Was Obama envoy forced out?

By Chris Wamalwa in USA

Speculation is rife both in Kenya and the US as to why the US ambassador to Kenya, Scott Gration, considered one of President Obama’s close confidants resigned in a huff on Friday.

Though nobody at the State Department and the White House is ready to officially acknowledge it, it appears the envoy may in fact, have been forced to resign.

Day-long investigations through interviews with the State Department and White House officials paint a picture of an envoy though highly experienced and close to the President, was completely out of touch with Obama’s administration’s Foreign Relations policy in general and the Horn of Africa political dynamics in particular in a way that rendered him irrelevant.

“Apart from the middle East, the Horn of Africa which includes Eastern Africa is considered by the Obama administration as a ‘Flash-Point’. What that means is that, what happens there raises a very prominent RED Flag and we have to constantly stay engaged. Don’t also forget that Kenya has a special place in president Obama’s heart!” said a source that requested that we don’t use his name in this story.

“Is that why the ambassador resigned? And by the way, did he resign or was he fired?” I asked. “I can’t answer that question. It’s only the Undersecretary for Africa Affairs who can answer that,” he replied.

When US Ambassador to Kenya Scott Gration resigned his position early Friday, he cited the reason in an emailed statement as differences with Washington regarding his leadership style and certain priorities that led him to believe that it was time to leave.

But, it seems, from what we have gathered, that was putting it mildly. Our source, a former State Department official with a long service record in the Africa bureau told the Standard that Gration’s tenure in Kenya was marked by constant friction with his superiors back in DC because he constantly refused to abide by State Department protocol and security measures.

“Because of his long service as diplomat, he may have believed he doesn’t need to answer to anybody and that may have led to the sullied relations with his seniors,” said the Source.

A case in point that is being cited is, in a move that upset officials in the Department of Defense and White House, Gration complicated US diplomacy to Somalia by demanding oversight of the Somalia Embassy’s actions. It is reported that that did not sit well with the powers that be in DC.

Another issue that became a serious borne of contention is the fact that the ambassador had a weird way conducting his diplomacy business. He mistrusted office computers and phone network fearing maybe they are hacked.

“Because Gration insisted on using his personal computer to conduct State Department business, he set up an office in one of the few places in Embassy Nairobi authorized for an unsecured network,” our source said.

Many people interviewed for this story are at a loss as to how; someone who entered the international and national stage as one of the first big foreign policy names to endorse Obama, and later became a close friend and confidant could have ended this way.

“It doesn’t add up though we have been surprised by his lackluster performance as Kenya’s envoy to say the least. He has been behaving as if corruption has been eradicated in Kenya and the implementation of the constitution is not under any threat,” said Lister Nyaringo of New Jersey who plans to contest the Bobasi parliamentary seat.

It is said that when Obama entered office, Gration had his choice of high-level positions and, reportedly, the commander-in-chief’s ear. Rumors placed Gration’s aspirations high in a second-term Obama administration as an Undersecretary for African Affairs. ?

Gration, the son of missionaries, spent much of his childhood in Kenya and speaks fluent Swahili. He joined the Air Force in 1974, where he became an F-16 fighter pilot instructor before retiring in 2006.

That year, he traveled Africa extensively with a senator, Barack Obama, who so awed Gration that the longtime Republican became a Democrat.

Writing for The New Yorker in 2008, Nicholas Lemann called Gration “The most mystical believer in Obamaism whom I met.”

He was also known to compare the senator to Nelson Mandela. Gration endorsed Obama. He was one of the campaigns earliest, most high profile foreign policy ‘gets’ and became a national security adviser to his 2008 presidential campaign, as well as one of its most enthusiastic surrogates. After the election, speculation saw Gration in a number of impressive roles, like head of NASA.

In March of 2009, Obama named him Special Envoy to Sudan. ?Gration’s appointment was greeted with widespread optimism that Obama was getting tough on Sudan. But in that role, Gration was regarded by many to have brought an incredibly naïve approach to negotiations.

Of the genocidal regime operating out of Khartoum, he infamously told the Washington Post, “We've got to think about giving out cookies. Kids, countries-they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement.”

Obama nominated Gration as ambassador to Kenya in February 2011, ending his tenure as special envoy. ?Many people agree that Gration’s transition to Kenya was stormy at the very least. After his arrival there, the Nairobi Embassy became the subject of an investigation by the Office of the Inspector General for the US State Department.

A scathing OIG report is due out later this summer. Individuals familiar with the report called it "catastrophic," a "toxic" assessment of Gration's leadership. ?

Over the objections of State Department officials, Gration insisted on doing business on his personal laptop and through his Gmail account, according to the former officer. This put classified information about the U.S.’s operations in East Africa at a higher risk for exposure.

This was considered a security risk because it was susceptible to hacking into like what happened in June 2011, when hackers in China broke into numerous Gmail accounts belonging to senior US officials.

His refusal to use diplomatic cables to communicate also cut many State Department officials out of the picture. Gration has also demanded approval over the actions of US Somalia embassy officials, who work out of the Nairobi embassy but are not under his supervision in any substantive way.

With the Somali government having no control over its country, the terrorist group Al Shabaab has been a constant menace for Kenyans along Kenya’s northern border; and the Kenyan embassy has indeed collaborated with others on Somali issues in some instances.