State Department Inspector General Grilled By Congress Over Ties To Blackwater

The Oversight Committee is currently holding a hearing, "Assessing the State Department Inspector General." Inspector General Howard J. Krongard will testify. On September 28th, Chairman Henry Waxman wrote to Krongard on allegations that he was using intimidation of employees to block the Committee's investigation of issues in Iraq, and on October 12th Chairman Waxman was joined by several other Chairmen in a letter to Secretary Rice about endemic corruption in Iraq and the refusal of State Department officials to answer basic questions about the impact of corruption within the Maliki government on the chances of success in Iraq.

Read more here.

Watch a clip of the hearings below:

Comments

[ptarantino]

09:40 AM on 11/15/2007

Nonamnesiac,

I agree with you that Bush/Cheney should be impeached. But this specific hearing was very important. It exposed "cookie" Krongard who was in-charge of oversight in the State Dep't.


Krongard's other brother "Buzzy" is involved in biigger criminal stories that will come out later.

Try & keep some faith & encourage any picking off of the major criminals.

[kobold]

09:34 AM on 11/15/2007

Notice it's nowhere in the "liberal" media.

The guy just perjured himself and not one msm channel had it...cept Keith

[Nonamnesiac]

08:54 AM on 11/15/2007

More useless hearings. What's the purpose of hearings where the White House stonewalls and the Dems issue nasty press releases and send horrible letters, or get damning information and do nothing? There already is overwhelming evidence that is public to impeach/remove Cheney/Bush within 4 months. By conducting hearings and doing nothing but make political points, Congress, including Waxman and the supposedly "tough" Dems, are ratifying the war profiteering, theft, missing billions, murder and lying us into war. The hearings will hurt the Dems in the election because the Repubs rejoinder in 2008 is you investigated, had the power to do something and didn't -- so you must not have found anything illegal.

Impeach/remove Bush/Cheney or STFU. The Dems will lose in 2008 because of their thinly-guised hypocricy. As they support the f--in war because they fund it, and they support the assault on the Constitution because those laws are bi-partisan, and they support war profiteering and private armies because they do nothing about it, then say it straight out and stop acting like you think we're stupid and haven't noticed that the Dems are the equal of the evils and not worth of progressive votes. We're not that stupid.

[ptarantino]

08:34 AM on 11/15/2007

& the umpire cries foul!

Nice work by the oversight committe in understanding how the criminal croonies work.

Besides protecting Blackwater from criminal investigations & abusing & reducing his State INVESTIGATION staff by 2/3.. Howard "cookie" Krongard has also sued his own Son this year, for financial loan issues.... What a guy.

[ProfessorDuh]

07:08 AM on 11/15/2007

Oops. The kleptocracy's slip is showing again.

[ChristinDemocrat]

11:29 PM on 11/14/2007

How can the Repblican have there own army outside our constitution. How can we have and army we are funding outside our goverment funded by our government.

[loki]

10:27 PM on 11/14/2007

Oh yeah, they are grilling over this.. The behind door grilling is " Wheres my money. I want in on this!"

[RedRooster]

08:15 PM on 11/14/2007

Hotdamn!

That didn't take long.

Rep. Elijah Cummings bitch-slapped Krongard and within two hours of his opening salvo, after months of stonewalling, the equivocating, lying, scumbag, political appointee recused himself from any involvement in the ongoing Blackwater investigations...It was either that or an immediate criminal charge of conspiracy to impede a congressional investigation.

Now, THAT,

for all you Bush trolls, is what Congressional oversight looks like.

Get used to it!

[fourex]

07:46 PM on 11/14/2007

The Pelosi/Reid leadership will continue to fund our SS, Blackwater.

[1man1voicenovote]

06:55 PM on 11/14/2007

Western-style corruption was the single unifying thread in the failed coalition government of Iraq.

Colonial Imperialism is not freedom or democracy.

It really is over. The Coalition has retreated from southern Iraq and the result was peace broke out and corruption was punished.

Turkey is attacking sovereign Iraqi towns and villages with 100,000 troops on the border.

Muqtada al Sadr will soon end his truce as the broken U.S. Army is forced into troop reductions.

Private contractors are next on the list after the Sunni warlords defeat the foreign fighters of al whatever.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are imploding into military dictatorships sitting on a civil war that will be sparked by American defeats in Baghdad.

Death Squads can't operate forever. And the public response can be unpredictable.

[TXfemmom]

06:19 PM on 11/14/2007

A whole bunch of these people need to do a legitimate perp walk and go to the slammer for around 24 years. That is what Skilling, of Enron got, and he wasn't in government, where one should have higher standards, which is FUNNY WITHIN THIS ADMINISTRATION.

[DeSwiss]

06:04 PM on 11/14/2007

The French Revolution is beginning to make more and more sense to me....

[AMERIKA]

05:49 PM on 11/14/2007

Everybody should read the book "The End of America - Notes of Warning to a Young Patriot" by Naomi Wolfe.

It is the most important book of our time.

[realitytrumpsbull]

05:25 PM on 11/14/2007

Whaaaaat? Handing each other money across the
back fence? I'll never enlist again.

[TWOSHORT]

04:21 PM on 11/14/2007

Congress and The House Members should have alot of concern having a private army running around loose in america creating bases.For me it's history! the S.S was started that way and the Jews were blamed for Germany bad economy!Rounded them up like i think they will do to the Mexican here without papers!Won't be any oversite by anybody! any court's of law!Cop's will be powerless to stop them!I'm concerned that history may have a new story of terror to tell!BLACKWATER THE COWBOY YEARS.