But I'm just curious, General Alexander, you wear three stars, you're the Chief of Army Intelligence, you train all your people, you send them to the combatant commanders. It would seem to me if they are represented to have done wrong—I don't care whether it's CENTCOM, Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), European Command (EUCOM)-they should inform you promptly of what your people are doing wrong. That's my view. Now, we turn over here to our good friend, Senator Akaka. I've been asking questions about contracted personnel. General Burgess, how many U.S. contracted personnel do we have working with our MI units? The big question is, do all of these individuals have the proper security clearance? General BURGESS. Sir, I would like to take the response to your question for the record so I can give you an exact response. [The information referred to follows:] [Deleted.] vide that to the committee. and Guantanamo. So to give you a specific answer, I'd like to prothree different locations. That's not-I'm talking Afghanistan, Iraq, ical assistance, so it actually breaks out in different ways and in terrogators, linguists, and others that are providing some analytGeneral BURGESS. We've broken the number out in terms of in of the linguists, where different security clearances are required or skills that we're talking about, though, depending on the category written into the contract, and that is worked. There are some of the Sir, in those cases where security clearance is required, that is Senator AKAKA. General Burgess, it is reported that one of the two civilian contractors named in Major General Taguba's report did not have a security clearance. What are the rules regarding security clearances for contracted personnel who will be interrogating detainees? General BURGESS. Sir, as a general rule-and I highlight "general rule”—we require at least a collateral clearance, depending on the access that the individual's going to have. However, I have asked for the specific statements of work for those contract, and have not read them yet. Senator AKAKA. I've also read some articles on this, and would ask the question, whose responsibility is it to ensure that all of the U.S. contracted personnel have the appropriate clearances? General BURGESS. Sir, as a general rule, that resides with the organization that "lets the contract," and you have a contracting officer who is responsible for seeing that the contract is executed in accordance with the standards. That is normally done at the Unified Command and lower, depending upon where you're executing the contract. Senator AKAKA. I've read some reports where the hired contractor firms claim that it is not their responsibility to do any background research or checks or investigations on any of the people they hire. Do you know that to be true? General BURGESS. Sir, I do not know that to be true. Senator AKAKA. Also, General Taguba's report stated that contracted personnel from third-world nations were involved in this. Do you have any comment about that? General BURGESS. Sir, depending on your definition of thirdworld country, it is a true statement to say that we use foreign nationals with security clearances to do interrogations or translations. Senator AKAKA. Can you name some of the countries that these foreign nationals are from? General BURGESS. Sir, for example, we are using some Iraqis to do some linguist work for us, if you will, not only translation work, but also just providing those skills for the soldiers on the ground. Senator AKAKA. What kind of training did the U.S. civilian contractors have prior to going to Iraq? I've been informed that the training for interrogators included training tactics and techniques used by other countries. Did such training occur? If so, are these tactics and techniques approved by DOD intelligence officials? General ALEXANDER. Sir, as far as I know, they did not. The contract that I'm familiar with, the personnel who were brought on from the CACI contract were former soldiers or former U.S. who had an interrogation MOS and had been trained on the rules. Sir, as we stated earlier, they were also supposed to sign and understand the interrogation ROE. General BURGESS. I would highlight the approaches or the interrogation techniques would still be those that are laid out in the Appendix H of the Army FM that we discussed earlier. Senator AKAKA. Another concern I have is about records. General Burgess, who is responsible for keeping a record of all of these civilian contractors that the U.S. has in Iraq? Is this responsibility General BURGESS. Sir, I do not know the answer to that ques tion. Senator AKAKA. General Romig, was there any consultation between commanders-that's commanders from company, battalion, or brigade between commanders and the command JAG regarding the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib? General ROMIG. Sir, we had a JAG officer assigned to the brigade, the MI brigade. I can't tell you the day-to-day discussions, but there was a JAG officer assigned to the brigade. In addition, the MP brigade had a couple of JAG officers. As I said, there was a magistrate cell in Abu Ghraib of three to five JAG officers. So there was ample-we believe-now, having said that, we're taking a look at the resourcing and the training for our JAG and MI units to make sure we're doing it right, so we're looking at that also. Senator AKAKA. Thank you for your responses. Chairman WARNER. Thank you very much. Senator Lindsey Graham. Senator GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Hat's off to the panel. You all have done an excellent job answering a lot of questions. I think the truth is, we won't know yet. When somebody offers as a defense in a court-martial, "Someone else made me do it," it's going to take awhile to find out who that someone else is. I share Senator Collins' concern that this is probably not just six or seven people having an out-of-bounds perverted experience, it probably goes deeper. But in terms of what Senator Kennedy was asking, General Romig-is that right? Am I pronouncing your name right? General ROMIG. Yes, sir. Senator GRAHAM. I'm informed the Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act exists that would allow the Department of Justice to prosecute contractors serving overseas. Are you familiar with that? General ROMIG. Yes, sir, that is correct. Senator GRAHAM. I would make this invitation to you. Could you and your JAGs look at that, and maybe get the other JAGs to look at it and see if we need to improve that? Because I'm not so sure it gives us all the tools that we need, but I would appreciate it if you would do that. General ROMIG. Yes, sir, we would look at it. [The information referred to follows:] Section 3266 of title 18, United States Code, enacted by the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000 (MEJA), directs the Secretary of Defense, after consultation with the Secretary of State and Attorney General, to prescribe regulations governing the apprehension, detention, delivery, and removal of persons under MEJA. The Department of Defense is currently engaged in that process. The Department is also reviewing legislation to amend MĒJA. H.R. 4390 was introduced on May 19, 2004, to amend MĚJA to apply to employees of contractors of other Federal agencies when their "employment relates to supporting the mission of the Department of Defense." Currently with respect to contractor employees, MEJA applies only to an employee of a Department of Defense contractor. General ROMIG. One additional point about that. There are implementing instructions that are on the Federal Register right now that DOD has put out. Prior to that, though, the Air Force has prosecuted two cases under that act. Senator GRAHAM. Thank you, and if we need to improve it and |