UPDATE 2-13-2007: On background, I am informed that folks are researching Mr. Fair’s activities in Iraq. If I learn more, I’ll let you know.
In today’s Washington Post, Eric Fair pens a column about the memories he has of the few months that he served as a civilian contractor in Iraq in early 2004. An Iraq Interrogator’s Nightmare is the title of the piece.
American authorities continue to insist that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident in an otherwise well-run detention system. That insistence, however, stands in sharp contrast to my own experiences as an interrogator in Iraq. I watched as detainees were forced to stand naked all night, shivering in their cold cells and pleading with their captors for help. Others were subjected to long periods of isolation in pitch-black rooms. Food and sleep deprivation were common, along with a variety of physical abuse, including punching and kicking. Aggressive, and in many ways abusive, techniques were used daily in Iraq, all in the name of acquiring the intelligence necessary to bring an end to the insurgency. The violence raging there today is evidence that those tactics never worked. My memories are evidence that those tactics were terribly wrong.
This man was in Iraq as the Abu Ghraib scandal was becoming a national scandal. His description of events dates from that time, some three years ago. It is history, not news.
Mr Fair was named as an agent of CACI International, Inc., CACI Incorporated, in a RICO law suit that was filed in July 2004. That suit, by several Iraqis, alledged that CACI Corp though Fair and others did:
The CACI Corporate Defendants, acting through its employees, engaged in racketeering activity by participating in a conspiracy that kidnapped persons and repeatedly threatened to murder and harm persons being detained in prisons in Iraq. In addition, Plaintiffs believe that discovery and further investigation will establish that the CACI Corporate Defendants, acting through its employees, conspired to murder and otherwise harm persons being detained in prison in Iraq and transported stolen property across state lines.
The description of the individual being interrogated by Fair likely dates from March or April of 2004, based upon the capture date of January 11, 2004 of Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad. The individual was handled by Fair like this:
The lead interrogator at the DIF had given me specific instructions: I was to deprive the detainee of sleep during my 12-hour shift by opening his cell every hour, forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes.
Greg Mitchell, of Editor & Publisher, notes prior writing by Fair, in a similar vein. The lefty blogs are all over this story as well.
I’m not at all sure why Mr. Fair has his panties in a twist. It seems clear that he was a willing participant, as a civilian contractor, in the interrogation process in Iraq. It also appears that he’s been growing increasingly agitated about whatever is bothering him. Still, he is complaining about events that took place three years ago, less than a year after the Liberation of Iraq, and before the Iraqi people had elected a government.
This is old news, and part of what has been a calculated campaign. The media keeps dredging up old news, repackaging it as new, and the intent is to make the American people believe that our men and women in uniform are cruel, brutish and criminals.
Eric Fair has nothing new to report on the work our military is doing in Iraq. He is just another effort by the left to smear good people, and create doubt in the American people as to the good we are doing in Iraq.
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Decline and Fall // Feb 10, 2007 at
I was an Interrogator in Iraq, but I arrived the same week the scandal did, when everyone was running for cover. I don’t believe I’ve ever met Eric Fair, but the interrogation community is a small one.
Fair was at the Fallujah DIF (Division Interogation Facility), where the detainees arrive within a week or so of capture, so your date of March or April 2004 is probably off. Also, I would be surprised if Fair gave the actual name of the detainee in question, although I wouldn’t rule that out, and January 2004 fits with the stated timeline in Fair’s piece.
Fair was named in that RICO lawsuit, but in that lawsuit only Steven Stefanowicz was named as a CACI employee engaged in racketeering. It stated that further investigation would reveal which of these persons (including Fair) also engaged in racketeering. So lumping Fair in with Stefanowicz is not exactly fair (pun intended) to Eric.
As for him getting his panties in a twist, yes, he was a willing participant in interrogation activities. All U.S. interrogators are taught that torture is not only wrong, but it’s ineffective as well. The long-standing policy of the Basic Interrogation Course is that if a student vilotes Geneva in an exercise, he fails the interrogation, and repeated violations will get you sent to another MOS. I know this policy was in place when Fair went to the school, because we evidently just missed each other.
This is not a lefty smear on the good name of America, it’s a call for accountability and acknowledgement that what happened there was real, it was wrong, and it was fundamentally un-American. There’s no grand conspiracy to make our boys in uniform look bad, but after My Lai it is important for us as a nation to recognize that bad things do happen in ou name, and to correct the wrongs.
[editor: He names the Baathist, and that man was captured in January 2004. He says that the man who haunts him was interrogated two months later.
As for the course, good to know. But, as a civilian contractor, a change of MOS is not applicable.
There has been accountibility. Dozens of men and women have received courts martial for detainee abuse. Some have been tried for murder. I would venture a guess that, per capita, far more have been tried in this war than were tried in Vietnam. I believe we are doing a good job of cleaning out the criminals.
Making a man stand naked and sleepless in a corner is hardly the stuff of nightmares.]
2 Decline and Fall // Feb 10, 2007 at
You’re right, I misread the date.
But as for the civilian contractor bit, Fair served in the Army from 1995-2001. Which means that after Basic Training and DLI, he arrived at the MI schoolhouse in 1996-1997. To be hired as an Interrogation Contractor in Iraq, you needed to show that you had completed the course and served as an Interrogator. Fair evidently was a qualified interrogator. (An informal survey of some of my friends in the biz yielded two who remembered him, by the way.) I mentioned the change in MOS in the context of violations during training, which is to say that if you screw up at the schoolhouse, you don’t get to be an interrogator, period.
One of the great shames of the scandal is the revelation that the contractors fall into a legal gray area. It’s really hard to prosecute them, because no one is exactly sure where they fall. Stefanowicz has, to my knowledge, not been tried because of that fact.
Perhaps forcing a man to stand naked and sleepless isn’t what would cause you nightmares, but it is a violation of the law. Also, it’s not just the extent to which the law was violated, but the mere fact that the interrogator de-humanized the detainee. That’s not a realization I’d like to come to grips with.