By Patricia Lee Sharpe
If you missed the PBS Newshour coverage of the lewd, crude and disgusting behavior of Wakenhut subsidiary ArmorGroup personnel in Kabul, see it here, now. Then read the letter prepared by POGO aka the Project on Government Oversight and sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on September 1st. Take a good look at the footnotes, too.
The State Department had known for a couple of years that all was not well with the guard situation in Kabul. Nothing racy, perhaps. Just continuous poor performace. Nevertheless, despite State’s many predictably wimpish warnings, followed by company officials’ predictably slimy and unfulfilled we’ll-do-better reassurances, the ArmorGroup North America (AGNA) contract was renewed through 2010. With an option to extend until 2012! (Just as so many Blackwater contracts have been, ever so quietly, renewed by State, albeit under various new names which are, effectively, aliases.)
Right Action at Last?
Happily, the POGO letter and those action shots accomplished what State should have done two years ago. The see-and-hear-no-evil behemoth is stirring. Some guards and supervisors have been discharged, if only those who could be identified from the now notorious pix, the local management team has been replaced, and State's Inspector General is finally on the AGNA case. Let’s hope the result isn't a repeat of the Abu Graib injustice: clueless underlings taking the fall for pernicious higher ups. POGO’s Recommendation Three should be taken seriously:
When, Really, Did They Know It?
Meanwhile, it’s hard for me to believe that titillating rumors of debauchery and wild parties at the AGNA compound known as Camp Sullivan wouldn’t have been circulating around the Embassy in Kabul. Clearly, anything like out-in-the-open whistleblowing would have cost the squealer his or her job, but innuendo usually thrives in the kind of closed society that embassies anywhere tend to be. The Embassies I’ve been attached to have been ever-buzzing gossip mills, especially when the tidbits were juicy.
What’s more, a good ambassador doesn’t hole up in the Front Office. He doesn’t depend on the Deputy Chief of Mission to keep things together while he basks in unstressed glory. He wanders around, keeping his antennae up, boosting morale and sniffing for problems that haven’t yet been articulated. Ditto a competent DCM. How could Embassy management in Kabul have been so blind and deaf? Were the occupants of the front office so august and remote that no mere mid-level or junior officer or local hire would cross the threshhold with a hunch, a suspicion, a concern? Did they just not care? All such happens much too often, in my experience. Sadder yet, in Kabul it seems to have taken orgies of depravity to get anyone to focus on the real scandal.
Resist the Orgy Distraction
The worst disgrace in Kabul wasn’t the Animal House behavior, telecast around the world in living color, however much those clips have brought people to regard the United States with disgust, again. It was (and is) the ideologically-motivated privatizing of government functions, the poorly-supervised “don’t ask, don’t tell” contracting process that put Embassy workers, as well as innocents in the vicinity, at risk twenty-four hours a day. Here’s the crux of the problem from a key paragraph from the POGO report:
If you missed the PBS Newshour coverage of the lewd, crude and disgusting behavior of Wakenhut subsidiary ArmorGroup personnel in Kabul, see it here, now. Then read the letter prepared by POGO aka the Project on Government Oversight and sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on September 1st. Take a good look at the footnotes, too.
The State Department had known for a couple of years that all was not well with the guard situation in Kabul. Nothing racy, perhaps. Just continuous poor performace. Nevertheless, despite State’s many predictably wimpish warnings, followed by company officials’ predictably slimy and unfulfilled we’ll-do-better reassurances, the ArmorGroup North America (AGNA) contract was renewed through 2010. With an option to extend until 2012! (Just as so many Blackwater contracts have been, ever so quietly, renewed by State, albeit under various new names which are, effectively, aliases.)
Right Action at Last?
Happily, the POGO letter and those action shots accomplished what State should have done two years ago. The see-and-hear-no-evil behemoth is stirring. Some guards and supervisors have been discharged, if only those who could be identified from the now notorious pix, the local management team has been replaced, and State's Inspector General is finally on the AGNA case. Let’s hope the result isn't a repeat of the Abu Graib injustice: clueless underlings taking the fall for pernicious higher ups. POGO’s Recommendation Three should be taken seriously:
State Department representatives either knew or should have known about this longstanding and dangerous situation regarding U.S. Embassy Kabul security. The State Department’s repeated warnings to AGNA were of no consequence, and Department officials responsible for oversight of this contract themselves should be held accountable. [My itals.]Urgent message to POGO and others on whom we evidently must rely to keep a sharp eye on the Augean stables of government contracting: keep your eyes (or nose) on this case. Internal controls seem to be nothing more than window dressing once a contract’s been let. But State is not the only offender. Laissez-faire reigns in Iraq, too, where the Pentagon’s complacency over poor contract compliance has squandered far more tax payer money.
When, Really, Did They Know It?
Meanwhile, it’s hard for me to believe that titillating rumors of debauchery and wild parties at the AGNA compound known as Camp Sullivan wouldn’t have been circulating around the Embassy in Kabul. Clearly, anything like out-in-the-open whistleblowing would have cost the squealer his or her job, but innuendo usually thrives in the kind of closed society that embassies anywhere tend to be. The Embassies I’ve been attached to have been ever-buzzing gossip mills, especially when the tidbits were juicy.
What’s more, a good ambassador doesn’t hole up in the Front Office. He doesn’t depend on the Deputy Chief of Mission to keep things together while he basks in unstressed glory. He wanders around, keeping his antennae up, boosting morale and sniffing for problems that haven’t yet been articulated. Ditto a competent DCM. How could Embassy management in Kabul have been so blind and deaf? Were the occupants of the front office so august and remote that no mere mid-level or junior officer or local hire would cross the threshhold with a hunch, a suspicion, a concern? Did they just not care? All such happens much too often, in my experience. Sadder yet, in Kabul it seems to have taken orgies of depravity to get anyone to focus on the real scandal.
Resist the Orgy Distraction
The worst disgrace in Kabul wasn’t the Animal House behavior, telecast around the world in living color, however much those clips have brought people to regard the United States with disgust, again. It was (and is) the ideologically-motivated privatizing of government functions, the poorly-supervised “don’t ask, don’t tell” contracting process that put Embassy workers, as well as innocents in the vicinity, at risk twenty-four hours a day. Here’s the crux of the problem from a key paragraph from the POGO report:
The use of private contractors for security in a combat zone [or anywhere, in fact!] poses several dilemmas. One is the inherent tension between the effective performance of a mission and the financial interest of the contractor. Cutting costs is good for the bottom line, but can put security [or credibility or any other else] at risk.Amazingly, during testimony in the case of Sauer v. ArmorGroup North America, Incorporated, AGNA officials “acknowledged that AGNA had underbid the contract in order to secure it,” after which, as guard supervisors in turn testified, they were told to “make do,” so as to “ensure that a profit would be made on the contract” in order to “satisfy the shareholders.” And what was done to “cut costs” and “maximize the profit margin”? The guard roster shrank and shifts were lengthened, which meant that the remaining guards had to work longer hours. Grueling work schedules got even worse (workdays of up to 14 ½ hours) when many guards, understandably unhappy with their working conditions, went on strike. Unsurprisingly, overwork and sleep deprivation led to resentment, sloppiness, accidents on the job, those strikes and horrendous turnover, all of which gave Embassy Kabul an ever-changing cadre of barely trained, inexperienced recruits unable to communicate with superiors in case of the very emergencies they’d been hired to handle. In short, embassy protection only in name. It’s pretty clear why AGNA didn’t want its abused employees to talk to embassy people. But how could the Embassy and the State Department have been so complacent, so enabling, when lives were at stake—and workers were being cruelly exploited?
The Many Other Victims
Unfortunately, the AGNA pattern of squeezing Wall Street-pleasing profits out of low ball State Department contracts isn’t unique to Kabul. It’s endemic to the embassy guard contracting business, and the results are always the same: an overworked, often sleepy guard force. Twelve hour work days were the norm wherever I was posted, although no one can stay alert every minute for such long stretches at a time. In short, we Americans run our embassies on the backs of the overworked and underpaid—even as we carry on about human rights and try to sell the world on the superiority of American values.
Wackenhut supplied the guards at many of my posts during my years abroad, but I won’t point fingers because there were other contractors in the business, and I never took notes, so I don’t remember which operated where. Suffice it to say, I never saw a difference in guard management or performance as I moved around the world. However, what pained me almost more than the routine callousness of contractor-imposed, Embassy-approved working conditions was the fact that so few of my diplomatic colleagues understood that the "negligence" they whined about was an inevitable result of the system. Guards did fall asleep on the job, but not just from laziness and irresponsibility. These scarecrow-like men in their khaki uniforms would be standing those 12 hour shifts day after day, often in an equatorial sun. Still they’d salute us smartly as we drove through the gate—many of us, to our discredit, ignoring them, as if they weren’t human beings deserving recognition, as if they weren’t supposed to spring into action to save our necks or property.
Actually, I figured, any guard with an ounce of intelligence or self-respect would simply save his own skin. No doubt, the guards kept hucksters away. And maybe the occasional apprentice thief thought twice about breaking into our homes. But how could we ask for more?
Theft by Invitation
This brings to mind a wonderful story from Tanzania. When, after my arrival, I was taken to view the house I’d shortly be moving into, I saw an unsightly tangle of going-dry-and-brown bougainvillea. The hedge had been chopped down so that drive-by security men could see the property better at night. The outgoing occupant, it seems, had been robbed several times. After I moved in, I told the gardeners to restore the flowering hedge, asked my boss to back me up on the landscaping—and got to know my Tanzanian neighbors, who laughingly told me about their departing neighbor.
This American “diplomat” often came home late and drunk. Sometimes he’d find the guard dozing. Cussing mightily, he’d kick the sleeper awake, and the noise would wake the neighbors, who filled me in on the guard's revenge. How, without the guard's complicity, could thieves remove the roof tiles to enter, help themselves to this or that, then exit through the roof, always neatly replacing the tiles? There was never enough proof to turn the guard over to the police, and I didn’t rat him out either. Fair enough, I thought. The brute was lucky no one had slit his throat. And besides I only had the neighbors’ word for the solution to the crime wave.
So I settled in. The hedge regrew, I disarmed my electronic alarm system because geckos kept setting it off at 2:00 am, and I got to know my guards. Said hi. Chatted. Sent them tea and cookies. And guess what? No problems. I certainly didn’t expect them to die for me, but I slept very well at night. And every morning I breakfasted on my front patio surrounded by sprays of salmon and magenta bougainvillea.
The American Way of Saying Thanks
Speaking of underbidding contractors who profit by depressing workers’ wages, I have an all too true story from Calcutta/Kolkata, where the contract for our USIA receptionists, janitors, messengers, cafeteria workers and other support staff functions was up for renewal.
Many of these people had served USIA loyally for years under a well fulfilled, often renewed contract. Contributing vastly beyond the minimum specified in the fine print, they’d become part of a high performance team. But that year a new contractor submitted an offer to provide the same services for dramatically less than the numbers in the existing contractor’s renewal bid. If the new guy won, our extremely well-trained, efficient support staff would have to take a significant pay cut or be sacked. I argued with our contracting officers in New Delhi. There were no jobs in Kolkata, let alone comparable jobs, and besides these people had become skilled far beyond their job descriptions. They were, in short, a terrific bargain, even as they contributed unstintingly to our high morale public diplomacy operation. We owed them a pay rise, not a pay cut. Etc.
Of course, I lost the battle . Contract workers, no matter how efficient, hard-working or loyal they may have been, are totally expendable. So much for burnishing the image of American justice and economic fair play abroad. My grandmother knew this: pretty is as pretty does. It’s not what you say but what you do that leaves the most lasting impression. We Americans talk about respect for the individual. Then we treat our contract workers like dirt—even in Muslim countries like Afghanistan where notions of justice and the equality of all believers are very strongly rooted, despite the many deficiencies of Afghan governance.
Equality, note. And yet, according to the POGO report, Kabul guards and supervisors weren’t supposed to talk to the diplomats. Aside from any other considerations, this is very bad psychology. Guards are likely to be more strongly protective of people they know, like and respect. A decent salary makes a difference, but it’s not all about money. Even the best public diplomacy efforts can’t make up for ugly personnel policy, let alone the Camp Sullivan follies.
PS: Read the latest, which corroborates my hunches.
Unfortunately, the AGNA pattern of squeezing Wall Street-pleasing profits out of low ball State Department contracts isn’t unique to Kabul. It’s endemic to the embassy guard contracting business, and the results are always the same: an overworked, often sleepy guard force. Twelve hour work days were the norm wherever I was posted, although no one can stay alert every minute for such long stretches at a time. In short, we Americans run our embassies on the backs of the overworked and underpaid—even as we carry on about human rights and try to sell the world on the superiority of American values.
Wackenhut supplied the guards at many of my posts during my years abroad, but I won’t point fingers because there were other contractors in the business, and I never took notes, so I don’t remember which operated where. Suffice it to say, I never saw a difference in guard management or performance as I moved around the world. However, what pained me almost more than the routine callousness of contractor-imposed, Embassy-approved working conditions was the fact that so few of my diplomatic colleagues understood that the "negligence" they whined about was an inevitable result of the system. Guards did fall asleep on the job, but not just from laziness and irresponsibility. These scarecrow-like men in their khaki uniforms would be standing those 12 hour shifts day after day, often in an equatorial sun. Still they’d salute us smartly as we drove through the gate—many of us, to our discredit, ignoring them, as if they weren’t human beings deserving recognition, as if they weren’t supposed to spring into action to save our necks or property.
Actually, I figured, any guard with an ounce of intelligence or self-respect would simply save his own skin. No doubt, the guards kept hucksters away. And maybe the occasional apprentice thief thought twice about breaking into our homes. But how could we ask for more?
Theft by Invitation
This brings to mind a wonderful story from Tanzania. When, after my arrival, I was taken to view the house I’d shortly be moving into, I saw an unsightly tangle of going-dry-and-brown bougainvillea. The hedge had been chopped down so that drive-by security men could see the property better at night. The outgoing occupant, it seems, had been robbed several times. After I moved in, I told the gardeners to restore the flowering hedge, asked my boss to back me up on the landscaping—and got to know my Tanzanian neighbors, who laughingly told me about their departing neighbor.
This American “diplomat” often came home late and drunk. Sometimes he’d find the guard dozing. Cussing mightily, he’d kick the sleeper awake, and the noise would wake the neighbors, who filled me in on the guard's revenge. How, without the guard's complicity, could thieves remove the roof tiles to enter, help themselves to this or that, then exit through the roof, always neatly replacing the tiles? There was never enough proof to turn the guard over to the police, and I didn’t rat him out either. Fair enough, I thought. The brute was lucky no one had slit his throat. And besides I only had the neighbors’ word for the solution to the crime wave.
So I settled in. The hedge regrew, I disarmed my electronic alarm system because geckos kept setting it off at 2:00 am, and I got to know my guards. Said hi. Chatted. Sent them tea and cookies. And guess what? No problems. I certainly didn’t expect them to die for me, but I slept very well at night. And every morning I breakfasted on my front patio surrounded by sprays of salmon and magenta bougainvillea.
The American Way of Saying Thanks
Speaking of underbidding contractors who profit by depressing workers’ wages, I have an all too true story from Calcutta/Kolkata, where the contract for our USIA receptionists, janitors, messengers, cafeteria workers and other support staff functions was up for renewal.
Many of these people had served USIA loyally for years under a well fulfilled, often renewed contract. Contributing vastly beyond the minimum specified in the fine print, they’d become part of a high performance team. But that year a new contractor submitted an offer to provide the same services for dramatically less than the numbers in the existing contractor’s renewal bid. If the new guy won, our extremely well-trained, efficient support staff would have to take a significant pay cut or be sacked. I argued with our contracting officers in New Delhi. There were no jobs in Kolkata, let alone comparable jobs, and besides these people had become skilled far beyond their job descriptions. They were, in short, a terrific bargain, even as they contributed unstintingly to our high morale public diplomacy operation. We owed them a pay rise, not a pay cut. Etc.
Of course, I lost the battle . Contract workers, no matter how efficient, hard-working or loyal they may have been, are totally expendable. So much for burnishing the image of American justice and economic fair play abroad. My grandmother knew this: pretty is as pretty does. It’s not what you say but what you do that leaves the most lasting impression. We Americans talk about respect for the individual. Then we treat our contract workers like dirt—even in Muslim countries like Afghanistan where notions of justice and the equality of all believers are very strongly rooted, despite the many deficiencies of Afghan governance.
Equality, note. And yet, according to the POGO report, Kabul guards and supervisors weren’t supposed to talk to the diplomats. Aside from any other considerations, this is very bad psychology. Guards are likely to be more strongly protective of people they know, like and respect. A decent salary makes a difference, but it’s not all about money. Even the best public diplomacy efforts can’t make up for ugly personnel policy, let alone the Camp Sullivan follies.
PS: Read the latest, which corroborates my hunches.