Calling Rumsfeld to Task

In A Nation of Hypocrites, I wrote about Donald Vance, an American military contractor who was imprisoned by the U.S. Army in Iraq, denied access to counsel, and physically and psychologically abused. Mr. Vance and Nathan Ertel - another man who suffered much the same fate - are today pursuing a civil lawsuit that names former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as the primary defendent.

As reported at AlterNet however, there now appear to be even darker layers to the stories of Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel. Vance, who was also a confidential informant for the FBI, believes that the military conspired to jail the two not because they worked for a security company suspected of supplying weapons to insurgents, but because they shared information with law enforcement agents outside the control of U.S. officials in Baghdad. Further, managers at Shield Security - the company for which the two men worked when they were interned - have never been questioned, and the firm continues to hold contracts with the U.S. government, the Iraqi government, American contractors and non-governmental organizations, under a new name; National Shield Security.

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