Charles Skelton: “Mr. Speaker, all Americans were shocked by what we saw at the Abu Ghraib prison. The abuse of Iraqi prisoners offends…”

“Mr. Speaker, all Americans were shocked by what we saw at the Abu Ghraib prison. The abuse of Iraqi prisoners offends our values as human beings and as Americans. I am deeply disturbed by the administration's handling of this issue. A 3-month-old investigation has only now come to light. Some are questioning whether we may have lost control of civilian contractors who fall outside of the military chain of command. But there is something equally as alarming about this news, the discovery that unregulated private contractors are interrogating prisoners in Iraq on behalf of the Coalition Provisional Authority. This now becomes a question of accountability. In the fog of war, it is not only our military but also private companies deciding whom to deploy, whom to carry out operations, and how those people are vetted. There is almost no congressional oversight, civil regulation, or military law that governs them. By contracting out these critical tasks to civilian contractors who fall outside of the chain of command, there is no quality assurance, and there is questionable accountability. The Secretary of Defense has been inattentive and perhaps negligent at great cost to our reputation and our security, and the call for the Secretary of Defense resignation is growing stronger day by day.”