New ArmorGroup Revelations: Fraud, Schemes, Prostitution
WASHINGTON — Former managers for the security contractor protecting the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan said Thursday the company lowballed its bid for the work and then outfitted a badly understaffed guard corps with second-rate gear.
The allegations come a week after an independent watchdog group said that the private guards in Kabul employed by ArmorGroup NorthAmerica were subjected to abuse and hazing by supervisors who engaged in sexual misconduct and lewd behavior.
James Gordon, former director of operations at ArmorGroup, and John Gorman, a former ArmorGroup manager in Kabul, told reporters they were forced out after trying to get the company to fix a long list of problems.
Gordon, who left ArmorGroup in February 2008, said he alerted the State Department to shortcomings in personnel, equipment and discipline that created security risks, but little changed.
In a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court, Gordon said ArmorGroup withheld from Congress information about employees who went to brothels in Kabul known to house trafficked women.
ArmorGroup's "goal was to maximize their profits, provide a fig leaf of security at the embassy, and pray to God that nobody got killed," Gordon said.
ArmorGroup was awarded the $189 million embassy security contract in March 2007.
Susan Pitcher, a spokeswoman for Wackenhut Services, ArmorGroup's parent company, said Gordon resigned voluntarily and has been "threatening" a lawsuit since last year. A company review of Gordon's allegations found them to be baseless, she added.
The State Department is investigating ArmorGroup's handling of the contract in the wake of the watchdog group's report of misconduct among the company's employees. The department is also examining conditions at the embassy and nearby Camp Sullivan, the offsite location where the ArmorGroup guards live.
At the same time, department officials have insisted that security at the Kabul embassy, one of the country's most important diplomatic outposts, hasn't been compromised.
The Sept. 1 report from the Project on Government Oversight included photos of guards and supervisors in various stages of nudity at parties flowing with alcohol. So far, 16 ArmorGroup employees have been fired or resigned and alcohol has been banned at Camp Sullivan.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley declined on Thursday to comment on Gordon's lawsuit. He said ArmorGroup has corrected problems the department identified in frequent reviews of the contract.
Gorman joined ArmorGroup in April 2007, shortly after it was awarded the Kabul embassy contract.
He said ArmorGroup misled the government by claiming experience and assets the company didn't have. To cut costs and keep profits up, ArmorGroup changed shift lengths for guards from eight to 12 hours and also cut the number of shifts from five to four.
He also said guards were not properly screened, and that this failure led to the misconduct.
Gorman said ArmorGroup dismissed him in June 2007.
Gordon spoke to reporters by telephone from Kabul, where he is employed by a security contractor he would not name.
He said the guard force in Kabul has been "chronically understaffed" because ArmorGroup refused to pay for more people.
Gordon also said that ArmorGroup's logistics manager used U.S. tax dollars to buy counterfeit North Face and Altoona jackets and boots for the guards from a company in Lebanon owned by the manager's wife.
And he described an episode in which the ArmorGroup employee responsible for maintaining the guards' weapons had to be forcibly removed from a brothel during work hours. Gordon said he tried to have the employee fired. That didn't happen, and Gordon said he later learned other ArmorGroup guards and supervisors also frequented brothels in Kabul.
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On the Net:
U.S. Embassy Afghanistan: http://kabul.usembassy.gov/
(This version CORRECTS name of State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.)
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RICHARD LARDNER | 09/10/09 08:52 PM |