The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged ian kelly

Panetta Says Karzai Probably Won the Afghan Election

By | 09.18.09 | 4:53 pm

Just two days ago, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly cautioned reporters not to jump to any conclusions about who won the Afghan presidential election just because “preliminary results” have been certified in Hamid Karzai’s favor. “I want to reemphasize that these are just preliminary, they’re not final, and we’re still More…

State Department Spokesman Hadn’t Seen POGO Brush-Off

By | 09.09.09 | 5:51 pm

As an addendum to this post, I see Ian Kelly, a spokesman for the State Department, had this exchange with a reporter today over the propriety of the department’s response to the Project on Government Oversight, which gave State a welter of information about contractor ArmorGroup’s abuses in Kabul:

More Allegations Against State Department Security Contractor: Whistleblower Fired

By | 09.03.09 | 12:19 pm

The Project on Government Oversight has just learned that one of its sources for exposing apparent acts of physical and sexual harassment by a State Department security contractor has been fired in an act of retaliation. A just-issued press release:

One of the whistleblowers who helped expose the guard scandal

More…

So When Exactly Did State Start Investigating ArmorGroup?

By | 09.03.09 | 11:05 am

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly came out of the box yesterday with a strong statement. The State Department takes the allegations of impropriety on the part of ArmorGroup, the security company State hired to protect the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, so seriously that the Office of the Inspector General More…

Contractors Gone Wild

By | 09.01.09 | 6:17 pm

These documents about the behavior of ArmorGroup, a security company hired by the State Department to protect the U.S. embassy in Kabul, have to be seen to be believed. The Project on Government Oversight released them in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Here’s a More…

The Diplomatic Onus is Placed on Iran

By | 06.25.09 | 9:58 am

Helene Cooper has a good piece in The New York Times about the Obama administration’s evolving stance on Iran, but it leaves out something that’s going to be an increasingly relevant concern if the regime weathers the opposition’s challenge to its authority: when negotiations with Iran can or More…

No Hot Dogs for You

By | 06.24.09 | 4:29 pm

Robert Gibbs says the Iranian diplomats are no longer invited to July 4 U.S. embassy cookouts. Good. Did anyone but Jason Zengerle think the invites were some cunning scheme to collect intelligence? I hardly see the value in diplomatic snubbing, but there are tasteful and tasteless ways to More…