Contractors caught up in Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal

Washington Technology ^ | 3 May 2004 | By Roseanne Gerin

[BRK]

Contractors caught up in Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal

By Roseanne Gerin Staff Writer

Two defense IT companies implicated in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal said today that they have not been contacted by government officials about their contractors being involved in the alleged abuse of Iraqi detainees. Recent reports by The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times have mentioned CACI International Inc. of Arlington, Va., and Titan Corp. of San Diego as two companies that provided interrogators and interpreters at Abu Ghraib prison, approximately 20 miles west of Baghdad, where U.S. soldiers have allegedly mistreated Iraqi prisoners.

A Washington Post article today said that U.S. officials confirmed that the two companies had employees at the prison who were subjects of an investigation into the allegations. PostNewsweekTech Media, the company that publishes Washington Technology, is owned by the Washington Post.

Both companies have employees working in Iraq under U.S. government contracts, but said they had not been notified by government officials about any of their employees’ involvement in the scandal. A CACI press release issued today said the company had received “no information of any pending actions against any CACI employee’s performance relating to prisoner abuse matters.” CACI does not disclose information on the assignments or locations of its employees for security reasons, the statement said. Jody Brown, CACI’s senior vice president of public relations, did not return a phone message or respond to an e-mail. Likewise, a spokesman for Titan said that no one from the U.S. military had contacted the company about an employee in Iraq being the subject of an investigation into the abuse scandal. “To my knowledge, none of our employees have been accused of wrongdoing,” said Wil William, Titan’s vice president of corporate communications. He added that Titan provides only translation services to the U.S government under a contract it had before the Iraq invasion. He would not disclose the number of Titan employees in Iraq, citing security reasons.

The scandal’s most recent twist about alleged contractor involvement was sparked by an online article on the Web site of The New Yorker magazine, which obtained a 53-page confidential report on the prisoner abuse, issued in February by a senior Army commander in Iraq. In the report, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba described various accounts of illegal abuse of Iraqi prisoners committed by U.S. soldiers, intelligence officers and contractors at Abu Ghraib prison. The New Yorker article was published amid other recent media reports and photographs of American and British soldiers allegedly mistreating Iraqi detainees.

CACI’s statement went on to say that it has never seen or been provided with a copy of the Taguba report, although it requested a copy from the Defense Department. A media relations employee at the Defense Department referred all inquiries to the Coalition Press Information Center, which in turn directed questions to Col. Jill Morgenthaler, a U.S. military spokeswoman. Morgenthaler could not be reached for comment. CACI also said that one of the individuals who The New Yorker article identified as a company employee at Abu Ghraib prison never worked for CACI.

The article named Steven Stephanowicz and John Israel as two CACI civilian contractors who were directly or indirectly responsible for the prisoner abuse, based on Taguba’s report. In its statement, CACI did not specify the contractor who was misidentified as one of its employees. CACI also said that it has supported the Army’s investigation of the scandal since it began several months ago, and that its employees in Iraq volunteered to be interviewed by military officials. CACI also said it is retaining outside legal counsel to investigate the actions of its employees relating to the prisoner abuse allegations.

[BRK]

Looks like some contractors were involved in this too.

[ConservativeMan55]

[stainlessbanner]

bttt

[oyez]

I think they will find a certain persuasion of female solders behind all this, however I doubt it will be reported as such.

[pawdoggie]

The Left hates the contractors in Iraq. The more contractors in Iraq, the fewer US troops are required. Since the Left's agenda is to call for more US troops in Iraq (i.e. to increase the human and financial costs of the war, and to increase pressure to reinstate the draft), they are going to have a dim view of the contractors in Iraq.