CACI
CACI International Inc is an American multinational military and intelligence contractor and information technology company[1] headquartered in Arlington, Virginia.[2] CACI provides services to many branches of the US federal government including defense,[3] homeland security, intelligence,[4] and healthcare.[5]
Critics like to refer to CACI as “Colonels and Captains, Inc.” or “Captains and Commanders, Inc.”. This is to indicate the frequent revolving door of senior military personnel in the company. The company also has strong Israeli ties.
In 2003, CACI employees were used as interrogators in the US prison Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Two US Army investigative reports concluded that CACI people were involved in the torture there.
Contents
Corporate Overview
CACI International has reincarnated itself under various names since it was founded in 1962 by Harry Markowitz, the 1990 Nobel laureate for Economics.[6]. Originally it was California Analysis Center, Inc., then Consolidated Analysis Center, Incorporated then its present name from 1985.
CACI has approximately 23,000 employees worldwide.
CACI lives almost exclusively of government contracts, and was able to multiply the value of them after September 11, 2001.
In June 2008, it was announced that CACI Ltd had been awared an $18.5 million contract from the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) for census printing and data capture services for Scotlands 2011 Census[7].
Abu Ghraib Torture
CACI was one of the two companies named in the report by Major General Antonio M. Taguba on the Abu Ghraib Scandal. Steven Staphanovic, one of its employees, was said to have 'allowed and/or instructed MPs (military police), who were not trained in interrogation techniques, to facilitate interrogations by'setting conditions' ... he clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse.';[8]
CACI has strong Israeli ties and according to Robert Fisk '[o]ne of Staphanovic's co-workers, Joe Ryan - who was not named in the Taguba report - now says he underwent an 'Israeli interrogation course' before going to Iraq.' J.P. London, the CEO of the company, visited Israel on a trip sponsored by an Israeli lobby group along with U.S. congressmen and other defense contractors. In early 2004 he also attended an 'anti-terror" training camp in Israel where he 'was presented with an award by Shaul Mofaz, the right-wing Israeli defense minister'. [9]
While the Interior Department's inspector general had blocked the Army placing new orders with CACI, this did not prevent the Army from awarding a new four-month contract for 'interrogation services' worth $15.3 million in August 2004 and a $16 million renewal of its earlier contract in early 2005.[10]
United States Congressman Jim McDermott has entered a Sunday Herald article onto his web space on the House of Congress website[11]. The article descibes details of the horrific treatment inflicted on prisoners at Abu Ghraib: which includes sexual abuse, rape, severe beatings (sometimes to death), throwing prisoners from a bridge (& a speeding truck), being savaged by dogs and having electrodes attached to their fingers and genitals. Most of these acts were also either photographed or filmed by the soldiers/staff at Abu Ghraib. This is not reading for the faint hearted. The article also reports that even though CACI have 'received no indication that any CACI employee was involved' in the incidents, their 'investigator's contract was terminated because he allowed and/or instructed military police officers who were not trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate interrogations which were neither authorised nor in accordance with regulations'. CACI is a 'civilian contract' organization, and as the report states, no civilians are facing charges as military law does not apply to them. According to Colonel Jill Morgenthaler from CentCom, 'one civilian contractor was accused along with six soldiers of mistreating prisoners. However, it was left to the contractor to "deal with him"'. Who the civilian contractor is or which firm they worked for is not divulged.
In a separate report in 2008, it was reported that 'US civilian staff working for private American security companies, which specialised in carrying out interrogation work for the US military, were heavily implicated in human rights abuses against detainees'... 'It also emerged a third of CACI staff at the prison had never received formal military interrogation training even though CACI employed almost half of all interrogators and analysts working in Abu Ghraib'[12]..
One of the U.S. soldiers who did face court martial, Staff Sergeant Chip Frederick, blamed the army for the torture at Abu Ghraib. "We had no support, no training whatsoever," he said, claiming he had never been shown the Geneva Convention. "I kept asking my chain of command for certain things like rules and regulations and it just wasn't happening." Not that this is exactly a great excuse. One doesn't have to know the contents of the Geneva Convention to know that the horrific treatment that some of the prisoners went through was inhumane. Frederick also accused the intelligence services 'for encouraging the brutality'. Some of the intelligence agencies at Abu Ghraib were the FBI & CIA. The article continues by reporting the content of emails and letters Frederick had sent home where he wrote:
- "Military intelligence has encouraged and told us 'Great job'."He added: "They usually don't allow others to watch them interrogate. But since they like the way I run the prison, they have made an exception ..... We help getting [the PoWs] to talk with the way we handle them ..... We've had a very high rate with our style of getting them to break. They usually end up breaking within hours."[13]
Two 'civilian contract' organizations with links to the Bush administration are reported to have taken part in interrogations at Abu Ghraib. CACI and California-based Titan Corporation. Richard Armitage, who sat on CACI's Board was also the current deputy U.S. secretary of state and Titan is reported to have given nearly $40,000 to George W. Bush's Republican Party between 2003 to 2004[14].
In 2008, lawsuits were filed against CACI International by four Iraqis over allegations they were tortured in Abu Ghraib[15].
But CACI emphasizes on its homepage that it has done nothing wrong in Iraq and that it is “proud of its work in Iraq and its other efforts in the war on terrorism”. [16]
CACI founder and former CEO J. Phillip London sees himself in a battle "against false and malicious reports from the raging media" that "put the committed people of the company and its excellent reputation at risk" and remains "with honorable heads" .
Military-industrial complex
| Company Name | Number of Employees (% with security clearance) |
Percentage government contracts of all contracts |
Turnover 2013 in billions US-Dollar |
Growth since 2001 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General contractors | |||||
| Booz Allen Hamilton | 24.500 (75 %) | 99 % | 5,9 | +504 % | |
| Computer Sciences Corporation | 90.000 (unknown) | 34 % | 15,0 | +43 % | |
| Science Applications International Corporation | 39.600 (unknown) | 85 % | 11,2 | +200 % | |
| L-3 Communications | 51.000 (unknown) | 76 % | 13,1 | +560 % | |
| Weapon manufacturers | |||||
| General Dynamics | 92.200 (unknown) | 66 % | 31,5 | +262 % | |
| Lockheed Martin | 120.000 (>50 %) | 82 % | 47,2 | +197 % | |
| Northrop Grumman | 68.100 (unknown) | 90 % | 28,1 | +207 % | |
| Raytheon | 67.800 (unknown) | 73 % | 24,4 | +45 % | |
| Service contractors | |||||
| Abraxas | 7.900 (unknown) | 50 % | 1,4 | unknown | |
| CACI | 15.000 (50 %) | 94 % | 3,8 | +675 % | |
| DynCorp | 29.000 (unknown) | 97 % | 4,0 | unknown | |
| ManTech | 9.700 (>70 %) | 99 % | 2,6 | +599 % | |
Known members
2 of the 40 of the members already have pages here:
| Member | Description |
|---|---|
| Richard Armitage | "A sophisticated member of the top echelons of the U.S. government" |
| Lowell Jacoby | "Saddam Hussein appears determined to retain his WMD and missile programs." |
Related Document
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:British govt funded plan for censorship of factual NATO criticism | Article | 3 October 2023 | Jack Poulson | Leaked documents reveal British intel contractor Zinc Network singled out The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal for online censorship, and seeks to redefine factual criticism of NATO as disinformation |
References
- ↑ https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1497049520
- ↑ https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=4729731
- ↑ 1988 magazine quote: "today used principally by the U. S. military."
- ↑ https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/fedbiz_daily/2016/05/caci-s-little-known-u-k-acquisition-reshaping.html
- ↑ https://govtribe.com/project/70-flc-phila-intends-to-purchase-software-maintenance-renewal-for-caci-simscript-iii
- ↑ http://maroon.uchicago.edu/news/articles/2004/05/15/alumnus_started_firm.php
- ↑ http://www.caci.co.uk/212.aspx
- ↑ http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact
- ↑ http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=5607§ionID=15
- ↑ McCarthy, E. (2004) 'CACI Gets New Interrogation Contract' The Washington Post. 5th Augusy 2004. Accessed March 2006
- ↑ Mackay, N. (2004) 'The Pictures That Lost The War'. Sunday Herald 2nd May 2004. Accessed 26th August 2008
- ↑ Mackay, N. (2008) 'Scottish government hires firm accused of torture in Iraq: American census contractor facing trial on human rights abuses in Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib jail Sunday Herald 26th July 2008. Accessed 26th August 2008
- ↑ Mackay, N. (2004) 'The Pictures That Lost The War'. Sunday Herald 2nd May 2004. Accessed 26th August 2008
- ↑ Mackay, N. (2004) 'The Pictures That Lost The War'. Sunday Herald 2nd May 2004. Accessed 26th August 2008
- ↑ Mackay, N. (2008) 'Scottish government hires firm accused of torture in Iraq: American census contractor facing trial on human rights abuses in Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib jail Sunday Herald 26th July 2008. Accessed 26th August 2008
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20140826080523/http://www.caci.com/iraq/iraq_news.shtml
