The horrors of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were first exposed by 60 Minutes in 2004. Images surfaced of Iraqi males tortured, abused, dead and even their corpses violated.
Naked bodies of men piled on one another, one Iraqi tied to a leash, terrified prisoners menaced by vicious dogs, prisoners degraded, beaten, sexually assaulted, their rights and manhood violated as military contractors worked with U.S. servicemen to force confessions, extract information and seek control of a chaotic country that should never have been invaded.
Two decades later a measure of justice was delivered with a multi-million-dollar verdict against a Virginia-based security contractor. Lawyers for the three men who filed the lawsuit described it as the first such case to even come to trial and reflect some “accountability for U.S. post-9/11 torture.”
A federal court jury sitting in Alexandria, Va., found CACI Premier Technology, Inc., liable for its role in the torture of Iraqi men at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003-2004. The court’s judgment was that each of the men be paid $3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages. That’s a total of $42 million.
“Today is a big day for me and for justice,” said Salah Al-Ejaili, a journalist and Iraqi national who survived the prison horrors, reported CommonDreams.org.
“I’ve waited a long time for this day. This victory isn’t only for the three plaintiffs in this case against a corporation. 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. Those companies should no longer feel exempt from accountability moving forward.”
“The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed in 2008 on behalf of three men who endured the sorts of torture and abuse made infamous by leaked images that horrified the world 20 years ago. The jury in an earlier trial last April was unable to reach a unanimous decision; today’s verdict comes from a retrial with a new jury,” said lawyers for the men Nov. 12.
The jury found CACI liable for conspiring to torture and otherwise aiding and abetting the torture of Suhail Al Shimari, a middle school principal, Asa’ad Zuba’e, a fruit vendor, and Mr. Al-Ejaili, lawyers explained.
“The men were all held at the ‘hard site,’ the part of the prison where the most severe abuses occurred. Along with hundreds of other Iraqis tortured at Abu Ghraib, they have suffered long-standing physical and emotional effects,” the attorneys said.
Katherine Gallagher, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, added, “For 20 years, CACI has refused to take responsibility for its role in torture at Abu Ghraib. The jury’s verdict makes clear CACI’s role in this shameful part of our history.”
The case, attorneys said, opened files on the “U.S. government’s post-9/11 torture regime, which extended from Guantanamo to Iraq and Afghanistan to secret prisons around the world.
It also brings a new degree of accountability to the shadowy realm of security contractors at a time when employees of private companies, integral to the U.S. ‘war on terror,’ have often been implicated in human rights abuses across the globe.
The case was brought under the Alien Tort Statute. The federal law, stemming back to 1789, permits foreigners to appeal in U.S. courts for certain violations of international law.
The verdict follows 16 years of legal fights and “more than 20 attempts by CACI to have the case dismissed, and a previous trial in which the jury was unable to reach a verdict.”
“Never before this case had survivors of U.S post-9/11 torture testified in a U.S. courtroom. It also featured testimony from U.S. generals, CACI employees, and former MPs involved in the torture,” lawyers explained.
“In U.S. military reports, investigators concluded that CACI employees had conspired with U.S. soldiers to ‘soften up’ imprisoned Iraqis, and low-level military personnel who worked under CACI employees’ instructions were court-martialed for their role in the torture,”
Said attorneys in the case, which was a collaborative effort between the Center for Constitutional Rights and the law firms of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, and Akeel & Valentine, PLC.
Has America closed another hideous chapter on war, torture and abuse? Not likely.
“Afghanistan, Iraq, maybe Libya. If you asked the average American where the United States has been at war in the past two decades, you would likely get this short list.
But this list is wrong—off by at least 17 countries in which the United States has engaged in armed conflict through ground forces, proxy forces, or air strikes,” declared the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.
Defense Department programs have allowed America to pursue “secret wars” that even the U.S. Congress doesn’t fully know about. Neither do U.S. citizens whose sons and daughters fight these wars and whose tax dollars fund them, the center warned.
Its report, “Secret War: How the U.S. Uses Partnerships and Proxy Forces to Wage War Under the Radar,” points to other nations where these military ops are underway.
They included Somalia, Cameroon, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. They counted 22 nations in Sub-Saharan and North Africa and 50 nations along arcs from Mexico to Peru and Indonesia to the Philippines.
“This proliferation of secret war is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it is undemocratic and dangerous. The conduct of undisclosed hostilities in unreported countries contravenes our constitutional design.
It invites military escalation that is unforeseeable to the public, to Congress, and even to the diplomats charged with managing U.S. foreign relations. And it risks poorly conceived, counterproductive operations with runaway costs, in terms of both dollars and civilian lives,” the Brennan Center stressed.
These dangerous efforts operate under counterterrorism programs, security cooperation programs, “irregular warfare” and other Pentagon doctrines and authorizations. “Despite a series of Cold War–era executive orders that prohibit assassinations, the covert action statute has been used throughout the war on terror to conduct drone strikes outside areas of active hostilities,” the report noted.
“Congress should repeal or reform the Department of Defense’s security cooperation authorities. Until it does so, the nation will continue to be at war—without, in some cases, the consent or even knowledge of its people,” the Brennan Center said.
More war, and more atrocities lead to more terror and torture while sowing seeds for more enemies.
Naba’a Muhammad is editor-in-chief of The Final Call newspaper. He can be reached via www.finalcall.com and [email protected]. Find him on Facebook. Follow @Rmfinalcall on X and Instagram.
