THE INSPECTOR general of the US state department is investigating reports by a non-profit government watchdog of serious misconduct by contract guards at the US embassy in Kabul.
“The lewd and deviant behaviour of approximately 30 supervisors and guards has resulted in complete distrust of leadership and a breakdown of the chain of command,” says an 11-page letter sent by the Project on Government Oversight (Pogo) to secretary of state Hillary Clinton. (Full text available on www.pogo.org)
The group says embassy guards work in a "climate of fear and coercion" in a Lord of the Fliesenvironment, an allusion to William Golding's 1954 novel about British schoolboys stranded on a desert island. "After extensive interviews with eyewitnesses, and examination of documents, photographs, videos and e-mails, Pogo believes that the management of the contract to protect the US embassy in Kabul is grossly deficient, posing a significant threat to the security of the embassy and its personnel . . ." states the letter.
Pogo received an e-mail from a current guard, describing rituals of humiliation during which guards and supervisors were “peeing on people, eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of [buttock] cracks (there is video of that one), broken doors after drnken [sic] brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity . . .” The letter also cites photographs of guards and supervisors “in various stages of nudity, sometimes fondling each other”.
The guards are employed by ArmorGroup North America. The parent company, Wachenhut, has refused press requests for comment. ArmorGroup received a $189 million (€118 million) contract to guard the 1,000-strong US embassy in 2007.
State department spokesman Ian Kelly said “the secretary and the department have made it very clear that we will have zero tolerance for the type of conduct that is alleged in these documents”.
But the department is under fire for renewing ArmorGroup’s contract in July. “From our investigation into this situation, we think state is an equal partner in the failure here,” Danielle Brian, the executive director of Pogo, told the New York Times.
Pogo recommends the US military take over supervision of the guards, and the contract be reconsidered. Some 450 ArmorGroup guards live at Camp Sullivan, a few miles from the embassy in Kabul; 150 are Americans, the rest Gurkhas from Nepal and northern India.
Prostitutes were allegedly brought into Camp Sullivan to celebrate birthdays. In one incident, guards took weapons and night-vision equipment from embassy stores on an unauthorised “cowboy” mission into Kabul, disguising themselves as Afghans.
Supervisors then issued “letters of recognition” on state department letterheaded paper.
A report by the Congressional Research Service, also disclosed this week, notes contract employees – mercenaries – are now more numerous than enlisted military in Afghanistan, where there are 52,300 uniformed US military personnel and 68,200 contractors. Never before have mercenaries outnumbered soldiers in a US war. Gun-slinging mercenaries in Ray-Bans, baseball caps, T-shirts, flak-jackets and safari-style trousers have been a fixture of the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars.
Under the Bush administration, the outsourcing of war reached new heights. Civilian contractors were involved in torture at Abu Ghraib prison, and security guards employed by the company formerly called Blackwater killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad. Blackwater employees were engaged in a secret plan to assassinate al-Qaeda operatives, though the plan was never carried out.
“As in Iraq, the department of state has utterly failed to properly manage another contractor, this time at the US embassy Kabul, Afghanistan,” says Pogo’s letter to Ms Clinton. Two supervisors at ArmorGroup resigned, but are believed to have gone to other government employment.