“We assume no responsibility for the professional ability or the integrity of the firms listed here.” (from the private security firms section of the “Doing Business In Iraq”online pamphlet, CPA)

In a Monitor article last week, Ann Tyson wrote, “The close involvement of civilians is problematic" and "creates a lot of stress." One reason this happens is that while "military personnel are subject to the code of military justice, it's unclear what [legal] responsibilities the civilians have," says Deborah Avant, a political scientist at George Washington University here who specializes in private security firms.”

Avant, who’s written before on the subject was addressing the issue of civilian contractors in the wake of the prisoner abuse photos taken at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

But private security firms, like most contractors seeking jobs in Iraq, need someone who can open the door to Congress and administration officials. That’s where the lobbyists and “pressure groups” (euphemistically known as “K Street”) come in.

Of CACI and Titan, the two private contractors given attention in the Abu Ghraib interrogation-abuse scandal, Robert Schlesinger of Salon.com wrote,

For more than four years, CACI has employed the Livingston Group and its “strategic partner,” Louisiana law firm Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Carrere and Denegre.”

CACI, on whose board once sat Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, has most recently hired the New York-based Robert Marston and Associates for damage control. Its current board includes the president and executive vice president of another well-known PMC (private military company), MPRI (Military Professional Resources, Inc.), which has conducted “Senior Leader Seminars” in Colombia, Saudi Arabia, and Bosnia.

“Titan’s lineup of lobbyists,” Schlesinger adds, “is even broader.” It includes “a former top Air Force official ... a former White House lobbyist under President Reagan ... a Clinton administration Air Force undersecretary ... a former Republican mayor of San Diego,” and two representatives from “American Defense International” which had working ties to Richard Cheney when Cheney was Secretary of Defense in the first Bush administration.

What’s more, Titan has engaged the services of NorthPoint Strategies, composed mainly of former top staffers to Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham” . . . a former member of Armed Services Committee” who now sits on the House Appropriations and Intelligence committees.

Another notable figure connected to Titan is R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence during the Clinton administration. Woolsey, a trustee at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Vice President of “Top 100" defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, and advisor to The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, has been allied with a group of hawkish Pentagon and White House officials collectively referred to as “neocons.” He is also a partner at Shea & Gardner, which has represented the controversial partner in the occupation of Iraq, the Iraqi National Congress, headed by Ahmed Chalabi. Chalabi's home—along with INC offices—was today raided amid reports that he was planning a retributive political move against the UN and incoming Iraqi government. Chalabi and the INC were only recently removed from U.S. government rolls.

Steven Stefanowicz, the CACI interrogator named in the "Taguba Report," took the $100,000 salary job one month after leaving the Navy, according to the New York Times. Neither he nor CACI have been charged with any wrongdoing as of this writing.

But perhaps the greatest mystery of the hour is interrogator John Israel. Named as a contracted interrogator for both Titan and CACI, Israel (reportedly an acquaintance of Woolsey and not a United States soldier) is still at large with no spokesperson.

We'll let you know if he shows up on "K Street."

Part II next week

This week marriage licenses were legally issued to same-sex couples in Massachusetts, the first state to do so.

Most states have passed laws that that do not recognize unions other than one man and one woman, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization. Several states are gathering signatures to put similar amendments on their ballots this year. Stateline.org has a comprehensive and frequently updated state-by-state roundup of the laws.

The American public remains evenly divided over support for civil unions with the rights of marriage, as well as a constitutional amendment to ban them, according to a Gallup poll released yesterday, though support appears to have increased to its highest point since Gallup first began asking the question in 1996.

An article in Wednesday's Monitor, 'Who were the Fallen?', tries to give a snapshot of some of the US soldiers that have died in Iraq.

There are several databases that we used to provide different types of information for the article. The AP Casualty Database has been released by military officials. Searches can be conducted by name, state, or other fields.

The Department of Defense provides some numbers as well on current and on past wars, including breakdown by gender, race/ethnicity, but please note that the DoD divides the information into two time periods: those up to April 30, 2003 and those after May 1, 2003.

Lunaville.org provides a number of tools to view casualty metrics and ways to arrange the data. They also claim to have the most up to date numbers, which they compile directly from Centcom. Information on soldiers' hometowns can be found at the Census bureau page.

For historical comparisons of female casualties in past conflicts, the Women in Military Service to America Memorial Foundation has very good information.