WASHINGTON, 6 May 2004 — Questions about the role of civilian interrogators in the abuse of inmates at the Abu Gharib prison have put the spotlight on the accountability of tens of thousands of contractors in Iraq and on whether the administrative setup at the prison gave contractors too much freedom from and too much power over military units.
“As we begin to dig below the surface, we’re seeing the larger involvement of contractors in this war and within the prison itself,’’ said Justin Hamilton, legislative director for Rep. Chris Bell, D-Texas. Bell wants Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to begin a military inspector-general investigation of abuses at the prison.
Private contractors, Hamilton said, “at this point don’t seem to be in the chain of command. They don’t answer to the military chain of command.”
Another member of Congress, Rep. Janice Schakowsky, D-Ill., in a letter to President Bush, proposed suspending all contracts with civilian firms for “security, supervision and interrogation of prisoners.”
“The sadistic abuses of Iraqis at a US military prison raise serious questions about the accountability of US-hired private military contractors who are involved in illegal activity,” said Schakowsky, a longtime critic of the growing prominence of civilian contractors.
CACI International Inc. and Titan Corp., employees of which were named in the inquiry, said Tuesday that they still had not received notice from the Pentagon about any charges against their employees and that they therefore had not taken disciplinary action.
The use of contractors has increased significantly since Sept. 11, 2001, and the line between the military and defense contractor has blurred further. No longer are civilians providing only support services such as cooking or driving trucks. They are responsible for some of the military’s most sensitive tasks. They are building giant databases of credit cards and travel information for patterns that might indicate terrorist attacks. They are training international police forces. They provide security for US officials such as L. Paul Bremer, the occupation government’s top administrator in Iraq.
US soldiers operating in war zones are subject to a strict code of conduct. It’s less clear what legal framework the tens of thousands of contractors are supporting US troops and working on reconstruction in Iraq must adhere to. Under an order issued last summer by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, contractors are not subject to Iraqi law. If they are suspected of a crime, the military can send them to their home countries to face charges.
Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst for Human Rights Watch, said: “If there are three people from three different countries and they commit the same crime they will face three different judicial systems and three different sanctions. There is certainly potential for abuse of this system.”
A law passed in 2000, after DynCorp employees in Bosnia were accused of trafficking in prostitutes were not prosecuted, theoretically could be used to charge private contractors. But the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which authorizes the Justice Department to investigate military contractors, is untested, said Deborah Avant, an associate professor of political science at George Washington University and author of a book on the privatization of security.
The prisoner-abuse report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba that has caused an international furor names two civilian contractors that he said should be reprimanded for their role in the abuses. Steven Stephanowicz, described as an interrogator working for CACI, made a false statement regarding “the locations of his interrogations, the activities during his interrogations and his knowledge of abuses.”
Another contractor, interpreter John Israel, “denied ever having seen interrogation processes in violation...which is contrary to several witness statements.” It is not clear from Taguba’s report what company employs Israel.
