The reporter is amazingly ignorant of SOP’s.
Anytime you have a mixed group of friendlies and locals meeting a friendly VIP, the friendlies disarm to prevent locals, whom may not be vetted, from disarming a friendly and attacking the VIP.
The reporter is anti-military and attempting to show that friendlies cannot be trusted and are unstable.
No story here.
Although I don't like the idea of U.S. military being disarmed, en masse, in a war zone, this explanation does seem logical to me. In the vast sea of Obama Administration outrages we need to concentrate on the whales and sharks and foget about the minnows.