Federal Insider: Diplomats' commute: It's not the traffic, it's the danger

For U.S. diplomats in dangerous places overseas, the worst part of the job can be getting to and from work.

It’s not the traffic. It’s the danger.

A “variety of weaknesses” in the State Department’s transportation management program “continue to put U.S. personnel at risk,” according to a Government Accountability Office report released last week.

“Travel routes of U.S. government employees and their family members are particularly vulnerable to attack,” the report said. “From 1998 to 2015, more than 100 attacks targeted personnel in transit, including officials en route to work facilities or their residences. Several of these attacks resulted in fatalities.”

While State provides various protection methods, including armed guards, armored vehicles and training for staffers and family members, the weaknesses mean “personnel and their dependents are especially vulnerable when traveling outside the relative security of embassies, consulates, or residences.”

The 26 posts GAO reviewed had transportation security and travel notification plans, but policies at 22 locations were incomplete, lacking elements State required. The department “also lacks a clear armored vehicle policy for overseas posts,” GAO said.

A 2004 murder of a diplomat in Iraq, “was almost certainly caused by his failure to follow the post’s security policy,” according to the report. That killing led to six recommendations from a 2005 accountability review board. GAO later found that more than three-quarters of the foreign post policies it reviewed were missing at least one of the recommended security directives.

State provides training to regional security officers and other staffers on such topics as defensive driving and personal security measures. But when GAO investigators visited nine posts, they found “staff had difficulty remembering key details covered in new arrival briefings or described the one-time briefings as inadequate. State’s requirements for providing refresher briefings are unclear, potentially putting staff at greater risk.”

In four of the nine posts, employees received important threat warnings late. “In one case,” GAO said, “this resulted in an embassy vehicle being attacked with rocks and seriously damaged while traveling through a prohibited area.”