The Joys Of Privatization, Cont.

Part of the problem at the Abu Ghraib prison, though this in no way excuses the actions of the soldiers involved in torturing Iraqi prisoners, was that some of the staff were private contractors, and, as such, not accountable to military rules (see earlier posts about mercenary soldiers).

"Myers [a lawyer for one of the accused soldiers] said two U.S. firms — CACI International of Arlington, Va., and Titan Corp. of San Diego — were involved in providing private interrogators and interpreters at Abu Ghraib.
Both firms were named in a military investigative report looking into the allegations. According to the report, a CACI employee was terminated from duty at the prison because of the infractions.
Myers said it was difficult to know what percentage of the prison's staff consisted of private contractors, but he said those figures and other elements of the operations would be disclosed during a trial."

Again, the use of private contractors is not the whole problem. But, also as mentioned earlier, the continual "outsourcing" of military jobs to private, UNNACOUNTABLE firms can probably be written off as a Bad Idea.

Though I don't agree with all of his analysis ("Sociologically, Americans are about as well prepared for the burdens of modern imperialism as they were for the cultural revolution of the 1960s," for example), Billmon has a good post up about the prison affair and the odd divergence between US and foreign media coverage of it.