Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — A former State Department official said the 16,500 security
personnel retained to provide security in Iraq are increasingly vulnerable to a
range of insurgency groups.

Peter Van Buren, a former State Department reconstruction team leader in Iraq, said his former employer has instituted
rules that endanger private contractors.

“The security [for] contractors working for the State Department … have recently stopped carrying weapons,” Van Buren, quoting contractors in Iraq, said.

Van Buren, whose analysis was redacted to prevent the leak of what was seen as damaging information, said the State Department was cutting costs in maintaining security in Iraq. He said the department has ordered food to be purchased from Iraq rather than from neighboring Kuwait, where the U.S. military has more than 23,000 troops.

“Nothing has changed on the ground vis-a-vis food security, but to save money, State is warping that reality to fit its own needs,” Van Buren said. “Security in general is subject to such warping, potentially at the cost of U.S. lives.”

Van Buren said the State Department has failed to meet its deadline for
the security force. The department has sought to hire 5,500 private
contractors for U.S. diplomats, but issued a call as late as Nov. 4.

“In other words, it [the security force] won’t be there when needed,”
Van Buren said.

The State Department, which has taken over training for the Iraqi
military and security forces, has also ordered contractors to stop using
mission vehicles and personnel for leave rotations. Van Buren quoted a
police training contractor as saying that the directive was issued as the
threat of insurgency abductions has risen.

“Recently the climate in Iraq has become far more hostile to private
companies, especially those not directly linked to the U.S. State
Department — such as our leave rotation crews,” Van Buren quoted the
contractor as saying. “There is a current security threat briefed by DOS as
… is actively seeking to capture personnel associated with the mission.”

The contractor warned that Iraqi officers were known to be working with
insurgency groups and deployed at checkpoints around Baghdad. He recalled a
recent case in which his vehicle was stopped at an Iraqi checkpoint and
ordered to wait for several minutes in downtown Baghdad.

“Terrorists are not stupid,” the contractor was quoted as saying. “We
have to assume they are actively surveilling us. We have to assume they are
talking to Iraqi Police, who among other things have failed to catch two
recent bombs passing through their security checkpoint.”

  Baghdad, Peter Van Buren, Security fears for Americans in Iraq: Contractors have ‘stopped carrying weapons’, State Department, U.S. security contractors