'Cooks and drivers were working as interrogators'

[kskiska]

Private contractor lifts the lid on systematic failures at Abu Ghraib jail

Many of the prisoners abused at the Abu Ghraib prison were innocent Iraqis, picked up at random by US troops and incarcerated by underqualified intelligence officers, a former US interrogator from the jail told the Guardian.

Torin Nelson, who served as a military intelligence officer at Guantánamo Bay before moving to Abu Ghraib as a private contractor last year, blamed the abuses on a failure of command in US military intelligence and an over-reliance on private firms. He alleged those companies were so anxious to meet the demand for their services, they sent "cooks and truck drivers" to work as interrogators.

"Military intelligence operations need to drastically change in order for something like this not to happen again," Mr Nelson told the Guardian.

He claimed many of the detainees are "innocent of any acts against the coalition".

"One case in point is a detainee whom I recommended for release and months later was still sitting in the same tent with no change in his status."

Mr Nelson said that the same systemic problems were also responsible for large numbers of Afghans being mistakenly swept into Guantánamo Bay. He estimated that a third or more of the inmates at the controversial prison camp had no connection to terrorism.

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1211374,00.html

[specter]

1. Funny

that all the pictures that ive seen show US Soldiers not civilian employees, civilian employees would not be allowed to wear any type of uniform.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Feed this to CONGRESS NOW