WASHINGTON, D.C. - Nearly a year and a half after Senator Claire McCaskill and the Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight held a hearing exposing the contracting problems at the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, an independent government watchdog has confirmed many of the Subcommittee's findings. The State Department Office of Inspector General (IG) released a report today which found major problems with both the performance and mismanagement of contract worth $189 million with ArmorGroup North America (AGNA) to provide security at the embassy in Kabul. The report reflects many of the Subcommittee's findings from a June 2009 hearing and investigation.

"This report confirms what we heard at our subcommittee hearing last year: there has been long-standing problems with this security contract for the American embassy in one of the most dangerous places in the world," McCaskill said. "Although the State Department has brought in a new contractor, we need more than a fresh start to turn this thing around. Until we see evidence that the government is doing a sufficient job overseeing the contract, I will continue to follow it closely."

The IG report found that AGNA failed to comply with the requirements of the contract, and the report concluded that the oversight of the contract by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security was insufficient. Because of poor oversight, the government ultimately did not hold AGNA responsible for their failure to meet the contract requirements. The report states:

• "AGNA has hired unqualified individuals for positions and has assigned to duty guards who lack required training. AGNA does not maintain complete training records. ... AGNA cannot account for 101 U.S. Government-furnished weapons. .... OIG calculates that AGNA's loss and misuse of U.S. Government-furnished weapons totals $431,000."

• "DS did not verify the guards' contractually required qualifications or enforce their English language proficiency requirements. When the contractor had difficulty procuring a certain explosive testing material, DS removed the contract requirement to test canines for its scent. Although required by its contract, AGNA did not perform background investigations, including police checks for criminal activities, of Nepalese guards."

• "OIG's review of AGNA's firearms score records for June 2009 revealed statistically improbable scoring, suggesting that trainers qualified guards who did not actually meet the minimum qualification score on the range. Out of 319 Nepalese guards, 24 guards scored exactly the minimum score needed to qualify. The likelihood of this number of guards obtaining this score is .3 percent."

• "OIG's review of correspondence from June 2007 to August 2009 between the Department and AGNA management showed a pattern of uncorrected disciplinary problems with AGNA personnel that preceded September 2009 media reports of incidents in Kabul."

The State Department Inspector General report is available here.

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