"Sallyport Global fired two of its investigators after they uncovered evidence of the trafficking as well as alcohol smuggling and major security violations at Balad Air Base."
WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional investigative panel is demanding documents and testimony from an embattled U.S. defense contractor accused of failing to promptly disclose human trafficking on a base in Iraq.
An investigation by The Associated Press this month found that Sallyport Global fired two of its investigators after they uncovered evidence of the trafficking as well as alcohol smuggling and major security violations at Balad Air Base.
In a letter to Sallyport's Chief Executive Officer, Victor Esposito, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform ordered Sallyport to turn over an extensive list of documents and to make company representatives available to answer questions before June 9. The letter signed by the committee's chairman, Jason Chaffetz, a Republican, and top Democrat, Elijah Cummings, cited the AP's reporting.
"The allegations include prostitution, alcohol smuggling, timesheet fraud, concealment from Department of Defense auditors, and retaliation against employees whose duty it was to investigate these allegations," the letter says.
Sallyport Global Holdings was paid nearly $700 million in federal contracts to secure Balad Air Base, home to a squadron of F-16 fighter jets as part of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group.
In a statement, Sallyport Chief Operating Officer Matt Stuckart said the company looked forward to speaking to the panel.
"Sallyport takes any suggestion of wrongdoing at Balad Air Force Base in Iraq very seriously and strongly disputes the claims made by two former employees," said Matt Stuckart, Chief Operating Officer. "Since taking over operations January 2014, Sallyport has helped turn Balad Air Base into an instrumental part of the fight against ISIS."
In their letter, the lawmakers wrote, "Protecting American troops and facilities abroad is a solemn responsibility." They then raised concerns about the fired investigators' charge that the company shut down their investigations.
"Making matters worse, according to the report, Sallyport management short-circuited internal investigations and fired the employees responsible for them when they requested to interview Sallyport management suspected of wrongdoing," they wrote.
After the AP's report, the company denied the allegation that company managers had shut down an investigation into alcohol smuggling and human trafficking. They later acknowledged that after learning that the original probe had been stopped, lawyers had asked for a second investigation into new reports of prostitution on the base.
According to the investigators' original report in February 2016, four Ethiopian women who were suspected of working at a hotel in Baghdad as prostitutes moved to the base after customers at the hotel complained about contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Those customers included Sallyport employees, the investigators said.
The House panel is also scrutinizing allegations raised in another AP investigation that contractors have reported fraudulent data in a key military program to counter IS propaganda online.
Based in Reston, Virginia, Sallyport was founded in 2003 to work in Iraq on reconstruction, and has since expanded its operations globally.
Hinnant contributed from Paris. Follow Butler on Twitter at https://twitter.com/desmondbutler and Hinnant at https://twitter.com/lhinnant .
Online: Read documents about Sallyport's activities in Iraq at http://apne.ws/2p87fqZ .
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Camera_Eye ago
Did they have a sub contract with known trafficker DynCorp...? Look def cons help to facilitate the off-the-books business lines or what is commonly referred to as black operations. Off-the-books operations run or organized by joe citizen will immediately land your ass in jail; when its the Feds or rogue opps within the alphabet agencies that run weapons, drugs, human-trafficking they are never held to account or if implicated hide everything behind national security until someone with enough power kills the cancer. Jenny Moore went to ICE and interviewed with their Human Trafficking division re no Bill Clinton the rapist but Bill Clinton the Pedo ...she's dead. George Webb (and whatever you might think of him) is connecting the dots of weapons & drugs and the other business line trafficking, Club K, and Oleg Deripaska, Uranium One & the Clinton Foundation. If your a whistleblower...(google: Sell-Game-Whistleblowing-Scott-Bennett) they'll either take your life or career. Personally, the Diocese Catholic scandal is an easy target...I want to see rouge aspects of the CIA shut down and individuals prosecuted and thrown in jail for crimes against humanity (MK Ultra) to include the CEOs of GovCons who facilitate off-the-books black ops business lines.
EffYouJohnPodesta ago
Personally I agree about shutting down rogue aspects of the CIA but I think that the entire CIA needs to go bye bye. JFK wanted to break it into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the wind. It looks more like what has happened is that we've broken it into a thousand govt funded contractors and planted them firmly into the ground.
Between that, and the agencies we don't even have public awareness of at all, including covert agencies we haven't been told exist (a la Scientology) and other black ops programs considered "national security" I think it's safe to say we're not living in a democracy or even a republic, but in a surveillance / therapeutic / MK Ultra / prison / plantation / slavery state.