Former Armour Group employee tells it all.
If you are having problems watching this video on MsSparky.com click HERE
Click HERE for link to hazing pics.
I am amazed and confused that the Afghanistan hazing incident is getting such a “shock and eeewww” reaction and so much media attention. The public is finding this so unbelievable and outrageous and yet it happened. So why is it so difficult to believe that a 20 year old woman was gang-raped in the Green Zone by co-workers or that men and women are being brutalized and victimized, discriminated against and harassed. And that managers are promoting prostitution, some owning and operating their own brothels.
Inside of Camp Slayer in Baghdad there was another compound with high walls. It was called the OGA (Other Government Agencies) Compound. I do not know who these agencies were but my sources tell me that they had lots and lots of weapons! They were not under General Order 1. They had a bar and partied and also had a mud wrestling pit. This was all fine and good, but they allegedly had naked women wrestling in the pit for their entertainment pleasure. I’m not sure who these women were, but this was a well known fact at Camp Slayer in the 2004 time frame. The OGA Camp was shut down in the late fall of 2004 supposedly because the wrong people found out about the mud wrestling venue. When the KBR employees were taken into the compound on a tour after OGA vacated, the bar and “naked female mud wrestling pit” was pointed out. This knowledge would lead me to believe that there was some KBR involvement here!
These incidents are just another example of government employees and contractors misbehaving. After the litany of investigations and reports, over the years, this just seems to be another day at the office and it certainly isn’t new news. According to testimony and published personal accounts, the standard operating procedure appears to include threats, intimidation, retaliation, prostitution, sexual misconduct, rape and the list goes on. These atrocities have been reported within the military and on both State Dept. and DoD contracts.
The people coming forward have been ignored, patronized or if they are civilian contractors forced into secret binding arbitration. The victims only chance for vindication or a moral victory in most cases will be validation; to date this has not happened nor has it been attempted. In fact I would wager to guess that the bulk of the victims feel as though they have been further ostracized and their careers put at great risk by going public with their ordeals and have been labeled as lazy, money grubbing, asking for it, etc…
Why is no one looking at all of these cases as an example of a systemic deep rooted problem and moving forward to investigate and rectify the situation? Or is this just another example of the “tail wagging the dog” in Government contracting.
While researching for this article I discovered an incredible amount of information about military rapes. Very Very disturbing. Very disturbing how the military handled it. I will be blogging about that in a day or so.
Ms Sparky
I have to wonder after reading this, if Senator Nelson and Congressman Poe ever got responses from Secretary of State Rice or Secretary of Defense Gates regarding ther requests for information on contractor crimes?
http://www.billnelson.senate.gov/supporting/GatesLetter.pdf
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2008/01/bush-admin-slow.html
If Robert Gates didn’t bother to respond to the allegations of rape of US Women by their US co-workers; will the booze-n-buttcrack scandal even raise an eyebrow in his world?
Silence Means Consent
Ms Sparky’s Response:
I think the only reason this has gotten so much media attention is the photos of these pervs. More attention more public outcry more action. No photos of rapes, or murdered women in Iraq, therefore the general public has a hard time visualizing that horror. Therefore no mass public outcry and no pressure on Gates.
A government watchdog group says it has obtained an email indicating that the State Department plans to phase out the use of security contractor ArmorGroup North America at its US embassy in Kabul.
The Project on Government Oversight previously exposed allegations of contract deficiencies, understaffing, false statements, misrepresentation and bad behavior by some employees with the security contractor.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/1209/POGO_ArmorGroup_loses_Kabul_embassy_contract.html#
This is a copy of an article from todays Wall Street Journal concerning ArmorGroup North America.
U.S. Seeks New Guards in Kabul
The State Department plans to seek new bids to protect the U.S. Embassy in Kabul after the current firm ran into staffing and oversight problems.
The company, ArmorGroup North America, a unit of Wackenhut Services Inc., will be allowed to bid on the new contract, the State Department said.
“The recent allegations of misconduct and various contract compliance deficiencies led us to conclude it was in the best interest of the government to compete a new contract,” said P.J. Crowley, assistant secretary of state for public affairs.
The plan to rebid the contract was earlier disclosed by the Project on Government Oversight, an independent watchdog group that in September released lurid photos and videos of ArmorGroup guards at a party.
ArmorGroup North America began protecting the Kabul embassy in 2007 as part of a contract valued at as much as $189 million over five years. It is renewed annually, and the current work expires in June 2010. The company struggled to provide English-speaking guards and was frequently understaffed. The previous company had similar issues.
The company declined to comment and referred questions to the State Department.
The decision to rebid the contract highlights the challenges the Obama administration faces in continuing to rely on such firms in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are already some 104,100 Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan, mostly local hires focused on logistics and construction.
They are expected to outnumber U.S. forces in Afghanistan even after 30,000 more troops are sent next year. Thousands more contractors work for the State Department on various rebuilding and development projects.