Will ArmorGroup’s embassy scandal inflame the Muslim world in the same way Abu Ghraib did? Members of the Commission on Wartime Contracting, the independent panel established to probe contracting issues in Iraq and Afghanistan, certainly see parallels between the infamous photographs of detainee abuse and those depicting Kabul Embassy guards engaging in a range of lewd conduct. Graphic shots of ArmorGroup personnel cavorting half-naked and participating in humiliating hazing rituals, which have circulated widely online, “provide free recruiting material to the Taliban,” Chris Shays, the commission’s cochair and a former Republican congressman from Connecticut, said on Monday during a hearing on the State Department’s oversight of contractors that focused on the recent allegations against ArmorGroup.
