By Matt Kelley

June 12, 2004 | The Army hired private interrogators to
work in Iraq and Afghanistan despite the service's policy of
barring contractors from military intelligence jobs such as
interrogating prisoners.

A policy memo from December 2000 says letting private
workers gather military intelligence would jeopardize
national security.

An Army spokeswoman said senior commanders have the
authority to override the contractor ban.

Some of the dozens of private contractors hired to
interrogate prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan are under
investigation in connection with abuses at the Abu Ghraib
prison near Baghdad and other prisons. Army investigators
are looking into whether the contracts were awarded properly.

The Abu Ghraib case also stirred criticism from some
Democrats that the Pentagon was relying too heavily on
private contractors, even for military functions such as
collecting intelligence.

Thomas White, who quit as Army secretary last year after
clashing with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said he
opposed hiring contractors to question prisoners.

"The principle that should be applied is that the basic
process of interrogation and oversight of prisoners should
be kept in-house, on the Army side," White said in a
telephone interview. "That's something that would have to be
under the direct supervision of the Army."

Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Pamela Hart said Saturday that the
contractor ban remains in effect. The policy allows for
hiring private interrogators and interpreters if there are
not enough of those specialists in the Army.

"Commanders on the ground may use their discretion," Hart said.

The Army's top personnel official, Patrick T. Henry, wrote
the policy in December 2000.

Henry cited a "risk to national security" in turning over
intelligence functions to private sector workers. Private
contractors may work for companies that do business with
other countries and are not subject to the same chain of
command that soldiers are, Henry wrote.

"Reliance on private contractors poses risks to maintaining
adequate civilian oversight over intelligence operations,"
Henry wrote. "Civilian oversight over intelligence
operations and technologies is essential to assure
intelligence operations are conducted with adequate security
safeguards and within the scope of law and direction of the
authorized chain of command."

An Army report on the abuses at Abu Ghraib says problems at
the prison included confusion over who was in charge of
contractors and a lack of supervision of the private workers.

The report from Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba says one contract
interrogator, Steven Stefanowicz of CACI International, and
a contract translator, John B. Israel of Titan Corp., were
"either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at
Abu Ghraib."

Israel's family has declined comment. Henry Hockeimer Jr., a
lawyer for Stefanowicz, has said his client did nothing wrong.

A third contractor implicated in the abuses, translator Adel
Nakhla of Titan, has been fired. Nakhla's lawyer, Francis Q.
Hoang, has not returned repeated messages.