The company charged with protecting Australia’s ambassador and diplomatic staff in Iraq concealed the mysterious “loss” of 14 Glock pistols from its offices in the suburbs of Baghdad not long before the Iraqi government reduced the number of side-arms allowed by personal protection details.
The unexplained disappearance of the pistols in 2012 is among a litany of allegations of security, weapons and procedural violations made against the company Unity Resources Group by former and present employees.
The Australian has spoken with nine URG staff, including two former company senior security and operations managers in Baghdad who have provided first-hand accounts of security breaches they believe endangered the ambassador and diplomatic staff.
Mike Stewart, a former Australian SAS officer with 23 years’ operational experience and currently serving with the British Army Reserve, collated his concerns in a 19-point email addressed to a senior Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade official in 2012.
Mr Stewart’s email, a copy of which has been obtained by The Australian, was sent on September 3, 2012, to William Elischer, then DFAT’s director of operational security in the Diplomatic Security Branch and now DFAT’s director of counter-terrorism for the Middle East and Africa. In it, Mr Stewart warned that the then ambassador, Lyndall Sachs, and her staff’s operational movements, including locations, times and routes contained in the so-called “five-day forward planner” document, were being transmitted by open email — Microsoft Outlook through a URG commercial server in Sydney then on to DFAT — when they should have been delivered “safe-hand” by sealed envelope.
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