Former US diplomat fends off criticism on tenure

Former US Ambassador Scott Gration defended himself on Sunday against a sharply critical State Department assessment of his tenure in Nairobi.

Asserting that the department's negative performance review "contains an egregious number of categorically false statements," Major General (retired) Gration said he has been "flooded with letters of support from members of all branches of government, Kenyan leaders and the international community."

The former envoy did not indicate which Kenyan leaders had expressed their support.

He released a statement on Sunday through Lanny Davis, a counsel to former President Bill Clinton, who described Ambassador Gration as "a person of the highest integrity."

Referring to the State Department's account of widespread disgruntlement within the US Nairobi embassy, Mr Davis added, "any anonymous critics of [Gration's] record as ambassador, or any report based on anonymous critics, can be dismissed as not credible, erroneous, and contradicted by indisputable facts about his record."

Ambassador Gration said he will continue striving "to clear my name against the report's baseless allegations."