NYT- Contractors in Sensitive Roles, Unchecked

[maddezmom]

Contractors in Sensitive Roles, Unchecked
By JOEL BRINKLEY and JAMES GLANZ

Published: May 7, 2004

WASHINGTON, May 6 — The military's reliance on civilians to serve as interrogators and translators in Iraq is now so great that many people are being sent abroad without complete background investigations or full qualifications for the positions, government officials and industry experts say.

Once on the job, several experts said, many of the contractors are barely supervised.

Two contract workers have been implicated in the Abu Ghraib prison abuses, and investigators found that one of them, a translator working with interrogators who were trying to obtain sensitive information from Iraqi prisoners, had no security clearance at all.

The revelations at Abu Ghraib have also led to the disclosure that private contractors are now carrying out highly sensitive duties that until very recently were the province of government agencies only.

~snip~
more: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/07/politics/07CONT.html

[maddezmom]

1. another link: Private Contractors and Torture at Abu Ghraib, Iraq

Private Contractors and Torture at Abu Ghraib, Iraq

By Pratap Chatterjee and A.C. Thompson
Special to CorpWatch
May 7, 2004

Two private military contractors are being investigated for their role in torture allegations at the Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq: CACI from Arlington, Virginia, and Titan of San Diego, California. CACI supplied at least one interrogator while Titan supplied at least two translators named in a 53-page classified internal Army report written by Major General Antonio Taguba that have dominated news coverage all over the world. (see box for report)

A total of four men -- Steven Stephanowicz, John Israel, Torin Nelson and Adel Nakhla -- are named in the report. All of them were assigned to work with the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, a unit that is currently stationed in Germany and Italy in support of V Corps, under the command of Colonel Thomas Pappas

~snip~

http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=10828

[revcarol]

2. That Bellaciao looks like a very interesting site.

x

[dusty64]

3. Unaccountable to no one

and being paid with our tax dollars while committing war crimes. WTF is wrong with this picture. Isn't it also interesting that most of these companies have strong ties to our regime and the rethug party.

[maddezmom]

4. who the hell are these people?

the pentagon is hiring them so fast and furious...no time for a background or security check? :eyes: Guess it's one way to replenish the troops.