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Secret service agents sent home after Colombia prostitution allegations Secret service agents sent home after Colombia prostitution allegations
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US secret service agents sent to provide security for Barack Obama at a summit in Colombia have been sent home after allegations of heavy drinking and consorting with prostitutes. The US secret service, the elite suit and earpiece-wearing bodyguard unit responsible for presidential security, is embroiled in scandal after 12 members were reportedly recalled amid accusations of prostitution in Colombia.
Spokesman Edwin Donovan said the agents involved were relieved from duty and replaced with other agency personnel. "These personnel changes will not affect the comprehensive security plan that has been prepared in advance of the president's trip," Donovan said on Friday night. The dozen had been among US security officials carrying out intensive preparations ahead of a summit visit by President Barack Obama to Cartagena, a coastal city popular with tourists.
Donovan said the allegations of misconduct were related to activity before the president arrived in Cartagena on Friday afternoon. The allegations broke in the Washington Post, which was alerted to the story by Ronald Kessler, a former Post reporter and author of a book on the secret service. Kessler said the secret service agents had been recalled after at least one had become involved with prostitution which is legal in some areas of the city.
The agents at the centre of the allegations had stayed at Cartagena's Hotel Caribe. Several members of the White House staff and press corps were also staying at the hotel. "One of the agents did not pay one of the prostitutes, and she complained to the police," Kessler told cable news channel CNN. "This is clearly the biggest scandal in secret service history," Kessler added.
A hotel employee said the agents arrived at the beachfront hotel about a week ago and drank heavily during their stay. They were sent home on Thursday after they were admonished by a supervisor. A statement issued by a spokesman for the secret service, Edwin Donovan, declined to comment on the specifics of the allegations but confirmed a redeployment of staff. "There have been allegations of misconduct made against the secret service in Cartagena, Colombia, prior to the president's trip.
Jon Adler, the president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which represents secret service agents, told the Washington Post the accusations related to at least one agent having involvement with prostitutes in Cartagena. "Because of this, those personnel are being relieved of their assignments, returned to their place of duty, and are being replaced by other secret service personnel. The secret service takes all allegations of misconduct seriously," the statement said.
Ronald Kessler, a former Post reporter and the author of a book about the secret service, told the paper that he had learned that 12 agents were involved, several of them married. The scandal is a major blow to the secret service, which prides itself on discretion and professionalism and has a reputation for taking no chances with presidential security.
On Friday evening, Obama attended a leaders' dinner at Cartagena's historic Spanish fortress. The story is especially damaging as several bomb blasts rocked Cartagena on Friday during preparations for Obama's arrival at the Summit of the Americas. Though they occurred far from the summit, it was a reminder of the gang and drug problems the country faces and the need for heavy security in the city.
He was due to attend meetings with regional leaders on Saturday and Sunday. More than 30 presidents and prime ministers are attending the summit. Obama is expected to be on the defensive over issues including drug legalisation, which his administration opposes, the US insistence on excluding Cuba from the conference and his opposition to Argentina's claim to the Falkland Islands. A heavy Colombian army presence has also been deployed, including thousands of troops and police and even submarines off the coast.
Many Latin American leaders have insisted that this is the last summit which Cuba will not attend. The US, supported by Canada, continues to insist on the embargo on Cuba, first instituted after the revolution in 1959. Before any presidential trip extensive security precautions are followed by the secret service, with a desire to remain in the background and far from the headlines. But the prostitution allegations are not the first scandal to rock top American security details in recent years.
Obama will have to battle declining influence in what Washington has long considered its backyard. China has surpassed the US in trade with Brazil, Chile, and Peru and is a close second in Argentina and Colombia. Late last year an agent attached to the state department's bureau of diplomatic security was accused of shooting dead a man inside a McDonald's restaurant in Hawaii. The agent had been on the islands preparing security for an economic summit to be attended by the Obamas.
Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based thinktank, noted in a pre-summit report: "Most countries of the region view the United States as less and less relevant to their needs and with declining capacity to propose and carry out strategies to deal with the issues that most concern them." Last summer a secret service agent was arrested for drink-driving in Iowa after Obama paid a visit to the state. The agent was off duty at the time.
Juan Manuel Santos, the president of Colombia, told a meeting of business leaders in Cartagena on Friday that the US was distracted by its commitments in Asia. "The United States should realise that its long-term strategic interests are not in Afghanistan or in Pakistan but in Latin America." One of the biggest embarrassments to the secret service was the bizarre case of the so-called "White House party crashers" in 2010. Tareq and Micheale Salahi, cast members of a reality TV show about Washington socialites, managed to bluff their way into a state dinner at the White House, despite having no invitation. The pair casually breached massive security and ended up posing for pictures with the vice-president, Joe Biden, and mingling with other high-powered guests.