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Chapter 2 - The Recent History of PMCs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2018

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Summary

THE ABU GHRAIB AND NISOUR SQUARE SCANDALS: LEGAL REACTIONS AND CRITICISM

The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal broke in 2004. It involved the photographed and filmed abuse, humiliation and torture of prisoners at the hands of private interrogators and U.S. military personnel. Despite the international negative reaction that targeted and questioned the role of PMCs in Iraq, it is worth mentioning that PMCs were not at the center of the scandal. Indeed, much media attention was focused on the involvement of United States military officers at Abu Ghraib, along with members of other U.S. agencies, including the C.IA. However, the Abu Ghraib Scandal also saw the involvement of private contractors who, as with many PMC personnel, were specifically assigned to Abu Ghraib for non-military, civilian tasks.

The main private firms involved were CACI International, who supplied approximately thirty interrogators, and Titan Inc, whose nature of supplied services reveals a great degree of legal complexities. According to then-Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, the total number of private contractors at Abu Ghraib during the scandal was around thirty-seven.

CACI (California Analysis Center Inc.) is a U.S. firm that has maintained close links with the American government for decades, with an emphasis on weapons contracts during the Cold War. With the reduction of governmental defense spending post-Cold War, CACI diversified into IT and tech support services, along with both open and classified intelligence gathering services. The firm's specialization in both open and closed intelligence gathering proved most profitable, landing the firm governmental contracts worth up to 300 million USD by 2004. However, the nature of such contracts is certainly of questionable legality, given CACI's status as a private and commercial IT solutions firm.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Privatization of Warfare and Inherently Governmental Functions
Private Military Companies in Iraq and the State Monopoly of Regulated Force
, pp. 7 - 72
Publisher: Intersentia
Print publication year: 2016

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