A federal jury ordered the private military contractor to pay $42 million in damages to three Iraqi men who sued the company sixteen years ago for its complicity in their torture at this notorious Iraqi prison.
Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, became a potent negative symbol of the US occupation of Iraq after evidence emerged of detainee abuse by American soldiers at the facility.
Most of the abuse took place at the end of 2003, when CACI employees were working in the prison, according to the suit.
The company’s civilian employees were accused of having encouraged US soldiers to abuse the prisoners to prepare them for interrogation.
Criminal charges were brought against 11 low-ranking guards, including former army reserve specialist Lynndie England, who was shown smiling in photographs while posing next to naked prisoners.
“This victory is a shining light for everyone who has been oppressed and a strong warning to any company or contractor practicing different forms of torture and abuse,” one of the plaintiffs said in a statement.
Military Prisons in the GWOT
Abu Ghraib and another facility on the other side of the world, Guantánamo Bay, were the most infamous Global War On Terror prisons. But they were just the tip of the iceberg.
From the start, the GWOT was an all-in conflict. Then-President George W. Bush was determined to do everything possible to eradicate, or at least hamstring, international terrorists throughout the world.
On September 17, 2001, President Bush authorized the CIA to operate a secret detention program under which suspected terrorists were secretly transported to be held incommunicado in CIA prisons (black sites) outside the United States, where they were subjected to what he termed “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
President Bush first publicly acknowledged the secret detention program on September 6, 2006, when he announced that the CIA had detained and interrogated detainees in secret locations outside the United States before transferring fourteen of them to Guantánamo Bay.
Bush said about a hundred suspected terrorists were held in prisons in Afghanistan, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania, and Thailand. About a third of these prisoners experienced the aforementioned enhanced interrogation techniques, which, according to multiple sources,s included:
- Walling (quickly pulling detainees forward and then thrusting them against flexible false walls),
- Water dousing,
- Stress positions (forcing detainees to remain in body positions designed to induce physical discomfort),
- Wall standing (forcing detainees to remain standing with arms outstretched so their fingers touch a wall four to five feet away and support the entire body weight),
- Cramped confinement in a box,
- Insult slaps (slapping detainees on the face with fingers spread),
- Facial hold (holding detainees’ heads temporarily immobile during interrogation with palms on either side of the face), and
- Attention grasp (grasping detainees with both hands, one hand on each side of the collar opening, and quickly drawing them toward interrogators).
Despite public outcry and opposition, Bush re-upped the program in 2007. According to an internal memo written at the time, the CIA “expect[ed] to detain further high-value detainees who meet requirements for the program, and it propos[ed] to have six interrogation techniques available for use, as appropriate.”
The Justice Department concluded that these methods were lawful, including under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and under the Detainee Treatment Act, signed into law by President Bush on December 30, 2005, which specifically barred the imposition of “the cruel, unusual, [or] inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution” on anyone in the custody of the United States government, regardless of location or nationality.
During Congressional hearings, several career law enforcement officers testified that torture was ineffective and collaborative interrogation techniques were much more effective.
In December 2012, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence approved a classified 6,000-page report entitled “Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation.”
When commenting on the report, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) stated that she strongly believed that the creation of “black sites” and the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” were “terrible mistakes” and that the majority of the committee agreed.
Contractors at Abu Ghraib and Legal Responsibility
CACI’s lawyers insisted that the contractors were not liable under the borrowed servant doctrine. Essentially, this doctrine states that people, in this case, private military contractors under the direct control of the U.S. government, must follow orders. That is a matter for the courts to decide, which is why the jury’s verdict was probably only Round One in this legal battle.
This legal accountability may be the biggest difference between mercenaries and contractors. Mercenaries operate completely outside of any law. They are not subject to civilian laws since they are not civilians, and they are not subject to military laws since they are not military. In contrast, a contractor is a civilian who wears a uniform.
We should stop and state that in this topsy-turvy world, private military contractors and other workers are asked to do things that may seem immoral or even illegal. The proper response is not to blindly follow orders or rebel against authority. Instead, make your concerns noted and be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Injury Compensation Available
For contractors, the American legal system gives as well as takes away. The Defense Base Act, a civil law, pays important benefits when contractors are injured overseas. These benefits include lost wage replacement. Usually, the Defense Base Act pays two-thirds of the victim’s average weekly wage for the duration of a temporary or permanent disability.
Full disability payments are available if the victim has a total temporary or permanent disability. Basically, “disabled” means the victim cannot work because of a medical condition and cannot work at another job due to his/her educational, vocational, and other background.
Partial benefits are available if the victim has a partial disability. Some temporarily disabled victims can work part-time as they recover. Some permanent disability victims can work in a diminished capacity, perhaps because of a missing digit or permanent lung injury.
Accurate AWW calculation is important in these matters. Many disability victims, even temporary disability victims, miss wage increase opportunities because of their illnesses or injuries. The AWW must reflect those lost opportunities.
For more information about DBA medical benefits, contact Barnett, Lerner, Karsen, Frankel & Castro, P.A.