Word: pogo
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...real highlight, however, is the top 10 video/photo FAILs list, a showcase for unintentional hilarity from homemade jam labeled "Tastes Like Grandma" to an unfortunate incident with a pogo stick. With so many mishaps to choose from, a few choice clips got left out. (This guy was robbed.) Still, there's something for everyone...
Taken together, the complaints help explain how such a high-profile contract, flawed from the outset, could have led to the current scandal. ArmorGroup's record at the embassy has not been impressive; according to the POGO letter, nearly 90% of the Americans and other Western expats quit in the first six months of its contract, which meant there had to be constant training of new staff and a dissolution of any semblance of team cohesion. At one point, 18 guards were not at their posts, requiring embassy personnel to be redeployed to fill critical gaps. The State Department said...
ArmorGroup's employees did not even appear to be fully aware of the ground rules of their contract. In one incident, according to POGO, guards set out from the embassy at night, armed and dressed in turbans, equipped with the embassy's night-vision equipment, to secure portions of the road between the embassy and the guard base in Camp Sullivan several miles off. But this action violated ArmorGroup's contract, which is only for static security - that is, guards at specified posts. (The role of traveling bodyguards for embassy personnel is contracted out to another firm, Xe, the company...
Even before the POGO letter to Secretary Clinton, the ArmorGroup contract was under scrutiny. The State Department issued the first of eight "deficiency letters" in July 2007, the same month ArmorGroup took over embassy security. But after each complaint, the company somehow persuaded the State Department that the problems were being addressed. In April 2008 the State Department's contracting officer warned this was the company's "final opportunity" to correct shortcomings, and a September 2008 letter declared termination was being considered. In the end, however, the department renewed the contract until July...
...Kabul embassy contract can be viewed as a case study of how mismanagement and lack of oversight can result in poor performance," concluded a Senate committee investigation published in June. POGO has said it has lost confidence in the State Department and called for the Pentagon, which has a mixed but improving record at handling contractors, to "immediately" take over supervision of the guards. The State Department, which has launched a number of investigations, continues to insist that, as appalling as the guards' behavior was, embassy safety was never actually jeopardized...