The letter charges that the delay of the OIG report’s release has been reportedly “due to efforts by very senior Department of Justice (DOJ) officials to suppress it” because it would expose “serious misconduct”. It added that “the continued delay in releasing report calls into serious question the independence of the DHS OIG.”   

Arar said, “By suppressing the report and issuing one page of publicly available information, this U.S. administration adds insult to injury. This ‘summary’ raises more questions than answers about the government’s behavior, and does not answer the central question— why I was sent to Syria to be tortured. ”  

The suit against the contactors, filed last week in Los Angeles federal court on behalf of Emad Al-Janabi, a 43-year-old Iraqi blacksmith, alleges that Al-Janabi was wrongly imprisoned,  beaten and forced from his home by people in U.S. military uniforms and civilian clothing in September 2003. He was released from Abu Ghraib without charge in July 2004.

The defendants are contractors CACI International Inc. and CACI Premier Technology, Inc., of Arlington, Va.; L-3 Communications Titan Corporation, of San Diego, Calif.; and former CACI contractor Steven Stefanowicz, a Los Angeles resident known at Abu Ghraib as “Big Steve.” 

The suit charges that the contractors subjected Al-Janabi to physical and mental torture in sessions where the defendants acted as interrogators and translators. It alleges the contractors transported him to a detainee site in a wooden box and covered with a hood; scarred on his face when his eyes were clawed by an interrogator; exposed him to a mock execution of his brother and nephew; hung upside down with his feet chained to the steel slats of a bunk bed until he lost consciousness; and repeatedly deprived of food and sleep and threatened with dogs. 

In October of 2003, during a surprise inspection of Abu Ghraib, the International Committee of the Red Cross discovered Mr. Al-Janabi naked, chained and bruised in a cell in the “hard site” of the prison. He was a so-called “ghost detainee” who was intentionally hidden from the Red Cross on subsequent inspections and held without appearing on the prisoner lists.

The lawsuit – which alleges multiple violations of U.S. law, including torture, war crimes, and civil conspiracy – notes that CACI provided interrogators used at Abu Ghraib and that L-3 employed all translators used there. Mr. Stefanowicz was linked to Abu Ghraib abuses in military court martial proceedings and was said to have directed low-level U.S. military personnel in detainee interrogations.  

The lawsuit also alleges that a newly published book, “Our Good Name”, by CACI Chairman J.P. (Jack) London, reveals that CACI’s internal investigation failed to include any interviews of detainees or of a former employee whistleblower. 

According to the lawsuit, “CACI has repeatedly made, and continues to make, knowingly false statements to the effect that none of its employees was involved in torturing prisoners. In fact, co-conspirators have admitted that Big Steve and several other corporate employees were involved in the torture,” and at least one publicly released Abu Ghraib photograph shows a former CACI employee interrogating a prisoner in a dangerous and harmful stress position not authorized by relevant military regulations governing interrogation. 

In the U.S. Congress, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted last week to     limit Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) interrogators to techniques approved by the military, which would effectively bar them from waterboarding prisoners, congressional officials said.

The vote on an amendment by Sen. Diane Feinstein, a Democrat from California, taken behind closed doors as the committee debated legislation to authorize money for intelligence operations in 2009, marks at least the second attempt by intelligence overseers in Congress to regulate CIA questioning of detainees.  

President Bush vetoed the 2008 intelligence authorization bill in March because it included the same curbs on questioning techniques. This interrogation provision, if passed by the full Senate and House, would likely face the same fate.  

We need to hear from Sens. McCain, Obama and Clinton on these issues. But no one in the media seems interested in asking the question.         

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