Today, Joshua Chaffin for FT.com reports Dismay that US army outsources interrogation.
...CACI International, a rising star in the defence contracting business, boasts about its proficiency in information technology, knowledge management and other New Economy-sounding specialties. Nowhere in its promotional materials, however, does the Virginia-based company mention its prisoner interrogation services.
This week, Jack London, CACI's chief executive, was forced to explain those activities after an internal US army report implicated its interrogation specialists in the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib near Baghdad.
The report, concluded in February, called for one CACI worker to be dismissed and another to lose his security clearance.
While the images of prisoners being abused - more of which emerged yesterday - have provoked outrage around the world, the scandal has also come as a shock in the defence and intelligence communities, where few were aware that the army had been outsourcing interrogation.
"I'm surprised at the extent of it," a former CIA official said. "Like a lot of people, I had no idea."
He and others expressed dismay that the army would entrust such a sensitive task to the private sector, which is not subject to the same military legal code or chain of command. As evidence of this, they noted that while six US soldiers were now facing courts martial, no contractors had been charged...
K-Collector Topics: faces Knowledge Management Outsourcing Security London