Security probes hold up diplomats

Dozens of Foreign Service officers say their careers are in ruins because their security clearances were suspended based on suspicions or unsubstantiated accusations.

Several have accused the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) in interviews of “abusing the security clearance process” by punishing “whistleblowing, dissenting viewpoints or minor acts of possible misfeasance unrelated to national security.”

“All I want is a resolution, even if they decide to revoke my clearance,” said Daniel Hirsch, whose request for an assignment in Iraq or Afghanistan has languished for three years.

“At least, I’ll be able to take further action. Now, my hands are tied, and I’m just waiting while my career is being destroyed.”

Mr. Hirsch, a Foreign Service officer for 21 years, has spent his career working in hardship posts in Africa, Central Asia and the Balkans, so it was only fitting that he would volunteer for the world’s most dangerous places.

“I put my name in several times a year, but I’ve never heard back from anyone,” he said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has repeatedly called for U.S. diplomats to serve in the two posts that the Bush administration deems most important for its war on terrorism.

But Mr. Hirsch is not eligible to serve in any overseas post while awaiting the outcome of a DSS investigation that began in 2003. He said he has been kept in the dark about its findings and possible outcome.

“DSS maintains that they do not even have to establish any facts in order to revoke a clearance, much less suspend one” said Mr. Hirsch, whose battle with DSS began when his wife sought marital counseling at their last post in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

That counseling prompted suspicions of spousal abuse, which continue to be investigated, even though his wife has repeatedly denied any such abuse in writing.

Mr. Hirsch said the DSS dug up a brief episode from his past — a trip he took with the group Volunteers for Israel when he was 23 and working for the CIA. The agency knew about it, he said, but DSS became suspicious about a picture of him in an Israeli military uniform.

DSS declined to comment for this article, saying only that it does everything according to the law and administrative regulations. A spokeswoman said there are up to 30 suspensions every year from among the up to 40,000 State Department employees and contractors who hold security clearances at any given time.

Diplomats with suspended clearance are given desk jobs in Washington that require little of their expertise and experience.

Les Hickman, who had his clearance suspended in November 2002, said the DSS has “no transparent procedure about how they do things.”

“What happened to me was based on allegations, nothing factual,” he said.

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