The Obama administration has objected to a provision--backed by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-MI)--in the 2010 defense funding bill that would bar the military's use of contractors to interrogate detainees. Um, didn't we want to stop outsourcing what's an inherently governmental function to contractors? Weren't contractors the ones who used forced nudity, sleep deprivation, loud noise and temperature extremes on detainees, even before the Justice Department provided permission?
CIA Director Leon Panetta banned contractors from interrogating detainees.
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said
It seems to me that those who do these sorts of interrogations of the most important detainees should be government employees . . . They shouldn't be contractors; they should be highly trained--very supervised.
I'm agreeing with the CIA here [please take note!], considering that on may 13, 2009, a former FBI interrogator, Ali Soufan, testified that CIA contractors were the ones who pushed hardes for abusive interrogations in 2002:
The interrogation team was a combination between FBI and CIA, and all of us had the same opinion that contradicted with the contractor. . . .The contractors had to keep requesting authorization to use harsher and harsher methods.
This should not be a tough one for the Obama administration as it struggles to address detainee policy. Obama issued executive orders during his first week in office that the CIA end all use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and to folow the Army Field Manual's more restrictive regulations. So why would we hand that job over to publicly-traded corporations? If we don't have enough trained interrogators in the military, then we should train more or hire civilians who are the government's employees, not Blackwater's.