The most senior U.S. career diplomat has been asked to
resign amid an investigation that State Department staffers sold visas to
Middle East nationals, including those connected to the Sept. 11 suicide
attacks on New York and Washington.
Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs Mary Ryan was asked to resign
by Secretary of State Colin Powell. She was the most senior U.S. career
diplomat and served in the post for eight years.
Deputy State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said Ms. Ryan agreed to
Powell's request to resign. Reeker said the dismissal was not connected to
the visa scandal or criticism of the rapid processing of applications by
Saudi nationals to enter the Untied States.
"This was just seen as the time for her to move on," Reeker said.
But U.S. officials said Ms. Ryan was held responsible for a scandal that
has rocked the State Department and sparked an investigation in U.S.
embassies throughout the Middle East. Two State Department employees based
in Qatar have been under investigation for allegedly selling dozens of U.S.
visas to foreign nationals in the Middle East.
The two employees were said to have issued visas to at least 70 Middle
East nationals -- most of them Jordanians and Pakistanis -- in exchange for
bribes of as much as $10,000 per visa. Officials said the the employees
worked in the U.S. embassy in Doha from April 2000 to July 2001.
"This investigation has been focused on the alleged, illegal issuance of
visas to approximately 70 individuals at the U.S. embassy in Doha," Reeker
said on Wednesday. "We determined specifically that 71 individuals received
visas for which the appropriate written records were not found. These were
issued between July 2000 and May 2001 to
third-country nationals, that is citizens of countries other than Qatar or
the United States, obviously."
Officials said U.S. authorities have arrested 31 of the 70 Middle East
nationals who entered the United States on illegal visas. They said at least
six have already left the United States.
ABC News identified one State Department employee as a U.S. citizen and
the other as a Jordanian national. The television network reported that one
of those who bribed the two embassy employees was Rasmi Al Shannaq, a
Jordanian national who is believed to have roomed with two of the Sept. 11
suicide hijackers and was arrested on June 24.
Reeker said much of the State Department's authority for visas will be
transferred to the new Homeland Security Department. But the department will
continue to process visas.