Mercs Gone Wild at U.S. Embassy Kabul (Updated, With Photos)

(Editor’s note: Photos in this story may be not safe for work, NSFW.)

Guarding the U.S. Embassy in Kabul sounds like a high-risk, war zone job with lots of responsibility, right? Well, according to recent Congressional reports and an investigation by government watchdogs, it's more like Animal House with automatic weapons.

The Project on Government Oversight yesterday fired off a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton complaining of a "pervasive breakdown in the chain of command and guard force discipline and morale" in the contracted security force at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. But that's putting it politely. According to evidence compiled by POGO, the misbehavior by guards includes "peeing on people, eating potato chips out of ass cracks, vodka shots out of ass cracks" and other fratboy-style antics.

An e-mail from a whistleblower -- posted on the POGO website -- spells it out. "You will see that they have a group of sexual predators, deviants running rampant over there," the whistleblower wrote. "No, they are not jamming guys in the ass per say [sic], but they are showing poor judgenment [sic]."

Guards were also kind enough to provide photo evidence, which POGO released to Gawker.

It's not the first time that investigators have raised questions about the management of embassy security in Kabul. In Senate testimony last year, William Moser, deputy assistant secretary of State for logistics management, conceded that there were "deficiencies in personnel, training, equipment, and performance" by security contractors. Security for the Embassy in Kabul is provided by ArmorGroup North America, now owned by Wackenhut Services; the previous contract, held by MVM, was cancelled due to poor performance.

It's yet another black eye for the private security industry -- but it raises even bigger questions about the Department of State's ability to manage and monitor its hired guns. After the jump, another image (semi-NSFW), and the State Department's lame response.

Update: Allegations of poor contractor performance surfaced over two years ago. For laughs, read the transcript of yesterday's State Department briefing, in which spokesman Ian Kelly struggles to explain why the department has failed to take serious action, despite repeat warnings. A few excerpts from the press conference really are eye-opening:

"QUESTION: If I might, I’d like to quote from a letter from the State Department to the contractor in June of 2007. So this was two years ago that you recognized that some of these deficiencies exist and you said these deficiencies endanger the performance of the contract to such a degree that the security of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul is in jeopardy, and that you threatened to terminate the contract.

Yet over the last two years, there are about 11 letters that have been released not just by the project, but by Senator [Claire] McCaskill’s office, who is in charge of the Subcommittee on Government Oversight, that you continued to warn the contractor about these deficiencies and that you said that the security of the Embassy is in jeopardy, yet why did you continue to extend the contract?

MR. KELLY: Well, as I say, these are serious allegations. What you just read me, I would – I think they’re very serious too.

*QUESTION: These aren’t allegations. These are your own words. These are your own words.
*

[...]

**QUESTION: But over the last two years, you’ve been continuing to warn this contractor about its performance. So does it take an independent nongovernment organization to cast light on what you’ve been kind of overlooking for the last two years?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. I mean, look, as I understand it, we have – we’ve been investigating this organization for some time now. We understand that we have made some – we have pointed out to them some of the deficiencies. And I can’t answer right now from this podium exactly what they have done in response to this letter.

Well. I guess it takes pictures of contractors' ass cracks to get the State Department to start exercising oversight.

[PHOTO: POGO]

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