CACI International

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Background

The Arlington, Virginia based CACI International has reincarnated itself under various names since it was founded in 1962 by Harry Markowitz, the 1990 Nobel laureate for Economics.[1] Presently, it employs 9500 individuals working in its more than 100 offices in North America and Europe. According to its website, it provides 'IT and network solutions' in an era of 'defense, intelligence and e-government'.[2] Between August and December 2003, CACI was awarded 11 contracts, worth about $66 million for work in Iraq alone.[3]. In 2004 CACI was the subject of five different government investigations.[4]

Abu Ghraib Scandal

CACI was one of the two companies named in the report by Major General Antonio M. Taguba on the Abu Ghraib Scandal. Steven Staphanovic, one of its employees, was said to have 'allowed and/or instructed MPs (military police), who were not trained in interrogation techniques, to facilitate interrogations by 'setting conditions' ... he clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse.'[5]

CACI has strong Israeli ties and according to Robert Fisk '[o]ne of Staphanovic's co-workers, Joe Ryan - who was not named in the Taguba report - now says he underwent an 'Israeli interrogation course' before going to Iraq.' J.P. London, the CEO of the company, visited Israel on a trip sponsored by an Israeli lobby group along with U.S. congressmen and other defense contractors. In early 2004 he also attended an 'anti-terror" training camp in Israel where he 'was presented with an award by Shaul Mofaz, the right-wing Israeli defense minister'. [6]

While the Interior Department's inspector general had blocked the Army placing new orders with CACI, this did not prevent the Army from awarding a new four-month contract for 'interrogation services' worth $15.3 million in August 2004 and a $16 million renewal of its earlier contract in early 2005.[7]

United States Congressman Jim McDermott has entered a Sunday Herald article onto his web space on the House of Congress website[8]. The article descibes details of the horrific treatment inflicted on prisoners at Abu Ghraib: which includes sexual abuse, rape, severe beatings (sometimes to death), throwing prisoners from a bridge (& a speeding truck), being savaged by dogs and having electrodes attached to their fingers and genitals. Most of these acts were also either photographed or filmed by the soldiers/staff at Abu Ghraib. This is not reading for the faint hearted. The article also reports that even though CACI have 'received no indication that any CACI employee was involved' in the incidents, their 'investigator's contract was terminated because he allowed and/or instructed military police officers who were not trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate interrogations which were neither authorised nor in accordance with regulations'. CACI is a 'civilian contract' organization, and as the report states, no civilians are facing charges as military law does not apply to them. According to Colonel Jill Morgenthaler from CentCom, 'one civilian contractor was accused along with six soldiers of mistreating prisoners. However, it was left to the contractor to "deal with him"'. Who the civilian contractor is or which firm they worked for is not divulged.

In a separate report in 2008, it was reported that 'US civilian staff working for private American security companies, which specialised in carrying out interrogation work for the US military, were heavily implicated in human rights abuses against detainees'... 'It also emerged a third of CACI staff at the prison had never received formal military interrogation training even though CACI employed almost half of all interrogators and analysts working in Abu Ghraib'[9]..

One of the U.S. soldiers who did face court martial, Staff Sergeant Chip Frederick, blamed the army for the torture at Abu Ghraib. "We had no support, no training whatsoever," he said, claiming he had never been shown the Geneva Convention. "I kept asking my chain of command for certain things like rules and regulations and it just wasn't happening." Not that this is exactly a great excuse. One doesn't have to know the contents of the Geneva Convention to know that the horrific treatment that some of the prisoners went through was inhumane. Frederick also accused the intelligence services 'for encouraging the brutality'. Some of the intelligence agencies at Abu Ghraib were the FBI & CIA. The article continues by reporting the content of emails and letters Frederick had sent home where he wrote:

"Military intelligence has encouraged and told us 'Great job'."He added: "They usually don't allow others to watch them interrogate. But since they like the way I run the prison, they have made an exception ..... We help getting [the PoWs] to talk with the way we handle them ..... We've had a very high rate with our style of getting them to break. They usually end up breaking within hours."[10]

Two 'civilian contract' organizations with links to the Bush administration are reported to have taken part in interrogations at Abu Ghraib. CACI and California-based Titan Corporation. Richard Armitage, who sat on CACI's Board was also the current deputy U.S. secretary of state and Titan is reported to have given nearly $40,000 to George W. Bush's Republican Party between 2003 to 2004[11].

In 2008, lawsuits were filed against CACI International by four Iraqis over allegations they were tortured in Abu Ghraib[12].

Subsidiaries

  • CACI Ltd - with their headquarters in London, is a wholly owned subsidiary of CACI International[13].

CACI Ltd Awarded Contract for Scotlands 2011 Census

In June 2008, it was announced that CACI Ltd had been awared an $18.5 million contract from the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) for census printing and data capture services for Scotlands 2011 Census[14].

An article in The Sunday Herald[15] states that...

'CACI will develop the website for online questionnaires, print paper questionnaires, and scan and process the population's responses. Households in West Edinburgh, Lewis and Harris will be the first in Scotland offered use of CACI's online census questionnaire next year as part of a rehearsal for the full census in 2011'.

The report also raises concerns around the contracting of CACI due to the accusations of torture surounding CACI Ltd's parent company CACI International. The report states how the awarding of the...

'contract has not only badly wounded the SNP government's claims of being more ethical than Labour and putting human rights at the top of its agenda, but has also led to fears personal data on millions of Scots collected by the company might be sifted by the US government given the close relationship between the Bush administration and the CACI head office in Arlington, Virginia'.

The SNP have been accused of 'selling its soul', and the appointment of CACI has raised the spectre of a mass boycott of the census by the nation's population.

The Stop the War Coalition state that they...

welcome the comments of Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, on the World Against War march in Glasgow (15th March 2008), “we now have a government in Scotland that opposes the war in Iraq and is prepared to say so. ”We were surprised therefore to read that the Scottish Government intends to work with CACI. This appears to contradict its opposition to the war and to the use of torture. Furthermore awarding millions of taxpayers’ money to a subsidiary of a firm that has benefited from a contract at Abu Ghraib, profiting from an illegal and immoral occupation, is contrary to the views of the majority of the Scottish public. We have serious concerns that CACI’s close links to the Bush administration may lead to information given by Scottish households for the census being sifted through by the US Government in the interests of ‘homeland security’[16].

According to human rights lawyer John Scott, "The Scottish government, and any government with a principled stance, should not be going near any firm with such associations, even indirectly." Scott is said to believe that the company would be willing to assist the US government in information gathering[17].

A petition demanding that the Scottish government withdraw its contract with CACI is available through Petitions Online

People

  • Richard Armitage, the current deputy U.S. secretary of state in 2004, also sat on CACI's board.

External Resources

References

  1. ↑ [1]
  2. ↑ [2]
  3. ↑ [3]
  4. ↑ News 24 Contractor faces investigations 28th May 2004. Accessed March 2006
  5. ↑ [4]
  6. ↑ [5]
  7. ↑ McCarthy, E. (2004) 'CACI Gets New Interrogation Contract' The Washington Post. 5th Augusy 2004. Accessed March 2006
  8. ↑ Mackay, N. (2004) 'The Pictures That Lost The War'. Sunday Herald 2nd May 2004. Accessed 26th August 2008
  9. ↑ Mackay, N. (2008) 'Scottish government hires firm accused of torture in Iraq: American census contractor facing trial on human rights abuses in Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib jail Sunday Herald 26th July 2008. Accessed 26th August 2008
  10. ↑ Mackay, N. (2004) 'The Pictures That Lost The War'. Sunday Herald 2nd May 2004. Accessed 26th August 2008
  11. ↑ Mackay, N. (2004) 'The Pictures That Lost The War'. Sunday Herald 2nd May 2004. Accessed 26th August 2008
  12. ↑ Mackay, N. (2008) 'Scottish government hires firm accused of torture in Iraq: American census contractor facing trial on human rights abuses in Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib jail Sunday Herald 26th July 2008. Accessed 26th August 2008
  13. ↑ CACI Ltd About CACI Accessed 26th August 2008
  14. ↑ CACI Ltd CACI awarded £18.5m contract to process Scottish Census Accessed 26th August 2008
  15. ↑ Mackay, N. (2008) 'Scottish government hires firm accused of torture in Iraq: American census contractor facing trial on human rights abuses in Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib jail Sunday Herald 26th July 2008. Accessed 26th August 2008
  16. ↑ Stop The War Coalition 'Torture company to work on Scottish Census: Sign the petition to stop them' Accessed 26th August 2008
  17. ↑ Mackay, N. (2008) 'Scottish government hires firm accused of torture in Iraq: American census contractor facing trial on human rights abuses in Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib jail Sunday Herald 26th July 2008. Accessed 26th August 2008
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