Tim Shorrock

Listeners to Democracy Now today heard Amy's interview with Tim Shorrock.

Tim is writing about the outsourcing AKA privatization of intelligence gathering in his new book "Spies for Hire -The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing".

There are many aspects of the interview that are worthy of examination. One fact that caught my attention was some information on Caci International.

From the Caci International website:

CACI has rapidly grown into a world leader in providing timely solutions to the intelligence community. Engaged across a wide range of national intelligence disciplines from the most complex space-based operations to human source intelligence, we

* Help America's Intelligence Community collect, analyze and share global information in the war on terrorism
* Focus on two distinct customer categories
o National Strategic and Law Enforcement
o Tactical and Military Service
* Support multiple disciplines
* Uncover terrorist activity by providing capabilities ranging from complex space-based operations to human source intelligence

From CorpWatch on May 7th, 2004.

Two private military contractors are being investigated for their role in torture allegations at the Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq: CACI International, Inc. 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)

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.

According to the Army report:

Stephanowicz, a CACI interrogator, "[m]ade a false statement to the investigation team regarding the locations of his interrogations, the activities during his interrogations, and his knowledge of abuses." Further, investigators found, Stephanowicz encouraged Military Police to terrorize inmates, and "clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse.