SECRETINOFORN//X1 SUBJECT: (U) AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th MI Brigade contractors. Two contractual arrangements were involved: one with CACI, for interrogators and several other intelligence - related occupational categories; and one with BTG, for linguists. Since 28 November 2001, BTG has been part of Titan Corporation. The contract is still in the name of BTG. Most people have referred to it as the Titan Contract. A brief description of these two contractual arrangements follows: (a) (U) Linguist contract- Titan, Inc. - Contract DASC01-99-D-0001. [1] (U) The need to supplement the Army's capacity for linguists was first raised to the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army in a 1997 "Foreign Language Lay down." It was proposed to establish a contract with the private sector to provide linguists, as needed, for contingencies and current intelligence operations. [2] (U) As a result of this perceived need, INSCOM awarded Contract DASC01-99D-0001 to Titan, in March 1999. The contract called for Titan initially to develop a plan to provide and manage linguists throughout the world, and later, implement the plan as required. The contract called for three levels of linguists- some were required to obtain security clearances and some were not. The linguist candidates were subject to some level of background investigations, based on individual requirements for security clearances. Since the award of the contract, hundreds of linguists have been provided, with generally positive results. It is noted that the contract calls for translation services only, and makes no mention of contractor employees actually conducting interrogations. Since the statement of work is limited to translation services, the linguists apparently were not required to review and sign the IROE at Abu Ghraib. A recent review of the contract indicated that the current contract ceiling is approximately $650 Million. Other agencies can order linguist services under this contract. For the most part, the ordering activity also provides the funds for these delivery orders. The contract contains a clause that allows the Contracting Officer to direct the contractor to remove linguists from the theater in which they are performing. This clause has been invoked on occasion for misconduct. (b) Interrogator contract-CACI, Inc. [1] (U) The second contractual arrangement is a series of Delivery Orders awarded to CACI, in August 2003, which call for the provision of numerous intelligence-related services such as "Interrogator Support," "Screening Cell Support," "Open Source Intelligence," "Special Security Office," "HUMINT Augmentee Contractors" (which includes "Interrogation Support," "Junior Interrogators," "Senior and Junior Counter-Intelligence Agents," and "Tactical/Strategic Interrogators"). SECRET/NOFORN//X1 SECRET/NOFORN//X1 SUBJECT: (U) AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th MI Brigade [2] (U) These Delivery Orders were awarded under a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) (NBCHA01-0005) with the National Business Center (NBC), a fee for service activity of the Interior Department. The BPA between CACI and NBC set out the ground rules for ordering from the General Services Administration (GSA) pursuant to GSA Schedule Contract GS-35F5872H, which is for various Information Technology (IT) Professional Services. Approximately eleven Delivery Orders were related to services in Iraq. While CJTF-7 is the requiring and funding activity for the Delivery Orders in question, it is not clear who, if anyone, in Army contracting or legal channels approved the use of the BPA, or why it was used. [3] (U) There is another problem with the CACI contract. A CACI employee, Thomas Howard, participated with the COR, LTC Brady, in writing the Statement of Work (SOW) prior to the award of the contract (Reference Annex B, Appendix 1, BOLTZ). This situation may violate the provisions of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 9. 505-2 (b) (1). [4] (U) On 13 May 2004, the Deputy General Counsel (Acquisition) of the Army issued an opinion that all Delivery Orders for Interrogator Services should be cancelled immediately as they were beyond the scope of the GSA Schedule contract. (2) (U) Although intelligence activities and related services, which encompass interrogation services, should be performed by military or government civilian personnel wherever feasible, it is recognized that contracts for such services may be required in urgent or emergency situations. The general policy of not contracting for intelligence functions and services was designed in part to avoid many of the problems that eventually developed at Abu Ghraib, i.e., lack of oversight to insure that intelligence operations continued to fall within the law and the authorized chain of command, as well as the government's ability to oversee contract operations. (3) (U) Performing the interrogation function in-house with government employees has several tangible benefits for the Army. It enables the Army more readily to manage the function if all personnel are directly and clearly subject to the chain of command, and other administrative and/or criminal sanctions, and it allows the function to be directly accessible by the commander/supervisor without going through a Contracting Officer Representative (COR). In addition, performing the function in-house enables Army Commanders to maintain a consistent approach to training (See Paragraph 3.b.(3)) and a reliable measure of the qualifications of the people performing the function. (4) (U) If it is necessary to contract for interrogator services, Army requiring activities must carefully develop the applicable SOW to include the technical requirements and requisite personnel qualifications, experience, and training. Any such contracts should, to the greatest extent possible, be awarded and administered by an Army contracting activity in order to provide for the necessary oversight, management, and chain of command. Use of contracting vehicles SECRET/NOFORN//X1 SECRETINOFORN//X4 SUBJECT: (U) AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th MI Brigade such as GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts should be carefully scrutinized given the complexity and sensitivities connected to interrogation operations. (5) (U) Some of the employees at Abu Ghraib were not DoD contractor employees. Contractor employees under non-DoD contracts may not be subject to the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (18 US Code 3261- 3267). The Act allows DoD contractor employees who are "accompanying the Armed Forces outside the United States” to be subject to criminal prosecution if they engage in conduct that would constitute an offense punishable by imprisonment for more than one year if the conduct had occurred within the jurisdiction of the United States. (6) (U) In the performance of such sensitive functions as interrogation, the Army needs to maintain close control over the entire operation. If a decision is made to contract for these services, the most effective way to do that and maintain a direct chain of command is to award, administer, and manage the contract with Army personnel. As learned in the current situation, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to effectively administer a contract when the COR is not on site. (7) (U) The Army needs to improve on-site contract monitoring by government employees (using CORS) to insure that the Army's basic interests are protected. The inadequacy of the onsite contract management at Abu Ghraib is best understood by reviewing the statement of CPT Wood (Reference Annex B, Appendix 1, WOOD), the Interrogation OIC, who indicated she never received any parameters or guidance as to how the CACI personnel were to be utilized. She also indicates that her primary point of contact (POC) on matters involving the CACI Delivery Orders was the CACI on-site manager. There is no mention of a COR. Another indication of the inadequacy of the contract management is reflected in the statement of SOLDIER 14 (Reference Annex B, Appendix 1, SOLDIER-14), who indicated he was never informed that the Government could reject unsatisfactory CACI employees. It would appear that no effort to familiarize the ultimate user of the contracted services of the contract's terms and procedures was ever made. In order to improve this situation, training is required to ensure that the COR is thoroughly familiar with the contract and gains some level of familiarity with the Geneva Conventions standards. It needs to be made clear that contractor employees are bound by the requirements of the Geneva Conventions. (8) (U) If it is necessary to contract for interrogator services, more specific training requirements and personnel standards must be incorporated into the solicitation/contract to insure that the contractor hires properly trained and qualified personnel. (9) (U) Emerging results from a DA Inspector General (DAIG) Investigation indicate that approximately 35% of the contract interrogators lacked formal military training as interrogators. SECRET/NOFORN//X1 SECRET/NOFORN/X1 SUBJECT: (U) AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th MI Brigade While there are specific technical requirements in the linguist contract, the technical requirements for the interrogator contract were not adequate. It appears that the only mention of qualifications in the contract stated merely that the contractor employee needs to have met the requirements of one of two MOS, 97E or 351E, or "equivalent". Any solicitation/contract for these services needs to list specific training, if possible, not just point to an MOS. If the training from the MOS is what is required, those requirements should be listed in the solicitation/contract in full, not just referenced. Perhaps the best way of insuring that contractor interrogators receive adequate training would be to utilize existing government training. For example, prospective contractor employees could be sent, at contractor expense, to the Tactical Human Intelligence Course for the 97E MOS, "Human Intelligence Collector." Such a step would likely require some adjustments to the current program of instruction. Prospective contract interrogators could be given the course tests on Interrogation and the Geneva Conventions. If they can pass the examinations, no further training would be required. After a reasonable training period, prospective contractor interrogators who are unable to pass the exam would be rejected. There are, of course other training possibilities. The key point would be agreement on some standardization of the training of contractor interrogators. The necessity for some sort of standard training and/or experience is made evident by the statements of both contractor employees and military personnel. CIVILIAN-21 (CACI) seemingly had little or no interrogator experience prior to coming to Abu Ghraib (Reference Annex B, Appendix 1,CIVILIAN-21, ADAMS), even though he was a Navy Reserve Intelligence Specialist. Likewise, numerous statements indicated that little, if any, training on Geneva Conventions was presented to contractor employces (Reference Annex B, Appendix 1, SOLDIER-25, CIVILIAN-10, CIVILIAN-21 and CIVILIAN-11). Prior to deployment, all contractor linguists or interrogators should receive training in the Geneva Conventions standards for the treatment of detainees/prisoners. This training should include a discussion of the chain of command and the establishment of some sort of "hotline" where suspected abuses can be reported in addition to reporting through the chain of command. If the solicitation/contract allows "equivalent" training and experience, the Contracting Officer, with the assistance of technical personnel, must evaluate and assess the offerors'/contractor's proposal/written rationale as to why it believes that the employee has "equivalent" training. It appears that under the CACI contract, no one was monitoring the contractor's decisions as to what was considered “equivalent." (10) (U) In addition, if functions such as these are being contracted, MI personnel need to have at least a basic level of contract training so they can protect the Army's interests. Another indication of the apparent inadequacy of on-site contract management and lack of contract training is the apparent lack of understanding of the appropriate relationship between contractor personnel, government civilian employees, and military personnel. Several people indicated in their statements that contractor personnel were "supervising" government personnel or vice versa. SGT Adams indicated that CACI employces were in positions of authority, and appeared to be supervising government personnel. She indicated a CACI employee named "First Name" SECRET/NOFORN//X1 SECRET/NOFORN//X1 SUBJECT: (U) AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th MI Brigade was listed as being in charge of screening. CIVILIAN-08 (CACI) was in charge of "B Section" with military personnel listed as subordinates on the organization chart. SOLDIER-14 also indicated that CIVILIAN-08 was a supervisor for a time. CPT Wood stated that CACI "supervised" military personnel in her statement, but offered no specifics. Finally, a government organization chart (Reference Annex H, Appendix 6, Tab B) showed a CIVILIAN-02 (CACI) as the Head of the DAB. CIVILIAN-02 is a CACI employee. On the other side of the coin, CIVILIAN-21 indicated in his statement that the Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC) was his supervisor. (Reference Annex B, Appendix 1, SOLDIER-14, CIVILIAN-21, ADAMS, WOOD) (11) (U) Given the sensitive nature of these sorts of functions, it should be required that the contractor perform some sort of background investigation on the prospective employees. A clause that would allow the government to direct the contractor to remove employees from the theater for misconduct would seem advisable. The need for a more extensive pre-performance background investigation is borne out by the allegations of abuse by contractor personnel. (12) (U) An important step in precluding the recurrence of situations where contractor personnel may engage in abuse of prisoners is to insure that a properly trained COR is on-site. Meaningful contract administration and monitoring will not be possible if a small number of CORS are asked to monitor the performance of one or more contractors who may have 100 or more employees in the theater, and in some cases, perhaps in several locations (which seems to have been the situation at Abu Ghraib). In these cases, the CORS do well to keep up with the paper work, and simply have no time to actively monitor contractor performance. It is apparent that there was no credible exercise of appropriate oversight of contract performance at Abu Ghraib. (13) (U) Proper oversight did not occur at Abu Ghraib due to a lack of training and inadequate contract management and monitoring. Failure to assign an adequate number of CORS to the area of contract performance puts the Army at risk of being unable to control poor performance or become aware of possible misconduct by contractor personnel. This lack of monitoring was a contributing factor to the problems that were experienced with the performance of the contractors at Abu Ghraib. The Army needs to take a much more aggressive approach to contract administration and management if interrogator services are to be contracted. Some amount of advance planning should be utilized to learn from the mistakes made at Abu Ghraib. h. (U) Other Government Agencies and Abu Ghraib. (1) (U) Although the FBI, JTF-121, Criminal Investigative Task Force, ISG and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were all present at Abu Ghraib, the acronym "Other Government Agency" (OGA) referred almost exclusively to the CIA. CIA detention and interrogation SECRET/NOFORNI/X1 |