Baghdad – Impunity for alleged past crimes and a lack of avenues for legal recourse, as well as the question of whether high levels of private security are still needed in Iraq, remain issues that many in the country feel should be addressed with greater urgency.
As the country’s private security industry shifts ever more into local hands, with a focus on protecting energy installations in the southern part of the country, a case involving incidents from over 20 years ago has now resulted in millions being awarded to survivors of abuse.
A 12 November landmark ruling found Virginia-based US government contractor CACI International liable for its role in torture at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad during the Iraq war and ordered it to pay $42 million in damages.
The jury’s verdict found the company liable for the torture of Iraqi men at the prison in 2003-2004 and ordered it to pay each of the three plaintiffs $3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages, for a total of $42 million, according to a press release issued by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which represented the plaintiffs alongside two US law firms.
“The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed in 2008 against CACI Premier Technology, Inc., on behalf of three men who endured the sorts of torture and abuse made infamous by leaked images,” it stated.
“The jury found CACI liable for conspiring to torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of Suhail Al Shimari, a middle school principal, Asa’ad Zuba’e, a fruit vendor, and Salah Al-Ejaili, a journalist.”
The $42 million awarded is more than the $31 million CACI was reportedly paid to supply interrogators to Abu Ghraib. The company reacted by stating that, “CACI has been wrongly subjected to long-term, negative affiliation with the unfortunate and reckless actions of a group of military police”.
The verdict may pave the way for other similar cases, though the amount of time and resources required for the case will likely discourage many others from attempting similar lawsuits.
“This historic outcome follows 16 years of litigation, more than 20 attempts by CACI to have the case dismissed, and a previous trial in which the jury was unable to reach a verdict,” CCR added.
“Never before this case had survivors of U.S post-9/11 torture testified in a U.S. courtroom. It also featured testimony from U.S. generals, CACI employees, and former MPs involved in the torture.”
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Documenting abuse amid a long wait for justice
It was the infamous Abu Ghraib detention facilities case that first became associated in many Western minds with the abuse and torture of Iraqi civilians involving US military and contractors following the US invasion of Iraq.
The case initially came to light in late 2003, months before the March 2004 incident in which Blackwater USA employees were killed by angry locals in Fallujah and almost four years before the September 2007 Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad, in which Blackwater Security Consulting (now Constellis) employees escorting a US embassy convoy shot and killed over a dozen civilians.
Four Blackwater employees were convicted of crimes in 2014 for the latter incident but pardoned in 2020 by then-president Donald Trump, who is set to take office again in the US in January.
The presence of journalists on the ground in 2003 able to speak to locals made it possible to document the abuse, with the Associated Press first publishing a report in November of that year detailing the treatment of prisoners at the detention facility.
Photos released in 2004 by another media outlet sparked outrage and would later prove instrumental in spurring changes to regulations in both Iraq and the US.
Certification and shift to local ownership
The International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers’ Association (ICoCA) was formed in 2013. According to its website, all “Member and Affiliate companies demonstrate commitment to respect human rights and humanitarian law as articulated in the International Code of Conduct by operating transparently and in accordance with the Code and by being continually monitored by ICoCA both remotely and on the ground”.
According to a March 2024 report on the ICoCA website, “24 Iraq-headquartered ICoCA private security companies (PSCs) operate, alongside at least 5 international PSCs” in the country.
“Given that there are only around 80 licensed PSCs thought to be operational in the country, this represents an already substantial and growing percentage of the market,” it added. “Of the 24 Iraqi PSCs that have so far joined ICoCA, half are ICoCA certified and 11 are headquartered in Basra.”
It stressed: “The number of international companies is falling. Only a handful of international PSCs remain offering their services in the country given an increasingly competitive market with more and more local companies vying for international business.”
Iraq’s Private Security Services Companies Law No. 54 of 2017 prioritised local companies and personnel, creating barriers for foreign companies to operate in the sector.
Alessandro Arduino, an expert in Chinese security issues and author of the 2023 book ‘Money for Mayhem: Mercenaries, Private Military Companies, Drones, and the Future of War’, noted however that “there are a lot Chinese private security companies protecting Chinese investment all [along] the Belt and Road initiative”.
The ones in Iraq, he added, are “the most skilled since they started early on in protecting Chinese oil fields, especially in the southern part of the country near Basra”.
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‘Security first’ or fostering fear?
White armoured vehicles with numbers identifying which private security company they belong to zip around the capital in small convoys and clog traffic in Baghdad’s streets, carrying diplomats and international staff wary of potential risks or compelled to abide by company policies drawn up to minimise legal liabilities.
Whether such measures are justified by the current situation on the ground or are cost-effective is questionable; some claim these measures foster a sense of insecurity and prevent interactions between local inhabitants and international staff, leading to greater inefficiency and less cross-cultural understanding.
During a conversation in October in Baghdad with an employee of a multinational company employing a private security company, The New Arab was told that the security measures he was forced to abide by had led to him knowing exceedingly little about the country he had been working in for years – to the extent of not even knowing the name of the street in Arabic that his office was on.
His guard, who was in the vehicle with him, noted that he had only once had to use his gun in the 20 years he had been working as a private security guard, “in 2006”.
‘Oversecuritisation’ of much of the country is not limited to private companies paid to keep dignitaries, multinational employees, and embassy staff safe, local residents claim.
“Any time you go to Mosul you see police and army all over the city, which I don’t think is healthy,” one Mosul native told The New Arab in late November.
If police were to stay in their barracks except when needed, this would “give a sense of safety” to the inhabitants of the city, he added.
Survivors voice hope for easier victims’ compensation
Meanwhile, the massive amount of time and effort required discourages many people already struggling to survive from attempting to pursue claims against both the US military and private contractors for incidents even in the more recent past.
Mosul native Basim Razzo, whose wife and daughter as well as other members of his family were killed when the US-led coalition against the Islamic State (IS) targeted his home in 2015 after mistakenly identifying it as an IS bomb factory, told The New Arab that it had taken years to get information that should have been more easily accessible.
“In my case, it took at least three years for the US Department of Defence to give us an answer” about his claims, he told The New Arab. “First they said it wasn’t credible, then they said that it was ‘too late for you’ to submit” your case.
He later discovered that it had been an airstrike carried out by Dutch forces. He has since received compensation from the Dutch government after the case was documented in a 2017 New York Times Magazine investigation into hundreds of civilian deaths resulting from coalition airstrikes that had not been acknowledged by the US.
Razzo expressed hope for more compensation to be paid out to others in the near future, given greater media and thus public attention to the issue in recent years.
Shelly Kittleson is a journalist specialising in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Her work has been published in several international, US and Italian media outlets.
Follow her on X: @shellykittleson
