By Andrew Quinn

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The State Department will not renew the contract of a security company embroiled in a scandal involving the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, where guards were accused of drunken conduct and sexual hazing.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Tuesday Virginia-based ArmorGroup would not have its contract renewed when it expires in June, although it will receive a six-month extension to allow the contract to be put up for new bids.

Toner said officials had reviewed the contract and “concurred that the next option year should not be exercised and that work begin immediately to compete a new contract.”

He said the review included both recent misconduct allegations against ArmorGroup personnel and the company’s “history of contract compliance deficiencies.”

This week a report by the non-partisan Government Accounting Office identified a number of shortcomings in the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security including staffing shortage and increased reliance on contractors in high-risk posts.

The Kabul embassy scandal broke in September, when a watchdog group accused ArmorGroup of jeopardizing security at the embassy by understaffing the facility and ignoring lewd, drunken conduct and sexual hazing by some guards — and provided graphic photos as evidence.

ArmorGroup North America, now owned by Florida-based Wackenhut Services, was also hit by a federal whistle-blower lawsuit that said it had ignored brothel visits by guards and other misconduct because of what a lawyer said was a “myopic preoccupation with profit” in its five-year, $187 million contract with the State Department.

State Department officials said the safety of embassy staff was never in jeopardy.

But they subsequently said 12 embassy guards had been removed or resigned, ArmorGroup’s entire senior Kabul management replaced and alcohol banned at the group’s camp. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered a thorough review of how contractors are used.

The GAO report noted that worldwide, the U.S. diplomatic security budget had grown to $1.8 billion in 2008 from just $200 million in 1998, when truck bomb attacks on U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed more than 300 people including 12 Americans.

The bureau’s workforce has also doubled over the same period but is failing to keep pace with rising security threats including those faced in Iraq and Afghanistan, it said.

“Staffing shortages in domestic offices and other operational challenges — such as inadequate facilities, language deficiencies, experience gaps, and balancing security needs with State’s diplomatic mission — further tax its ability to implement all of its missions,” the report said.

The report urged the State Department to develop a strategic plan to directly address the rising demands of diplomatic security including increased staffing.

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) — A search was under way Thursday for a helicopter belonging to a military contractor, NATO officials said.

The helicopter for Supreme Global Service Solutions went missing Tuesday, said Lt. Col. Todd Vician, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

He did not say how many people were aboard or in what region of the country ISAF was looking for the chopper.

However, the governor of Logar province in eastern Afghanistan said the search’s focus has been the Khar Pech district.

Governor Halim Fedia said he did not have any further information. An official with Supreme Global also could not offer additional details.

Authorities did not receive a distress signal from the chopper, Vician said.

“We are using reconnaissance assets to find it. We can’t go into more than that. We don’t provide detail on ongoing operations,” he said.

Supreme Global, based in the Netherlands, provides food supplies for military and multinational forces.

CNN’s Tim Schwarz contributed to this report.

By Richard Beeston in Kabul for The Times Online

President Karzai told private security companies that they would have to cease operating in Afghanistan within the next two years.

In a move that will be hugely popular with ordinary Afghans who resent the presence of thousands of heavily armed private security guards in their country, Mr Karzai said that their operations would be taken over by the army and police.

“The goal of a powerful national government can be realised by the stronger presence of national security forces in all parts of the country,” he told dignitaries in his inauguration speech. “Within the next two years we want operations by all private national and international security firms to be ended and their duties delegated to the Afghan security forces.”

He added that pressure on Nato to reduce its use of air power had led to a reduction in civilian casualties, but he said that more needed to be done to stop ordinary Afghans being injured and killed in the fighting.

He also raised the issue of America’s controversial prison at Bagram airport, where hundreds of security detainees are held. He said that as Afghanistan’s own prison system improved, “detention and legal prosecution of suspects will be the responsibility of the Government of Afghanistan alone”.

By Robin Acton

One month after the latest electrocution in Iraq, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey has proposed an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would hold government contractors accountable for the safety of overseas military personnel and civilians working abroad.

The legislation would close a loophole that allowed shoddy electrical work and other problems on American military bases to go uncorrected, the Scranton Democrat said. It would require the Department of Defense to review contracts to ensure they include language requiring contractors to immediately correct deficiencies, such as improperly grounded facilities or equipment, that could cause death or serious injury.

Casey’s amendment also seeks to ensure safe and sanitary water systems, and establish and enforce strict standards for preventing and prosecuting instances of sexual assault.

He has been an outspoken critic of the government’s defense contracting procedures since the Jan. 2, 2008, electrocution of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, of Shaler. The Green Beret collapsed and died when a rooftop pump shorted out and sent a lethal electrical current along water running through metal pipes into his shower in the Radwaniyah Palace Complex in Iraq.

Maseth is among 10 service members and civilian contractors in Iraq who died from electrocutions that could have been prevented, according to Casey.

The most recent occurred Sept. 1 when Adam Hermanson, 25, of Muncy collapsed and died in his shower at Camp Olympia inside Baghdad’s Green Zone. The Air Force veteran, who completed four tours of duty in Iraq, was working as a civilian contractor for Triple Canopy Security Service.

“We’ve had lots of investigation and lots of reviews, but, in my judgment, not enough in the way of answers,” Casey said. He said the Defense and State departments are obligated to provide families with answers about how the electrocutions continue to happen.

Maseth’s parents, Cheryl Harris and Douglas Maseth, filed suit in federal court against defense contractor KBR Inc., alleging shoddy electrical work killed their son. KBR denies responsibility for the soldier’s death, which brought national attention to the electrocution issue and prompted government inspections of facilities military personnel use.

Hermanson’s widow, Janine, said she does not know much about her husband’s living quarters or what he was doing in connection with the war effort because he was not permitted to talk about it. The dental assistant, who is staying with her parents in Muncy, said she learned about his death when she got a phone call at work.

“When he didn’t show up for work, they got worried, and a co-worker went to check on him. He was found in his room in the shower,” she said.

She described her husband as a strong, family-oriented man who did everything he could for his family and friends. They met while serving in the Air Force as they were preparing for deployment to Iraq and would have celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary five days after his death, she said.

“I never had to worry about anything when he was around,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion.

Read this article at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review