and you might wonder what caci stands for...

California Analysis Center, Incorporated, actually [#921 in the 2006 Fortune 1000 list of the largest companies in America. CACI also ranked 8th among the top 10 information technology providers on the 2006 Fortune 500 list (from Wikipedia); its symbol: "Ever Vigilant"], although, to be near the trough, they are actually situated in arlington, va. you might remember them from the news a couple years back. well here they are again:

• The story they [caci] don't want told is of a federal contractor that, according to the Washington Post, gets 92 percent of its revenues in the "defense" sector. The Washington Business Journal reported that CACI's defense contracts almost doubled in the year after the occupation of Iraq began, and profits shot up 52 percent.

• Yet CACI insists it isn't a war profiteer (a subjective term anyway), but was just answering an urgent call in Iraq. In a letter to Greenwald, Koegel wrote: "the army needed ... civilian contractors to work as interrogators" because the military didn't have the personnel, and CACI responded to the "urgent war-time circumstances" and "has no apologies."

• But while the firm had experience in electronic surveillance and other intelligence functions, it, too, didn't have the interrogators. Barry Lando reported finding an ad on CACI's website for interrogators to send to Iraq, and noted that "experience in conducting tactical and strategic interrogations" was desired, but not necessary. According to a report by the Army inspector general, 11 of the 31 CACI interrogators in Iraq had no training in what most experts agree is one of the most sensitive areas of intelligence gathering. The 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, which was in charge of interrogations at Abu Ghraib when the abuses took place, didn't have a single trained interrogator.

• "It's insanity," former CIA agent Robert Baer told The Guardian. "These are rank amateurs, and there is no legally binding law on these guys as far as I could tell. Why did they let them in the prison?"("CACI: Torture in Iraq, Intimidation at Home," By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted November 21, 2006)

it should be noted that caci maintains a "truth will out" page noting that

• No CACI employee or former employee has ever been indicted for any misconduct in connection with CACI's work in Iraq. While three former employees have been cited in various reports in connection with disputed incidents in Iraq, no CACI employee took part or appears in any of the horrific photos released from Abu Ghraib.

indeed, in 2004, the caci's own legal team made the following points about the privatizing of military intelligence which has been the one-note samba of balkanization and this blog for some time:

• We believe the following information adds perspective to CACI's work in Iraq.
• The military did not have available interrogators needed to gather and analyze field source intelligence data and information in Iraq. CACI provides IT solutions and technology services to the U.S. Intelligence community. CACI interrogation services business is an extension of CACI's tactical intelligence and field services line of business for information collection, data analysis and decision support. CACI performs these contract services because of its commitment to its U.S. Army clients at war in the mid-East.
• These private sector positions exist because the military downsized as part of a cutback plan in the early 1990's aimed at reducing Pentagon personnel while expanding technology and weapons. ("CACI's Letter to The Signal," Letter to the Editor, Dated Friday, June 11, 2004, Jody Brown, Senior Vice President, Public Relations, CACI International Inc., Arlington, VA)

privatize interrgators, the argument appears to be, so that you can have them on the cheap, experience not necessary, and then, when the war is over (when will the war on "terror" ever be over?) you can downsize quickly. not only does that mean weaker intelligence gathered, the potential for abuse done in the name of the citizens of the usa, and little or no oversight, it clearly is saving the usa taxpayer no money as this group has not been downsized in the least (see caci profits above).

before we leave....

might we have a bit of oversight, a review, an inquiry even, into the role of private companies on the public spiggot?

• As Bechtel Corp. exits Iraq, we still know little about the quality of the company's work there.
  Government reports on Bechtel's Iraq projects often discuss ballooning costs and blown schedules, blaming the costs and delays on security problems. For the most part, you won't see how well the San Francisco engineering company repaired the power and sewage plants under its care or how wisely it spent the $2.3 billion in its contracts.

• The same holds true for many of the other engineering and construction companies that have spent the past three years rebuilding Iraq. Some, including Halliburton and Parsons Corp., have seen their projects scrutinized in depth. Others haven't. (Little scrutiny for firms in Iraq, S.F.'s Bechtel among most prominent ones, David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer, Tuesday, November 14, 2006)