By Matt Kelley

June 12, 2004 | The Army hired private interrogators to
work in Iraq and Afghanistan despite the service's policy of
barring contractors from military intelligence jobs such as
interrogating prisoners.

A policy memo from December 2000 says letting private
workers gather military intelligence would jeopardize
national security.

An Army spokeswoman said 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. Army investigators
are looking into whether the contracts were awarded properly.

The Abu Ghraib case also stirred criticism from some
Democrats that the Pentagon was relying too heavily on
private contractors, even for military functions such as
collecting intelligence.

Thomas White, who quit as Army secretary last year after
clashing with Defense Secretary Donald H. 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 in a
telephone interview. "That's something that would have to be
under the direct supervision of the Army."

Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Pamela Hart said Saturday that the
contractor ban remains in effect. 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," Hart said.

The Army's top personnel official, Patrick T. 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.

"Reliance on private contractors poses risks to maintaining
adequate civilian oversight over intelligence operations,"
Henry wrote. "Civilian oversight over intelligence
operations and technologies is essential to assure
intelligence operations are conducted with adequate security
safeguards and within the scope of law and direction of the
authorized chain of command."

An Army report on the abuses at Abu Ghraib says problems at
the prison included confusion over who was in charge of
contractors and a lack of supervision of the private workers.

The report from Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba says one contract
interrogator, Steven Stefanowicz of CACI International, and
a contract translator, John B. Israel of Titan Corp., were
"either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at
Abu Ghraib."

Israel's family has declined comment. Henry Hockeimer Jr., a
lawyer for Stefanowicz, has said his client did nothing wrong.

A third contractor implicated in the abuses, translator Adel
Nakhla of Titan, has been fired. Nakhla's lawyer, Francis Q.
Hoang, has not returned repeated messages.

Jim wrote:

By Matt Kelley

June 12, 2004 | The Army hired private interrogators to work in Iraq
and Afghanistan despite the service's policy of barring contractors from
military intelligence jobs such as interrogating prisoners.

A policy memo from December 2000 says letting private workers gather
military intelligence would jeopardize national security.

An Army spokeswoman said senior commanders have the authority to
override the contractor ban.



Hey...this is the Bush mis-administration. Couple its ineptitude with
that of military intelligence and what do you have? A totally pooched
situation, just like we have now.

Bush...the dumbest President in the history of history.

Max Mustermann wrote:
On Sun, 13 Jun 2004, Jim wrote off topic ****:

Why do you feel the need to pollute rec.boats water with off topic
postings? Simply putting in the header that they are OT does not make it
OK.

If you are on some mission, carry it on in the apprpriate group.



If you are so offended, Max, just filter it out.

Max Mustermann wrote:
On Sun, 13 Jun 2004, Jim wrote off topic ****:

Why do you feel the need to pollute rec.boats water with off topic
postings? Simply putting in the header that they are OT does not make it
OK.

If you are on some mission, carry it on in the apprpriate group.

This IS the appropriate group -- you're new here aren't you.
suggest you scroll back a couple 100 messages and see how
many REALLY deal with boating.

Max Mustermann wrote:


No, it is up to the individual poster to exercise appropriate Usenet
netiquette. Excessive off topic posts lengthen the message header retieval
time (wasting peoples time) before they can be filtered. Worse, the
retention rate of relevant posts are shortened by off topic posts since
news servers only allot a given amount of space to each group.

Off topic posting falls into the same unwanted class as spam and it might
as well be just that. Would you think it OK to post ads for Viagara,


Your post is off-topic in rec.boats, MaxiPad.
Do you have any boating information to impart here...or are you just a
whiner?

Jim wrote:



Max Mustermann wrote:

On Sun, 13 Jun 2004, Jim wrote off topic ****:

Why do you feel the need to pollute rec.boats water with off topic
postings? Simply putting in the header that they are OT does not make it
OK.

If you are on some mission, carry it on in the apprpriate group.

This IS the appropriate group -- you're new here aren't you. suggest
you scroll back a couple 100 messages and see how many REALLY deal with
boating.



None from Max.

On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 18:16:48 -0400, Jim wrote:



Max Mustermann wrote:
On Sun, 13 Jun 2004, Jim wrote off topic ****:

Why do you feel the need to pollute rec.boats water with off topic
postings? Simply putting in the header that they are OT does not make it
OK.

If you are on some mission, carry it on in the apprpriate group.

This IS the appropriate group -- you're new here aren't you.
suggest you scroll back a couple 100 messages and see how
many REALLY deal with boating.

lmao! YOU pollute the group with 100's of OT political messages and
then say it is the appropriate group for political messages because
there are so many of them. That's the ultimate in chutzpah.

Steve