Daily Archives: October 19, 2012

US Embassy Dublin: Roger Kiley Impersonates Customs Attaché, What’s Love Gotta Do With It?

October 19, 2012 By in Court Cases, Federal Agencies, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , , ,

Via USDOJ:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer Pleads Guilty to Impersonating U.S. Customs Attaché

WASHINGTON – A supervisory customs and border protection officer pleaded guilty today in the Southern District of Florida to impersonating a U.S. Customs attaché and making false statements related to his assignment with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Preclearance Office in Dublin, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer for the Southern District of Florida.

Roger J. Kiley, 42, of Miami, pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Judge Ursula Mancusi Ungaro in Miami to a criminal information charging him with one count of false personation and one count of making a false statement.

According to court documents, Kiley was stationed at the CBP Preclearance Office in Dublin from 2009 to 2011.   As part of his plea agreement, Kiley admitted that he began a romantic relationship with a Dublin resident in 2010.   Kiley also admitted that he held himself out to this individual as the Customs attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Dublin, a government position that did not exist, and that he could arrange for the embassy to lease the residence she was living in as his embassy residence.   Kiley further admitted that he created a fake lease from the embassy as well as a funding cable for the payment of the lease on the residence.   Kiley also admitted that he created a bogus letter from the embassy authorizing the relocation of Kiley and his romantic interest to the United States, and that he forged the signature of the deputy chief of mission on the letter.   Kiley further admitted that he lied to federal agents in February 2012 when interviewed about the allegations of misconduct while he was in Dublin.

Kiley faces up to three years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a year of supervised release for the charge of false personation.   He faces five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release for the false statement charge.   Kiley is also responsible for restitution in the amount of $2,500.  Sentencing has been scheduled for Dec. 7, 2012.

This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Richard B. Evans of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Robin W. Waugh, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.   The case is being investigated by the CBP Office of Internal Affairs.

Makes you wonder what’s the back story of this case.  Did the romantic interest found out he was a fake attaché  with a one bedroom apartment when they relocated back to the United States and marched to Internal Affairs? If love made him do it, will the Court be lenient about that five year possible prison term?

– DS

Quickie: Goldberg’s Benghazi Embarrassment, But Who’s Red on the Face?

October 19, 2012 By in Diplomatic Attacks, Media, Obama, Politics, Terrorism Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Jeffrey Goldberg,  a national correspondent for The Atlantic writes:

The embarrassment of the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi is not that it happened. America has its victories against terrorism, and its defeats, and the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American security personnel represents one defeat in a long war. The embarrassment is that political culture in America is such that we can’t have an adult conversation about the lessons of Benghazi, a conversation that would focus more on understanding al Qaeda affiliates in North Africa, on the limitations and imperfections of security, and on shortfalls in our intelligence gathering, than on who said what when in the Rose Garden.

He made four reasonable points:

1) Because the conversation around Benghazi is so stupid, we’re going to end up with more mindless CYA security “improvements” that will imprison American diplomats in their fortress compounds even more than they are already imprisoned.

2) It would be good if at least some of the blame for the assassination of Chris Stevens was apportioned to his assassins. Both candidates would do us a service if they would re-focus the debate on ways to defeat Islamist terrorism.

3) Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama can both take the blame, or the responsibility, for this attack if they want, but the truth, quite obviously, is that neither one of them is in charge of assessing the security needs of individual American embassies and consulates. The job of leaders is to hire well, supervise their hires to the degree possible, and then, if something goes wrong, spend the time and energy to figure out how to fix the problem. It is unrealistic to believe that either leader could have known about what is ultimately a small problem in a large war. We should spend more time judging them on how they respond to defeats then on blaming them for the defeats. (By the way, I would hold George W. Bush to the same standard re:  9/11, and Bill Clinton to the same standard when it came to his Administration’s unsuccessful efforts to stop the spread of al Qaeda in the late 1990s.)

4) As Blake Hounshell put it, “Amb. Chris Stevens was a big boy and he made his own decision to go to Benghazi despite the risks. If he thought it was too dangerous, he should not have gone.” We’ve lost thousands of American government employees over the past 10 years in the Middle East and in Afghanistan. Nearly all of them were in uniform, but Foreign Service officers know the risks as well. We need to treat the loss of these four men in Libya as a battlefield loss. That would require people such as Darrell Issa, who chaired a House Oversight committee hearing on the Benghazi attacks, from saying foolish things, like he did the other day.

Continue reading, The Benghazi Embarrassment.

– DS

 

 

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US Army Activates “Warrior Diplomats” … Unlike State’s Expeditionary Diplomats, These Got Guns

October 19, 2012 By in Budget, Defense Department, Follow the Money, Foreign Service, Staffing the FS, State Department, Trends Tags: , , , , , 8 Comments

I almost forgot this item I saw from the US Army a few weeks ago.  After the “build phase” is completed, we can expect at least five battalions of “warrior diplomats.”  Since a battalion has around 300–1,200 soldiers, the new warrior diplomats brigade can have a as low as 1,500 soldiers or as high as 6,000 for a brigade consisting of five battalions.

FORT HOOD, Texas, Sept. 22, 2011 — A brand new unit now has a home at Fort Hood. The 85th Civil Affairs Brigade officially stood up at the “Great Place” Sept. 16, after years of planning and coordination.
[…]
“In 2007, the Army saw a need for additional civil affairs capabilities,” Ruth explained. At that time, only one active-duty brigade-sized civil affairs unit existed — the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade (Airborne) which is aligned under U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C.

After the surge in Iraq was announced in 2007, Ruth said nearly half of the USASOC civil affairs Soldiers were deployed to the Middle East to support ongoing operations. Plans were made to build another brigade, although that process took some time.

“We are in the build phase now,” Ruth said. “By the time we finish building the brigade, we will have five battalions. Each battalion will be oriented on a geographic combatant command.”

The 85th Civil Affairs Bde. is a direct-reporting unit to U.S. Army Forces Command. In addition, the brigade’s first battalion, the 81st Civil Affairs Battalion, stood up Sept. 16 at Fort Hood. That battalion is oriented to Southern Command.

In September 2012, two additional battalions will stand up. They include the 83rd Civil Affairs Battalion at Fort Bragg, N.C., which will be oriented to Central Command, and the 82nd Civil Affairs Battalion at Fort Stewart, Ga., which will be oriented to Africa Command.

The two final battalions will activate in September 2013 and will include the 80th Civil Affairs Battalion at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., which will be oriented to Pacific Command, and the 84th Civil Affairs Battalion at Fort Bliss, which will support European Command.

There’s a simple reason for the roll out of the brigades, according to Command Sgt. Maj. Mark Berry, the brigade’s senior enlisted advisor.

“Part of the challenge of what we have (is) the MOS (military occupational specialty) and the branch have only existed since 2007,” he said. “So as we’re building capacity in the branch, we’re expanding the units at the same time.”

Soldiers that are interested in the civil affairs branch have a challenging road ahead of them before they can join a battalion or a brigade.

“We recruit from inside the Army,” Berry said. “The process is quite lengthy.”

Interested Soldiers must first meet the qualifications and go through a screening process. If they make it through that level but are not yet parachutists, they must complete Airborne school. After that, there is the official civil affairs MOS qualification course, and finally, the Soldiers must learn a foreign language, which means months of additional schooling.
[…]
“It’s very busy, but it’s also very rewarding to do something that not very many people have an opportunity to do in the Army, and that’s stand something up from nothing.”

Standing up a brigade requires identifying unit facilities, creating procedures and policies, and working closely with Human Resources Command to make sure positions are properly staffed, in addition to dozens of other tasks on a daily basis.

“I don’t think we could do this at any other place except Fort Hood, and that goes back to the superb level of support we’re getting,” Ruth said.

The Civil Affairs brigade at Fort Hood equips FORSCOM with a crucial tool, a team of “warrior diplomats,” eager to leave their mark on the world.

“The mission is to provide FORSCOM with a civil affairs capability,” Ruth said. “It can do three things, (including) support the Army Force Generation cycle with civil affairs operators. The second capability that we provide FORSCOM is the ability to provide peacetime engagement throughout the world, and then the last thing we provide is the ability to support any emergent operations.

“So if we have another Haiti (earthquake) or flood in Indonesia, now we have civil affairs Soldiers who can go out and lend their expertise in mitigating those disasters,” he added.

Civil affairs Soldiers play a crucial role in both war and peace, although Ruth admitted that the branch is sometimes misunderstood.

“There’s a misnomer out there that what we do is hand out MREs (meals, ready-to-eat) and dig wells,” he said. “That’s not exactly what we do. We can facilitate that, but we do things for specific reasons, and that’s really to legitimize the local, regional or national government, and facilitate the commander’s ability to operate in theater.”

At the tactical level, civil affairs Soldiers serve as an intermediary between a commander on the ground and local village representatives. That’s where the in-depth training and language skills make all the difference in the world.

“Because of all that training and the way we select those Soldiers, we’re going to be able to provide the Army with a mature Soldier, a Soldier that has the ability to think on his or her feet,” Berry said.

“You can put them in a situation and they may not know the answer when they get there, but they’re going to keep working at it until they figure out what the answer is. They also have the ability to work with people and understand people.”

“Our motto is ‘warrior diplomat’ because we have to be warriors. We have to be Soldiers,” Ruth said. “But the Soldiers also have to add the diplomatic capability to where they can diffuse dissension, identify what the local vulnerabilities are and really bring people together.”
[…]
To mark the brigade’s activation, the unit will host a ceremony at the flagpole in front of III Corps Headquarters Sept. 30 at 9 a.m. The public is invited to attend.

The full article is here.

By September 2013, the full brigade with an upper count of possibly 6,000 soldiers will be in place. One battalion of warrior diplomats will support each combatant command: Central, Southern, Pacific, European and Africom.

To put this in perspective: the diplomatic service, officially called the United States Foreign Service and tasked with carrying out the foreign policy of these United States in over 270 posts overseas has about 13,000 staff members.  Only about 6,500 are Foreign Service officers.  Indeed, they could easily fit aboard a single aircraft carrier.

In the FY2012 budget State requested an addition of 197 full time Foreign Service and Civil Service – a growth of 1 percent, and 165 new positions for USAID. I can’t tell how many additional staffing was granted. But the FY2012 budget request for the State Department was $62.7 billion, and only $53.4 billion was enacted.

For FY2013, State has again requested additional staffing, this time, for 121 new positions (83 Foreign Service and 38 civil service) in high priority programs and regions.

And that’s that for the chopping block, until the next round.

Also — the State Department’s hiring effort called Diplomacy 3.0 to increase its Foreign Service workforce by 25 percent by 2013 was derailed due to emerging budgetary constraints. It is anticipated that this goal will not be met until 2023.

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