Army requested company’s interrogators for Iraq prison

In August 2003, the military command overseeing troops in Iraq specifically requested that interrogators working for CACI Inc., a large government contractor, be deployed to Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, according to officials with an Interior Department office that issued the contract to hire the interrogators on the military's behalf.

At least one employee hired under the contract, Steven Stefanowicz, is alleged in an Army report to have helped set conditions at the prison that he knew would lead to physical abuse of inmates.

A contracting officer in the Interior office decided to hire the CACI interrogators under an existing contract with the company for information technology services, even though the military's requirements for interrogators had tenuous links to technology. The details of the purchase, which Interior's inspector general is probing, shed light on the multi-layered and often murky process that has come to characterize much of the government's contracting activities in Iraq. They also reveal the vague lines of accountability that govern the conduct of some contractors working for and with U.S. military forces.

The Interior Department's National Business Center managed the purchase of interrogation services. Established in 2000, the center provides procurement, payroll and other administrative services for federal agencies for a fee.

In January 2001, NBC took over contracting activities at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz., site of the Army's military intelligence training school. At that time, NBC assumed responsibility for a Ft. Huachuca-run contract for various information technology services, known as a blanket purchase agreement.

Premier Technology Group Inc., a company reportedly founded by former military intelligence officers, was authorized to sell services under that agreement. The company has had an office at Ft. Hood, Tex., home to the 504th Military Intelligence Brigade and the 89th Military Police Brigade, which replaced a brigade in Iraq implicated in the prisoner abuse. Premier also works under contract with Army bases in Germany to provide intelligence and counterterrorism services.

CACI bought Premier in May 2003 to obtain its military intelligence business. As part of the deal, CACI also acquired Premier's blanket technology contract, by then administered by NBC. An Interior spokesman said Tuesday that military commanders in Iraq specifically requested the CACI interrogators, who also were hired to perform various intelligence-gathering functions. The technical component of their work consisted largely of data entry and processing -- the data being intelligence gathered during interrogation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Because the interrogation services accompanied this technology-related work, an NBC contracting officer felt justified awarding all the work using CACI's technology contract, said Frank Quimby, an NBC spokesman.

The legal authority for taking such action is questionable. CACI's contract is a pre-negotiated list of services, known as a schedule, first approved by the General Services Administration in 1998. Any federal agency can use a schedule, which allows the government to purchase goods and services quickly from thousands of companies with little administrative oversight.

Orders under schedules are supposed to be limited to the scope of services described in the schedule, Quimby said. CACI's technology schedule doesn't cover intelligence or interrogation services. Federal procurement data also shows that Premier-before it was acquired by CACI-sold intelligence and counterterrorism services under its schedule to the Army.

The Interior inspector general likely will examine these issues. The Defense Department inspector general has concluded that several Defense agencies have misused the schedules, sometimes to issue orders for work in Iraq. The military misused technology schedules there by ordering non-related items under the contracts, the inspector general concluded in a March report. CACI is not named in that review.

Quimby said that while NBC administered the CACI contact, the Army has responsibility for "day-to-day…direct supervision" of CACI employees at Abu Ghraib. An Army contract officer representative, who is supposed to monitor that activity, is in Iraq, but Quimby said NBC has had "infrequent and sporadic" contact with that person because of the distance between the U.S. and Baghdad and the poor communications infrastructure in Iraq.

As of last week, the Army reported it was "satisfied with CACI's personnel and contract performance," Quimby said. Neither Interior nor NBC received any indication from the Army's representative "that anything was amiss with the contractor's performance," he added.

Nevertheless, NBC has informed the Army it will issue no more orders under the technology contract used for the interrogators, Quimby said. Officials took that step as a "prudent move" while the inspector general looks into the CACI matter, he said. NBC will let the agreement expire in August, he added.