NSFW: POGO ED’s Letter to Hillary Clinton BARES ALL. 8 US Embassy Guards in Kabul Sacked.

In what appears to be the direct result of a letter from The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) Executive Director, Danielle Brian to the Secretary of State, Hillary ClintonHillary Clinton bringing to light the transgressions of the security guards posted at the US embassy in Afghanistan, eight guards have been sacked and two others have resigned. In addition to this it has been reported that the senior management of ArmorGroup North America (AGNA), the firm that employed the said staff, is "being replaced immediately".

Though this comes as a welcome move, the immediate question that comes to my mind is whether this is really enough!!

POGO had initiated an independent investigation into the affairs of the security guards, their supervisors and AGNA following complaints received from almost one-tenth of the guard force at the Kabul Embassy. The complaints related to blatant violations by the security contractors over an extended period of time which pointed at a breakdown in the command chain, rampant indiscipline amongst a majority of the guards and the falling morale amongst those who were still committed to their duties. The guard force had provided alongwith their grievances, enough evidence that could be used to actually nail the culprits.

All his meant that the guards’ turnover was around 100 percent on an annualised basis.

Fixing the blame squarely on the Department of State for failing to manage the security contractors and terming it an ‘Ineffectual Oversight’ the letter from POGO has not spared the State’s earlier failures in Iraq in 2007; the Mansour Square massacre in which five Blackwater personnel were involved being one such glaring example.

The letter lists out the following maladies on the part of AGNA:

1. The embassy is chronically understaffed despite the contacting firm’s assurances to the contrary. A severe, long-drawn guard shortage has lead to habitual 14-hour-day work cycles for a period of eight weeks at a stretch leading to severe sleep deprivation amongst guards.

2. Gurkhas among the troops have been known to threaten walking off the job embroiling the camp into conflicts. There existed a severe problem of communication breakdown between the Gurkha guards (which accounted for two-thirds of the force) due to their inability in conversing in English and their English-speaking counterparts. Describing the on-ground communication situation a US guard stated that if he were to tell to the Gurkhas that, "There is a terrorist standing behind you," the Gurkhas would most probably answer with a "Thank you sir, and good morning." Fun apart, this clearly points at a deplorable state of affairs!

3. Nothing said about the photographs the better. Snap after snap, guards are shown on display (and that includes supervisors) at rave parties in different stages of frontal nudity, sometimes even fondling each other. The situation on ground-zero is nothing short of what one might discover at a gay camp! The picture accompanying this report is one of the 12 images submitted by the Executive Director of POGO to Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. This particular picture happens to be the least disturbing of the lot, if only because the shot of frontal nudity is in the background as the campfire is predominant in this image. None of the remaining 11 pictures can make it to this report without offending a majority of the viewers. Hence they are all left out.

4. Hazing is almost a compulsion at Camp Kabul. This has lead to guards living in coercive and fearful conditions. Non-participants are subjected to ridicule, humiliation and might even face demotion and/or job loss. A dangerously volatile environment, one would agree.

5. An Afghan national’s account of what he was put through is nothing short of blasphemous and against the basic tenets of religious tolerance. This is about a food service worker who was allegedly grabbed by the face and abused with foul language and had to endure listening to a deprecatory remark like, "You are very good for fXXXing." Afghan nationals are drawn into behaviour forbidden in Islam such as making them consume alcohol. Photo evidence exists of a near-naked guard appearing to have urinated and splashed the stuff on to an Afghani staff.

6. Prostitutes have been known to make it in to the camp to attend birthday parties, the supervisor being the natural conduit for getting the girls in.

So, is the sacking of a handful guards and replacement of the management team at AGNA enough? Does not protecting an embassy located in a combat zone the function of the Government of that country? As per the Executive Summary of the U.S. Naval Academy’s 2009 McCain Conference on ‘Ethics and Military Contractors: Examining the Public-Private Partnership,’ "contractors should not be deployed as security guards, sentries, or even prison guards within combat areas. [Armed Private Security Contractors] should be restricted to appropriate support functions and those geographic areas where the rule of law prevails." So, why is the US Government still persisting with AGNA? Obama administration needs to take a real hard look at this and redefine if necessary what falls within the ambit of an inherently governmental function.

A private contractor would always go for a trade-off between effectively performing his duties and safeguarding his financial interests and there are no prizes for guessing where his loyalties would actually lie. Per AGNA’s very own supervisors, Peter Martino and James Sauer, “AGNA had underbid the contract in order to secure it," with the subsequent instructions to the supervisors being "to put a 'good face' and 'make do' in order to ensure a profit is made on the contract. Now ‘the fewer shifts and more hours per individual’ conundrum falls into place, doesn’t it? And who cares if the U.S. diplomatic mission is put under jeopardy in the process?!

That AGNA's problems seem to be all pervasive and not just limited to U.S. Embassy Kabul makes the alarm bell ring shriller. The incident of an ArmorGroup security guard shooting and killing two fellow guards and wounding at least one Iraqi in the Baghdad Zone is still in recent memory. The guard purportedly had a criminal record that was ignored even though a colleague of the guard actually described him as "a walking time-bomb." So much for the vetting process that should be in place while hiring staff for a nation’s security!

Need I still have to state that the Hobson’s choice therefore is to replace ArmorGroup? PRONTO!

- myVox