bisa_paper.pdf

7/27/2019 BISA_Paper.pdf

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Beyond Abu Ghraib Military Detention, Abuse, Iraq and US Power

The United States (US) military detention system in Iraq makes for an illuminating

case study as it is possible to trace its creation, evolution and operation from a baseline of

zero, as the US and its coalition partners invaded Iraq in the second half of March 2003,

through to a fully-fledged bureaucracy, that, by the summer of 2005 was responsible for the

housing of approximately 10,000 detainees. (Moss2006)

The initial responsibility for the running of the core of the system fell to Brigadier

General Paul Hill who, as head of the 800thMilitary Police (MP), had to coordinate units that

were mobilizing in Maryland, Indiana and Georgia; most of whom had some basic training

in police duties []. Exactly how well trained and how well they would work together was

impossible to say (Karpinski & Strasser 2005: 149). Hill was replaced by US Army Reserve

Brigadier General Janis Karpinski who was appointed to head up the system on the 30 th of

June 2003 (Beaumont, Burke & Harris 2004; Karpinski & Strasser 2005: 151-173).

Karpinskis role as head of the 800th MP saw her responsible for 3,400 soldiers at 16

facilities (Davenport, Higham & White2004). Karpinski held this post until the outbreak of

the Abu Ghraib scandal in April 2004 when Major General Geoffrey Miller was appointed to

replace her(Briere & Koladish2010; Department of the Army 2005: 1). Miller had been an

important figure in the operation of the USs detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,

and had previously also been involved in the operation of Abu Ghraib (Briere & Koladish

2010; Center for Torture Accountability 2011; Department of the Army 2005: 1; MacAskill

2011). Miller was appointed to head up the newly formed Task Force-134 (TF134) (Briere &

Koladish 2010; Department of the Army 2005: 1). TF134 was conceived as a body

specifically assigned to oversee all aspects of the conduct of detainee operations in Iraq

(Briere & Koladish2010).
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The USs military detention system in Iraq was a multi -faceted and ever-evolving

system that contained numerous types of sites that carried out various roles and engaged

with the USs wider mission in Iraq in differing ways. Detainees were generally captured by

US forces engaged in the conflict and held initially at a Foreword Operating Base (FOB)

(Phillips 2010: 56-58). These FOBs were spread throughout the country and included FOB

Delta, which was in Eastern Iraq near the Iranian border, and FOB Packhorse, which was

located in Tikrit in Northern Iraq (Department of the Army2003: 1;Department of the Army

2004; Rowland 2009). While at such facilities, DTNs were in-processed and allotted the

same rations as US military personnel (Department of the Army 12003: 3-4). Following this,

those detainees not released were transferred to larger facilities such as Abu Ghraib, located

to the west of Baghdad, Camp Cropper Theatre Internment Facility, located at Baghdad

International Airport, and Camp Bucca, in Southern Iraq near the border with Kuwait (Bill

2010: 421-424; Gourevitch & Morris 2009: 1;Jehl & Schmitt2004). Detainees could be held

for 14 days at FOBs before being transferred to central facilities (Jehl & Schmitt 2004).

Some facilities utilised pre-existing infrastructure, with the most famous being the adoption of

the notorious Baathist era jail at Abu Ghraib, while others, such as Camp Bucca, were

constructed by US forces on their arrival in Iraq (Iraq-Business News2010;UNHCR2002).

The system was in operation until the handing over of the last prisoner to Iraqi custody in

December 2011 (Stewart2011).

This program of US military detention in Iraq came under close scrutiny as a result of

pictures taken at Abu Ghraib prison (CBS News2006;Hersh2004). These pictures, among

other things, depicted naked detainees in a human pyramid and a naked detainee (DTN)

being dragged around by a lead tied round his neck (The Guardian 2004). The offending

pictures were taken in the fall of 2003 and made public in spring 2004. The furore

surrounding these pictures was one of the most high profile scandals of the War on Terror.

It was asserted by numerous US officials that the events at Abu Ghraib were

committed by a few bad apples that carried out isolated acts of mistreatment against DTNs
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(Paul Wolfowitz in CBS News 2009; Phillips 2010: 18; Simone 2009). These acts, it was

claimed, were not indicative of a wider trend of mistreatment or abuse of DTNs during the

early years of the USs presence in Iraq (CBS News2009). However, as Seymour Hersh

notes:

The roots of the Abu Ghraib scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army

reservists, but in the reliance of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld on secret operations

and the use of coercion an eye-for-an-eye retributionin fighting terrorism. (Hersh 2005:

46)

Moreover, as Joshua Phillips states:

To be sure, the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib was notorious and deserved much scrutiny.

Yet it represented just one example. Reports by journalists and human rights organizations

have shown that US detainee abuse and torture spread beyond that single prison during the

war on terror (Phillips 2010: ix)

As stated by both Hersh & Phillips, the abuse at Abu Ghraib was but a small part of a

larger story and, as alluded to by Hersh, without understanding the machinations behind

these patterns it is not possible to grasp their wider significance.

As well as containing numerous types of sites, the US military detention system in

Iraq saw the interaction between numerous actors. The actor that anchored the system was

the US Army, however, numerous other actors played crucial roles within it; these included

the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Defense

Intelligence Agency (DIA) and private corporations. Understanding the behaviour and roles
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of, as well as the interaction between, these various actors is key to conceptualising how the

system functioned.

To deal with these issues of conception and understanding this piece will present an

analytical framework designed to help one begin to understand the differences between

actors, the effects that these differences had on behaviour and the value these differences

have for those responsible for the deployment of US power. Drawing on literature related to

the development of the private military contractor (PMC) outsourcing industry in the post-

Cold War era, this piece will develop a framework that enables the actions of, and

interactions between, the various actors within the system to be understood. Building on

research into the outsourcing phenomena that enables one to get a handle on its

development, this work will illuminate how a variation on the phenomena, which this piece

shall label insourcing, can help one understand the roles played by various actors of the US

government within the US military detention system in Iraq.

This work will draw distinctions between three types of actors. As the actor in overall

control of the lions share of the system, the US Army will be labelled the main actor. Actors

external to the US government will be said to be outsourcing actors and those that form part

of the US government but are separate entities to the US Army will be labelled as insourcing

actors. Firstly, the main actor framework will be examined. This will be done with an

examination of the core capture, transport and detention functions of the system that were

provided by the US Army. This process will provide the groundwork for the examination of

other actors. Next, this outsourcing/insourcing dichotomy will be illuminated, with particular

attention being paid to the similarities between the two phenomena. Throughout the piece,

allegations of abuse will be drawn upon to illuminate discussions.

Main Actor: US Army


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Bureaucratic structures, such as a detention system (regardless of whether they are

part of a states foreign policy operations or not) tend to have a single overriding body that is

responsible for the overall command and control of the system. The level of consistency of

operation across such structures can relate, in part, to the ability and will of the central body

to implement consistent procedures amongst its own personnel, along with its ability to

dictate similar codes of operation to those who interact with and operate within the structure

but do not fall under the direct control of the central authority.

In the case of the US military detention system in Iraq, the body in overall control of

the system was the US Army. As already mentioned, following the Abu Ghraib scandal

TF134 was created to oversee the system; however, this did not mean that those in other

parts of the US Army ceased having contact with DTNs or the system itself. The tasks

related to detention operations carried out by those working in various roles within the Army,

both before and after the creation of TF134, included front line soldiers who took DTNs into

custody, those who were involved in transporting convoys containing DTNs between

detention sites and those working for brigades dedicated to running larger detention sites

such as Abu Ghraib. It is these three core functions (capture, transportation & detention) that

form the backbone of the operations carried out within the US military system in Iraq.

Without such operations other facets of the system such as interrogation would not take

place. This piece will now examine examples of US Army personnel involved in these three

core operations and illuminate how the system would not have functioned effectively without

them.

Detainee Capture

At 22:45 on the evening of the 3rd of January 2004 two Iraqi males reached a

checkpoint in Samarra, Iraq. They were warned that curfew was about to begin (2300 hours)


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but were released when they indicated they were close to home and would make it on time.

After driving away from the checkpoint they were stopped by US soldiers, asked for

identification, let go and then stopped again and detained by the same soldiers. They were

put into a Bradley fighting vehicle, their hands zip-tied behind their backs .

The US soldiers in the Bradley fighting vehicle drove to a nearby bridge that crossed

the Tigris River. The platoon leader ordered three soldiers under his command to push the

detainees into the river. One soldier, a specialist, refused to take part and acted as a guard

instead. The zip-ties were removed from the two DTNs who were then pushed into the Tigris

from the bridge. Following this, the soldiers returned to their vehicle and returned to their

Forward Operating Base.

One of the former DTNs managed to make his way to the river bank; however, the

other former DTN could not swim and drowned.

All information from (Department of the Army 12004)

----

The events of the 3rd of January 2004 at Samarra Bridge illuminate the central role

that frontline US Army personnel played within the US military detention system in Iraq. The

initial choice to take the Iraqi men into custody meant that the soldiers then had to decide

how to treat the men in their custody and, as turned out not to be the case in this instance,

whether to hold them within the system for a prolonged period of time. The decision to push

the DTNs of the bridge illuminates the inability, or unwillingness, of the US Army as the

central authority within the system to adequately control the actions of those personnel
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operating within its chain of command. This lack of control over the chain of command is

highlighted by the fact that three members of the platoon were directed to push the DTNs

into the river by the platoon leader, thus revealing an inversion of the use of the chain of

command to prevent instances of abuse happening. Finally, the events at Samarra Bridge

demonstrate that the abusive act of pushing the DTNs of the bridge is secondary to the act

of detention itself as, without having been taken into custody in the first place, the DTNs

would not have been exposed to the actions of the US soldiers.

As already alluded to, by the summer of 2005 the US military detention system in

Iraq housed over 10,000 DTNs (Moss 2006). Many of these DTNs were captured by US

Army personnel in places such as Samarra and on patrols such as the one that led to the

capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003 (BBC 2003). Without a constant flow of

DTNs captured by frontline forces, the system itself would not have evolved at the speed it

did. As such, the actions of frontline forces were central to providing the lifeblood of the

system and to determining its size and scope.

Detainee Transport

On the 12th of May 2003 a number of US soldiers including Master Sergeant Lisa

Girman, Sergeant Scott McKenzie and Specialist Tim Canjar were involved in transferring

Iraqi DTNs in a bus from Talil Airbase, Iraq, to Camp Bucca. Girman, McKenzie and Canjar

were discharged from the US Army due to allegations of abuse related to the transfer and

the fact that they colluded to prevent full details of the events related to the abuse coming to

light. The abuse took place during the transfer and during the unloading of the DTNs at

Camp Bucca.
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The abuse metered out to DTNs by, among others, Girman, McKenzie & Canjar

included the kicking of a DTN in the groin, abdomen, and head, the kicking and punching

and the dragging around by the armpits of a DTN and the kicking in the leg and face of a

DTN. It is alleged that one of the DTNs subject to abuse was targeted because he was

accused of multiple rapes.

Girman was accused of encouraging a potential subject and/or witness to the case

not to take a polygraph examination and of winking at them while telling him that h e did

not see anything regarding the maltreatment of the Iraqi prisoners of war.

In a document entitled Allegations of Detainee Abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan the

potential involvement of other US personnel in the abuse is alluded to. The document, which

lists a number of allegations of abuse in both theatres of combat, states that:

On 12 May 03, at Camp Bucca, Iraq, ten USAR enlisted MP soldier physically assaulted

seven Iraqi detainees during in-processing at the facility.

As such, although Girman, McKenzie & Canjar were formally punished for the events related

to the prisoner transfer to Camp Bucca on the 12 th of May 2003, it is possible that others

were also involved in the multiple instances of abuse discussed above.

Girman, McKenzie & Canjar, despite accepting being discharged over the abuse, all deny

that their conduct constituted abuse and claim they acted in self-defence.

All information from (CNN2004;Department of the Army 22004;Department of the Army 1

2005).

----
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The events of the 12 th of May 2003, coming less than two months after the initial

invasion of Iraq, illuminate that, even in the early stages of the Iraq War the US Army had

failed, either by fault or design, to adequately train its personnel in the treatment of DTNs.

The fact that the assaults were potentially carried out by up to ten members of the US Army

against seven DTNs demonstrates the permissive nature of the culture that surrounded this

particular DTN transport mission. Moreover, the fact that Girman, McKenzie & Canjar

colluded to prevent the full extent of events coming to light would further indicate that they

had not been adequately trained in the serious nature of DTN abuse or the obstruction of

justice. Finally, as with the events in Samarra, the abuse of the DTNs came about from the

lack of strictly observed parameters for DTN transportation. Thus illuminating that the abuse

itself was a consequence of the manner in which the core function of transportation was

carried out.

From the point view of those who ran the US military detention system, however, the

ability to circulate DTNs within it, regardless of whether abuse took place or not, offered a

key tool that greatly enhanced its flexibility. Such transportation missions could, for instance,

be used to move DTNs from smaller FOBs after their capture and initial detention to larger

facilities such as Camp Bucca, to move DTNs to Abu Ghraib after its interrogation and

intelligence capabilities were ramped up or to move DTNs between sites to deal with

practical considerations such as overcrowding and rioting (Joint Training Readiness Center

2003; Karpinski & Strasser 2005: 185-190). As the system grew, the ability of the US Army

to deal with a growing DTN population would have been aided significantly by the ability to

determine when, where and for how long DTNs were held.

Detainee Detention


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In late November 2003 a riot broke out at Camp Ganci, a section of the wider Abu

Ghraib complex. The captain of the 320th US Army Military Police Company, whose

company was stationed at Abu Ghraib at the time, noted that a total of four rioters [were]

killed that day in order to calm the riot. He further went onto state that [o]ne of my soldiers

killed an Iraqi rioter after expending his non-lethal rounds. The captain also noted that

[t]here were a number of my soldiers injured that day and that The ROE [rules of

engagement] was adjusted after the incident, so that the MP's could go to lethal force a lot

sooner.(Matrangelo2004)

On the 3rd of August 2003 at Camp Cropper an Iraqi detainee died while in US

custody, no autopsy was conducted, and the body released for burial. The manner of the

death was classified as undetermined, with no greater clarity as to the cause of death

[] expected as no forensic examination of the body was conducted . (Department of

Defense2004)

On the 11thof September 2003 at FOB Packhorse an Iraqi detainee died while in US

custody. The fatality occurred when an enlisted soldier on guard duty, failed to follow the

ROE and shot the detainee. The DTN had been throwing rocks. (Department of Defense

2004)

On the 9th of December 2003 at the 2ndBrigade detention facility in Mosul an Iraqi

detainee died while in US custody. An autopsy was not carried out, but the body did not

exhibit signs of abuse or foul play. The death was classified as undetermined, with no

greater clarity as to the cause of death expected .(Department of Defense2004)

On the 4thof January 2004 a former Iraqi Army Lieutenant Colonel was taken into

custody [] [and] was subsequently placed in an isolation cell and questioned at least two

times in ensuing days. The US Armys Criminal Investigation Command was notified of his

suspicious death on the 9th of January. An examination of his body on the 11 th of January

revealed extensive bruising on his upper body. A subsequent autopsy indicated that the
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cause of death was blunt force injuries and asphyxia, with the manner of death listed as

homicide.(Department of Defense2004)

----

The five DTN deaths described above are broadly reflective of those that took place

across the US military detention system. DTN fatalities took place at a number of detention

sites and came about for a number of reasons. The causes of some fatalities, such as the

shootings described above, are known while the reasons for others are not. This research

has currently documented over 70 DTN deaths that took place between the 29th of March

2003 and the 14th of June 2004. As with the abuse that DTNs were subject to at capture and

during transportation, a number of the fatalities within the US military detention system

illustrate either a lack of awareness of, or a refusal or inability to follow, standard operating

procedures.

Yet, for those attempting to understand how the US military detention system played

into the wider parameters of US power in Iraq, the description of the five fatalities above is

exceedingly revealing. Firstly they demonstrate that the US had various types of sites, from

small FOBs through to large complexes that were used to house DTNs. Secondly they

highlight that these sites were spread across broad swathes of Iraq, from Mosul in the north

to Camp Cropper and Abu Ghraib in the vicinity of Baghdad. Thirdly, the DTN fatalities

described above illuminate some of the practicalities, from dealing with riots to the disposing

of bodies, that dogged the system. Just as importantly, they show that these problems

manifest themselves across the system at various times and places rather than being self-

contained and isolated issues. Fourthly, the descriptions of the above fatalities reveal some

of the methods of control, from isolation cells to the use of lethal force, that were utilised

within the system.


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The US Military Detention System

When examined as a whole, the core of the US military detention system operated by

the US Army illuminates the lack of control and fail-safes to prevent DTN abuse. This is true

across all three core functions of capture, transport and detention and between time and

place. The use of the chain of command to direct abuse and the evidence of collusion to

prevent knowledge of events seeing the light of day in separate incidents help put paid to the

myth that events at Abu Ghraib were carried out by bad apples and were not reflective of

wider events.

However, when viewed in a wider context, the flaws described above do not

necessarily take away from the effectiveness of the system itself, if one is thinking in terms

of US power. The muddied understandings of, or plain disregard for, the importance of

preventing DTN abuse may have played into the hands of the other actors who plugged into

the system. As will be discussed in more detail later, the differences in, and sometimes

misunderstanding or misrepresentations of the legal frameworks and chains of command

that various actors were working to was exploited.

The detention system run by the US Army allowed the US to control a substantial

population of DTNs in Iraq. This, in turn, provided an outlet for those DTNs captured by

frontline forces who could, in theory, be exploited for their intelligence value. Much of this

attempted intelligence exploitation was carried out by the other actors within the system,

however, without the core competencies of capture, transport and detention carried out by

the US Army the other actors, whether they were outsourcers or insourcers, would not have

had a system to plug into.


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Outsourcing & Insourcing

Outsourcing of military functions has been an important facet of the post-Cold War

world. The tasks carried out by PMCs in Iraq and in the wider WOT are exceedingly varied.

At one end of the spectrum they encompass logistical and administrative tasks previously

carried out by military personnel such as the running of catering facilities for US troops, while

at the other end contractors have engaged in fire-fights (Chatterjee 2004 16; Scahill 2008:

Loc 113-214). This variety in roles is reflected in the Quarterly Contractor Census Reports

that are published by CENTCOM. The August 2008 version of this report, for instance,

reveals that the US DOD had 162,428 contractors working on its behalf in Iraq at this time

(CENTCOM 2008). Off this number, 55% were working as 'Base Support', 22% were

working within 'Construction', 5% were working within 'Translator/Interpreter' services, 5%

were working within Transportation' , 6% were working within 'Security' roles, 2% were

working within 'Communication Support' while the final 5% were classified as 'Other'. 29,611

of these contractors were US citizen, 62,650 where classified as 'Third Country Nationals'

while 70,167 were Iraqi nationals (CENTCOM2008). The US DOD classified 7,704 out of

the 162,428 as contractors who would perform 'personal security, convoy security and static

security mission', of which 7,121 were armed (CENTCOM2008). By contrast, according to

the Congressional Research Service the average monthly Boots on the Ground total for US

forces in Iraq in 2008 was 157,800 (Belasco2009: 9). In other words, in August 2008 the

total number of contractors working just for the US DOD exceeded the total number of troops

under the DODs command in the country.

The full scope and scale of PMC engagement in Iraq was laid bare by analysis

carried out in March 2013 by the Financial Times which showed that, as a conservative

estimate, PMCs have made at least $138 billion in contracts related to Iraq awarded directly

by the US government since the invasion by the US and its partners in March 2003. Some of
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the largest earners included Kellog Brown and Root, which made at least $39.5 billion,

Agility, which completed contracts equal to at least $7.4 billion, Dyncorp, which took at least

$4.1 billion, and Blackwater, which booked at least $1.3 billion of contracts. The Financial

Times drew its information directly from Federal Procurement Data. (Fifield 2013: 1/5)

----

Two important facets of US foreign policy are the differentiation between and

interaction of the various institutional actors within the USs governmental bureaucracy that

are responsible for the implementation of foreign policy. Understanding this differentiation

and interaction is often key to a full understanding of events. The example of the removal of

Geneva Convention rights from suspected members of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the

aftermath of the September 11th attacks help illuminate this point.

On February the 7th 2002 President George W. Bush issued a declaration to his

senior staff that members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda were unlawful combatants who were

not entitled to the protections normally afforded Prisoners of War under the Geneva

Conventions (Bush 2002). This legal framework quickly filtered down into policy construction.

This filtering down is illustrated by a memo, dated 1st of August 2002, by Jay Bybee,

Assistant Attorney General, which recommended the adoption of ten techniques (1.

Attention grasp 2. Walling 3. Facial hold 4. Facial slap (insult slap) 5. Cramped confinement

6. Wall standing 7. Stress positions 8. Sleep deprivation 9. Insects placed in a confinement

box 10. The waterboard) to be used during the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah at

Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba (Bybee 2002: 2). As well as being held at Guantanamo

Bay, Zubaydah was also held at numerous sites in places such as Thailand, Poland and

Morocco and rendered between these sites within the CIA rendition system (The Rendition

Project 2012). This memo, along with numerous others by members of the Bush
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administration such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, aided in the application of

repressive policies and the removal of the legal rights of DTNs (Rumsfeld 2002). By all

buying into the same narrative the head of the executive, those in the upper echelons of the

justice department and head of the DOD combined to help construct a situation that allowed

the CIA to run a system of extraordinary rendition that feed the Guantanamo bay detention

site run by the US Navy, both of which contravene international law in their operation.

Understanding the differentiations and interactions between the various bodies

involved in this process aids a deeper understanding of these events. Moreover, when one

begins to examine the differentiations and interactions between various government

agencies responsible for the implementation of US foreign policy, many of the parameters

present in outsourcing are reflected in bureaucratic structures that draw on other sections of

the US government to provide capabilities and capacities not present in the lead actor. When

considered through such a prism, the globe straddling rendition system run by the CIA can

be seen as the main actor and the US Navy, which pitched in its Cuban base, as being an

actor who made up the shortfall in the capabilities of the intelligence agency. Or, put another

way, the US Navy acted as an insourcing institution for the CIA. This piece will now move on

to examine the manner in which the phenomena of outsourcing and insourcing reflect one

another.

----

Outsourcing to PMCs can have, or is at least perceived to have, numerous, often

interrelated, benefits for those states that choose to engage in the practice. These benefits

include the ability to draw on PMCs as force multipliers and capability multipliers, the ability

to deploy additional force with political cover, the ability to exploit the muddied legal

structures that govern PMCs, the ability to exploit the opacity of the operations of many
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PMCs and, perhaps most obvious, the potential economic benefit of outsourcing military and

security functions. Interestingly, however, many of the same benefits can arise from

insourcing into bureaucratic systems such as the US military detention system run by the US

Army in Iraq.

Table 1

Some Outsourcing Benefits for States Outsourcing Insourcing

Force Multiplier Y Y

Capability Multiplier Y Y

Political Cover Y Y

Legal Cover Y Y

Opacity of Operation Y Y

Economic Efficiency Y N

(Avant 2010; Singer 2008;Stranger & Williams2006)

As highlighted by Table 1, insourcing offers the potential for main actors and policy

makers to benefit from many of the characteristics that are often discussed as being benefits

to states who engage in outsourcing. As such, it offers the advantage of flexibility for those

shaping manifestation of US power, as the myriad of options offered by the many

combinations of the numerous actors can be deployed and altered. The insourcing that took

place within the US military detention system in Iraq was reflective of this flexibility. This

piece will now move on to examine how outsourcing and insourcing actors offer the

possibility of many of the same benefits to those implementing US power. It will do so largely

by the examination of outsourcing and insourcing within the US military detention system in
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Iraq. However, before doing so, this piece will briefly lay out the perceived economic

efficiencies that are derived from the use of PMCs by states.

Economic Efficiency

While those working for PMCs can gain attractive salaries, the perceived economic

benefit derived from their use flows from the ability of PMC firms to act in an agile manner in

the market place (Spear2006: 20). Such firms are able to compete in national, regional and

global markets for staff and military hardware and, unlike standing militaries, they do not

have to pay for the long-term upkeep of a force once a contract is finished (Singer 2008:

101-118). As such, PMCs do not have to worry about paying enduring costs such as medical

bills or pensions. Nor do they have to concern themselves with maintaining large stocks of

ammunition, logistical supplies or permanent staff as all of these can be procured from the

open market to suit each individual contract or mission. It is by passing on such savings,

minus their profits, to states that hire them that PMCs are said to be able to benefit the

bottom lines of governments looking to operate in the complex, budget sensitive

atmosphere, of the post-Cold War era.

Force Multiplier

In the post-Cold War world, many governments cut the military forces at their

disposal as the bipolar US-Soviet Union conflict receded from the international stage. As

Zamparelli notes:
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During the 12 years between the end of the Cold War and the year 2001, the DOD cut

approximately thirty-five percent of its uniformed positions. Going along with this reduction in

uniformed personnel, during the same period the DOD has cut slightly more than thirty-

seven percent of its civilian workforce. (Zamoarelli in Hennefer 2008: 37).

This reduction in capabilities left a gap that has been filled in recent conflicts by PMCs who

have rushed into the vacuum left by the reduction in state forces and, as Hennefer notes,

this gap [] has required the [US] military to outsource not only in the area of logistics, but

other key areas including: intelligence analysis, interrogation, detainment and systems

maintenance (Hennefer 2008: 37). This rise in the number of PMC personnel has been

incredibly stark, leading Geraghty to point out that:

During the first Gulf War in 1991, the ratio of freelancer soldiers to regulars was, at best,

1:50. During the 2003 invasion it was 1:10. The numbers increased after that. The total rose

during 2004 to around 30,000, of whom 14,000 were Iraqi Armed guards.

(Geraghty 2009: 188)

In short, PMCs have been drawn on by the US, as well as other states, to fill the hole

in their military capabilities left by the post-Cold War troop drain. This reality fed into the

operation of the US military detention system in Iraq and in the summer of 2003 the US

government turned to a private corporation, CACI, to act as a force multiplier for its

interrogation operations within the system.

In the summer of 2003 the need for intelligence in Iraq outstripped the US military s

ability to produce it. Put simply it was, according to the US Government Accounting Office


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(GAO), an extraordinary-a wartime environment and an atmosphere of turmoil and urgency

(Government Accounting Office2005). To rectify the problem the US government turned to

outside contractors in order to obtain interrogation and other services quickly (Government

Accounting Office2005). In August of 2003 CACI was asked on behalf of the US military's

Combined Joint Task Force 7, which had operational control of troops in Iraq at the time, to

provide intelligence support and logistical services in Iraq; the contract for this work was

renewed in December 2003 (Harris 2004; London 2008: XV). As such, the outsourcing

capabilities of CACI were drawn on to quickly multiply the interrogation capabilities within the

US military detention system in Iraq.

----

However, CACI was not the only actor that was drawn on to supplement the

interrogation capabilities of the US Army. The DIA, along with other bodies such as the CIA,

were also utilised, as the following discussion of abuse makes clear.

Around the 11th of May 2004 an intelligence officer of the DIA witnessed what he

characterised as the mistreatment of a DTN. This occurred during the initial interrogation of

the DTN after capture. During this interrogation four or five non-interrogator personnel

arrived in the room and began slapping the detainee while he was attempting to respond to

the questioning. (US Government2004)

After about fifteen minutes a senior NCO [Non-Commissioned Officer] going by call

sign 'XO3' entered the room and asked most of the personnel to leave, to include ALL of the

interrogators. The DIA intelligence officer states that they were not aware of what

specifically occurred during [their] absence from the interrogation room. It is also noted that

another officer, whose name is redacted, was also present at the incident. (US Government

2004)
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This example highlights how other actors, such as the DIA, plugged into the system

operated by the US Army and were drawn on to interrogate suspects. By doing so they, like

CACI, acted as a force multiplayer that allowed the system to operate at a higher capacity

than if they had not been present.

Capability Multiplier

As well as acting as force multipliers for capabilities that need extending, PMCs

also offer militaries the opportunity to contract for services that they have little or no

expertise in. In the US military detention system in Iraq the Titan Corporation was drawn on

to provide interpreter and translation services. It began providing such services to the US

government in 1999. Titans previous work included translation and interpretation services at

Guantanamo (Hettana2002;Titan Corporation2004).

The operations carried out in Iraq by Titan were on a much larger scale than those of

CACI, with the number of interpreters and translators contracted by the firm being well into

the thousands; this was highlighted by the fact that by May 2005 Titan had over 4,000

linguists working in Iraq, although it must be noted that not all of them worked strictly within

the US military detention system (AP2005). Titan was involved in the interrogation of DTNs

at various sites, the initial detention of DTNs while working alongside US combat forces at

numerous locations throughout Iraq, the translation of documents at various sites and its

contractors have been implicated in the abuse of DTNs at a number of locations (Corpwatch

2008: 18-19; Formica Report: Annex 41 2004/2: 3-4; US Army Criminal Investigation

Command2004,5/1: 8-9). Those working for Titan in Iraq were from Iraq, Turkey the US and

other states (AP2005;Calbreath2004).

By drawing on a global pool of contractors Titan was able to act as an outsourcing

capability multiplier in the area of language translation and interpretation. This capability
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multiplication took place both inside and outside of the military detention system and saw

Titans contractors engaged in tasks that were crucial to both the detention system itself and

the wider mission of the US in Iraq.

----

Between March and July 2003 FBI agents were deployed to Kuwait and Iraq to

focus on the collection, analysis, and exploitation of documents collected from many former

Iraqi Intelligence Service sites in Iraq (US Department of Justice 2009: 38). However,

following this period the FBIs activities in Iraq included (1) detainee interviews; (2) the

collection of biometric information from detainees; and (3) participation in a limited number of

military sensitive site exploitation missions as well as investigations of bombings, murders,

and kidnappings involving American citizens in Iraq (US Department of Justice2009: 38).

While most of these functions, such as interviewing DTNs, could be considered as force

multiplication functions the collection of biometric data, which took place within the system

run by the US Army, could be considered a capability multiplier within the system (US

Department of Justice2009: 43).

The possibility of the capability multiplier role of the collection of biometric

information can be ascertained by a 2009 review of FBI detainee operations in Guantanamo

Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq which stated, with reference to the biometric data the FBI

collected in Afghanistan, that the FBI also collected and disseminated to other agencies

detainee biometric information such as fingerprints, DNA samples and standard

photographs (US Department of Justice 2009: 26). This is not to suggest that other

agencies did not collect such data, in either Iraq or Afghanistan, however, it does seem to

imply that the FBI was particularly adept at specialising in its collection.

This implication is heightened when one considers the fact that the FBI was

specifically brought in to collect such data on Mujahedin-E-Khalq (MEK) fighters held at

Camp Ashraf in Eastern Iraq. Of the approximately 3,800 members of the MEK , an anti-
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Iranian paramilitary group designated as a terrorist organization by the State Department in

1997, held at Camp Ashraf FBI personnel biometrically processed some 3,600 MEK

detainees between November 2003 and January 2004 (US Department of Justice 2009:

43).

If FBI personnel were not particularly adept, or at least perceived as being so, at

the collection and analysis of such data, it would seem strange that scarce resources would

be wasted by assigning them the collection of biometric data. As such, it seems safe to

assert that the insourcing of these skills into the operation of the US military detention

system in Iraq acted as a capability multiplier similar to the introduction of translation and

interpretation services provided by Titan. Yet, it is vital to bear in mind that the FBI would not

have been able to insource such services, had the system itself not been constructed,

maintained and operated by the main actor, the US Army.

Political Cover

The development in the post-Cold War era of the PMC industry has provided a

policy tool for politicians worried about the political consequences of their favoured foreign

policy choices. During the Iraq war as a whole, as Peter Singer notes, the PMC industry

offered the potential backstop of additional forces but at no political cost (Singer 2008: 245).

Moreover, as Singer moves on to point out there was no outcry when contractors were

called up and deployed. [] [I]f the gradual death toll among American troops threatened to

slowly wear down the Presidents approval ratings, contractor casualties were not counted in

official death tolls and had no impact on these ratings (Singer 2008: 245). As well as other

benefits such as force and capacity multiplication, PMCs in Iraq offered the Bush

administration the ability to pursue its preferred policy without having to draw as extensively

as it otherwise might have done on politically sensitive state military forces.

As already discussed, the US military detention system in Iraq was not immune from

the use of PMC forces. CACI had at least 55 contractors within the system as part of its
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original contract who worked as screeners, interrogators and site leads (London 2008: 97).

Moreover, Titan had thousands of contractors working as translators and interpreters, a

large number of which were working either directly within detention sites or went out on

missions with frontline US Army personnel that could lead to the capture of DTNs (AP2005).

As such, the US military detention system in Iraq was able to benefit from the same political

cover afforded to other US operations in Iraq. As a result of outsourcing, both the force and

capability of the system was increased without any concurrent rise in political consequences

for the Bush administration.

----

The potential for political cover can also be afforded by insourcing. By inserting

themselves into existing systems provided by other governmental actors, insourcing actors

can attempt to operate under the radar and prevent their actions coming to light. Such a

tactic was used by the CIA within the US military detention system in Iraq and came to light

as a result of the investigations that followed the Abu Ghraib scandal.

Despite the fact that it was housing DTNs within the system the CIA did not follow

the established procedures for detainee in-processing. This led to confusion regarding

DTNs who were unidentified or unaccounted for and detention operations at large were

impacted because personnel at the operations level were uncertain how to report them or

how to classify them, or how to database them. Such DTNs were known by US Army

personnel as Ghost detainees and created a mystique around CIA operations. (Fay &

Jones 2004: 44/53)

According to the Fay-Jones Report into events at Abu Ghraib [t]he CIAs detention

and interrogation practices contributed to a loss of accountability and abuse at Abu Ghraib

(Fay & Jones 2004: 9). Moreover, as [n]o memorandum of understanding existed on the
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subject interrogation operations between the CIA and CJTF-7 [] CIA officers convinced

military leaders that they should be allowed to operate outside the established local rules

and procedures (Fay & Jones 2004: 9).

The actions of the CIA within Iraq illuminate how an insourcing actor with access to

a system can circumvent safeguards and procedures. If, for instance, events at Abu Ghraib

had not come to light then the CIA would have been able to piggyback on the detention

capacity provided by the US Army and would have utilised this capacity to abuse DTNs as

part of its intelligence gathering strategy and, most importantly, would have done so without

passing on any of the potential negative political consequences to the political leadership of

the US. Such an actor could be exceedingly useful to those wanting to make use of a

politically explosive policy while keeping the details out of the public eye.

Legal Cover

The opaque nature of the PMC outsourcing industry makes it hard to fully examine,

and raises many questions regarding domestic accountability. In part these issues stem from

a lack of legal frameworks designed to clearly regulate and police contracted military

personnel. As Stephanie Kang notes:

The ambiguous nature of the private security industry has significant implications for foreign

policy and the laws that apply to such a lucrative market. Due to the difficulty of identifying

and classifying PSCs, the issue of maintaining accountability in such a market becomes

even more difficult. (Kang2013: 37)

These issues are as true for the PMC contractors that worked within the US military

detention system in Iraq as elsewhere.

After the Abu Ghraib scandal, a number of Titan and CACI employees working at

the site were mentioned, either by name or in code, in a number of the investigations that
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followed (Fay & Jones 2004: 40; Taguba2004: 17). These revelations led to court cases

being brought against the corporations in the US. One of the key points of dispute between

the counsel for DTNs held in the system and the representatives of CACI and Titan relates

to the chain of command the interrogators were working under; with counsel for the

corporations arguing that they were embedded in the US military chain of command and the

DTNs representatives claiming that they took orders from the CACI and Titan corporate

structures (Robertson2007: 8/19). The Titan case was brought to a close in 2012 via an out

of court settlement when Engility Holdings, Inc, a company that inherited the law suit via a

series of mergers and acquisitions, and 72 plaintiffs agreed to resolve and dismiss the

action in return for a payment of $5.28 million, this payment was accrued as of

September 28, 2012 and paid in October 2012 (Engility Holdings, Inc 2012). As of June

2013 the CACI case is on-going, with a number of motions related to the case currently

under consideration by a judge (CCR2013).

The potential cover afforded by these legal ambiguities to those drawing on military

outsourcing services is, potentially, huge. With no clear legal structures in place contractors

can be hired to act with relative impunity and, hypothetically, deployed to do things that

members of the more accountable military cannot. As Singer notes

Private military firms may be part ofthe military operation, but they and their employees are

not part of the military - nor its chain of command or code of justice. (Singer 2008: 251)

It is in this grey area of operation alluded to by Singer that the potential for legal cover exists.

----

The numerous US government actors involved in detention and interrogation

operations in Iraq worked to differing standard operating procedures. The difference

between the procedures utilised by the US military and the FBI was highlighted by an FBI
http://www.npr.org/iraq/2004/prison_abuse_report.pdfhttp://www.npr.org/iraq/2004/prison_abuse_report.pdfhttp://ccrjustice.org/files/Saleh_summaryjudgmentdec_11_07.pdfhttp://ccrjustice.org/files/Saleh_summaryjudgmentdec_11_07.pdfhttp://ccrjustice.org/files/Saleh_summaryjudgmentdec_11_07.pdfhttp://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1544229/000119312512467606/d406499d10q.htmhttp://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1544229/000119312512467606/d406499d10q.htmhttp://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1544229/000119312512467606/d406499d10q.htmhttp://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/al-shimari-v-caci-et-alhttp://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/al-shimari-v-caci-et-alhttp://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/al-shimari-v-caci-et-alhttp://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/al-shimari-v-caci-et-alhttp://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1544229/000119312512467606/d406499d10q.htmhttp://ccrjustice.org/files/Saleh_summaryjudgmentdec_11_07.pdfhttp://www.npr.org/iraq/2004/prison_abuse_report.pdf


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memo from May 2004. This memo noted that the bureau had made its concerns related to

the coercive and aggressive techniques utilised by US military personnel in Guantanamo,

Afghanistan and Iraq clear to Miller, by that point no longer based at Guantanamo but in Iraq

as the head of TF134 (FBI2004). The memo went on to note that in each location where FBI

staff had been questioned as part of an internal FBI survey they had been aware of rumors

of abuse which have surfaced as a direct result of pending Military investigations into

abusive interrogation techniques (FBI2004).

However, despite these concerns, a reluctance to take part in the investigation of

abuses that may have flowed from the use of such coercive and aggressive techniques

existed among FBI personnel. A January 2004 email to FBI agent Gary Bald, but copied to a

number of other FBI personnel, from FBI agent Edward Lueckenhoff stated that unless

instructed otherwise by FBIHQ the FBI in Iraq would not enter into an investigation of the

alleged abuse at Abu Ghraib (Lueckenhoff 2004). The reasoning behind Lueckenhoffs

assertion was twofold. Firstly, Lueckenhoff believed that the topic was outside our [the

FBIs] mission and that pursuing it would see the bureau squander resources (Lueckenhoff

2004). Secondly, however, Lueckenhoff stated that it was in the FBI s interest to maintain

good will and relations with those operating the prison and that any involvement by the

bureau in such an investigation of the alleged abuse might harm our liaison (Lueckenhoff

2004).

The first part of the reasoning laid out above would seem to illuminate the

operation of a chain of command, with Lueckenhoff wanting to wait until directed by his

superiors before directing scarce FBI resources toward an investigation into the abuses at

Abu Ghraib. However, the second part of his reasoning is incredibly revealing. It highlights

the machinations and manoeuvring related to the investigation of such allegations. While the

FBI was in theory an independent actor that, at times, felt able to make clear its concerns

over the interrogation techniques being utilised by the US military, its position as an

insourced actor made it dependant on the continued largesse of the US Army, the main

actor within the system. By stating that he felt that one of the main investigative bodies of the
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US government should not pursue an investigation in order to maintain good relations with

those running a detention site at the centre of serious abuse allegations, Lueckenhoff

demonstrated the kind of thinking that could be utilised by those looking to leverage legal

cover for past, present or future operations that deviate from legal norms and procedures.

Opacity of Operation

As already noted, PMCs offer the possibility of legal cover and the chance to reduce

the potential political costs to those choosing to use military force. These benefits are, at

least in part, related to the opaque nature of some PMC operations. This opacity makes it

hard to fully track the development of contractors working for PMCs. This problem of tracking

is not confined solely to those outside of governmental circles. Singer has stated that in 2005

he was contacted by the Pentagon to help them determine the number of contractors

working in Iraq (Singer 2008: 245). While the anecdote from Singer demonstrates a lack of

poor governance within the DOD, it also illuminates the complexity and opaque nature of

some of the contracts issued to PMCs with operations in the country. This complexity and

opacity could be exploited by policy makers wanting to outsource a policy in order to avoid

the political and legal consequences of it.

This opacity is reflected in the operations of CACI in Iraq. Despite the fact that in the

wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal the company went on the offensive to defend itself (via an

aggressive campaign that culminated in 2008 with the publication of a 780 page book

entitled Our Good Name: A Companys Fight to Defend its Honour and Get the Truth Told

About Abu Ghraib which was replete with photos, timelines and appendices) the true extent

of CACIs operations in Iraq is hard to discern (London 2008: 1 -780). CACI operated at

numerous sites other than Abu Ghraib in Iraq. These included sites in Fallujah and at

Baghdad International Airport, however, information about such operations must be re-

constructed together in a piece meal fashion from disparate sources (Anderson2003;Fair
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2007). These sources include news articles and confessional pieces by former CACI

contractor Eric Fair, who has admitted to abusing a DTN in Fallujah (Fair 2007). While

vigorously defending itself from any wrongdoing in its book, CACI does not refer to its other

operations in Iraq. As such, great opacity remains about CACI operations in Iraq. The fact

that CACI has been able to maintain this opacity in the light of great public scrutiny and

almost a decade of legal proceedings is tantamount to the attraction that utilising PMCs

might offer to policy makers looking to implement controversial policies.

----

The myriad of actors involved in the implementation of US foreign policy mean that

opportunities exist for exploitation and misinformation. In a survey of FBI agents working at

Guantanamo, 20 said they had information regarding non-FBI personnel impersonating FBI

agents, with one agent stating that she had personally observed this conduct (US

Department of Justice2009: 200). This agent was deployed to GTMO from December 2003

through September 2004 and claimed to have been present ontwo occasions when a CIA

interrogator represented herself as an FBI agent in a detainee interrogation (US Department

of Justice2009: 200).

Such impersonation and misinformation may also have taken place within the US

military detention system in Iraq. The US Justice Department stated that [s]ome agents

reported in [] survey responses that they had heard that military or CIA personnel had

falsely represented themselves as FBI agents and that [f]ive FBI agents reported that they

heard about the impersonation of FBI personnel in Iraq, but none stated that they ever

observed such conduct(US Department of Justice2009: 200).
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. Such impersonation and misinformation offers the possibility of the exploitation of the

differences between actors within a system; be they the main actor, outsourcers or

insourcers. The carrying out of actions under incorrect names, aliases or under the false

auspicious of another actor could add a similar level of opacity to the operations of those

employed by the US government that are often associated with the actions of those

contracted by PMCs. Moreover, the adoption of such smoke screens by insourcing actors, if

they could be maintained, could add an extra layer of legal cover and deniability to an

operation or policy.

Main Actors, Outsourcers, Insources and US Power

The US military detention system in Iraq was a complex, multifaceted and ever

evolving structure that drew on the input of numerous actors. It was integral to the

manifestation of US influence in the country and, as a consequence, within the Middle East

as a whole. Understanding its operation, and the contributions that numerous actors made to

it, can help one comprehend how US power manifested itself in the aftermath of 9/11.

The model developed in this piece provides a structured understanding of the US

military detention system in Iraq. It helps illuminate the importance of the operational and

developmental role played by the US Army, and highlights the importance of core

competencies. On a number of occasions this piece demonstrated how these core functions

were key to facilitating other, sometimes more controversial, facets of the system such as

abuse and interrogation. Without an understanding of this facilitation function, much of the

context for the numerous instances of abuse discussed in this piece would be missing.

The outsourcing/insourcing actor dichotomy is key to the model introduced in this

piece. While there are real and important differences between PMCs and the myriad of


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actors within the foreign policy bureaucracy of the US, there can also be similarities when

such US governmental actors operate as insourcers within a pre-existing bureaucracy such

as the US military detention system in Iraq. Examining such similarities, regardless of

whether they flow from force or capability multiplication, legal or political cover or opacity of

operations, can offer important insights to those seeking to understand the workings of a

system.

The brief examinations of the rendition system run by the US in the post 9/11 era

seem to suggest that the model introduced in this piece could be drawn on to gain insights

into other manifestations of the USs foreign policy bureaucracy. Manifestations that feature

a main anchoring actor and numerous secondary actors whose contribution hinges on the

implementation of core functions by the main actor are likely to be of most relevance to this

model.


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