The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog

Kabul Attack Underlines Importance of Embassy Security

By JAKE WIENS

Armed with rockets and machine guns, a group of militants yesterday launched a sophisticated attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul from a partially constructed building about half a mile away, reports the New York Times.

The attack comes just months after two separate attacks rocked Afghanistan’s capital. The first was a June attack on the famed Inter-Continental Hotel, which reportedly claimed the lives of at least 10 people. Following that attack, at least nine people were killed and dozens more were injured when Taliban militants, dressed as Afghan women, detonated car bombs at the British Council on Afghanistan’s Independence Day in late August.

Although no embassy personnel were harmed during today’s attack on the Embassy, the brazen midday assault, coupled with the previous attacks, is a reminder that security of the Embassy remains paramount.

New Podcast: Private Security Contracting, Oversight, and the State Department

A new podcast is now available for your listening pleasure. Tune in to hear POGO staffers consider the findings of the latest report issued by the State Department's Inspector General, as well as the larger role of private security contractors in the U.S. efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

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-- Bryan Rahija

Image by Flickr user Duchamp, used under Creative Commons License.

State Department Inspector General Documents AGNA Antics in Afghanistan

The State Department Office of the Inspector General (OIG) today released a damning performance evaluation of ArmorGroup North America (AGNA), the contractor responsible for guarding the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Among the revelations from today's OIG report:

 

• AGNA employed, and the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security failed to scrutinize, “Nepalese guards without verifiable experience, training, or background investigations in violation of its contract.”
  
  
• “AGNA cannot account for 101 U.S. Government-furnished weapons that have been missing since 2007. AGNA used U.S. Government-furnished weapons for training rather than required contractor-furnished weapons.”
  
  
• “AGNA regularly allows individuals who are not vetted by Embassy Kabul’s regional security office unescorted access to Camp Sullivan, a U.S. Government-owned camp containing sensitive materials.”

The report confirms and expands on the findings of our investigation last year, which pulled back the curtain on a "Lord of the Flies environment" that had taken hold of the Embassy security guard force.

Lewd and obscene photos of AGNA security guards helped our investigation garner considerable attention—but the key revelation, as detailed in our letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was that the State Department was failing to conduct oversight of a contractor performing an incredibly important service. Today's OIG report is just one more piece of evidence demonstrating that the State Department continues to struggle in its oversight of private security contractors.

Find statements by POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian and POGO investigator Jake Wiens here.

ArmorGroup’s contract expired on June 30, 2010, but the company will continue to guard the Embassy through the end of 2010. The State Department has selected EOD Technology, Inc. (EODT) to take over security at the Embassy.

-- Bryan Rahija

See also:

• Testimony of Danielle Brian before the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan Regarding Private Security Contractors
• Senate Report Says ArmorGroup Funded Warlords In Bed With the Taliban
• Did Triple Canopy Instruct Its Guards to Lie to State Department Investigators?
• Kabul Embassy Deja Vu
• Kabul Embassy Guards Back in the Spotlight
• POGO Letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding U.S. Embassy in Kabul

Senate Report Says ArmorGroup Funded Warlords In Bed With the Taliban

"Money is ammunition; don't put it in the wrong hands," Gen. David Petraeus warned in an August memo that gave counterinsurgency (COIN) guidance. But apparently the U.S. government is doing just that. Yesterday, the Senate Armed Services Committee released a report detailing examples where the U.S. has fueled warlords connected with the Taliban and Iranian intelligence. This is at least the third government report made public that asserts that weak contract oversight is undermining U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan--in sum, we may be funding the very folks we're fighting against.

According to the Senate report, its "inquiry uncovered evidence of private security contractors funneling U.S. taxpayers dollars to Afghan warlords and strongmen linked to murder, kidnapping, bribery as well as Taliban and other anti-Coalition activities." The report delves into numerous problems connected to the more than 26,000 private security personnel in Afghanistan, an estimated 90 percent of whom are funded through U.S. contracts or subcontracts. The issues range from untrained guards to insufficient weaponry to unmanned posts.

New Podcast: Fun with Inherently Governmental Functions

In case you missed it, a new POGO podcast is now available. In it, POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian makes her podcast debut, discussing recent testimony about private security contractors that she delivered at a Commission on Wartime Contracting hearing.

The hearing tackled the question of whether providing security in combat zones should be considered an inherently governmental function—in other words, a service that should be reserved for government personnel only.

Have a listen, and while you're at it, feel free to subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. Please feel free also to drop us a line with feedback or suggestions for podcast topics. 

DOWNLOAD THE LATEST POGO PODCAST.

-- Bryan Rahija

Image: Curious Expeditions, licensed under Creative Commons.

POGO Talks Private Security Contractors, Inherently Governmental Functions

POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian is back on Capitol Hill this morning to deliver testimony before the Commission on Wartime Contracting. The Commission is holding a hearing probing the role of private security contractors (PSCs).

You can read her testimony here, and tune in to the hearing on C-SPAN3.

-- Bryan Rahija

Did Triple Canopy Instruct Its Guards to Lie to State Department Investigators?

Props to Dan Schulman at Mother Jones for finding an incredible footnote buried within the State Department IG’s audit on the shortcomings in State’s oversight of Triple Canopy, the contractor responsible for guarding the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

The footnote states that in anticipation of the IG’s site visit, Triple Canopy’s program manager, deputy program manager, and guard force commander emailed site managers a document entitled “Pre-Inspection Guidance” with instructions for how to respond to questions about breaks and other working conditions:

“Answer to break question for guards is 15 minutes morning, 30 minutes lunch, and 15 minutes afternoon. DO NOT SAY: “I do not have a relief supervisor today.” Instead, and only if asked, I am sharing a relief supervisor with (name other venue). Do not elaborate on answers to inspectors questions. Answer only the questions. What you say can and will be used against you.”

Schulman points out that “the majority of the guards the IG’s office interviewed said they received their breaks as required—but four members of Triple Canopy’s embassy team acknowledged this wasn’t always the case.”

We were reminded of an incident last fall when we learned from whistleblowers guarding the U.S. Embassy in Kabul that someone had put up a poster calling the whistleblowers “rats” and warning them that their jobs and families could be in danger. State put up its own poster in response assuring guard force members that whistleblower intimidation would not be tolerated, but we have to wonder if Triple Canopy is on board with this message. If anyone has witnessed threats against whistleblowers at the Baghdad Embassy, please let POGO know.

We also wanted to highlight some photos in the latest IG report illustrating the unsafe living conditions for the Embassy guards.

The arrow in the photo below shows a live wire lying on the floor of a high-traffic area in the barracks that’s lacking in sufficient exits, fire alarms, smoke detectors, and fire extinguishers:

Kabul Embassy Deja Vu

Does the State Department have the capacity to effectively manage an embassy security contract in a war zone?

It depends on your definition of effective.  A previously unreleased report by the Department of State Office of Inspector General (IG), made public today by POGO, found shortcoming after shortcoming in State’s ability to effectively monitor Triple Canopy, the contractor responsible for guarding the U.S. Baghdad Embassy. The report gave POGO a case of Kabul déjà vu.

The audit found that significant training and language deficiencies in the Triple Canopy guard force violated the contract and compromised security at the Baghdad Embassy. Conditions for guards at Camp Olympia—the temporary facility where many of the guards are housed—were "unsafe," included "four times the acceptable number of guards residing in a room" and "frayed electrical wires in high traffic areas." In the most serious case, there was an electrocution death there in September 2009.

Triple Canopy’s guards also reported working an average of 10 to 11 consecutive days, and the IG found that some worked as many as 39 days in a row.

In the areas in which State conducted the most oversight, Triple Canopy performed well. But the audit found that in the areas in which State had little oversight—such as training and English language proficiency—the contractor’s performance failed to meet contract requirements.

Nonetheless, the audit concludes that the contract is “generally well-managed.”

A number of the problems identified in the audit echo those uncovered by POGO at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. For instance, in Kabul we found that “chronic understaffing” plagued the Embassy guard force, run by Armor Group North America (AGNA). In some cases, the shortage of guards resulted in some guards working “14-hour-day work cycles extending for as many as eight weeks in a row, frequently alternating between day and night shifts.” We also found a significant problem with the ability of the AGNA guard to communicate with each other, as is the case in Baghdad.

While in both Baghdad and Kabul it would be easy to lay the blame for all these shortcomings solely on the contractors, the audit seems to suggest, and we agree, that the blame ultimately rests with State.

In light of the importance of effective oversight, we find it shocking, as we noted earlier this week, that the State Department appears to be planning to “augment” its oversight of the security contractors in Kabul with a contractor.

-- Jake Wiens

Kabul Embassy Guards Back in the Spotlight

Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) continues to shine a light on the State Department’s controversial use of contractor security guards at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Last Friday, she sent this letter pressing the Department for additional information about its plans and goals for the scandal-plagued contract.

Since last June, McCaskill’s Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight has been closely watching the contract to provide security services at the embassy, documenting waste, fraud and abuse that threatens the security of the embassy. In September, POGO brought the issue to international attention when it disclosed various other abuses, including shocking photos showing employees of the security guard contractor ArmorGroup North America (a subsidiary of G4S/Wackenhut) engaging in Animal House-style hazing. Months of unrelenting criticism led the State Department to announce in December it would not renew the contract with AGNA when it expired in mid-2010, although AGNA would stay put until the transition to the new security contractor was complete.

As if the integrity and responsibility of this new security contractor wasn’t enough to worry about, McCaskill now foresees another potential crisis. It seems the State Department plans to “augment” its oversight of the security contractor…by hiring another contractor. As outlined by Ambassador Eric Boswell in this response to McCaskill’s questions (see p. 4):

As part of the long term solution, [Diplomatic Security] has conducted interviews and is now in the selection and hiring process for a personal service contractor (i.e., an employee engaged directly by the government rather than a third-party contractor) who will reside at Camp Sullivan and further augment the [Regional Security Officer’s] contract oversight responsibilities.

Senator McCaskill has given the State Department until April 30 to turn over information relating to its use of contractors to manage and oversee security contractors.

The State Department has been criticized before for outsourcing oversight of its security contractors. In 2008, POGO blogged about the controversial Bureau of Diplomatic Security contract to staff a special unit to investigate instances of misuse of force against civilians by American private security contractors in Iraq. Concern over a contractor performing the inherently governmental function of conducting criminal investigations prompted Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI.) to write a letter to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging her to cancel the contract and staff the unit with government employees only.

POGO still questions the wisdom of hiring contractors to provide security in a war zone. By assigning the responsibility for overseeing these contractors to other contractors, however, the State Department might have gone too far.

-- Neil Gordon

CWC Findings on Embassy Guards Fiasco Amount to "Blame Shifting"

On October 1st, the Commission on War Time Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan (CWC) issued a Special Report.  Entitled “Lowest-priced security not good enough for war-zone embassies,” the report places most of the blame for the recent fiasco involving the work of ArmorGroup North America at the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, on the use of a negotiated procurement source selection technique known as “lowest-price technically acceptable offer” (LPTAO).

POGO has generally been impressed with the work of the CWC, and particularly the hearing on the Kabul Embassy security contract (at which POGO testified).  However, in this case, we believe the CWC’s conclusion is misplaced.  While there are legitimate differences concerning use of LPTAO in contrast with so-called “best value” source selection techniques in negotiated procurement award decisions, blaming the failure of the contract on use of the statutorily required LPTAO source selection technique seems to us to be nothing more than blame shifting by the State Department to Congress.

In fact, what is left out of the report is more instructive than what is included.  For example, under LPTAO the State Department may specify “minimum technical acceptability” requirements.  Apparently, State claims that it was required to go to the lowest-priced offer, but conveniently omits that the Department could have required a higher level of minimum acceptability criteria.  Use of LPTAO places the burden on the agency to specify minimum technical acceptability.  In turn, this requires the contracting agency to develop and use thoughtful and reasoned source selection criteria and high quality specifications.  Apparently, the State Department did not do this.

For example, if limiting guard shifts to 8-hours was a criteria for doing the work, then those limitations should have been listed as a requirement.  Similarly, if only guards with previous U.S. Special Forces or Marine Corps experience were required, that too could have been specified.  The main point is that use of LPTAO requires the contracting agency to carefully consider its specifications and requirements.  In contrast, so-called “best value” source selection techniques often leave it to the contractor(s) to specify the necessary skills and requirements.

CWC’s blaming of the LPTAO source selection methodology for the Kabul embassy failure reminds us of the Federal Aviation Administration’s attempt in the mid-1990s to blame its air traffic control problems on the “procurement process.”  Yes, we agree that procurement process frequently requires contracting agencies to do their homework before awarding contracts.  Blaming this obvious State Department failure on use of LPTAO is a smoke screen.

POGO urges Congress to go back to the State Department and tell them to use the LPTAO negotiated source selection technique for embassy security in a more thoughtful and considered manner.

-- Danielle Brian

CWC Report: Federal Law Can Lead to Bad Contracting Choices at the State Department

According to a new report just issued by the Commission on Wartime Contracting, federal law is impeding State Department from making the best choice for security contractors. The report, "Lowest-priced security not good enough for war-zone embassies," points out that the State Department is required to use a “lowest price, technically acceptable” standard in awarding building security contracts worth $250,000 or more.

Citing the recent misconduct and deficiencies with the Armor Group North America security contract at the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, the report says the law can lead to a "race-to-the-bottom" among contractors bidding on a contract, which can in turn work against the public interest.

The report recommends the law be amended so that the Department "can award security service contracts using the full continuum of best-value trade-off evaluation techniques." We don't agree with the Commission's recommendation and will post an analysis soon.

-- Bryan Rahija

A Letter from the State Department, Or, Dashed Hopes Part II

Late yesterday, POGO received an envelope marked with the State Department's address in the upper left hand corner.  Could this be the long-awaited reply to our 10-page letter highlighting a host of oversight and contractor misconduct problems at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul?  After waiting a whole week for a perfunctory, two-sentence email reply, we thought that after another two weeks, we might finally have received word from someone at the Department. 

Alas, we were let down again.  Upon opening the envelope, we found a letter replying to an inquiry about furniture contracts.  Might be something we'd look into, no?  Only problem is, we didn't make that inquiry.  The letter itself was addressed not to POGO, but to a DC-based lawyer (whose name, by the way, was spelled differently over the course of the letter).  The letter mentioned it was responding to an inquiry from earlier in the summer, but carried no date of its own. 

So if anyone has mistakenly received a letter from the State Department addressed to Danielle Brian at the "Project On Government Oversight," please let us know.  Here's hoping future replies from State provide more than comic relief around the water cooler.

-- Bryan Rahija