Exclusive: Video Shows Drunk, Stoned US Defense Contractors

[WestVirginiaRebel]

ABC News:

Cellphone video recorded earlier this year at an operations center of a U.S. defense contractor in Kabul, Afghanistan appears to show key personnel staggeringly drunk or high on narcotics, in what former employees say was a pattern of outrageous behavior that put American lives at risk and went undetected by U.S. military officials who are supposed to oversee such contractors.

The video, provided to ABC News by two former employees, is scheduled to be broadcast in a report this evening on "ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline."

WATCH a short clip from the video

Asked if a response to an attack by terrorists would have been possible during the events seen on the video, one of the former employees, Kenny Smith, told ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross, "No, sir."

Questions posed by ABC News to the Pentagon have sparked a criminal investigation by the U.S. Army, a spokesman says.

The contractor, Virginia-based Jorge Scientific, has won almost $1 billion in U.S. government contracts.

The company says it has taken "decisive action to correct the unacceptable behavior of a limited number of employees" and that several of them seen on the video are no longer employed by Jorge Scientific.

The use of alcohol or illegal drugs by U.S. contractors in Afghanistan is prohibited by the military under what is known as General Order Number One.

Yet the former employees told ABC News they saw no evidence of oversight of the company by American military officials and that at least one U.S. Army major, a female, was a regular visitor to drunken parties at the facility, often using a room for sexual encounters.

The two former employees, John Melson and Kenny Smith, say the video documents allegations they have made in a lawsuit against Jorge Scientific.

"They endangered Jorge employees, the U.S. mission, and U.S. military personnel," claims the lawsuit.

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Stupidity breeds incompetence.