Some Americans who tortured Iraqis may face no charges
by Farah Stockman, The Boston Globe
May 4, 2004
WASHINGTON -- A legal loophole could allow four American civilian
contractors allegedly involved in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners to
escape punishment, US military officials and specialists said
yesterday.
US commanders in Iraq announced that seven military supervisors have
received administrative reprimands over the alleged abuse of the
detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Lieutenant General
Ricardo Sanchez, commander of US forces in Iraq, said the
investigation into the supervisors -- officers and non- commissioned
officers -- was complete and they would not face further proceedings.
Letters of reprimand were issued to the seven on Saturday, a Pentagon
spokesman said yesterday, adding that two of the supervisors were
relieved of their positions of responsibility. Another six soldiers,
members of a military police unit, are already facing criminal charges
before a court-martial.
President Bush, on a campaign trip yesterday in Michigan, urged
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to make sure that US soldiers
involved in the abuse are punished, said a White House spokesman.
"The president wanted to make sure appropriate action is being taken
against those responsible for these shameful and appalling acts," said
spokesman Scott McClellan.
Commentary:
But the four civilian workers identified in an internal army report
for their involvement in the physical and sexual mistreatment of the
prisoners -- including the alleged rape of one detainee -- cannot be
punished under military law, and it is unclear whether they will face
any charges under either US or Iraqi laws.
Are you familiar with the word "duh"?
Getting around the rules of war is the point.
What other reason is there, to hire and import American civilians to
do the work or war?
.... estimated that there were more than 10,000 civilians in Iraq
working for private contractors.
The U.S. military may need to hire a handful of American translators,
but when 10,000 American civilians are hired and imported, don't
insult your own intelligence by pretending not to know why.
Like some sorry old bag lady, I'll just keep saying it and saying it:
These free-lancers "... cannot be punished under military law, and it
is 'unclear' whether they will face any charges under either US or
Iraqi laws ...".
And that's why they're there.
=H&HH=
But the four civilian workers identified in an internal army report
for their involvement in the physical and sexual mistreatment of the
prisoners -- including the alleged rape of one detainee -- cannot be
punished under military law, and it is unclear whether they will face
any charges under either US or Iraqi laws.
The army report -- written in February and obtained by a reporter for
the New Yorker magazine -- found evidence that civilian interrogators
employed by the Virginia-based firm CACI and civilian interpreters
with the San Diego-based Titan Corp were directly involved in the
abuses at the prison. Abu Ghraib is a place once notorious for the
torture carried out under the rule of Saddam Hussein but now at the
center of an international scandal over apparent human rights abuses
at the hands of Americans.
The allegations of prisoner abuse, ranging from sodomizing a prisoner
with a chemical lightstick, to forcing Iraqi prisoners to simulate sex
acts on film, to connecting wires to the genitals of one prisoner,
have also raised new questions on the role of civilian interrogators
in Iraq and on the heavier military reliance on private contractors
who often operate outside the code of military conduct and largely
under their own rules.
"This is not something we have seen in previous wars," said Peter W.
Singer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of "Corporate
Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry," referring to
the use of civilian interrogators. Singer said the tendency to use
private contractors for a wide variety of services -- instead of
calling up more troops -- could pose serious legal problems for the US
military.
Singer estimated that there were more than 10,000 civilians in Iraq
working for private contractors.
US officials say private contractors offer special skills -- like
languages and technical know-how -- that are useful in situations such
as interrogations. But critics say well- paid contractors, whose
deaths are not factored into the official tally of war dead, are also
increasingly employed to avoid the politically unpopular move of
sending more US soldiers to Iraq.
Attention began to focus on civilian workers last month, when four
Blackwater Security employees were ambushed and mutilated in Fallujah
in an attack that led to the recent standoff there between insurgents
and US Marines.
Military officials said yesterday that the contractors could not be
tried under military laws and that they were unsure if Iraqi or US
laws would be applied. A US spokeswoman in Baghdad said the military
usually refers such cases back to the companies that employ them, and
she believed that is what is being done in this case.
"The military has no jurisdiction over the civilian contractors," said
the spokeswoman, who has been assigned by military officials to handle
inquiries on the prison abuse scandal. She asked not to be identified.
"The military can make recommendations, but it is going to be up to
the employer to decide what measures to take."
But CACI chief executive Jack London said yesterday that the firm has
not received any information from the US government or military about
the alleged crimes, despite inquiries and a request for a copy of the
internal report.
"I think it is disgusting, and I certainly would believe that our
people would not do these things," London said in a telephone
interview. "On the other hand, if it turns out that our people did, we
won't tolerate it. We won't permit it to continue. We, certainly to
the best of my knowledge, we never trained people to do those kinds of
things at all."
London said the employees he sent to fill the Iraq contract for
interrogators were almost all former soldiers with years of
experience. London added that his company would cooperate with any
military investigation.
Singer said it is not enough to refer the crimes back to the
companies, because they rarely take them seriously enough and cannot
impose sufficient punishment for a crime like rape.
"No company can properly punish a felony offense. . . . All you do is
you lose a paycheck," said Singer. "This pushes out to way past the
envelope. We've already outsourced logistics, we've outsourced
training, we've outsourced certain activities in combat. What's left?
My concern is we really need to take a step back and look at what
should be outsourced."
The internal Army investigation, written by Army Major General Antonio
M. Taguba, recommended that CACI employee Steven Stephanowicz be fired
and that civilian translator John Israel also be punished for his
alleged role in the mistreatment of prisoners, according to The New
Yorker. Two other civilians were also identified, according to a
former defense official who had seen the report.
The New Yorker said Taguba reserved his harshest criticism for
civilian contractors and military intelligence officers.
Calls to Titan were not returned yesterday. Websites from the two
companies show they have reaped contracts in military support and
intelligence, a private industry that has boomed with government
funding since Sept. 11.
CACI, which was once an information technology firm, has been
increasingly concentrating on homeland security issues, London has
said in recent interviews. Last year, the company won a $154.7 million
contract to provide mission support to the US military and national
intelligence agency sites worldwide, according to the company Web
site.
Titan has a contract for $657 million to provide 4,800 linguists in
the US Central Command area, which includes Iraq, according to Deborah
Parker, a spokeswoman for the US Army Intelligence and Security
Command. Those linguists serve "wherever needed" and are not all in
intelligence fields, she said. The growing reliance on private
contractors has drawn more concern among lawmakers over the cost
effectiveness of using more civilian workers in dangerous zones.
Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford
University, said it is more difficult to hold civilians accountable
than soldiers in places like Iraq.
"If there are military officers doing the interrogating, there are
military standards and military instruments to hold them accountable,"
said Diamond, who was a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition
Provisional Authority. "But with civilian contractors, what are the
parallel means of accountability?"
US officials insisted the alleged crimes at the Abu Ghraib prison were
isolated.
"The vast majority of the contractors that are out on the battlefield
are doing excellent work, not only for the military but for the Iraqi
people," said Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Yoswa.
British officials are also conducting an investigation into alleged
abuses of Iraqi prisoners after a London newspaper published photos
purporting to show members of a British Army regiment mistreating
detainees. But a former commander of the unit said yesterday that the
photos had "too many inconsistencies" to be genuine.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
.
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