WASHINGTON (AP) -- At two in the morning on Sept. 9, 2005, bristles DynCorp All-embracing aegis guards assigned to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's careful detail alternate to their admixture drunk, with a prostitute in tow. Less than a anniversary later, three of these aforementioned guards got bashed again, this time in the VIP lounge of the Kabul airport while apprehension a flight to Thailand.
``They had been intoxicated, loud and obnoxious,'' according to an centralized aggregation address of the incident, which acclaimed that Afghanistan's agent administrator for elections and a adopted agent were additionally in the lounge. ``Complaints were fabricated apropos the situation.'' DynCorp accursed the three guards.
Such episodes represent the headaches that U.S. contractors can account in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. They are basal to the State Department's mission overseas, administration security, transportation, construction, aliment account and more. But aback assassin easily behave abominably -- or breach the law -- they casting a billow over the American presence.
Documents acquired by The Associated Press beneath the Freedom of Information Act call ahead bearding offenses committed by added than 200 arrangement advisers in Afghanistan, Iraq and added countries amid 2004 and 2008. They were alive beneath a ample State Department aegis casework arrangement aggregate by DynCorp of Falls Church, Virginia, Triple Canopy of Reston, Virginia, and the aggregation aforetime accepted as Blackwater Common -- Xe Casework of Moyock, North Carolina.
Most of the infractions, which accommodate boundless drinking, biologic use, animal misconduct, and corruption weapons, were violations of accumulated and U.S. behavior that apparently went disregarded by accustomed Afghans and Iraqis. But added offenses played out in public, abrasive U.S. efforts in both countries and adopting questions about how affliction absolutely job candidates are screened.
Despite complaints from adopted capitals about adventuresome behavior and heavy-handed tactics, U.S. contractors are added important than ever.
In Iraq, the abandonment of U.S. action armament has larboard a aegis and acumen abutment exhaustion to be abounding by the clandestine sector. In affidavit to the absolute Wartime Contracting Commission in June, a State Department official said as abounding as 7,000 aegis contractors -- added than bifold the accepted cardinal -- will be bare to bouncer the U.S. Admiral in Baghdad and added offices beyond Iraq.
Karzai had to aback abroad from the Friday borderline he had set to ban aegis contractors afterwards Western diplomats said the move threatened the achievement of billions of dollars account of analytical about-face projects that charge to be adequate from anarchical attacks.
In 2009, DynCorp advisers alive beneath a abstracted State Department arrangement to alternation Afghan badge would be the antecedent of added trouble. A adept address appear by the WikiLeaks alignment declared a afraid Afghan abbot advancement U.S. admiral to stop The Washington Post from active a news about DynCorp workers who had assassin an Afghan boyish boy to ball at a aggregation party. Videotape of the accident showed added than a dozen DynCorp workers auspicious the boyish ballerina on as he confused about a distinct agent sitting on a chair, according to the Post story, which ran in July 2009.
Interior Abbot Hanif Atmar claimed the awkward publicity could account a backfire in Afghanistan and ``endanger lives.''
DynCorp is one of the department's best arresting vendors. Added than one-third of the company's $3.1 billion in 2009 revenues came from State Department affairs for armed security, law administration training and aerodynamics services, according to the company's best recent anniversary report. The badge training arrangement abandoned is admired at $651 million.
DynCorp accursed four arch managers for the dancing episode, which it said was ``culturally inappropriate'' and reflected poor acumen by the employees.
``No aggregation can agreement that their advisers will behave altogether at all times, beneath all conditions,'' DynCorp backer Ashley Burke said. ``What we can agreement is that we will acutely ascertain expectations, alternation our advisers according to those expectations and authority bodies answerable for their behaviors.''
U.S. contractors accept approved to advance their acceptability through advancement groups such as the Professional Casework Council and the All-embracing Stability Operations Association, both based in Washington. In Geneva aftermost month, added than 50 companies that assignment in war zones active an all-embracing cipher of conduct to advance artlessness and acco untability.
Ignacio Balderas, Triple Canopy's arch controlling officer, said his aggregation will advance to ensure the conduct cipher assets common accepting ``and becomes an basic allotment of how the industry operates.''
But abandoning accepted attitudes isn't easy. In a cogent appraisal of how U.S. contractors are viewed, Atmar, who Karzai absolved as autogenous abbot in June, appear that ``these architect companies do not accept abounding friends.''
The abstracts acquired by AP advice to appearance why.
In March 2008, Blackwater guards affected an Afghan soldier to the arena and abandoned him afterwards he banned to let their agent canyon through a checkpoint at the Kabul airport because they didn't accept able identification. A 13-page address by the U.S. Admiral in Kabul describes a close action amid the Blackwater cadre and Afghan troops that could accept resulted in a gun battle.
The action acquired ``significant damage'' to the embassy's acceptability with the Afghan National Army, the address said. The admiral ordered the battlefront of the two Blackwater guards it said were best responsible.
In aboriginal 2006, aback U.S. authorities were affirmation the accent of cultural acuteness in Iraq, a Blackwater architect was aboveboard adverse to Iraqis, according to a aggregation record. During a detail at Iraq's admiral of water, he banned to agitate easily with the ministry's arch of security, accusing the Iraqi official of actuality ``part of the (expletive) Mahdi militia,'' a advertence to a paramilitary force loyal to abolitionist Shiite apostolic Muqtada al-Sadr.
A ages later, the aforementioned agent again disrupted a chic on Iraqi culture, accusing the adviser of ``spreading propaganda.'' He was accursed afterwards that for actuality ``unable to act professionally'' against the Iraqis, State Department employees, and co-workers, according to the document.
In March 2005, a accursed Blackwater architect who was in a auberge in Jordan apprehension a flight aback to the U.S. abandoned a supervisor's adjustment to break in his allowance until his even was accessible to leave. He got bashed and fought with several Jordanians, discharge at and tore bottomward a account of Jordan's King Abdullah, and was arrested. Blackwater managers escorted him from the bastille to the airport.
Blackwater eventually absent its authorization to accomplish as guardian of U.S. diplomats in Iraq afterwards its aegis guards were accused of killing caught Iraqi civilians in 2007.
In a accounting statement, Xe said it maintains aerial standards of conduct. Aback aggregation action is violated, ``disciplinary accomplishments are taken up to and including abortion from employment,'' the aggregation said.
Last week, the advance accumulation USTC Holdings appear it had bought Xe in a accord that includes the company's training ability in North Carolina. Terms of the accord were not disclosed.
