CACI Defense Contracts Hazy on Civilian Authority

[Rose Siding]

Contracts released by the Defense Department raise new questions about whether civilian employees of CACI International Inc. supervised the interrogation of some prison detainees in Iraq.

The Pentagon provided copies of the Arlington company's government contracts to the Center for Public Integrity, which sought them under the Freedom of Information Act. The center, based in the District, made the documents public yesterday.

The $19.9 million contract for CACI to provide interrogators, awarded last August, calls for the civilian workers to "provide oversight and other directed intelligence support to screening and interrogation operations, with special emphasis on High-Value detainees."

But the contract for interrogation services also says that CACI employees are to be "directed by military authority" and that "the contractor is responsible for providing supervision of all contractor personnel."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21858-2004Jul28.html

[seemslikeadream]

1. more from link

The role played by CACI's civilian interrogators has been debated since one of them, Steven A. Stefanowicz, was implicated in an internal Army report on abuses at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. The report said Stefanowicz encouraged soldiers to set conditions for interrogations and "clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse." Stefanowicz's lawyer has said his client did nothing wrong.

Using an umbrella contract managed by the Interior Department, the government awarded CACI 11 task orders for duties in Iraq including inventory management and intelligence analysis.


Harry Thornsvard, a senior vice president at CACI, said that even though the contract language is not clear, the company's employees had no authority over soldiers.

"Civilian contractors do not give orders to military personnel. CACI at all times has been under the operational control and direction of the United States military," Thornsvard said. "This has been confirmed by the sworn testimony of the Army generals responsible for operations in Iraq and the secretary of the Department of Defense."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21858-2004Jul28.html

hint about WP link if you want to see the whole article take the headline to google and access it that way.

[struggle4progress]

2. kick for privatizing torture

:kick:

[seemslikeadream]

3. Diary of an interrogator: After a tough day's questioning

Diary of an interrogator: After a tough day's questioning, a relaxing evening of jail-roof golf

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
09 May 2004

Among the golfers is a civilian accused by a US Army report of being "directly or indirectly responsible for the abuse" at the prison. The diary also reveals the pressure on interrogators and the extremely right-wing views of some.

Joe Ryan, a former Green Beret working in Abu Ghraib for CACI International, a defence IT contractor, had been keeping the diary for a conservative talk-show radio station in Minneapolis, KSTP 1500. The diary was posted on the station's website until, Mr Ryan said, military authorities requested its removal. On 25 April, Mr Ryan wrote: "We have foreign fighters from Morocco, Syria, Jordan, and other countries detained here. They are not sponsored by their respective countries to come here, but it is due to their individual choices, be it religious or stupidity ... I got to take the rest of the day off after our long booth time. This gave us a nice evening after dinner to head to the roof and play a round of golf.

"Scott Norman, Jeff Mouton, Steve Hattabaugh, Steve Stefanowicz, and I all took turns trying to hit balls over the back wall and on to the highway. Since the club is a left-handed 3 iron, I had an unfair advantage and missed a dump truck by only about 10 feet ... We do what we can to make it fun here."

Mr Stefanowicz, 35, a former naval reserve officer also employed by Arlington-based CACI International as an interrogator, became a reservist in the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 2001. A CACI official said last week that Mr Stefanowicz was "by all accounts doing a damn fine job". But Major General Antonio Taguba, who carried out an investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib, believed Mr Stefanowicz was one of the people "either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib".

more
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=519434

Joe Ryan, a former Green Beret working in Abu Ghraib for CACI International, a defence IT contractor, had been keeping the diary for a conservative talk-show radio station in Minneapolis, KSTP 1500. The diary was posted on the station's website until, Mr Ryan said, military authorities requested its removal. On 25 April, Mr Ryan wrote: "We have foreign fighters from Morocco, Syria, Jordan, and other countries detained here. They are not sponsored by their respective countries to come here, but it is due to their individual choices, be it religious or stupidity ... I got to take the rest of the day off after our long booth time. This gave us a nice evening after dinner to head to the roof and play a round of golf.

"Scott Norman, Jeff Mouton, Steve Hattabaugh, Steve Stefanowicz, and I all took turns trying to hit balls over the back wall and on to the highway. Since the club is a left-handed 3 iron, I had an unfair advantage and missed a dump truck by only about 10 feet ... We do what we can to make it fun here."

Mr Stefanowicz, 35, a former naval reserve officer also employed by Arlington-based CACI International as an interrogator, became a reservist in the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 2001. A CACI official said last week that Mr Stefanowicz was "by all accounts doing a damn fine job". But Major General Antonio Taguba, who carried out an investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib, believed Mr Stefanowicz was one of the people "either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib"... SOURCE
more
http://www.thesyndrome.com/archives/00000856.htm

[InkAddict]

4. Yup, coping well without the services of

Combat Stress specialists GITMO style:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=681549#682109

[TahitiNut]

5. Somebody just doesn't comprehend how the military operates ...

... in a combat zone. These guys were paramilitary, assigned to a person in the chain of command. While folks stateside might try to use the paradigm of the civilian employee-employer relationship with a boss and a static job description, the military just can't operate that way in a combat zone. You're a cook? Great. Grab that rifle and do as you're told. You're a clerk. Great. Grab that rifle and do as you're told. When you're a grunt and your C.O. assigns this guy in fatigues as your boss, you do as you're told. Period. We had "company" in RVN and this wasn't all that unusual.