“It’s got a long painful road ahead of it. In recent years the Pentagon has significantly improved its control and accounting of private contractors, but the State Department remains much less organized, Isenberg said.
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Mismanagement and poor oversight of growing legions of private security forces employed by the State and Defense departments grew acute during the height of the wars, according to several government investigations. The 20 or so Libyan men hired to guard the consulate were lightly armed, if at all, and included some with no security experience, Reuters reported.Īn independent inquiry panel into the Benghazi attack found a lack of coordination and “real confusion,” in Washington and in the field, over State Department security provisions and policy, according to an unclassified version of the report released Tuesday. In Benghazi, the State Department contracted with a small British security firm, Blue Mountain Group. Then demand boomed during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, accelerating the trend toward outsourcing. The State Department began relying increasingly on private security contractors during the late ‘80s and ‘90s during military downsizing, even as its personnel overseeing the contractors were cut, analysts said. diplomatic security personnel are private contractors, according to Deborah Avant, a scholar with a doctorate from the University of California San Diego who oversees The Private Security Monitor, an independent research project on government contracting. The State Department is asking Congress for more than $1.3 billion to boost security, out of contingency funds once allocated for Iraq: $553 million for additional Marine security guards, $130 million for civilian diplomatic security personnel and $691 million for installation improvements, officials told The New York Times.Īpproximately 90 percent of U.S.