Untitled Document
In light of the new Abu Ghraib photos being released it is worth revisiting
some of the stories that came out with the first batch of pictures.
One involved the presence of Israeli citizens and Israeli "consultants"
at Abu Ghraib.
From Counterpunch:
With mounting evidence that a shadowy group of former Israeli Defense
Force and General Security Service (Shin Bet) Arabic-speaking interrogators
were hired by the Pentagon under a classified "carve out" sub-contract
to brutally interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison,
one only needs to examine the record of abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners
in Israel to understand what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meant, when
referring to new, yet to be released photos and videos, he said, "if these
images are released to the public, obviously its going to make matters worse."
According to a political appointee within the Bush administration and U.S.
intelligence sources, the interrogators at Abu Ghraib included a number of Arabic-speaking
Israelis who also helped U.S. interrogators develop the "R2I" (Resistance
to Interrogation) techniques. Many of the torture methods were developed by
the Israelis over many years of interrogating Arab prisoners on the occupied
West Bank and in Israel itself.
Although it is still largely undocumented if any of the contractor named in
the report of General Antonio Taguba were associated with the Israeli military
or intelligence services, it is noteworthy that one, John Israel,
who was identified in the report as being employed by both CACI International
of Arlington, Virginia, and Titan, Inc., of San Diego, may not have even been
a U.S. citizen. The Taguba report states that Israel did not have a security
clearance, a requirement for employment as an interrogator for CACI.
In an even more bizarre twist, the Philadelphia Daily News identified a former
expatriate public relations specialist for the government of South Australia
in Adelaide named Steve Stefanowicz as possibly being the same
person identified in the Taguba report. In 2000, Stefanowicz, who grew up in
the Philadelphia and Allentown areas, left for Australia.
There is also reference to these two individuals in a NYT article posted here
Counter Punch
SFGate
