you do a better job. i'm looking at really in this line of questioning, what have you found operationally inside a state department that we need to be aware of as we look at this reauthorization. >> well, in terms of the department, i mean, i have a very good working relationship with the deputy secretary, and i meet with the secretary periodically as well. i just met with him last friday and they are open to oversight. they recognize it's important, and they recognize the unique role of the i.g. so they've been responsive to resource requests. in both of the requests that i have in my testimony. they're aware of and they've been, you know, the deputy secretary has been working on.

so i think that works well, and we also try to meet regularly with other senior leaders in the department as well, so that relationship is important. to be an effective i.g. you need that good working relationship because we can't force them to comply with recommendations. in terms of operationally, you know, i went say the implementation of the the recommendations of the arb's, that is something we're working on now and monitoring. the contracting grant is one of the bigger issues. i really think that they're -- they need to step up their oversight of contracts and grants. so i would say that is probably an extremely important priority. and i.t. infrastructure. after all, we've heard about hacking in the news and so

forth. this is a very serious issue. there's a lot of sensitive information on the networks. and we need to make sure the information security system is protected. to me, those are the top priorities. >> well, that's all i have. senator, do you have any questions? well, with that again, thank you for being here today. this has been very enlightening. we appreciate your insights, your work, your dedications that went into your statements. you do hero's work as well. and i want to thank you for that. the record will remain open until the close of business on thursday, april 23rd, for any future submissions, if you would like. you may receive questions for other members in that period of time as well, and i would encourage you to answer those in the same manner that you've answered the one here. and with that, this hearing is adjourned. thank you very much mr. linick. >> thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

[no audio]

>> on the next "washington journal," tom cole about his the on the military mission against isis. coffee & -- javier becerra on his party's legislative agenda. "washington journal" at 7:00 eastern on c-span. she was considered modern called mrs. president, and was outspoken about slavery and women's rights. one of the most prolific writers

of any first lady, she provides a unique window into colonial america and her personal life. abigail adams on c-span's "first ladies: influence an image." examining the public and private lives of the women who filled the position of first lady and their influence on the presidency. from martha washington to michelle obama. sundays at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span three. as a complement to the series, c-span's new book is available. 45 iconic american women. providing lively stories of these fascinating women. series, c-span's new book isavailable as a hardcover or e-book through your favorite bookstore or online seller. >> defense secretary ashton carter spoke to an audience of rotc students at georgetown university about sexual assaults

in the military. he emphasized the role of military leaders in a defending sexual assault. following his remarks today, secretary carter took questions on a wide range of military issues, including sequestration, and increased focus on the asia-pacific region. this is 45 minutes. host: ladies and gentlemen please welcome to the stage the professor of military science of rotc, georgetown university.

colonel donahue: good morning ladies and gentlemen, students faculty, officer noncommissioned officers, cadets of the joint force distinguished guests. welcome to the hilltop and thanks for joining us on this great occasion. in his three decades of service to the nation, from academia to government service, secretary carter has been front and center as our military and has tackled our most difficult challenges. from redefining america's engagement abroad in wake of the soviet union's collapse, to tackling acquisition reform and modernization as the secretary defense for technology and logistics, including spearheading a push for buying ambush protected vehicles. to adroitly spearheading the department in its more than 3 million men and women, families, military and civilian personnel through sequestration and the department's chief operating officer. secretary carter has anticipated challenges, seized upon

opportunities, and never shied from a challenge. he has, as president obama noted in his nomination speech, a ruthless dedication to the safety and well-being of the men, women, and families of those who serve this nation. to discuss without the challenge -- with us the challenge of sexual assault in the ranks, he is joining us this morning at georgetown. it is my distinct pleasure to introduce secretary of defense ashton carter. [applause] secretary carter: good morning everybody. thank you, colonel donahue, i appreciate the kind words.

and i appreciate your leadership. it is a great crowd, big crowd for many universities. we have cadets here, midshipmen here from georgetown, university of maryland, howard university george mason, and george washington university, all here today. wonderful. it is a privilege to be with you. the reason our military is the finest fighting force the world has ever known is its people. the reason our military is the and taking care of our people whether that is in afghanistan bases around the country, or studying here in the nation's capital, taking care of them is my highest priority. i want to thank you, each and every one of you, you and your

families, for your hard work and your service. you know, there's a lot going on in the world -- a lot on my plate as secretary of defense. we have challenges in afghanistan with isil, russian provocations, cyber attacks. we are also working to reform how the pentagon spends money, recover from 14 years of war and at the same time build the force of the future -- all of that in front of us. it is serious business. and i know all of you and those american men and women all around the world who will hear this message take it seriously. we can't let problems, including the scourge of sexual assault in the ranks, undermine that important work in our vital mission. instead, we have to confront them.

ending sexual assault in the military won't be easy, but none of you signed up for easy. instead, you signed up for rotc. in doing so, you volunteered for early mornings, weekends on the field, and classwork on top of already demanding course loads. ending sexual assault in the military will require leaders, leaders like you. you are part of rotc programs with rich histories of leaderships. leaders like you. you are part of rotc programs those commissioned out of your programs have led troops into battle, become a flag officers served as army chief of staff and advised presidents and secretaries of defense. you made clear you are a leader the moment you chose rotc. and you will be some of our brightest and best prepared

junior officers when you are commissioned. because you are studying at a time in washington, when sexual assault has gotten much-deserved attention in military and government conversations, you will have the understanding and the urgency to be leaders on this issue as well as leaders in every other way for years to come. i am counting on you to become one of those leaders. now even though sexual assault a disgrace in any form, and happens too often across the country, it is a particular challenge and a particular disgrace to our institution, the military, for a few important reasons. the first is that our military is based on an ethos of honor, and this is dishonorable.

and second, we are based on trust. we have to have trust. you have to have trust in the soldier in the foxhole next to you, you have to trust in the sailor you are underway with, the airmen on your wing, and you have to trust the marine on your flank. these violations are not just violations of the law, they are violations of that trust, which is essential to our mission. next, we of course have put people in situations that are unlike any other. you all serve in a rigid chain of command, and for good reasons. you will likely be separated from your families for extended periods of time, and you will probably at some point live and work in austere conditions.

those types of environments are essential, but unfortunately they present opportunities for predators to put our people at risk and compromise our missions and values. we have a particular mission to combat sexual assault. and last, we need to recruit the force of the future. sexual assault is an issue for many of our potential recruits. they care about it. i was at my old high school a few weeks ago in an auditorium like this, talking to students. one of the students asked me about this issue. she asked whether it was safe for her, she wanted to be in the military, it was safe for her to do. i was sorry she had to ask that question.

anyway, it is an issue. we can't let sexual assault make our all-volunteer force a less attractive path for the next generation of talented dedicated individuals that we need. for all of these reasons, and the threat sexual assault poses to the well-being of our men and women, the department of defense has been working hard implementing over 100 congressionally mandated provisions and 50 secretary of defense directives. we have made some progress. we have seen a decrease in estimated assault and reported assaults.

last year, we estimated that at least 18,900 service members 10,400 men and 8500 women experienced unwanted sexual contact. and too few of them, particularly men, reported these incidents of assaults. altogether, that is 18,900 too many. no man or woman who serves in the united states military should ever be sexually assaulted. one reason the military is among the most admired institutions in the united states is because of our code of honor and our code of trust, and also because we are known as a learning organization. we strive to understand and to correct our flaws. as we spend more time and resources to better understand sexual assault in the ranks, we have learned some lessons. here are a few of them. we have learned that prevention is the most important way to eradicate sexual assault. we have learned that prevention

requires not just to stop assaults, but also to stamp out permissive behaviors, like tolerance or degrading language inappropriate behavior, and sexual harassment, that's too often contribute to and leads to sexual assault. even the perception of those reporting trying to prevent or responding to an assault may be retaliated against, maybe retaliated against is a challenge for all of us. we have also learned that in addition to all of our institutional efforts, eliminating sexual assault requires individual action. we need leaders in the ranks with the courage to stand up to the behaviors that contribute to sexual assault. the courage to step up, step in, and stop assaults, and the courage to act when others try to retaliate against those reporting, responding to, or preventing an assault.

one key to prevention is understanding that sexual assaults often occur in environments where crude or offensive behavior, unwanted sexual tension, coercion and sexual harassment are tolerated ignored, or condoned. these behaviors detract from our mission. they put our people at risk. you have to be part of the solution. it won't always be easy, but to learn how, i encourage you to look at our sexual assault prevention strategy we released last may. it provides ways for u.s. -- you as leaders to create an appropriate culture that standards of behavior and meet military core values. we have a serious work to do. and i need you to say "enough." enough to dirty jokes, excessive drinking, hazing, to sexual advances, and any suggestion

that coercion is appropriate. i need you to intervene when you think an assault may occur. if for some reason you are concerned about taking action, i need you to get help from a friend, from law enforcement from a chaplain, or from a more senior officer. sadly for too many of those assaulted, the crime is made worse for how he or she is treated after the attack, after they have reported. when victims are most vulnerable, their leadership and their fellow soldiers, sailors airmen, and marines need to stay by them in solidarity not turn away. we need those assaulted to have people they can count on. it may not be easy, but i need you to be one of them. in person, and also online. i know young people live their lives online in many ways.

you snapchat, tweet your every move, you share the day's news on facebook. you instagram pictures of events like the military ball you had this weekend. that is why i need you to be leaders, not just on the line of duty, but online also. i trust most of you would intervene if you saw someone being bullied around campus, but too many people let that stuff slide online. we know that. sometimes offline, too. we can't allow all of those who do the right thing, either in reporting an assault or standing up to stop one, to be belittled on facebook, ignored at chow hall, passed over promotion time, or mock in the officer's club. that is counter to the ethos you signed up for. it's just wrong. the nation is looking to the defense department to lead boldly on sexual assault because they admire our

institution and its values, and its culture of learning. every one of us has to know to do our part. stopping sexual assault will be a focus of my time as secretary of defense. but as leaders of the future force, i ask that you too make eradicating these crimes one of your personal missions. to foster a culture of prevention, response, and accountability, dignity, respect, and integrity. communicate clearly about what is right and what is wrong in everything that you do, not just by your words, but also by your actions. aim to make a difference in your units, through your force, and around the country. none of this is easy, but you will not be alone. you made great friends at rotc and around the school. each of you will be a leader in this effort and support each

other in this fight, as in others. and i want you to know that i am standing with you and expecting that of you. courage is infectious. i have been impressed by the courage of those who have stepped forward with their stories of assault, and the courage of those who stepped in to protect their fellow servicemembers. their examples give us the courage to do our part. because you do, your courage will in turn inspire others. thank you, and now let me take some questions. >> hi, good morning. my name is tom, i'm a sophomore here studying economics. it is a honor and privilege to have you here. my question is on a strategic level.

how can we get more europe more committed to our own defense given the low defense budget, debt crisis, and in light of the war in ukraine? secretary carter: very good question. first, the honor is mine to be with you. european defense spending, how can we get europeans to do more? they are not doing enough. they are spending a smaller share of their gdp than they have in the past than we do now, and many, like russia are spending. it is too low. if europe wants to be a force in the world, it needs to be more than a moral and political and economic force, which europe is, because it shares many of our values. it demonstrates them around the world, but it has to have the military power that goes with that as well. it needs to be a capable ally of ours. we see that slipping.

it has got to turn around. they do have the money to do it. i realize that they are still suffering from the economic crisis to a greater extent and recovering a lot less than we have in the u.s., but they have the money to do this. i think when the cold war ended a lot of your figured that its security problems had ended. now they are beginning to wake up. the charlie hebdo incident was a wake-up call. russia and ukraine was a wake-up call. you see what is happening in north africa with refugees coming to southern europe. that has nato concerned. you have turkey, a nato ally right there on the front lines syria and iraq in the fight wake-up call. against isis. it is not like they don't have plenty to do. it is not like we have to do everything ourselves. but it is a very good question and something that i press on them any president presses on them to do, and my predecessors did all the time.

they have made some pledges to turn things around, get up to 2% of gdp each at the last wales summit. they have to carry through on that. >> i am from george washington university. i was wondering what skills you think are important for officers commissioning now compared to 10 years ago. secretary carter: that is a good question, i will try to give you a good answer. i think one way to approach that compared to earlier periods in my own career, is that you will quickly find, as i have found, that the people you are leading are a generation younger than you. you have to really stretch to understand what is going on, how their lives are like. things move so fast that every generation gets different really

fast. i can give you an answer from my point of view, and see if any of this is useful to you. as i look out although you, i -- on all of you, i know that you have grown up in an environment drastically different from mine in so many ways. i have to kind of find the common points with you, which are american values, military ethos, commitment to service, you find all of that in every generation. but you have to see where people's heads are, where they spend their time, how you can reach them, what kinds of issues really matter to them. i talked about us being a learning institution. leadership is a learning thing. you are constantly learning. you are going to meet people who aren't like you, who did not grow up like you, from a completely different background from you, but they are americans too, they are american servicemembers and you have to understand them. it is a real stretch.

i can tell you when you are my age, that it is an even bigger stretch. with you in the course of your career, you will eventually get here too. you will find that it gets tough. you have to commit yourself to learning about them so that you can lead them properly. >> good morning, sir. i am from bowie state university. i heard you talking about challenges to the department of defense in africa, the middle east, and abroad. i am concerned how we are supposed to maintain our fighting strength and continue to train effectively with the economic issues such as sequestration facing us. secretary carter: really good question. it is a big challenge to us. let me explain why sequestration is so bad.

sequestration is a sudden and arbitrary cut to the defense budget that we can't predict. this comes up year-by-year. as a manager, if you have to suddenly cut your budget, where do you get the money from? you grab the money mostly from readiness because that is where you can get your hands on money quickly. you see our readiness go down because training levels are down. you begin to curb the rate in which you buy weapon systems raising the price, extending the time of contracts. in short, doing all sorts of stupid things. of course, we wouldn't like reducing our budget even if we had extra time, if we had a stability and predictability, we could do it in an intelligent way.

i believe that the suddenness and level of sequester, we still have the greatest fighting force the world has ever known, and will for a long time. we need to spend an amount of money that is adequate for the nation's defense and our missions around the world. this idea that you can skimp when the world is as tumultuous as it is, is false. i am careful to say in my remarks, that at the same time we have to show that this is the taxpayer's dollar and that we spend it carefully. and we always don't, sometimes we make mistakes. there are cost overruns and so forth. i tried to say, here is the deal. you give us the defense budget homeland security budget, law enforcement budget -- it takes a lot to make a country secure these days. give us that money, and we will

do a better job at spending it. i am committed to that of the reform side of things as i am to fighting sequestration. i take opportunity to condemn. it is no way to run the greatest country in the world. >> thank you, sir. secretary carter: thank you. >> good morning, georgetown university. you believe in january of 2016 comes around, all positions in the military will be opened t o women or do you think some will remain closed? secretary carter: good question. i think most will, maybe all will. i don't know. the reason is that the services working through the practicality of some of the most difficult mos's from the point of

traditional gender roles with combat effectiveness, unit cohesion, and those kinds of things, those of the kinds of things people are grappling with. they are doing it in good faith. i'm certainly grappling with them with an intention to do the maximum practical. i think for way too long we have had, we have underestimated how well we can do. i talked about as being a learning organization -- we can learn this too. i am pretty optimistic. >> good morning, mr. secretary. i look at it from american university. , our armies current diplomacy in eastern asia europe, iraq and afghanistan are focused on training in billing military capacity of our allies. sir, how can we as future lieutenants ensure the success of these missions as opposed to traditional missions of engaging and destroying the enemy? secretary carter: is a great question.

-- it is a great question and it's sort of the secret sauce of the american military. it's not only prevails when it has to engage itself, but we are the best trainers and mentors of others. we have gotten good at it through sad experience. iraq, afghanistan. it is important because we can't do everything. we can't keep the lid on everywhere. we can't combat extremism terrorism, whatever, everywhere around the world. we need people to do their part. an earlier question was raised about the european for example. when it comes to other countries, we need them to keep the lid on, keep order, keep decency in their own countries. we can't be everywhere. it has got to be part of our defense and military strategy to help others help themselves. we can't do everything ourselves. i am proud of how good we are. i am proud of also how rewarding

people find it. i have been in pretty obscure places all of the years i have been doing this. you see an american unit in the middle of nowhere training people, and it is really inspiring. they love it, by the way. they can point to a unit that they trained, and say, that wouldn't exist if it weren't for me. it is rewarding and it is a force multiplier for our forces. >> thank you mr. secretary. secretary carter: thank you. >> good morning, i'm cadet austin from american university. in the same vein, the apartment of the fence is leading on the issue of sexual assault, but also climate change, noting it as a threat to our national security. with your background, do you think the military is properly

preparing itself and the nation for this threat? secretary carter: it is a good question. we are trying to. i can speak for us, i can't speak for the nation as a whole, though their efforts there as well. why is a challenge for us? it is a challenge for us because it changes the topography of the world. literally, islands wiped out, people's livelihood threatened, which leads to the possibility of violence. disturbance in the arctic, a very significant issue. whole new shipping lanes will be opened up. whole new strategic vistas. we have been a guarantor of freedom in the seas, freedom of commerce. we have a whole new ocean to guarantee that in. all of these things put pressure on human beings around the

world. that pressure could lead to violence. we need to anticipate that to do our part to make the world safer and ourselves secure. it is a big deal. we are trying to stay ahead of it. thank you. >> good morning, mr. secretary. i'm a master student here at georgetown. i want to speak about positions for women affect sexual assault in the military. are there challenges or opportunities for us to work together? secretary carter: a very insightful question. i think it cuts both ways. obviously as we get the women into more unaccustomed positions, may be dangerous-based related positions, decisions where there are fewer in the relation to the number of men. it opens up opportunities for predators.

they do not have an ordinary life. on one hand, it could lead in that direction. on the other hand, i think it signifies to everyone getting used to working men and women together to defend the country. i cannot help but believe for many people, they will learn better how to conduct themselves , interact across gender lines and so forth. that will contribute to prevention. eventually, you medication. -- eventually eradication. obviously we want to head in this direction. in addition, we get the benefit of more talented people eligible to serve in certain military roles. people are the key.

it is not the airplanes and the tanks and technology. it is the people that make us the best. >> good morning. my question relates to your essay published last year in foreign affairs did you set the pentagon typically had issues reacting to press on the ground. -- threats on the ground. what with the department of defense plan to do for emerging threats right now? especially in the wake of recent budget issues. secretary carter: great question. what i was pointing to as a challenge for us in wartime -- as your president challenges in peace time or when you are trying to deter a war prepare for a war -- what the article was saying was that we had more difficulties than probably any

of you would think responding to the ever-changing needs of the war in iraq and afghanistan. we were running into problems we had never run into before, like ieds. i was extremely frustrated at our institutions in ability to rapidly it happened adjust. to rapidly adapt and adjust. what is that? before, you would have time. that would be ok. we need things in 15 weeks. the system couldn't move that fast. it was very frustrating to me and my boss at the time, bob gates. in washington, people, even in the pentagon, get involved in

washington. the get involved in budgets and squabbles and testifying on the hill and what is in the newspaper. i found every once in a while you needed to shake someone. these guys are over here risking their lives for us. they get up in the morning and make their job number one. of course. that is why i love this institution. you had to remind more people -- remind people more times than you think you would. let me take examples of china or russia or iran. no one wants to have a conflict with any of those, but we have to be ready. they are constantly changing, just like the taliban ended. there modernizing. upgrading. changing their tools.

techniques. technology moves fast now. in order for us to have a deterrent the kids up with the pace of potential conflicts, we need to be agile on a day-to-day base. we cannot let them go back to the cold war model. that was ok when it was slow. that will not work today. we have to be agile. we're still fighting that fight. >> good morning, mr. secretary. and from the george washington university. my question is what does the administration and vision for the u.s. army in asia? what are your concerns for the long-term viability between the crisis in the italy's and ukraine -- in the middle east and ukraine?

secretary carter: good question that looks at the pivot or rebalance in the asia-pacific. half of humanity and half of the economic activity in the world upon which we depend is in the asia-pacific region. much of our future lies there. security and our role in it, essential to the american future. you have to keep that in mind. even though what is on tv every night -- there has been a lot of balance. when you are doing strategy, you had remember what the fundamentals are. this is an important part of the world. the rebalance was a word used to

signify our awareness that has a wars in iraq and afghanistan wound down. even as a fight against my soul -- against isil begins and there's continued turmoil there, we have to pay attention. you asked about the army. the asia pacific is all water. it is all water and air. what is an army going to do out there? their army found plenty to do. it is dominated by their armies. history at work. one of the early questions was asking about partnership and building partner capacity working with other militaries. if we want these countries to be our friend and to be strong and stable and stand up with us

against threats, we need to work with them. the army has fantastic relationships. they're working out there. one last note -- you have got to remember that the asia-pacific has no nato. there is no structure there for security. in nato, the wounds of world war ii were healed over decades. they're all working together. there is a structure there for reconciliation to be made after world war ii. you still see them. there's still a lot of residual hostility. why has the peace and kept in asia-pacific for decades and decades? us. the secret has been the civil

role of american military power. rebalancing seems to keep that this thing going. >> thank you, mr. secretary. secretary carter: thank you. >> a lot of the soviets for foreign affairs and the crisis sees -- crises have been in the middle east. what about south america? there's a lot of turmoil down there. what is our interaction with him? secretary carter: very good question. the question is a reminder. you cannot take your eye off anyone. all the world is connected. we have a global response of a lady -- responsibility. the instability fueled by

narcotics trade is essentially important dynamic there it leads to terrorism. the founding of revolutionary groups to illegal migrants in the u.s. and so forth. it would be unfortunate if we found the kind of thing that you see every day in the middle east that close to our own borders. what we are doing there is working with the militaries in that region to try to build their capacity, make sure that a behave with the same skill, it also the same values that we do which are necessary to keep short-term order by force. you have to have some goodness

behind it. we try to instill that. it has worked incredibly well. columbia is a mess. -- colombia was a mess. it's better now. it wouldn't it that way without the partnership of us and the colombian forces. there are success stories. you cannot take your eye off any part of the world is my job. >> this will be last question. secretary carter: ok. >> good morning, mr. secretary. the sexual assault reported cases, a jury, judge, and -- is the same person. i wondered what you thought of the efforts to make the case is outside of the military? secretary carter: good question. it has been a point of study and

debate and contention. let me give you the -- it goes on. we give you the two sides of the coin here. on one side of the coin is the one you say namely that if there is a commander who isn't doing what i asked you to do today then since it is a chain of command, because militant organization depends on the chain of command, we have a problem. we are talking that in two different ways. one, there are fewer commanders who do not know what their doing what their duties are aware of what their duties should be. the second is to give an alternative to the victims and their helpers. that is what some of our counselors and special victim councils are about, to give

another chain of avenue for reporting and punishment and above all, care for the. -- care for the victim. the other side of the argument is the chain of command is essential to our egos -- ethos. if you do not hold people responsible for everything about their command, including sexual assault prevention, that is not what we want from commanders. we want commanders who have all of those responsibilities together. we consider it not only an important part of military efficiency, but in important part of instilling the culture

of proper demand. we are trying to do that. at the same time, we're trying to provide alternative avenues. that is the path we're trying to do to balance. it is still debated. there are differences there in our military community and in washington about the approach to it. the essence of it is to have it both ways. the virtues of the chain of command in a command culture without the abuses of that apple in the chain. ok. listen, thank you all for being a part of our wonderful institution and for being the leaders that you will be. i hope you took on board this topic. important to be on top of and

reflect in your own conduct and in your command conduct. we had great expectations of you. you are what makes us great. i'm confident that you will make us proud in the future. thanks very much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> it's been over five months since loretta lynch was nominated to be the next attorney general. today the senate will vote on

her nomination following negotiates to end the political impasse. watch live coverage from the senate beginning at 9:30 eastern time on c-span 2. >> here are some of our feature programs for this weekend on the c-span networks. saturday evening on c-span, the white house correspondents annual dinner. live coverage begins its is a clock eastern with red carpet arrivals, remarks by president obama, and entertainment by saturday night live's sicily strong. saturday night at 8:00 p.m. on q&a, judith miller on her time in prison and not revealing the source of her reports before and during the iraqi invasion. saturday morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 2 live in maryland state capital for the annapolis book festival. authors include alberto gonzalez on immigration. climate change and world war ii

and the holocaust. sunday night at 10:30 coinciding with the release of c-span's new book, first ladies, historians call anthony and authors explore the lives of our first ladies. and on american history tv on c-span 3 saturday night at 8:00 lectures and history stanford university professor jack ray hook on some of the issues debated during the constitutional convention of1 -- of 1787. sou thet enemies veterans talk about their war experiences. h get a complete schedule at c-span.org. >> during this month, c-span is pleased to present the winning entries in this year's student cam video competition.

it encourages middle and high school students to think critically about issues that affect the nation. students were asked to create a documentary based on the theme "the three branches and you." to demonstrate how a policy by one of the three branches has affected them are the community. anna pinkerton and elizabeth budin from eastern middle school in silver spring, maryland, are one of our first prize winners. their entry focused on funding for medical research. narrator: cystic fibrosis, a disease that affects 30,000 people in the u.s. and 70,000 worldwide. it is a genetic disease that affects the respiratory and digestive system. the lungs of an individual deteriorates, rate of 2% a year. cystic fibrosis has no cure.

>> it robs them of their lives. every time you get an infection, it destroys some of the lungs. sometimes, you know, it robs their lives at an early stage. the median life expectancy is 40 years of age. narrator: the parent of a child with cf speaks of the difficulties of having a child with cystic fibrosis. >> it is difficult watching your child go through pain and i sickness and wishing that you could take some of that away from him take some of the uncertainty of life away. narrator: patients have to undergo hours of treatment time every day. . guide:>> even though he feels good every day, he has to do a lot of

preventative medications. so he takes nebulized medications which help keep his lungs fsupple so he does not get infections. he has to take enzymes digestive enzymes with his food in order to digest fat and protein quickly and gain weight. he does a lot of percussive therapy, which also keeps his lungs clear. narrator: life with cystic fibrosis is difficult but in the last 15 years research has occurred. new drugs are becoming available every year. in the past, they have only been able to treat the symptoms and not the cause. recently, a new drug has come out that treats the root of the disease. >> more recently, we are starting to be able to treat the basic defect in cystic fibrosis.a nd and that is treating the genetic defect in cf. your lung function is improving,

the weight is improving. it has been a dramatic change in cystic fibrosis from the time we used to treat the symptoms. now we have the capability to treat the basic defect. narrator: the new treatments are symbol of hope in the community. these advances in biomedical research remain possible in part by the generous funding the federal government gives the national institutes of health or nih 20 years ago. >> in the late 1990's, the nih budget doubled. it was a fantastic time. everyone came together, congress and the president came together recognizing the importance of biomedical research. they doubled the budget. it went from $11 billion to $20 billion. narrator: despite the successes that came from doubling the budget the federal government may devastating cuts in the last five years. >> a few years ago it started to

go down. so as of fiscal year 2013, it was at $29 billion. narrator: these cuts have hurt the researchers who can no longer support themselves or their work because the nah cannot afford to reward them research grants. >> it is much harder to get grants from nih than it was. there are two different parts of that. one of them is to research projects themselves. traditionally, when we would submit for research grants for cystic fibrosis, we could think we might be able to get that on the first or second time. now oftentimes it is taking two or three times of continuing to ask. it has affected some of the people i worked with to the point that they have focused on different areas of research or stop to doing research altogether because it is hard to get enough grants to support the salary. narrator: many people believe that federal dollars into going

to issues other than the nih. to cut the budget is to hurt the patient's. >> the crucial life-saving work at nih is in jeopardy. the arbitrary across-the-board cuts as a means of sequester have hit nih hard. they've cut $1.55 billion from the budget this year alone. think of the work that is not being done there because of that. >> the consecrations of sequester for this part of what the government invests in, medical research, sequester has been devastating. narrator: the more the federal government continues to cut the budget, the more scientists. researching. the medical industry may not be feeling the budget cuts at the present, but in a couple years they will. >> what i worry about is two or three years from now when we want new technology to go to the next level of science. my concern is we have taken a

lot of good knowledge from the n ih. what about in a year and a half when i need new knowledge or go to the next generation? willoughby a -- wil thel there b e gap? will there be the signs to do research? anytime the nih can't fund grants that are important for signs, i think we run the risk of losing scientists and losing knowledge. >> it is very shortsighted to cut the nih. that is because we need the best minds to be heading into research. >>narrator: the cystic fibrosis community has seen progress, but we are far from a trip. for the people with cf and the families, science has not come far enough. the nih is vital. >> it is an essential part to continue to make progress. ♪

dare to dream ♪ ♪ >> to watch the winning videos and to learn more about our competition, go to c-span.org and click on student cam. also, tell us what you think about the issues these students addressed in their documentaries on facebook and twitter. >> today on c-span, "washington journal" is live next. followed by today's house session. authors discuss the lives of first ladies.

we will talk to tom cole about his call for a debate and vote on authorization for the military mission against isis. and congressman basera on his party's legislative agenda. host: we have a two hour "washington journal. the senate will be voting on loretta lynch to be the next attorney general. a confirmation could take place early this afternoon. for our first 45 minutes, we are asking viewers to weigh in on the nomination battle over loretta lynch. let us know whether you think the senate should confirm her as the next u.s. attorney general.