NYT : Official Overseeing Security Contractors Resigns

Official Overseeing Security Contractors Resigns

By JOHN M. BRODER | October 24, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 — The State Department official responsible for overseeing Blackwater USA and other private security contractors in Iraq resigned abruptly today.

Richard J. Griffin, who has been the director of the department’s diplomatic security bureau since June 2005, faced stiff criticism from Congress over his handling of a Sept. 16 shooting episode involving Blackwater that left 17 Iraqis dead and other acts of violence by the State Department’s security guards.

A special panel appointed to investigate the handling of diplomatic security in Iraq found a glaring lack of oversight and accountability that was hindering the American diplomatic and military mission there. The F.B.I. and a joint American-Iraqi board are also investigating the Sept. 16 shooting and the operations of armed private guards in Iraq.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice quickly accepted Mr. Griffin’s resignation, which is effective Nov. 1. “Secretary Rice is grateful to Ambassador Griffin for his record of long exemplary service to the nation,” said Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman.

Ms. Rice is scheduled to appear on Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has been investigating problems with Blackwater and other security contractors in Iraq.

The committee’s chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said Wednesday, “Mr. Griffin’s resignation is another indication that State Department’s efforts in Iraq are in disarray.”

In his two-paragraph letter of resignation to President Bush, Mr. Griffin cited his 36 years in government service, which has included senior posts in the Secret Service and the Department of Veterans Affairs. He did not mention Blackwater or Iraq, nor cite a specific reason for leaving. He wrote only he was moving on to “new challenges.”

Mr. Griffin did not respond to requests for comment. Mr. McCormack said he would not elaborate on the reasons for or the timing of his departure. Gregory Starr, a deputy in the diplomatic security bureau, will take over as acting director, Mr. McCormack said.

Mr. Griffin directed a little-known State Department bureau responsible for protection of American facilities and diplomats overseas. It employs 1,450 special agents who serve as bodyguards for ambassadors and other dignitaries abroad, but found itself unable to handle the security demands brought on by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It turned to private American security companies like Blackwater and DynCorp International, which handle the bulk of guard work for American civilians in those two countries.

The contracts, worth billions of dollars, presented management challenges that the bureau found itself struggling to handle. Military officials in Iraq and some diplomats there complained that Blackwater guards, in particular, were undermining the American effort by being quick to use their weapons and running Iraqi civilians off the roads.

The State Department review panel, headed by a veteran diplomat Ambassador Patrick F. Kennedy, found an urgent need to address these problems and to write new laws, if necessary, to make private security contractors subject to American law when they use excessive force.