The Scottish government contract with CACI has been changed by John Swinney due to internal pressure. The Register General is now to own and run the IT equipment on which the full personal census database is to be stored, with a new management team overseeing it. The Register General will also chair a Census Steering Commitee. These measures are designed to minimise the role of CACI (UK) and to distance it from the personal data collected by the census.

These changes may be well motivated but can be viewed as political 'damage limitation'. The Register General should always have been responsible for the control of the census equipment and a Census Steeing Commitee will be nothing more than a talking shop if it fails to address the main concern of the awarding of government contracts to corporations responsible for war crimes. On that crucial point John Swinney is clear:
“EU procurement rules allow bidders to be excluded if they have been convicted of certain criminal or other offences but none of these apply to CACI (UK) – or indeed to it's US parent, which strongly denies the allegations of abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and makes clear it's abhorrence of human rights violations. So the Register General could not legally have refused to contract with CACI (UK).”
No conviction has occurred because no prosecution has occurred. There is solid proof of the CACI crimes though in sworn military evidence though, even photographs of the CACI contactors torturing people. Just like the Spanish court trying Israelis for war-crimes commited in Gaza, it is quite within the remit of a British court to bring a case against CACI or their employees.
The government have to deal with torturers by law because the law won't prosecute corporate killers. That doesn't engender much respect for either the law or the government.


AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to turn now to another company. Blackwater is not the only private US corporation facing lawsuits for alleged abuses in Iraq. On Monday, hundreds of Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons filed a lawsuit against the private military contractor, CACI. The company itself calls itself CACI.

The suit alleges the Iraqis were repeatedly sodomized, threatened with rape, kept naked in their cells, subjected to electric shock, attacked by unmuzzled dogs, subjected to serious pain inflicted on sensitive body parts while being held at Abu Ghraib. The suit alleges employees of CACI directed soldiers to mistreat prisoners at Abu Ghraib and that employees of the company were involved in the wrongful deaths of three Iraqi men at Abu Ghraib.

The lawsuit was filed, once again, by Susan Burke and the Center for Constitutional Rights, joining us today in our studio, as we’ve been talking to her through the hour. Talk about this lawsuit you’ve just filed in the last day.

SUSAN BURKE: Well, this is actually a continuation of a lawsuit that we previously filed back in June of 2004. We had brought it as a class action after the leaking of the Taguba Report and after we had been approached by some of the victims of the Abu Ghraib torture.

And one thing I would point out is that this—CACI’s conduct in this instance—CACI employees were directly involved in torturing prisoners. This is information that’s known. It’s information that is known to the Department of Justice. Yet, there have not been any criminal prosecutions. So when you think about the passage of time here, you have to ask: why have there been no criminal prosecutions? It’s very troubling, and it’s very concerning that our civil action is the only current mechanism for accountability for the private participation in the Abu Ghraib scandal.

The other comment I would make is that there’s a perception that it was just the Abu Ghraib scandal and that that’s the only place where the torture occurred. You know, sadly, that’s just not true. The same type of conduct was happening elsewhere. People were being mistreated in other facilities. And again, CACI was not in all of the facilities, but they were in a substantial number, and their employees participated.




SUSAN BURKE: Well, the reality is that the information that we have is information that is under oath testimony from court-martials. And so, there are—the co-conspirators, the people that are serving time in prison, are the ones that are identifying Big Steve and DJ and the others as having given them the orders to torture. So for CACI to be—it’s interesting that CACI is so aggressive in their denials, when they know that on the record in under oath testimony is direct evidence.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, court-martial testimony?

SUSAN BURKE: There were a series of court-martials, when Charles Graner was convicted, Frederick—Sergeant Frederick was convicted. And so, the testimony from the convicted torturers has labeled—

AMY GOODMAN: You’re talking about CACI directing US soldiers?

SUSAN BURKE: Yes, the CACI interrogators were placed in the role of the military intelligence.




AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you something. We know about people like Charles Graner, who was court-martialed, who’s in jail right now.

SUSAN BURKE: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: So you’re saying that US soldiers can be held accountable, but the military contractors who do the same thing, they often are let off scot-free. This, it seems to me, will be an issue for US soldiers saying this is not fair.

SUSAN BURKE: Well, it is. And the real question here is, why have they been let off scot-free? I mean, this is conduct that was testified about in the court-martials. This is conduct that’s known to the United States government. The Department of Justice really should be criminally prosecuting all the private corporate employees that were participants in this conspiracy.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about CACI’s role. For example, though you talk about this happening at other prisons, at Abu Ghraib, what exactly were these employees doing? Do you know individually who they are?

SUSAN BURKE: We know some and obviously hope to learn more, as we continue our investigation and continue the litigation. But what we know already comes from the investigations and the court-martials that have already gone on. And what we know is that when a CACI interrogator was placed into Abu Ghraib prison, that person held essentially the slot on the interrogation team where they were put in charge. And so, we have CACI interrogators being placed in charge of these teams.

AMY GOODMAN: You have private military contractors that US soldiers are answering to.

SUSAN BURKE: That’s correct. They had the same ability—these CACI private employees had the same ability to direct the military police vis-a-vis the treatment of the prisoners as did the military intelligence. So what you have, for example, is a gentleman, Steve Stefanowicz, and another gentleman, Daniel Johnson. Those two have been identified by Graner and Frederick and others as having been some of—among the group that would give them the orders to rough up the prisoners, to torture the prisoners. And so, Big Steve, for example—on one occasion, in fact, Graner even refused to follow one of Big Steve’s directives, because he found it too harsh. So you have—

AMY GOODMAN: What had he directed him to do?

SUSAN BURKE: It was a case in which a prisoner that had been tortured was in such pain, and the interrogator, Big Steve, said, “Don’t give him any pain medication.” And Graner was afraid that it would cause death, and he gave him the pain medication.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, you’re alleging that there were deaths that resulted.

SUSAN BURKE: The people died in prison as a result of the torture, yes.