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Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Taking the Fall

Today, Rep. Henry Waxman's Committee on Government Reform (Minority Office) draws attention to a recent GAO study critiquing the administration's use of Virginia-based contractor CACI International to interrogate prisoners in Iraq.

According to the report, "the Administration repeatedly violated federal procurement rules when it awarded this interrogation work to CACI," one of many top-level policies that led us to the prisoner abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib.

It comes the day after Pfc. Lynndie England of West Virginia entered her guilty plea for her role in the abuse, which brought the total number of U.S. military personnel convicted in the scandal to eight. Half (all Army reservists) are from the South, which is in line with the over-representation of Southerners in the military, especially in the lower echelons (the last time the Institute researched this in 2002, 42% of the nation's troops came from the South).

No innocent players here. But guess which is getting more media attention?
posted by Chris Kromm at 11:10 AM | Email this post | Post a Comment
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CHRIS KROMM blogs three days a week for Facing South. Chris is Executive Director of the Institute for Southern Studies and publisher of the Institute’s award-winning magazine, Southern Exposure.

SUE STURGIS blogs four days a week for Facing South. Sue is the Institute’s Editorial Director and a former reporter for The Independent Weekly and The Raleigh News & Observer.

DESIREE EVANS blogs four days a week for Facing South. Desiree is a Research Associate at the Institute and former policy analyst for TransAfrica.

The views expressed on Facing South are those of the authors and not necessarily represent the views of the Institute for Southern Studies. The editors reserve the right to reject comments that are abusive, offensive, misleading, or that promote commercial goods and services.

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