Here are some of the commentaries being made by some of our coalition members and companies tasked with vital protection duties over in Afghanistan. There are four stories posted, with some commentary in one from Andy Bearpark of BAPSC and an interview that Doug Brooks of the IPOA did awhile back. Maybe we can collect some more commentary from some industry leaders, CEO’s, or even some customers? Until then, I will continue to fill the information void as best as I can. –Matt
Edit: 09/01/2010 – It looks like Blue Hackle’s license has just been revoked. Check it out here.
UK private security fears in Afghanistan
Garda scrabbles to stay in Afghanistan
Canadian Forces to review nine private security contracts on Afghan ban
Karzai’s Call to Expel Contractors Poses Big Logistical Hurdles
—————————————————————–
UK private security fears in Afghanistan
By Peter Jackson
17 August 2010
Private security guards are widely used to guard compounds and convoys
As UK private security contractors are given four months to stand down in Afghanistan, security experts have warned the consequences could be dire.
President Hamid Karzai’s decision to scrap the extensive private security industry operating in his country will come as no real surprise.
He vowed to curb its operations when he was sworn in as president last year, and has made no secret of the fact that he considers it a major source of instability.
But ask the British elements of the industry what effect the move may have, and warnings are quickly sounded.
They say commercial reconstruction projects would be at risk of delay – and workers of attack – as the exodus leaves them dangerously exposed.
Afghan police are simply not up to scratch when it comes to guarding foreign staff, they argue, and that could leave embassies and Nato supply convoys and bases vulnerable.
And already pressured troops will have their limited resources stretched further, as they are forced to do more security work to fill the gap, they say.
‘Risk of attack’
Between 500 and 700 British contractors operate in Afghanistan, the British Association of Private Security Companies (BAPSC) estimates.
They are mainly paid to protect “assets” – either a person or a physical object such as a building.
But a good number are also former soldiers and hired by the US army to train Afghan soldiers and police officers.
UK-government backed projects
• Gereshk hydro-power plant – upgrade and extend distribution with up to 200,000 beneficiaries
• Build road linking provincial capital of Helmand (Lashkar Gah) to commercial centre (Gereshk)
• Bost Airfield and Agricultural Centre – upgrade of civilian airfield from gravel runway to surfaced one
• Helmand growth programme to raise incomes for farmers and businesses in Helmand without poppies
Source: Department for International Development
BAPSC director general, Andrew Bearpark, said the Afghan government, police and army would be unable to operate properly without them.
“There aren’t enough people trained up to high enough standards yet,” he said.
“The real difficulties will be when the engineering projects are delayed because there are not enough people trained to protect them.”
The Department for International Development supports a number of infrastructure programmes, including upgrading Gereshk hydro-power plant in Helmand, and building a road linking Lashkar Gah in Helmand to Gereshk.
It did not want to comment, but the Foreign Office has made some disgruntled noises following the announcement.
A source told the BBC the issue would be “urgently” raised with the Afghan authorities, and said it could have “serious implications” for how the international community operates there.
A spokesperson said: “The international community and businesses are currently dependent on legitimate private security contractors to operate in Afghanistan.
“We note President Karzai’s decree on the dissolution of private security contractors and will discuss its implications with the Afghan authorities.”
‘Not up to the job’
Chris Kinsey, a security expert and academic at King’s College London, said the biggest impact would be in the commercial sector.
“Corporations rely on private security firms for protection of their assets and staff,” he said.
“The problem is, do they start relying on police and security forces who are quite frankly still not up to the job? It’s quite possible that some of the projects may be put at risk of attack.”
Mr Kinsey said the military’s role in security could well become more extensive.There are 52 registered private security firms operating in Afghanistan
“At the moment it is the other way around. These companies take on the security function that otherwise would have to be undertaken by Nato troops,” he said.
“If you get rid of them, who will take on that responsibility? It may be the military, and that will extend their limited resources further.”
Mr Bearpark said Nato may have to amend its procedures to ensure soldiers’ lives are not put at extra risk.
Most contractors in Afghanistan are from the US, and make up the vast majority of the estimated 30,000 staff from 52 registered private security companies.
There are, however, many more unregistered firms, including 22 in the southern province of Kandahar alone.
Contractors working for international embassies and non-governmental organisations will be exempt from the decree, as long as security personnel stay within their compounds.
Mr Bearpark said: “There are already exceptions written into this decree, and it may be that by the time it is implemented there may be more exceptions or amendments.”
ArmorGroup, one of the largest private British security firms, said it employed about 1,500 staff in Afghanistan working for governments, non-government organisations and commercial firms.
A spokeswoman said of Mr Karzai’s announcement: “It is too early to comment on any specifics, but as you would expect we are discussing the potential implications with our customers.”
Story here.
——————————————————————
Garda scrabbles to stay in Afghanistan
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai blindsided the international community last week with a decree ordering private security companies to disband within four months.
Nicolas Van Praet
August 25, 2010
MONTREAL — GardaWorld Security Corp. is making contingency plans to protect its business in Afganistan after President Hamid Karzai blindsided the international community last week with a decree ordering private security companies to disband within four months.
The Montreal-based firm, known in Canada for its armored car and airport screening services, is one of the four largest contractors providing protection to the civilian foreign aid efforts of the United States Agency for International Development in Afghanistan. It has a substantial footprint in the country, with a headquarters in Kabul supporting other bases in Herat, Kandahar, and Mazar-e-Sharif.
Mr. Karzai took Western diplomats, aid groups and corporations largely by surprise with his directive. Part of a wider plan for the Afghan government to assume responsibility for all security in the country as of 2014, the ban has left them scrambling to understand the details and plot their own strategies around it.
To many, the directive has become known as “the impossible decree” because there are no Afghan security personnel ready to replace man-for-man the roughly 40,000 heavily-armed guards now deployed to protect development projects, embassies, convoys and other western interests.
“I’ve been in a number of communications with all our clients who are, of course, quite concerned about this,” Pete Dordal, Garda’s senior vice-president of international operations, said in an interview Wednesday. “There is a massive amount of [rebuilding] spend going on right now in Afghanistan, especially in the south and the east. And these are all very dependent on credible security so that these development activities can continue.”
A high-level meeting was held this past weekend with staff of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul at which the larger development organizations working in Afghanistan signalled they will pull out of the country if their staff does not receive an acceptable level of security, Mr. Dordal said. The other concern is that any halt in development work will hurt the counter-insurgency against Taliban forces.
Stephen Harper, the prime minister, said Tuesday that Mr. Karzai’s aggressive timetable will “complicate” some of the choices Canada will have to make in deciding how to protect its diplomats and embassy workers remaining in Afghanistan after Canadian troops pull out next July. “We are working on [those challenges],” he said.
Private companies currently provide security at four Canadian operating bases in Afghanistan, which has cost Ottawa $9-million to provide this year, CTV News reported.
All foreign embassies in the country are also believed to be protected by private security firms. For example, the Canadian embassy is guarded by British company G4S Plc.
In the past several days, Garda has moved to reassure its clients by developing contingency plans. One scenario would see Garda Security personnel become part of the client’s staff, Mr. Dordal said. But that still raises the question of whether they would carry guns. As it stands, there is no provision in the decree for embassies or NGOs to have armed personnel.
Mr. Dordal is optimistic it won’t come to that. He said he believes Mr. Karzai is open to a compromise that would see the roughly 50 legitimate companies playing by the rules, including Garda, allowed to continue working while renegade militias the government can’t control are banned.
The decree may have been the result of controversy surrounding the so-called Host Nation Trucking contract, through which private contractors hired to secure food and fuel supply routes for the U.S. military allegedly paid local bandits and warlords to ensure safe passage through dangerous places. Some of the private firms did not register with the government.
Garda has been licensed in Afghanistan for the past four to five years, Mr. Dordal said. It pays payroll taxes and registers its radios, weapons and vehicles. Mr. Dordal said the company has no intention to give up its investments and revenues in the war-torn nation.
“This might sound a little too bold but we don’t intend to leave. We intend to provide our security in a manner that will match what the Karzai government will allow,” Mr. Dordal said. “It’s the bad apples that have made Karzai a little bit angry. And we are the good apples.”
Story here.
——————————————————————
Canadian Forces to review nine private security contracts on Afghan ban
Canada has contracts worth $9-million this fiscal year with four companies to provide security at its forward operating bases
Dene Moore
August 18, 2010
The Canadian Forces will review several contracts it has with private security companies in Kandahar following an order from President Hamid Karzai that the firms cease operations in Afghanistan.
Canada has nine contracts worth $9-million this fiscal year with four companies to provide security at its forward operating bases.
“Our troops benefit from both the important services and invaluable local knowledge provided by these individuals,” Capt. Yves Desbiens, a spokesman for Canada’s Task Force Kandahar, said Wednesday.
“With these arrangements in place, Canadian Forces personnel are able to focus their efforts on the tasks that deliver the greatest value to the mission.”
The Afghan president issued a decree Tuesday ordering tens of thousands of security contractors currently working in Afghanistan to either join the Afghan police force or cease operations within four months.
The Afghan government contends the private firms poach the best Afghan army and police personnel trained by NATO, when the Afghan national security forces are already struggling to fill their ranks.
Private security personnel perform sentry duty at many remote coalition military bases in Kandahar province and throughout Afghanistan. There are up to 40,000 such private guards at work in Afghanistan, protecting military convoys, Afghan and international government workers, aid agency employees and military installations.
The decree from Mr. Karzai includes an exception for private security firms working inside compounds used by international groups, including embassies, businesses and non-governmental organizations. But outside those compounds they will be banned.
Some critics say the hired guns are no more than armed, dangerous mercenaries. An investigation last year found evidence that some companies paid Taliban for safe passage of their convoys through insurgent strongholds.
A private security company was initially blamed for the August 2008 death of Master Cpl. Josh Roberts, an infantryman based in Shilo, Man., who died following a confused firefight involving coalition forces, insurgents and security personnel from a civilian convoy in Zhari district near Kandahar city.
A military police investigation concluded Roberts died from a Taliban bullet, but his family has questioned that conclusion.
The Canadian Forces pointed out that private security guards — Afghans hired by the contractors — are never used in offensive operations.
Like all NATO countries, said Capt. Desbiens, Canada relies on private firms under contract with NATO to provide security for supply convoys through Pakistan.
American officials have voiced agreement that private security firms should be eliminated but questioned whether a four-month deadline is realistic.
Capt. Desbiens said it’s too soon to speculate on what impact Mr. Karzai’s decree will have on Canadian military operations in Kandahar.
Story here.
—————————————————————–
Karzai’s Call to Expel Contractors Poses Big Logistical Hurdles
Aug. 16, 2010
SUMMARY
According to a spokesman, Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants all private security contractors out of Afghanistan within a matter of months. Judy Woodruff discusses the politics, economics and logistics with analysts Matthew Rosenberg and Doug Brooks.
Transcript
JUDY WOODRUFF: For more on the role of private security contractors in Afghanistan and why President Karzai may want to eliminate them, we turn to Matthew Rosenberg, The Wall Street Journal’s correspondent in Kabul, and Doug Brooks, the founder and president of the Association of the Stability Operations Industry. That’s the grade association of military service companies.
Gentlemen, thank you both for being with us.
I’m going to start with you, Doug Brooks. Help us understand again how essential the jobs are that these private companies perform, these security contractors.
DOUG BROOKS, president, Association of the Stability Operations Industry: Well, they perform a role that’s different from military. They are protective, so, they’re protecting a person, place or a thing. As was mentioned in the show, they protect diplomats, but they also protect warehouses. A lot of the reconstruction efforts are actually protected by security contractors.
They’re overwhelmingly Afghan, well over 90 percent Afghans, that do most of the work. But those are the people you want doing security in their own country. In the U.S., we have three times as many private security as we have public security. So, there’s going to always be a role for them.
And I think this — what’s happening here is very interesting and its going to be very tough to do, I think.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Matthew Rosenberg, what would you add to that? I mean, who owns these companies? Most of the employees are Afghan nationals. Who — who owns these companies?
MATTHEW ROSENBERG, The Wall Street Journal: You have got a variety of owners, from American companies that are based here, to Afghans who have close ties to the presidential palace. You have a whole range of — of owners.
And how this affects all them is unclear. Is President Karzai going to crack down on members of his own family who own private security companies? Is he going to crack down only on the foreign ones? He has, at times, complained about foreign security companies. Does this cover every single one, or is it just the American…
JUDY WOODRUFF: I think a lot of people may not realize the close connections that exist between President Karzai and these companies and others in Afghanistan. How well-trained, Doug Brooks, are these individuals?
DOUG BROOKS: That’s a great question. And I think if you have the U.S. or you have a good client essentially hiring these companies, and they can request certain levels of training, you can actually have some fairly well-trained companies.
But, unfortunately, I think, in a lot of cases, the clients don’t pay attention to the quality. And that’s a big issue. In fact, one thing we have been pushing is third-party certification. Have an outside party come in and make sure these companies are trained the way you want to see them trained, and so you have some quality involved. But you’re not always seeing that. And that’s a problem. So, you see there are some very poorly trained companies that are operating there. And that’s something that I think gives Karzai some traction with what he’s saying.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Matt Rosenberg, before we talk specifically about why President Karzai wants to do away with them, why aren’t they already in the military? What is it in — what do they get out of working for a private company, rather than going to work for the Afghan military?
MATTHEW ROSENBERG: Well, you know, both the Afghan military and the Afghan police have been — it’s been a slow process building them. And they are pumping out soldiers and police as quickly as they can. But private security work is paid well. There have been…
JUDY WOODRUFF: Better than the Afghan military, police?
MATTHEW ROSENBERG: Often it has for some — for the better-trained ones, certainly.
You know, there are also people who probably don’t want to be in the army and police, who weren’t recruited to be in the army and police, who — who…
JUDY WOODRUFF: Why not?
MATTHEW ROSENBERG: It’s dangerous. It’s far more dangerous to be an Afghan soldier trying to fight the Taliban, who is probably underequipped, who his leadership has issues. There are training issues. To be an Afghan policeman is to be a target — to be a security guard, not so much. You could end up in Kabul guarding a private home.
The road convoys, you know, those are dangerous, but there are also questions of, do some of these companies pay the Taliban not to attack the convoys? But being a security guard is a far safer job than being a soldier or a policeman in Afghanistan.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You would agree with that?
DOUG BROOKS: It varies from job to job. I know some of the convoy security can be quite dangerous, but, in general, I would say that is probably accurate and really depends what you’re protecting. Many of them are protecting NGO warehouses, things like that.
JUDY WOODRUFF: These are non-government organizations?
DOUG BROOKS: Non-governmental organizations, many of the people doing the reconstruction. That’s generally fairly safe. But, as we have seen in recent weeks, that can also be quite dangerous at times.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Matt Rosenberg, what do we think is behind what Karzai’s office is saying? And, by the way, we want to be clear. They haven’t made this announcement or issued this decree yet. This is being talked about by a spokesman so far.
MATTHEW ROSENBERG: I mean, in the last few weeks, we have had another round of kind of the Karzai government pressing back on anti-corruption efforts that are led by the U.S. and its European allies. One of his top aides was recently arrested in a corruption case. Karzai then moved to take control of the anti-corruption task forces, which were U.S.- and British-trained, that had done that, infuriating U.S. officials.
And this seems like it’s coming right at a time where you have got another one of these kind of Karzai vs. his U.S. backers kind of rounds on anti-corruption. And, suddenly, he’s going after the private security companies, which he’s often complained are fueling corruption, are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But is there something about this time right now?
MATTHEW ROSENBERG: There’s also an election coming up. There’s parliamentary elections coming up September 18. This plays to the crowd. This definitely plays to — to Afghans who want to see more — more Afghan-led stuff, who want to see a more independent government, and who don’t like the U.S., where sentiment is not in our favor.
DOUG BROOKS: This kind of threat definitely puts a pressure then on, I think, the coalition, because if these — all these security contractors all over the country are forced to leave, and there’s a vacuum, there’s nobody there to replace them, I mean, that undermines the mission in a big way. So, can I see this — that this is going to cause a lot of angst here. And…
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, that’s my question. What does happen? If President Karzai is serious, if these security companies are banned in the next four months, by the end of the year, what does that mean?
DOUG BROOKS: It would be…
JUDY WOODRUFF: Let me ask you.
MATTHEW ROSENBERG: It’s almost inconceivable. They do so many things. And to fill maybe the 25,000 to 30,000 security jobs, right now to have the army do that, which is hard-pressed enough to fill its own role, just seems impossible. You have everybody, from the coalition to aid groups, you know, NGOs, freaking out today, wondering, what are we going to do? They guard — they guard all our missions. They — every piece of work we do, we need these guys, and we can’t do it without them.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Doug Brooks, what’s the reaction inside the contractor community?
DOUG BROOKS: Well, it’s kind of wait and see.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You were on the phone a lot today.
DOUG BROOKS: Absolutely. And, you know, we’re trying to figure out what’s going on with this. And, right now, it’s kind of a wait-and-see. This may just be a political ploy or a power play, as has been discussed. That’s quite possible.
I think it ‘s — you know, right now, I mean, this has sort of been said before. Nothing has happened. So, we’re kind of waiting to see in the meantime. So, you know, I mean, from our perspective, we want to kind of keep our noses clean. It’s real important to sort of improve the quality within the industry to make sure there’s no excuses essentially to do more damage.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Is the expectation, Matt Rosenberg, that this, that Karzai is likely to make good on this threat? I mean, some people are seeing it as a threat.
MATTHEW ROSENBERG: I’m not sure what people — I’m not sure what anybody expects right now. The deadline certainly — the deadline of January 1 certainly seems difficult. That would be an understatement. How to make good on — how to make good on this is — you know, this is — his entire elite is protected by these people as well.
JUDY WOODRUFF: His entire elite.
MATTHEW ROSENBERG: His entire elite is protected by private security people as well.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you were saying to me a minute before — a minute ago, before we went on the air, that, if this — if the ban were to happen, that you might have people running around with these skills, with the skills that many of these individuals have without a job?
MATTHEW ROSENBERG: Exactly. I mean, the training mission that NATO and the U.S. has right now to train Afghan soldiers cannot absorb 25,000 to 30,000 people on January 1. This is not going to happen. And all these people are suddenly out of work. What are they going to do? Crime is an issue there. There’s an insurgency.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.
MATTHEW ROSENBERG: You don’t need people — you don’t need more people with these skills on the market.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, we will be watching and waiting and seeing what comes out of Kabul.
Matt Rosenberg, Doug Brooks, thank you both.
DOUG BROOKS: Pleasure.
MATTHEW ROSENBERG: Thank you.
Link to interview here.