Gale Norton and Abu Ghraib

[donsu]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.contractor24may24,0,1298454.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines


The U.S. civilian interrogators questioning prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq work not under a military contract but on one from the Department of the Interior, a bureaucratic twist that could complicate any effort to hold them criminally responsible for abuse of detainees or other offenses.

-snip-


"You're placing a military interrogation task under Smokey the Bear," Singer said. "You can't have good oversight."

What's more, legal experts say, contractors for nonmilitary agencies such as the Department of the Interior may be able to escape prosecution for crimes they commit overseas because of an apparent loophole in the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act. The law, passed in 2000, applies only to contractors with the Department of Defense - a flaw some members of Congress want to remedy.

-snip-


But in the case of the contract interrogators at Abu Ghraib, the chain of command is especially blurry, because it ends with an obscure Department of the Interior office 70 miles southeast of Tucson, Ariz.
-snip-
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scams

cons

suckered

that's us

[napi21]

1. HOW can it ever be justified to put this under the Interior Dept?

I could understand if it were under the CIA, FBI, or even Justice, but THE INTERIOR! Please help me think of ANY scenario that could justify this!

[punpirate]

2. This helps confirm some suggestions I've been reading...

... that the actual military budget is not what appears in the DoD part of the budget, but that military costs have often been hidden in other agencies.