“Not only have you yet to provide us with any information or documents about this operation, but, months after ATF shut down the operation, you have refused to respond at all,” the letter states.

House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R., Va.), and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R., Wis.) signed the letter.

Operation Fearless, named after an undercover store that ATF officials called “Fearless Distributing,” attempted to use the store as a front to buy and possibly sell firearms and to target criminals in undercover sting operations.

The store attracted consumers by “selling clothes, shoes, and drug paraphernalia” while making it known that they were interested in buying firearms, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which broke the story in January.

The operation had numerous problems from the start, according to the Sentinel.

Auto parts and other objects were stolen from the store in October 2012. The store did not have a security system in place, resulting in criminals stealing $35,000 in merchandise, including a machine gun and handgun that have yet to be found.

The landlord of the property, who unknowingly rented the store to ATF, requested more than $15,000 in damages from the ATF. The ATF has thus far refused to pay.

The operation is part of ATF’s Violent Crime Impact Team (VCIT), which targets hot spots in certain cities to deter gun crime. The division has been criticized for being ineffective.

The situation in Milwaukee “raise[s] significant management issues relating to the oversight and management of the ATF field office and ATF headquarters,” according to a letter by Justice Department IG Michael Horowitz.

Officials are not only questioning the robberies that derailed Operation Fearless, but also the methods used by ATF officials.

The January letter asked 22 questions, including “were the weapons reportedly stolen from the unattached vehicle secured with any type of safety device/trigger lock?” and “if weapons were sold, who approved the plan to conduct these sales?”

“Congressional oversight of a clearly botched operation in necessary,” the letter states.

“Instead of welcoming the opportunity to get to the bottom of this matter and solve the problems within the bureau the led to it, you have instead chosen to ignore our oversight request and attempt to handle the matter internally without any openness or transparency.”

“The ATF’s failure to respond to our initial inquiry is unacceptable,” Sensenbrenner said in a statement to the Free Beacon. “The agency has a lengthening history of inexplicable investigations. They need to answer for this failed sting operation and soon.”

ATF has received the letter and it is “with officials being reviewed,” an ATF official told the Free Beacon.

Of the $60 billion in aid for reconstruction projects in Iraq, more than $8 billion is simply unaccounted for or lost, special inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction (SIGIR) Stuart Bowen said at a discussion of the report hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Bowen also said that $800 million is laundered out of Iraqi banks every week, which amounts to $40 billion a year, according to Iraqi officials. Money laundering has gone unenforced in the last 10 years, with “corruption occurring at the highest level.”

Bowen interviewed current Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) along with more than 40 others about the effects and lessons learned from Iraqi reconstruction.

Iraqi leaders said “a crucial element” in wasteful spending was the United States not consulting with Iraqi leadership before picking large and wasteful projects, a point lawmakers on Capitol Hill agreed with and a lesson Bowen highlighted in his report.

“We didn’t consult enough,” he said, stressing the need to develop a reconstruction plan with the host country in the lead. Bowen gave the example of the Falluja water plant, which was one of the most extensive projects in Iraq.

U.S contractors built the plant with the U.S government only to find later that it was operating at 20 percent capacity because the local tribe that ran the plant was illiterate and received no training, a fact that could have been discovered with proper consultation.

Bowen was also critical with the lack of U.S planning on Iraqi reconstruction at its onset.

U.S aid quickly went from $2 billion to over $60 billion, with no set plans and objectives in place.

Bowen listed several lessons agencies should adopt with help from Congress. Bowen stressed the need for agencies to act in an “integrated way,” saying each agency responded in an effective way on its own but did not communicate with one another.

Bowen also said that if an area is insecure “then you shouldn’t be reconstructing.” Bowen listed estimates that projects are not only more dangerous but cost 10 times more to implement.

Additionally, there is no universal system for contracting projects in Iraq. “Every agency did its own contracting,” Bowen said, with each agency having a separate system for its contractors.

Anthony Cordesman, an expert at CSIS, stressed that blame shouldn’t rest solely on mismanagement of host countries and federal agencies. Members of Congress passing large sums of money with no specific plan also share some of the blame.

“It’s not corruption when the key metric for success [for the U.S.] was speed of spending,” Cordesman said. “Especially when the host government couldn’t absorb the inflow of money to spend wisely.”

“The humanitarian situation is dramatic beyond description. The refugee crisis has been accelerating since last summer and has reached staggering proportions since the beginning of this year,” United Nations high commissioner for refugees Antonio Guterres told the committee.

Refugees have increased from 3,000 a day in December to 8,000 as of February, Guterres said.

Over a million refugees will be in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey by the end of 2013. For countries like Lebanon, with a population of only 4.2 million, the economic and social effects might cause them to close off their borders.

Many of the refugees, 78 percent of whom are women and children, do not have enough camps to support them. They instead live in storefronts, garages, and any place they can find shelter, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration Anne Richard said.

“It is essential that host countries keep their borders open,” Richard said.

Officials and experts agreed problems in the country itself are even greater despite the major problems around Syria.

Getting access into Syria is one of the greatest challenges for United States government officials, said Nancy E. Lindborg, assistant administrator for democracy, conflict and humanitarian assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The State Department goes through the U.N., international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and local Syrian groups to give unbranded aid inside Syria. As a result, many Syrians do not know the aid comes from the U.S.

“We want to ensure that our humanitarian partners are not unduly targeted,” Lindborg said. “We’re branding when and where we can.”

The lack of observable aid and a growing sense that the conflict could be resolved with U.S. assistance has left many Syrians angry with the international community, Guterres said.

“The people believe that the international community should come together and find a solution, they don’t blame a specific country. … That is the anger that I’ve witnessed,” Guterres said.

Policy expert Tom Malinowski was more critical of the United States’ failure to give adequate aid inside Syria, which has contributed to a growing hostility.

Malinowski, who traveled to northern Syria in December, was shocked at the lack of aid in the region. There was little electricity and fuel to heat homes during the winter. While Malinowski admitted there have been major efforts to raise aid since December, “people still don’t know where it is coming from.”

While there is a sense of little help from America, there is a growing appreciation for extreme groups like al-Nusra, who have become “the front edge of the spear” and are one of the most effective forces fighting in Syria.

“You created al-Nusra by not helping us and now you are using it to not help us” Malinowski said, recounting a story from a man in Syria close to the fighting, saying this is becoming a common theme from secular fighters in Syria.

“You can’t solve the humanitarian crisis by not toppling the regime,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) said at the hearing.

Malinowski warned that humanitarian aid alone would start to resemble what Bosnian refugees called “bread for the dead.”

“People accepted the aid, of course,” he said. “They needed to eat and to stay warm. But they never felt that the international community was providing meaningful help so long as atrocities being committed against them continued. Food and medicine might keep them alive long enough to be killed by a bullet or tank shell. But it solved nothing.”

The president is scheduled to depart for Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan this evening.

Obama faces the simultaneous challenges of war, regime instability, the proliferation of al Qaeda, and nuclear threats from Iran, the panelists said.

The difference between Obama’s first visit to the Middle East in 2009 and today are vast, said Ambassador Dennis Ross.

Four years ago, there was “a perception that was believed to be held in Middle Eastern countries” that the Bush administration waged a war on Islam, and that “somehow U.S. and the preceding Bush administration had been preaching to the Middle East,” he said.

But that perception has changed, he said, because many in the Middle East are looking for the U.S. to lead on pressing security issues.

All sides are “looking for clear ideas on U.S. policy,” former senior director for Middle East affairs on the National Security Council Michael Singh said.

Obama needs to “show that we are getting back into the area, back into the weeds,” and worry “less about public opinion and [worry more] about the interest of our allies,” Singh said.

“Frankly, when he talks about Iran,” he should say it “not only because he’s in Israel,” Singh said.

Ross, who served on the Obama administration’s National Security Council staff, said the president was likely to have differing public and private agendas.

In public, Obama will attempt to establish emotional connections and build credibility with the Israeli public, Ross said.

In private, he continued, while the U.S. and Israel share a similar strategic objective with Israel on Iran, Syria, and the Arab Spring, there are tactical differences both sides will attempt to address in private discussion.

Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will “probably spar and ask pointed questions” in the cordial atmosphere, said Ziegler Institute fellow David Makovsky.

On Iran, both sides will discuss “how much time is going to be spent on diplomacy if it fails,” Ross said. “What’s the point at which prevention loses its meaning?”

While Israel and other Middle Eastern countries want more clarity on U.S. policy, Obama has said his position on Iran is well defined.

“I have been crystal clear about my position on Iran possessing a nuclear weapon,” Obama said last week. “That is a red line for us.”

However, Israel has used different terminology and has had a much stronger “red line” policy than the U.S., the panelists said.

A major talking point will be agreeing where that red line is, Singh said.

Preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon has been a major goal for the U.S. Israel, meanwhile, opposes Iran having the capability of developing a nuclear weapon.

The panelists claimed the administration has “done a great job in lowering expectations” and has “turned this into a listening tour,” before he leaves for Israel.

A PLA sets construction conditions on bidding for federally funded projects. While the conditions for each PLA vary depending on the locale within which they are passed, they frequently require employees to join a union or force contractors to employ union labor exclusively.

PLAs also “require [non-union] contractors to pay their workers’ health and retirement benefits to union trust funds,” causing the contractors to pay workers’ benefits twice—once for the union and once for their company plan.

Additionally, they often force nonunion employees to join union pension plans.

Contractors are frequently unwilling to take on these burdens in order to meet PLA demands, leaving only contractors that employ union labor left to place bids.

“PLAs helps unions regain lost market share, create jobs for unions member, and steer tax-funded contracts to unionized contractors,” director of labor for Associated Builders & Contractors (ABC) Ben Brubeck told the Free Beacon.

These union-favored agreements come with a sharp downside for taxpayers, however. PLAs increase construction costs by 12 to 18 percent, an increase that mostly stems from higher-than-market union labor costs, studies have shown.

The combination of reduced competition and higher labor costs increase spending, assistant professor of political science at the City University of New York Daniel DiSalvo told the Free Beacon.

A PLA “increases costs not only because it’s a collective bargaining agreement, but it basically narrows the name of groups to those that are already unionized; therefore you are limiting the market in advance to those already that have unions,” DiSalvo said.

DiSalvo said that the literature was divided. Those in favor of PLAs claim the agreements “limit [workers’] ability to engage in strikes and limit potential work stoppages and shutdowns” and that there is “a greater likelihood that it will be done on time and on budget.”

Brubeck pointed to Maryland’s Prince George’s County rebidding for the Brandywine Fire Station as a prime example of the higher costs resulting from PLAs.

Prince George’s County, which requires “the use of Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) on county construction projects exceeding $1 million,” held the first round of bidding for the fire station as a government-mandated PLA.

The lowest bid for the project was at $4.2 million despite estimates from Prince George’s County officials that placed construction costs at about $3 million.

While Brubeck and other private contractors pushed for the county to rebid the project without the PLA requirement, the county released a notice to contractors that the project would indeed be subject to rebidding with the PLA mandate still in place.

“Prince George’s County is the first to enact such monumental and necessary legislation, mandating that Prince George’s County residents be given priority for work on county construction projects. Under CB-16, we will have regulations in place to put more Prince Georgians to work,” Democratic councilmember Karen Toles, who sponsored the bill supporting government mandated PLAs, said in a press release announcing the legislation.

“Unions are offering a solution to a problem that they created,” Brubeck said. “That solution gives them a monopoly on the project.”

Members of the Prince George’s County council have received substantial funding from trade unions.

Toles received over 80 percent of her 2012 campaign funds from Ironworkers and Plumbing Union PAC contributions, which directly benefit from the PLA mandate.

Chairwoman Andrea Harrison received 30 percent of her 2012 campaign funds from the AFL-CIO and the slate fund “Women for Justice,” which includes donations from the Ironworker trade union PAC.  Councilwoman Ingrid Turner received 28 percent of her 2012 campaign funds directly from unions or union PACs.

Prince George County, Md., councilmembers’ push to implement PLAs came after the AFL-CIO pressured councilmembers to support PLAs in 2010. “AFL-CIO will continue to refuse requests for any and all support from those elected officials who refuse to support us,” according to a letter sent to council members.

Councilmembers Harrison, Turner, and Toles did not return a request for comment. The AFL-CIO also did not return a request for comment.

PLAs have contributed to soaring costs elsewhere as well.

The National University System Institute for Policy Research (NUSIPR) in California released a study showing PLA school construction projects increased costs by 13 to 15 percent compared to similar projects not under a PLA agreement. The Beacon Hill Institute came to similar conclusions.

The NUSIPR used an example from Burckhalter Elementary School in California, which attempted to renovate their school and made contractors bid without a PLA requirement in 2004.

“The original contract winner (and lowest bidder), M. A. Davies Builders, competed against seven other bidders and offered to complete the job for $1.8 million. After Oakland Unified rebid the contract under a PLA, only three companies placed bids, and the lowest bid came in at $2.2 million, a 22 percent increase,” the NUSIPR report said.

Unions and government officials say PLAs provide “structure and stability to large construction projects as well as ensure compliance with laws and regulations governing workplace safety and health, equal employment opportunity, and labor and employment standards.”

But “PLA mandates are almost always backed by unions that are supportive of the candidates,” Brubeck said.

“They want to run for higher office, so they need the support of the building trades,” he said. “It’s special interest promoting their own. It’s all politics.”

AEI moderator and senior editor for the National Review Ramesh Ponnuru raised “the main question conservatives are asking” since the November 2012 elections: “What would John Calhoun do?”

While Ponnuru was joking—the Calhoun jab is a reference to a recent piece on conservatism by New York Times book editor Sam Tanenhaus that was published in The New Republic, a failing political biweekly—he also noted that there is a divide between younger and older Republicans.

Ponnuru said it is not necessarily one side versus the other but a series of overlapping agreements and disagreement on issues between many factions of the party.

Both speakers agreed on the problem Republicans need to address: How to expand the party without fracturing the base.

Troy, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former deputy secretary at Health and Human Services (HHS) under President George W. Bush, focused on finding a “leader who explains what conservatism is and isn’t” in his opening remarks.

He referred to the early 1980s when there were bitter disagreements among the Republican Party before Ronald Reagan brought a “fusionist approach” to gather support and energize the party base.

For critics that accuse Republicans that “all you say is Reagan, Reagan, Reagan,” Troy argued that George W. Bush successfully took a different tack with his “compassionate conservatism” during the 2000 campaign.

Troy believes the future of the movement depends on clarifying its message to deter critics from branding the party any way they please.

Wehner, the former deputy director of speechwriting for President George W. Bush in 2001, said Republicans need to do more than clarify their message.

“We have a winning message for an electorate that doesn’t exist,” he said.

Wehner pointed to Republicans winning five out of six presidential races from 1968 to 1988 but winning only two since 1992. In only one of those elections did the Republican candidate win the popular vote.

The reason for the change is shifting demographics, Wehner said.

If the demography of 1980 and 2012 were identical, Romney would have won by a larger margin than Ronald Reagan, he said.

“This spells real trouble of the Republican Party,” he said.

Wehner said that “we have a communication problem” but added that the root of this problem comes from not keeping up with the demographic shifts.

“I’m not arguing that the GOP become more moderate but more modern,” he said.

One of the few disagreements between Troy and Wehner came when discussing public welfare.

Troy argued that there were simple things Republicans could do now—such as ending tax expenditures, which he claimed constitute as public welfare—to help expand its base without dividing the party.

Wehner countered, referring to Free Beacon editor Matthew Continetti’s cover story in the latest Weekly Standard, saying going against corporate welfare would split the Republican donor base.

“This country is just a different place than in the 1980s,” Wehner said.

The report, released in December 2012, “identified control weaknesses that significantly impact the information security program. If these control weaknesses were exploited, the department could experience security breaches.”

The report listed vulnerable security protection for UNIX, the State Department’s basic operating system, as well as a poor ability to monitor firewalls in iPost, a system that lets State Department officials “monitor network, computer, and application resources and check for potential problems”

However, cyber security experts said the inspector general report does not address or test the major threats to cyber security.

“I don’t know if they are even aware of the problem,” said James Lewis, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS).

Lewis cited a report by the Australian government after Chinese hackers took over email accounts of senior government officials. They found 35 components that reduced risk and effectively blocked hacking capabilities.

Of those 35, the Australian government cited four areas in particular as the major components for reducing hacking risk: Whitelisting, patching operating systems, patching applications, and restricting administrator privileges.

Whitelisting, which allows only approved software to be used and does not allow users to download inappropriate programs, is the most vital component to protecting security, Lewis said. Patching is an update either to the operating system or to an application that fixes problems.

The inspector general report tested only the patching of operating systems in the State Department, failing to test the other major components.

However, some cybersecurity experts said the State Department has been unduly criticized by the IG report and that the IG would be better off testing different aspects of security.

“[The IG] has been measuring things that are easy to measure,” SANS Institute director of research Alan Paller told the Free Beacon. Paller said that sources within the State Department have told security experts they are working on solving the whitelisting problem. As a result, he believes the inspector general report to be misleading and painting a picture that is too bleak.

Paller said that patching of applications, the only security measure recommended by Lewis on which the State Department focused, was the least important of the four. The other three measures—whitelisting, operations system patching, and restricting administrator privileges—needed to be tested to provide an accurate assessment of the security of the system.

An official with the inspector general disputed its office was focused on the wrong problems.

“I can put 30 experts in the room and get 60 different opinions,” an official at the inspector general office told the Free Beacon. The official said that whitelisting was not tested because it was not part of the methodology used by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in its audits.

The NIST requirements are not reflective of the real threats, Paller said. He criticized the IG for arbitrarily picking certain aspects from NIST while ignoring the real issue.

The report comes amidst increased concerns about Chinese hackers targeting specific business and government departments as well as a soft stance by the president on cyber security.

“It touches all of us,” Rosenzweig, author of Cyber Warfare, said at a Heritage Foundation event.

Rosenzweig warned that the dynamic, rapid spread of the Internet makes the future challenging to predict. He cited the fact that the average cell phone now has as much computing power as a 1980s supercomputer used for nuclear testing by the government.

This rapid increase in computing power makes predicting future attackers and their capabilities nearly impossible.

“In three years it will be so different we can’t even begin to predict what we’re going to need,” said Rosenzweig, who is a visiting fellow at Heritage.

Although the media have reported cyber espionage by Chinese hackers and non-state actors such as “Anonymous,” there has been an increase in cyber attacks between countries, sparking what Rosenzweig called cyber “cold wars.”

The cyber cold war between the United States and Iran has lasted five years and shows no sign of ending. The United States and Israel are believed to have attacked Iran with Stuxnet and Flame, computer viruses designed to destroy parts of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran has retaliated with cyber attacks on U.S. businesses.

Experts estimate the cyber attacks have slowed Iran’s nuclear program by two years.

However, cyber relations between China and the United States pose the greatest threat, Rosenzweig said.

The Chinese group “Unit 61398,” which is similar in structure to the National Security Agency, is suspected of stealing trillions of terabytes of data from U.S. companies and the government. It would take semi-trucks spanning the Pentagon to the port of Baltimore to physically steal that much data, Rosenzweig said.

While there is a “potential advantage, so long as we have superior technology,” that may not be the case in five or 10 years, Rosenzweig said.

He suggested strategies such as the “gamification of counter intelligence,” which utilizes private sector hackers around the world to target specific companies profiting from stolen information.

Instead of imposing sanctions on a country,which Rosenzweig said would be slow and hierarchical, the U.S. could impose sanctions on specific companies.

Rosenzweig also suggested the U.S. begin targeting China’s firewall in order to “let a thousand tweets bloom.”

Rosenzweig also warned of a cyber cold war becoming hot, causing enough physical destruction from power grids and computer systems to start a shooting war. While this is possible, Rosenzweig sees it as unlikely.

“Instead of mutually assured disaster, we have mutually assured disruption,” Rosenzweig said.

Businesses are using outdated regulations to attempt to force food trucks—mobile venders offering everything from fish tacos to pizza slices on D.C. streets—out of business.

“[The] regulatory scheme [in D.C.] is antiquated in the least,” D.C. Food Truck Association leader Doug Povich said at the event.

The Food Truck Association, which formed in 2011 and works with local food trucks to challenge unfair regulations, currently encompasses D.C. and is expanding to Fairfax and Arlington.

Povich named a number of regulations 40 years and older, including the “ice cream truck rule” that lets food trucks stop only if a line has been formed. Food trucks have to leave their location when there is no longer a line.

“We’ve overcome that obstacle with Facebook [and] Twitter” by notifying patrons of food truck locations in advance, Povich said.

There are also strict regulations for how long a food truck can stay in one location, with the time varying from place to place. Food trucks in Arlington can stay in one place for just 60 minutes or face a fine of $2,500 and possible jail time.

Povich recounted food trucks staying in one parking spot before moving to the next space, only to be fined anyway “because of the vagueness of the law.”

Advocates for small farms and local food production emphasized the need for appropriate regulations that focus on food safety and not competition.

“Most of the things [a local farmer] wants to do are barred,” clinical instructor at the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation Emily Leib said.

“He’s really trying to grow food on a farm that’s safe and healthy and actually finds the things he wants to do are really hard,” Leib said.

Food safety regulations have been a tool of big businesses to stifle competition for over a century, Washington Examiner senior political columnist Tim Carney said at the roundtable.

He cited the most famous examples of food safety regulations, the meat packing laws spurred on by Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.

Carney said the meat industry “packers were warm friends of [the] regulations.” Large-scale meat packers could afford the changes, and they worked with lawmakers to target smaller competitors, eventually pushing them out of the market.

Carney also mentioned Heinz Ketchup’s long push to ban artificial preservatives from all ketchup in the early 1900s—not because of a safety risk but because Heinz was the only ketchup manufacturer at the time not using artificial preservatives.

“This is a large part of the history of food regulation,” Carney said.

“Food safety regulation is not this simple morality tale of big government cracking down on big businesses,” Carney said. “It’s a lot more complex.”

Lunch at the discussion was provided by the BBQ Bus food truck.

“Al Qaeda is stronger at an operational level than it has been for many years” and the prospects of al Qaeda strengthening are more likely, AEI senior research analyst Katherine Zimmerman said.

Even though the United States successfully found and killed Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda movement has spread to Yemen, North Africa, Syria, Somalia, and other areas in the Middle East.

Al Qaeda is “not defeated or on the verge of defeat,” Zimmerman said.

With the outbreak of the Arab Spring, local affiliated al Qaeda groups have infiltrated unstable locations in the Middle East.

Zimmerman pointed to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA), Al Shabaab in Somalia, and splinter groups infiltrating Yemen.

Zimmerman also pointed to al Qaeda prisoners held over from former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime being released or escaping, which likely will be a problem in future situations.

Al Qaeda has strengthened from the uncertainty in the Middle East to the point where their affiliates and splinter networks can survive without the Pakistani center of command, even though the affiliates are still influenced and controlled by the main cell in Pakistan.

“This is a group that thrives on ungoverned spaces by war,” AEI scholar Frederick Kagan said.

These affiliates have “grown into their own—they’ve grown up,” Zimmerman said.

While Zimmerman pointed to the United States successfully eliminating the “top of al Qaeda,” she and Kagan agree that the results cannot realistically be extended globally. The resources, tools, and techniques used in Afghanistan—like enhanced interrogation techniques and the CIA spending a decade gathering intelligence—are no longer an option.

Kagan also criticized the administration’s handling of al Qaeda.

“The U.S. does not have a strategy for dealing with al Qaeda,” Kagan said. “We have a strategy of thwacking bad guys.”

“Although it’s a good idea, thwacking bad guys, that itself is not a strategy.”