'Cooks and drivers were working as interrogators'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4918459-103681,00.html

'Cooks and drivers were working as interrogators'

Witness: private contractor lifts the lid on systematic failures at Abu Ghraib jail

Julian Borger in Washington
Friday May 7, 2004

The Guardian

Many of the prisoners abused at the Abu Ghraib prison were innocent Iraqis picked up at random by US troops, and incarcerated by under-qualified intelligence officers, a former US interrogator from the notorious jail told the Guardian.
Torin Nelson, who served as a military intelligence officer at Guantánamo Bay before moving to Abu Ghraib as a private contractor last year, blamed the abuses on a failure of command in US military intelligence and an over-reliance on private firms. He alleged that those companies were so anxious to meet the demand for their services that they sent "cooks and truck drivers" to work as interrogators.

"Military intelligence operations need to drastically change in order for something like this not to happen again," Mr Nelson said. He spoke to the Guardian in a series of interviews by phone and email.

He claimed that "many of the detainees at the prison are actually innocent of any acts against the coalition and are being held until the bureaucracy there can go through their cases and verify their need to be released."

"One case in point is a detainee whom I recommended for release and months later was still sitting in the same tent with no change in his status."

..more..

Because certainly it would be an utter waste of time to use someone as an interogator unless they knew how to speak the language. Unless they are just there to beat people up.

I figure that is exactly what they were doing; beating the tar out of these guys.