POGO: ArmorGroup Whistleblower Forced to Resign
| Thu Sep. 3, 2009 7:07 AM PDT
How is ArmorGroup North America responding to the allegations that its Kabul embassy guards were engaging in a range of unbecoming conduct? The firm (and its parent company, Wackenhut) has so far declined to issue any comment. Behind the scenes, however, swift action has been taken, though not against ArmorGroup employees who engaged in or approved of lewd behavior, humiliating hazing rituals, and other practices that put the embassy at risk. Rather, says the Project on Government Oversight, one of the whistleblowers who brought these explosive allegations to the watchdog group's attention has been retaliated against by his employer, an ArmorGroup client:
One of the whistleblowers who helped expose the guard scandal at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul has just been forced to resign after his company—whose client is ArmorGroup, North America (AGNA)—came to believe that he had reached out to D.C. for assistance. The company told POGO that the whistleblower’s resignation was voluntary.
However, information obtained by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) strongly suggests he was pressured into resigning to avoid being fired, an action often referred to as constructive dismissal.
POGO is deeply concerned about the action allegedly taken against the whistleblower. He is being forced out at a time when three of the supervisors responsible for allowing the misconduct at Camp Sullivan have been allowed to quietly resign and escape accountability. As per our letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of September 1, 2009, POGO calls on the State Department to take immediate action to protect both the physical and employment security of whistleblowers who have stepped forward with allegations of serious misconduct involving ArmorGroup, North America and others.
Advertisement
Advertisement
According to POGO, at least one of the ArmorGroup supervisors who resigned did so following the group's letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, outlining what POGO described as a "Lord of the Flies environment" that included "near-weekly deviant hazing and humiliation." The allegations, which have drawn widespread media attention, have already prompted action by the embassy in Kabul. The embassy has banned alcohol at Camp Sullivan, where ArmorGroup's employees live, and placed the contractor's employees under the supervision of members of the State Department's diplomatic security branch. On Thursday, Ambassador Karl Eickenberry held a town hall-style meeting with embassy employees to address concerns raised by the allegations.
At a briefing on Wednesday, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters that three separate investigations were underway into the conduct of ArmorGroup personnel. The department's Inspector General has launched a probe, and Eickenberry has instructed his senior staff to review the security situation. In addition, the State Department is dispatching a team of senior diplomatic security and contracting officials to Kabul to investigate in the next few days. "To be clear, there were some things going on in Kabul which we were not aware of, but frankly, we should have been aware of," Kelly said. Even so, he insisted that the embassy "has been well protected." A top State Department contracting official, William Moser, made a similar claim before Congress in June, telling Sen. Claire McCaskill's subcommittee on contracting oversight that despite some "deficiencies," ArmorGroup's performance "has been and is sound."
His statement, and Kelly's comments yesterday, are at odds with nine separate warnings the State Department issued to ArmorGroup starting just weeks after the contractor took over the embassy job in July 2007. The notices, some threatening termination of the contract, warned of a variety of lapses, including a failure to provide enough guards and equipment. In one case, a State Department contracting official wrote that ArmorGroup's "contract deficiencies...endanger performance of the contract to such a degree that the security of the US Embassy in Kabul is in jeopardy." As recently as March, after ArmorGroup told the State Department that its staffing was "fully contract compliant," the department informed the contractor that it still had "grave concerns" about its guard levels. "In inspections of the guard force operations, the State Department observed that at least 18 guards were absent from their posts at the embassy," according to an investigation by McCaskill's Senate subcommitee.
ArmorGroup North America's parent company, Wackenhut, has not yet addressed POGO's allegations publicly. But, as of Thursday morning, the company was preparing to release a statement. "We're obliged to go through certain approval channels and once we go through those channels we will be able to release our statement," a Wackenhut official told me. She said she "was not entirely at liberty to say" what those channels were, however. "We are working very closely with the State Department on this issue," she added. "And we will be able to address the various details regarding that once we release that information."
Follow Daniel Schulman on Twitter.
Comments
Bottom line
Submitted by David (not verified) on Thu Sep. 3, 2009 10:56 AM PDT.
We don't have the military personnel to wage two wars at the same time. These contracting companies know that. State will be forced to back down and turn a blind eye if they want themselve protected. It's either that, or welcome back The Draft.
Privatizing the Army
Submitted by Elydog (not verified) on Thu Sep. 3, 2009 12:12 PM PDT.
Another example of how privatizing the Army has worked out great - for the profits of Wackenhut. Why not hire some mall guards next?
We've seen how the paper tigers of the Obama administration handled Blackwater. Let's see what they do with this group of clowns. Change you can believe in.
I am against this private
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Sep. 3, 2009 2:08 PM PDT.
I am against this private Army. But I have to say this has made me laugh until my face hurt. I'd say these guys were off duty and at least they weren't making money off of a bunch of drunk college girls. The girls were making money off them. Now when I have a bad day with the boss, I just think of him in a coconut bra and a grass skirt.
Let me get this straight.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri Sep. 4, 2009 2:55 PM PDT.
Let me get this straight. These are armed men, in a war zone, paid for privately and not part of the US Military. That makes them mercenaries by my definition. Isn't the US a signatory to international treaties that makes the use of mercenaries illegal? But then i guess it is like torture. it really isn't torture as long as you call it "Enhanced interrogation."
Wackenhut
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri Sep. 4, 2009 4:56 PM PDT.
We should also be concerned that Wackkyhut is also the contracted security for Ft. Bragg, N.C. and other stateside bases. Untrained 18 year olds with large bore weapons and bad attitudes on public streets. Does someone at Wackyhut know where some bodies are buried?
We should revere whistle-blowers, not stone them.
Submitted by jay lewis (not verified) on Sat Sep. 5, 2009 7:58 PM PDT.
First, this: every whistle-blower in America should be embraced by all Americans--even those catty-cornered from honor by huge money--as the most sovereign of our heroes.
What they are engaged in in the general sense is saving every American's butt, directly or indirectly, from being scraped and rawed by some lying entity, some greedy entity, usually otherwise referred to in category terms as corporate, or as in this case, military-industrial.
Corporations who have CEO's who have not taken the blood covenant to plunder-above-all-principles, and who do not have workers on call to shout down Democrats on the streets, should make every effort within their walls to make available immediate jobs for those who have engaged in the most noble deeds of their peers, only to receive the most ignoble treatment from the crook they have just justifiably embarrassed.
Who among us can make the case that the federal government, who job it is to provide tacit oversight so as to protect us from our brethern most ignoble, should not note and appreciate such contributive efforts, much like energy companies giving money back to individuals who create power on their own acreage. Whistle-blowesr could thus even receive high financial reward from their grateful government, probably viable in terms of the money or honor they save us all. The more such a program is expanded, the more corruption finds it harder to survive.
Secondly, put in perspective, one can notice that the same disruptive behavior, the same againster acting-out that occurs in the military as shown here, and at Gitmo and other detainee military sites, is also congruent with the political tactics of the Right wing of the Republican Party (as if their is a dividing line these days).
Post new comment
MoJo Comments: Send Us Your Feedback
We changed our spam software to better filter comments. Should you encounter any issues, please let us know.
