<html>
<body>
<font face="arial" size=2><br>
<br>
Small but spirited good first demo Monday at the St. Francis Hotel
against CACI’s role in torture in Iraq. Congrats to the
organizers. Henry, I don’t have Sarah’s e-mail address, only
Tracey’s, and Sarah told me Tracey is in Thailand, so please forward this
to Sarah; also send me her e-address, and I hope she can send me some
comprehensive documentation on CACI per our discussion walking down
Powell Street this afternoon. <br>
<br>
<b><u>When I arrived home there was a personal 2-page letter from the
legal counsel for CACI who had found Judith Sherr’s article (in the
Berkeley Daily Planet) on the Berkeley Teach-in on Torture which mentions
the CACI campaign.</u></b> He claims that they have been vindicated
of any involvement in torture. He admits that they have a contract
with the U.S. Army for “information intelligence gathering services…which
included a requirement for qualified individuals to act as interrogators
in Iraq.” Mr. Jeffrey Elefante, Vice President and Legal
Council, then claims that the only connection between CACI and Abu Ghraib
“abuses” come from the Tagabu report which mentions “one employee who
served as an interrogator”, but that the “conclusions of the Tagabu
report have not been confirmed.” I have been advised to “avoid
making damaging and false references about CACI in the future.”
(Editorially: I’d bet a few bucks that there are more connections between
CACI and torture than that). <br>
<br>
It is clear that Mr. Elefante is blowing smoke when he says that the
“conclusions of the Tagabu report have not been confirmed.” He is
alluding, perhaps, to the Schlessinger and other white wash reports
ordered and controlled by the White House which, of course, never find
any direct culpability anywhere. I believe that General Tagabu’s
report stands on its own merits requiring no confirmation of its
“conclusions” because his investigation exposed systematic violations of
law, military law, and human rights, with advocacy within the chain of
command (though I have myself read only summaries of the report).
Presumably CACI personnel, actively involved in interrogation, are part
of that chain of command unless they are operating as a rogue force under
no command at all, or an extra legal force sustained only for purposes of
plausible deniability. But I (we) need to understand the
interstices of this relationship better than I do at this moment (as does
anyone who intends to work on this campaign). The way I view it,
the more we can expose the privatization of these functions the less
impunity the Government (and CACI) will have.<br>
<br>
It is imperative that those of us working in support of the CACI campaign
have access to comprehensive and easily verifiable documentation of what
these people do with a billion dollars in tax payer money. I made
the mistake of giving out my last leaflet today before reading it so I
don’t know to what extent evidence is presented in the leaflet.
Regardless, we need ongoing research. There is no question that
CACI is a corporation receiving major public funding to sustain the U.S.
sponsored illegal occupation of Iraq and moreover in support of some of
the more heinous crimes against illegally confined persons--being
committed in our names--to try to intimidate the Iraqi people so they
will stop resisting the foreign occupiers, under the cover of the
anti-terrorism campaign. I hope that Mr. Elefante decides to come after
us on the frivolous grounds of slander etc. for if he does, we will
get a chance for major discovery of their role, and we’ll hopefully be
able to get everyone involved from Human Rights First, to the ACLU to AI
to CCR in looking at them. In the meantime, we need more
demonstrable facts <u>right now</u> that we can highlight and focus
upon. <br>
<br>
Marc <br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Marc Sapir MD, MPH<br>
Executive Director<br>
Retro Poll<br>
<a href="http://www.retropoll.org/" eudora="autourl">www.retropoll.org<br>
<br>
</a></font>U.S. firm defends work at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison<br>
Mon May 2, 2005 03:58 PM ET <br><br>
By Sue Pleming <br><br>
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CACI International Inc., a U.S. contractor
implicated in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, defended itself on Monday
over a congressional report that criticized the government's handling of
a contract given to the firm to conduct interrogations at Iraqi prisons.
<br><br>
"The Army needs to improve its oversight of contractors performance
to ensure that the Army's interests are protected," said the report
by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of
Congress, issued on Friday. <br><br>
CACI, based in Virginia, said the GAO report did not fully acknowledge
the impact of the wartime situation in Iraq. <br><br>
"We regret that the GAO report fails to recognize the
life-threatening urgency of combat operations in Iraq," CACI's
president Jack London said in a statement. <br><br>
"The report just doesn't convey the wartime intensity and the
immediate sense of urgency that existed in-theater when these orders were
put in place in August 2003," London said. "CACI acted in
complete good faith and provided its best efforts in honoring the Army's
urgent request for help." <br><br>
The GAO found that the Army's own investigation into prisoner abuse at
Abu Ghraib pointed to lack of contractor surveillance as a
"contributing factor to the environment in which the prisoner abuse
occurred." <br><br>
"In buying interrogation and other services in Iraq, Interior and
Army officials abdicated their contracting responsibilities to a large
degree," said the report. <br><br>
The GAO report did not look specifically at prison abuse, but found
"multiple breakdowns" with contractors from CACI and said their
work often went far beyond initial contract terms. <br><br>
The Army's report issued last August identified three CACI employees
alleged to have been involved in abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib,
including using dogs to scare prisoners. <br><br>
CACI spokeswoman Jody Brown told Reuters all three CACI staff mentioned
in the Army report no longer worked for the company. She declined to
provide any details of their departure but said they had left
"several months ago." <br><br>
Brown said the company was still conducting its own investigation into
Abu Ghraib prison abuses. <br><br>
Interrogators from San Diego-based Titan Corp. were also named in the
Army's Abu Ghraib report. Both CACI and Titan provided interrogation and
translation services to the military. <br><br>
Several soldiers have been court-martialed for their roles in the prison
abuse scandal but none of the contractors are known to have been charged.
<br><br>
Army reservist Lynndie England, who was shown in photographs holding a
naked Iraqi on a leash at Abu Ghraib prison, pleaded guilty on Monday to
seven charges of abuse.<br><br>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3> <br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
</font><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.freedomarchives.org</a></font></body>
</html>