Army violated own policy on private interrogators

By Matt Kelley
The Associated Press

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A policy memo from December 2000 says letting private workers gather military intelligence would jeopardize national security. An Army spokeswoman said yesterday that senior commanders have the authority to override the contractor ban.

Some of the dozens of private contractors hired to interrogate prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan are under investigation in connection with abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and other prisons. An Army report on the abuses says problems at the prison included confusion over who was in charge of contractors and a lack of supervision of the private workers.

Thomas White, who quit as Army secretary last year after clashing with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said he opposed hiring contractors to question prisoners.

"The principle that should be applied is that the basic process of interrogation and oversight of prisoners should be kept in-house, on the Army side," White said. "That's something that would have to be under the direct supervision of the Army."

Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Pamela Hart said the contractor ban remains in effect, but the policy allows for hiring private interrogators and interpreters if there are not enough of those specialists in the Army.

"Commanders on the ground may use their discretion," she said.

The Army's top personnel official, Patrick Henry, wrote the policy in December 2000.

Henry cited a "risk to national security" in turning over intelligence functions to private-sector workers. Private contractors may work for companies that do business with other countries and are not subject to the same chain of command that soldiers are, Henry wrote.

" The report from Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba says one contract interrogator, Steven Stefanowicz of CACI International, and a contract translator, John Israel of Titan Corp., were "either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib." A third contractor implicated in the abuses, translator Adel Nakhla of Titan, has been fired.

Israel's family declined comment. Henry Hockeimer, a lawyer for Stefanowicz, has said his client did nothing wrong. Nakhla's lawyer, Francis Hoang, did not return calls.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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