Posts Tagged ‘wanted’

Boys Gone Wild!!! The Kabul Edition

Sep 4, 2009 Industry News, Jake's Posts

Recent allegations of misconduct, failing to meet contractual obligations, (to say nothing of just general stupidity and juvenile antics) by Armor Group staff at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul raises serious questions about leadership both at Armor Group and at the U.S. State Department.

We’ve yet to hear anyone from Armor Group comment in detail on this case but I can just imagine the way it will sound when it comes out.

We take this very seriously…

we are investigating…

it’s an isolated incident…

we are getting it fixed…

Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, when pressed on questions of contractor behavior of his Blackwater staff likes to say, “Listen, these guys are all patriots, military veterans and professionals.”  As if being a patriot and a veteran meant no oversight is necessary?  It’s another way of saying, “You’re an idiot for questioning us.  We could not possibly do anything wrong.”

History contains any number of idiots who were military veterans and who viewed themselves as patriots yet clearly took actions which were against the interests of the U.S.  One prime example is Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted and later executed for bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.   The point is that being a veteran does not mean you are faultless or that you don’t need oversight.

Listen, I served as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps and I consider that organization to hold the highest standard in military professionalism.  They are the consummate ‘professional’ but at no time are they ever devoid of oversight or the possibility of prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

The command structure, the rules, regulations, policies, guidelines and standing operating procedures which are normal in any military organization do not exist to any meaningful degree within the private security/military industry.  At best you have a few companies who, relatively speaking, do better than most but even that’s a pretty low standard to meet.

Furthermore, the consequences for breaking rules (that is…the few rules that actually exist) is virtually non-existent.  In the U.S. military the UCMJ governs service personnel and all soldiers, airmen and Marines know that failure to comply with any lawful order, law or rule or even policy or guideline runs the risk of prosecution non-judicial punishment (NJP),  or court martial under the UCMJ.  Again, nothing even close to this exists within the world of private security.  There really is no accountability comparable to the UCMJ and NJP amounts only to dismissal from your current contract.  And we all know that this is, in reality, no punishment at all since the offender often simply pop-ups somewhere else for another firm in a matter of weeks or months.

So, in short…no rules to follow at the industry level and no consequences for failing to follow any rules which may or may not exist.  If these were the ingredients for today’s dinner I doubt if anyone would be eating it.

Now then.  That takes care of the industry side of the equation.   What about the client side?  Increasingly it is coming to light that government clients, in contrast with private clients, are systemically inept at managing the procurement, selection and oversight of security contracts.  I have personally worked on contracts which have both private clients and government clients and though neither do a very good job, the government side and in particular the U.S. State Department are painfully ill equipped to do this work.  The reasons for this are puzzling, especially as at this stage, after 8 years of war in Afghanistan and 6+ years in Iraq there are literally hundreds of senior contractors with multiple years of operational management experience who could be hired by State in to sit on the ‘client side’ of the table during contract negotiations as well as during the later phases of contract execution.

For decades the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Services (DSS) program was always a sleepy little backwater in the security world.  It was, and to some degree still is,  full of lifelong government civil servants who, despite their hard work and good intentions, have not been able to adapt to the pace and complexity that operating in a war-zone imposed on them.  They got pushed into a fast-paced and complex game that they were not prepared for.

But to date this has been like asking a local high school football coach, no matter good his record has been at that level,  to jump into the NFL.   Oh sure, on the surface there are many similarities,  the field is the same dimensions, it’s still 11 vs. 11 players  and the rules are mostly the same and certainly the concepts is the same in principle.  But the speed, level of complexity and knowledge and experience to say nothing of the media attention necessary to perform at the highest level make it impossible for him to take go from High School to the NFL without a natural maturation process which usually involves a stop for many years at the university level.

The DSS small staff of only a couple thousand agents oversees (and I am using that term lightly) over 30′000 contract personnel in the protection of over 200 Embassies and consulates around the world.  But, the problem is that your standard, run-of-the-mill, contract and mission to protect the Embassy in Berlin or even Kuala Lumpur or Mumbai  is still about three solar-systems away from what is required to protect the Kabul embassy.  Kabul and Baghdad are the big leagues and the DSS has not demonstrated anything near the capability of playing on that field.  They certainly do not have a commanding position of respect or authority over the security firms they are supposed to supervise.  At best they are perceived as an administrative nuisance which should be avoided at every opportunity.

To some degree the State Department knows they are are in over their head and they have relied, far too heavily, on the professionalism (I use that term lightly as well…) of the private security sector to pull their bacon out of the fire.  But, as I have alluded to before the professionalism they desire and frankly rely on generally just does not exist.

The State Department needs to ‘grow up’ and on-board  a wave of professional staff to oversee these programs.  Preferably former senior military officers with combat experience.  I can guarantee that if these programs were run by retired Colonels who had on their staff retired Majors and recently separated Captains and a cadre of former Senior Staff NCOs who know how to act professionally and provide security at the same time they will be able to hold accountable any private firm who wins the contract.  Having the, in-house know-how is the first step but State also needs to get a spine and have the guts to dismiss any firm who is not meeting their contractual obligations.  A PSC should be pissing in their boots when a DSS officer is in his AO.  But that only happens when the DSS officer knows what to look for and has the initiative and authority to do something when he sees something amiss.

What State seems to be missing is the fact that everyone in this industry wants the U.S. government as a client.  The State Department is in the drivers seat here.  They can have anything they want.  They can drive a hard bargain and they can run roughshod over any service provider because the line outside for the privilege of winning the contract is long.   You can’t perform?  Next…

State’s problem is they don’t know what to ask for, how to ask for it or know what it should look like when it gets delivered.

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With piracy odds in their favor, ships shun armed guards

May 7, 2009 Piracy

The small number of successful pirate attacks, an increase in military patrols, and legal concerns have kept many firms from hiring security.
By Gordon Lubold | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Washington –Less than half a percent of the ships that transit the Gulf of Aden are attacked by pirates, and of those attacks, less than half are successful.

That statistic, reported during a Senate panel Tuesday in Washington, offers one reason why shipping firms have been unenthusiastic about using armed guards to thwart pirate attacks, leaving the problem to be solved by the US and other militaries.

“Many in the merchant shipping industry continue to assume, unrealistically, that military forces will always be present to intervene if pirates attack. As a result, many have so far been unwilling to invest adequately in basic security measures that would render their ships far less vulnerable,” said Michele Flournoy, the Pentagon’s chief of policy, at the hearing.

As with the “asymmetrical threat” posed by insurgents on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, experts have been taken aback by how quickly a small band of pirates can successfully attack large vessels with millions of dollars worth of cargo aboard. One answer is for shippers to provide for their own security, employing armed security crews to man each ship.

But those crews can be expensive and the shippers don’t necessarily want to spend the money to hire them. And despite the recent high-profile pirate attacks, shippers recognize the odds are in their own favor and essentially see any ransom they may have to pay as the cost of doing business.

About 33,000 ships sail through the Gulf of Aden each year, and there were just 122 attacks in 2008, according to Pentagon officials at Tuesday’s congressional hearing. Of those attacks, only 42 were successful.

Shipping officials also say that arming the ships could create an arms race. “Our belief is that arming merchant sailors may result in the acquisition of ever more lethal weapons and tactics by the pirates, a race that merchant sailors cannot win,” said John Clancey, chairman of Maersk, Inc., which owns the Alabama, during another recent Washington hearing.

Shipping firms are also constrained by legal rules pertaining to port entries for armed private security, as well as insurance issues. Using private security firms is “the most controversial issue that we have right now,” said James Caponiti, top official at the US Maritime Administration, at the hearing.

Still, some private security firms have offered their services. XE, the firm formerly known as Blackwater USA, is reportedly in negotiations to contract with shippers to provide a “security escort service” in the Gulf of Aden with their own 183-foot ship called the MacArthur.

In the meantime, Aegis, the British security firm, is offering a land-based sensor system that could help monitor pirate ship movements. Many experts believe the key lies in targeting the “mother ships” that are used as a base of operations, sometimes more than 400 miles out at sea.

The Pentagon is looking at what role the US should play. Last month, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged a group of officers to look at options for not only for the US military but also other government agencies, including the Departments of State and Transportation. On Monday, the group presented an initial set of findings that included offense- and defense-related solutions for ships at sea, says a military official, as well as solutions that could be effective on shore.

That includes the possibility of a combat action – one of the least desirable alternatives – as well as diplomatic and economic measures.

Military solutions have partly worked. The presence of some 28 nations patrolling the region has pushed some pirates out from the Gulf of Aden back to the Indian Ocean, says Scott Stewart, vice president of tactical intelligence for SRATFOR, an intelligence firm.

But most experts agree that military solutions alone won’t do it. The root causes of piracy stem from poverty, lack of opportunity and lawlessness, things the military simply can’t address on its own.

“Piracy, although generally considered a scourge of the world’s oceans, has its origins on land and has usually been defeated on land as a result of political and economic changes that have evolved over time,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D) of Michigan, who chaired Tuesday’s Senate panel hearing on piracy in Washington. “Ultimately, the solution resides ashore, not just through action on the open seas.”

In the meantime, American officials are urging shippers to take their own precautions to keep the pirates at bay. They run the gamut from rolling up ship ladders, to keeping the perimeter of ships well-lit, to installing barbed wire fences around the sides of the deck.

Nearly 80 percent of thwarted attacks were the result of ships employing some kind of defensive measure, including armed guards, according to Pentagon officials.

“They need to do some things on their own,” says one military official. “Just like … when you drive through a bad neighborhood, you roll up the windows and lock the doors.”

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Terrorists Finding Safe Havens in East Africa

Apr 29, 2009 Piracy, Somalia

My thanks to Jason at LES for bringing this story to my attention.  The piracy threat and with it the counter measures will change very quickly in HOA if/when Islamic terrorists exploit the relative easy access to commercial shipping.  Wouldn’t it be ironic if Islamic terrorists indirectly fixed the piracy problem.  A single suicide attack similar to the one launched against the USS Cole in back in 2000 would dramatically change the industries position on the use of armed guards.

Jake

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By LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press

WASHINGTON–There is growing evidence that battle-hardened extremists are filtering out of safe havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and into East Africa, bringing sophisticated terrorist tactics that include suicide attacks.

The alarming shift, according to U.S. military and counterterrorism officials, fuels concern that Somalia is increasingly on a path to become the next Afghanistan — a sanctuary where al-Qaida-linked groups could train and plan their threatened attacks against the western world.

So far, officials say the number of foreign fighters who have moved from southwest Asia and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region to the Horn of Africa is small, perhaps two to three dozen.

But a similarly small cell of militant plotters was responsible for the devastating 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. And the cluster of militants now believed to be operating inside East Africa could pass on sophisticated training and attack techniques gleaned from seven years at war against the U.S. and allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

“There is a level of activity that is troubling, disturbing,” Gen. William “Kip” Ward, head of U.S. Africa Command, told The Associated Press. “When you have these vast spaces that are just not governed it provides a haven for support activities, for training to occur.”

Ward added that American officials already are seeing extremist factions in East Africa sharing information and techniques.

Several military and counterterrorism officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters cautioned that the movements of the al-Qaida militants do not suggest an abandonment of the ungoverned Pakistan border region as a safe haven.

Instead, the shift is viewed by the officials more as an expansion of al-Qaida’s influence, and a campaign to gather and train more recruits in a region already rife with militants.

Last month, Osama bin Laden made it clear in a newly released audiotape that al-Qaida has set its sights on Somalia, an impoverished and largely lawless country in the Horn of Africa. In the 11-minute tape released to Internet sites, bin Laden is heard urging Somalis to overthrow their new moderate Islamist president and to support their jihadist “brothers” in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine and Iraq.

Officials said that in recent years they have seen occasional signs that sophisticated al-Qaida terror techniques are gaining ground in East Africa. Those harbingers include a coordinated series of suicide bombings in Somalia in October.

In the past, officials said, suicide attacks tended to be frowned on by African Muslims, creating something of an impediment to al-Qaida’s efforts to sell that aspect of its terrorism tactics.

But on Oct. 29, 2008, suicide bombers killed more than 20 people in five attacks targeting a U.N. compound, the Ethiopian consulate, the presidential palace in Somaliland’s capital and two intelligence facilities in Puntland.

The coordinated assaults, officials said, amounted to a watershed moment, suggesting a new level of sophistication and training. The incident also marked the first time that a U.S. citizen — a young Somali man from Minneapolis — carried out a suicide bombing.

The foreign fighters moving into East Africa complicate an already-rising crescendo of terror threats in the region. Those threats have come from the Somalia-based al-Shabab extremist Islamic faction and from al-Qaida in East Africa, a small, hard-core group also known by the acronym EEAQ.

While not yet considered an official al-Qaida franchise, EEAQ has connections to the top terror leaders and was implicated in the August 1998 embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya that killed 225 people. The bombings were al-Qaida’s precursors to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a plot spawned by a small cell of operatives as far back as 1992. Four men accused as al-Qaida plotters were later convicted in federal court in New York for those bombings.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and several other EEAQ members remain under indictment in the United States for their alleged participation in those bombings. Mohammed is on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list with a reward of up to $5 million on his head.

Al-Qaida has the skills while al-Shabab has the manpower, said one senior military official familiar with the region. The official said EEAQ appears to be a small cell of a few dozen operatives who rarely sleep in the same place twice and are adept at setting up temporary training camps that vanish days later.

What worries U.S. military leaders, the official said, is the that EEAQ and al-Shabab may merge in training and operations, potentially spreading al-Qaida’s more extremist jihadist beliefs to thousands of clan-based Somali militants, who so far have been engaged in internal squabbling.

The scenario could become even more worrisome, the officials said, if the foreign fighters transplant their skills at bomb-making and insurgency tactics to the training camps in East Africa.

Africa experts, however, said it won’t be easy for Islamic extremists to win many converts in East Africa.

Francois Grignon, Africa program director for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research organization, said in an interview that many clan members generally practice a more moderate Islam, and militants are not inclined to join a fight they do not see as their own.

The U.S., he said, needs to encourage the new government in Somalia to deal with the growing terror threats there and to marginalize the jihadists so they are not able to sustain their activities in Somalia.

Ward said U.S. Africa Command is working with a number of nations to build their ability to maintain security. But he said commanders are less able to do much in Somalia, where the new government is still fragile.

Meanwhile, he said, officials continue to watch as the ties between the terror groups grow.

“I think they’re all a threat,” said Ward. “Right now it’s clearly a threat that the Africans have, but in today’s global society that threat can be exported anywhere with relative ease.”

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