The following is an excerpt of Robert Greenwald's testimony to the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Defense about war profiteering:I spent a year researching the experiences of soldiers, truck drivers and families affected by the presence of private military contractors [i.e. mercenaries] in Iraq.
Imagine someone with the exact same job as you, working next to you, but getting paid three times as much as you! We heard this story over and over again from the soldiers we interviewed.
US Army specialist Anthony Lagouranis spoke of the effects of the private contractors on the military: "It certainly affected retention because I don't know why any military person would re-enlist to do the same job when they could get out of the military and make six times the money -- I really don't understand why they were outsourced. I mean, it seems like this is a military job and the military should be doing it. Especially because the more civilians you have out there, the more military people you need to guard them. So we're spreading us thin."
In my research, I was shocked to discover the role of contractors in the tragedy of Abu Ghraib. Its images are seared into the minds of people throughout the world, yet few realize the role of CACI and its interrogators. As our team dug deeper and deeper into the numerous contracts, CACI and JP London kept appearing over and over. The Taguba report, the Fay report, and the Human Rights Watch report "By The Numbers" all made clear that CACI had played a significant role in the torture.
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