U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

39–709 PDF 2008

ENFORCEMENT OF FEDERAL CRIMINAL LAW TO 

PROTECT AMERICANS WORKING FOR U.S. CONTRACTORS IN IRAQ 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, 

AND HOMELAND SECURITY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

DECEMBER 19, 2007 

Serial No. 110–130 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan, Chairman 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

BETTY SUTTON, Ohio 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

CHRIS CANNON, Utah 

RIC KELLER, Florida 

DARRELL ISSA, California 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

PERRY APELBAUM, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

JOSEPH GIBSON, Minority Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, AND HOMELAND SECURITY

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia, Chairman 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

BETTY SUTTON, Ohio 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

BOBBY VASSAR, Chief Counsel 

MICHAEL VOLKOV, Minority Counsel 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

DECEMBER 19, 2007 

Page 

OPENING STATEMENT 

The Honorable Robert C. Scott, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Virginia, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security ........................................................................................................ 1 

The Honorable Louie Gohmert, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Texas, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and 

Homeland Security ............................................................................................... 21 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary ..................... 22 

The Honorable Hank Johnson, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Georgia, and Member, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security ........................................................................................................ 23 

The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Texas, and Member, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and 

Homeland Security ............................................................................................... 24 

The Honorable Tammy Baldwin, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Ohio, and Member, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland 

Security ................................................................................................................. 26 

The Honorable Anthony D. Weiner, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of New York, and Member, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and 

Homeland Security ............................................................................................... 26 

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Ted Poe, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Texas 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 30 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 31 

Ms. Jamie Leigh Jones, former employee of Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), 

Houston, TX 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 32 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 35 

Mr. Scott Horton, Adjunct Professor of Law, Columbia University School 

of Law, New York, NY 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 50 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 51 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Prepared Statement of Tracy Barker ..................................................................... 3 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Linda T. Sa ́nchez, a Representative 

in Congress from the State of California, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee 

on Commercial and Administrative Law ........................................................... 28 

APPENDIX 

Material Submitted for the Hearing Record .......................................................... 73 

(1) 

ENFORCEMENT OF FEDERAL CRIMINAL LAW 

TO PROTECT AMERICANS WORKING FOR 

U.S. CONTRACTORS IN IRAQ 

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2007 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM,

AND HOMELAND SECURITY

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:23 a.m., in 

room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Robert 

C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Conyers, Scott, Johnson, Weiner, Jackson Lee, Davis, Baldwin, Gohmert, Coble, Chabot, and Lungren. 

Staff present: Bobby Vassar, Subcommittee Chief Counsel; 

Ameer Gopalani, Majority Counsel; Mario Dispenza, (Fellow) ATF 

Detailee; Veronica Eligan, Majority Professional Staff Member; Michael Volkov, Minority Counsel; Caroline Lynch, Minority Counsel; 

Kelsey Whitlock, Minority Staff Assistant. 

Mr. SCOTT. The Subcommittee will come to order. Welcome to the 

Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security hearing on Enforcement of Federal Criminal Law to Protect Americans 

Working for U.S. Contractors in Iraq. 

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a situation in which many military contractors are acting with impunity and disregard for the 

law. 

In Iraq, our troops have been supplanted in many respects by an 

army of contractors that is estimated to be approximately 180,000. 

This is in stark contrast to the normal number of contractors, 

which is 2 percent, 3 percent, 4 percent, 5 percent of the troop 

force. Fifty percent of the Americans over in Iraq right now are 

contractors. About 50 percent are formal military troops. 

Unfortunately, the law governing the contractors has been unclear. In September, we learned of a shooting incident involving a 

private contracting company in which contractors allegedly shot 

and killed 11 or more innocent Iraqi civilians. 

We learned of hundreds of other shooting incidents that, unlike 

the other one, did not receive media attention and have remained 

dormant. 

Sexual assault and rape incidents have also been uncovered recently. Just last week we learned of the case of Jamie Leigh Jones, 

who, while working for an apparently prestigious and reputable 

2 

contracting firm, states that she was drugged and raped by fellow 

employees in a company facility in Baghdad. 

Without her courage to go forward, it is likely that this would 

have been another story which would have gone without prosecution or investigation. 

And her story has encouraged other women to come forward. We 

are now aware of at least three other cases of such abuse, but there 

are likely many more. 

One of those cases is Tracy Barker, whose statement, if there is 

no objection, will be made part of the record. Without objection, her 

statement will be part of the record. A copy of her statement will 

be at the front table, if it is not already there. And she is with us 

today in the front row. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Barker follows:] 

3 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF TRACY BARKER


Barker-1.eps
4 


Barker-2.eps
5 


Barker-3.eps
6 


Barker-4.eps
7 


Barker-5.eps
8 


Barker-6.eps
9 


Barker-7.eps
10 


Barker-8.eps
11 


Barker-9.eps
12 


Barker-10.eps
13 


Barker-11.eps
14 


Barker-12.eps
15 


Barker-13.eps
16 


Barker-14.eps
17 


Barker-15.eps
18 


Barker-16.eps
19 


Barker-17.eps
20 

Mr. SCOTT. First, there continues to be a lack of transparency, 

and the most poignant sign of the problem is the Department of 

Justice’s absence here today. 

We had a hearing, in fact, on this issue back in June. We learned 

that 17 pending cases of detainee abuse, including the abuse at 

Abu Ghraib prison by contractors, have remained with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia for 3 years. 

In some of these cases the Army has investigated circumstances 

behind them and has found probable cause that a crime has been 

committed and referred the case to the Department of Justice for 

prosecution. 

We are not told why these cases against contractors have not 

been investigated or why they are being held up. 

In response to our concerns, we marked up a bill, H.R. 2740, the 

MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act of 2007, which would require the Inspector General of the Department of Justice to complete and submit a report about identification and prosecution of 

alleged abuses in Iraq. This bill has passed the House but has not 

been acted upon by the Senate. 

In the case we will hear about today, the department has remained silent for over 2.5 years regarding the status of the criminal investigation. Why has it taken this long for the department, 

in what should for the department be a routine and swift rape investigation? 

Second, there are a number of laws the department can enforce 

with respect to contractors who commit crimes abroad, but it chooses not to. These include the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction 

Act, the Patriot Act and the Special Maritime and Territorial Jurisdiction Act. 

There is nothing to believe that the incidents before us are not 

covered by present law, and the department has even informed us 

that many provisions of existing law do permit prosecutions. 

The bill I mentioned, H.R. 2740, would close the loophole to cover 

all private security contractors, not just those contracted through 

the Department of Defense, to ensure that all contractors overseas 

are accountable under United States law. 

But in the situation we will hear about today, the contractor was 

a DOD contractor, so there should be no question about jurisdiction. 

Finally, there is no mechanism in place to ensure appropriate investigation of crimes. In fact, we have heard of many instances in 

which the Department of Justice and the FBI failed to get directly 

involved once crimes are alleged. 

For example, FBI agents only flew out to Baghdad to investigate 

the September 16th Blackwater incident after sufficient congressional pressure and media coverage. We need to know how long 

after the alleged shooting were they notified of the incident. 

How long after Ms. Jones’ allegations occurred were the FBI notified, and what steps were taken? 

H.R. 2740 requires the FBI to establish on-the-ground investigative units in Iraq to investigate reports of criminal misconduct. 

But the Department of Justice has balked at this idea and apparently does not support its inclusion in any bill, even though it has 

the current authority to create such units on its own. 

21 

The Department of Justice seems to be taking action with respect 

to enforcement of criminal laws in Iraq only when it is forced to 

do something by embarrassing media coverage. 

Our government is entrusted with the responsibility to oversee 

contractors in Iraq and most certainly bears the burden to protect 

innocent American civilians. 

I hope this hearing will identify the reason why this is not happening. 

With that said, it is my pleasure to recognize the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, the gentleman from Texas, Judge Louie 

Gohmert. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Chairman Scott. And I do appreciate 

your holding this hearing. This is a very important issue. 

And I want to thank our witnesses for taking time out of their 

busy schedules to be with us today. 

Professor Horton, thank you. 

And especially want to welcome my good friend, dear friend, and 

fellow former district judge from Texas, Congressman Ted Poe. 

And also, Ms. Jones, thank you for being here and for graciously 

agreeing to share your story. I admire your courage in coming forward. I know this is not easy to come into a public forum and do 

this. 

Ted, we have seen people have to do this kind of thing in order 

for justice to be done, and we believe that by your doing so, hopefully we will move justice in the right direction. 

But you have also given a voice to women who have been the victims of sexual assault in Iraq and also Afghanistan. And I hope today’s hearing will shed additional light on the disturbing trend of 

American women being victims of sexual assault outside our national boundaries. 

I am deeply troubled by what happened to you in Iraq. No one 

should have to suffer that kind of abuse. 

And now, after 2 years, we are hearing—and I got an e-mail 

today indicating that the Justice Department could not come forward and testify today because the matter is finally under investigation. 

And I applaud any efforts Attorney General Mukasey will make 

in that direction. We have got a new regime and it looks like they 

are finally moving in the right direction. 

The members of this panel are not privy to all the details about 

what, if any, investigation has occurred. According to news accounts, the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security investigated the assault, turned its findings over to the Department 

of Justice. And like I say, they are now assuring us that they are 

investigating the matter. 

At the same time, we are learning that KBR may have been instructed by the U.S. government to cease its investigation, but we 

don’t know who gave that instruction. 

It also appears that physical evidence of the assault was subsequently lost or destroyed. I hope it is not too late to see justice done 

in this case. No one is above the law. No one should be above the 

law, whether here in the United States or in Iraq. 

In recent years, Congress has addressed the application of Federal criminal laws to U.S. persons overseas. In 2000, Congress 

22 

passed the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000, also 

referred to as MEJA, to extend the application of U.S. Federal 

criminal law to acts committed by members of the military, civilian 

employees of the military and dependents accompanying the armed 

forces overseas. 

Congress again amended MEJA in 2005 to apply it to employees 

and contractors only ‘‘to the extent such employment relates to supporting the mission the Department of Defense oversees.’’ 

The authority of the U.S. government to prosecute the assault of 

Ms. Jones turns on whether those accused of the attack were employed in support of a DOD mission overseas. 

There seems to be some dispute amongst the expert about whether MEJA applies in this instance. But the simple fact is that we 

don’t have enough facts to make the determination yet. 

In October, the House passed H.R. 2740, the MEJA and Enforcement Act of 2007. This legislation expands MEJA again to allow 

U.S. criminal prosecution of all Federal contractors operating in an 

area or in close proximity to an area where the armed forces are 

conducting a ‘‘contingency operation,’’ and requires the FBI to establish overseas theater investigative units in areas where contractors are operating. 

Hopefully, the Senate will act quickly on this legislation. 

But I look forward to hearing from today’s witnesses and appreciate your time in being here. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

The Chairman of the full Committee, Mr. Conyers? 

Mr. CONYERS. Good morning, Chairman Scott and Members. 

I join all in welcoming our friends here, Jamie Leigh Jones and 

Tracy Barker, sitting in the first row. 

Congressman Ted Poe, thanks for all you have done. 

This is outrageous that we even have to be here today. And it 

illustrates, in my judgment, how far out of control the law enforcement system in Iraq is today. 

The story that we will hear truly shocks the conscience and 

shows how out of whack our priorities have become. 

When a brave public-spirited individual working in support of 

her country in Iraq, like Ms. Jones, can be brutally raped by her 

fellow employees, this is something that demands our immediate 

attention. And I am so glad that at least we are moving on this 

immediately. 

When the biggest contractor in Iraq, a large and, at one time, respected firm, can compound and worsen the situation, going as far 

as to falsely imprison her, this is a tragedy. 

And when our own Department of Justice can and does fail to 

take action, while the apparently miscarriage of justice is allowed 

to fester, this is a public outrage that demands these hearings and 

investigation. 

Does anyone in this room feel it is acceptable for an American 

citizen like Ms. Jones to be drugged, raped and falsely imprisoned? 

Does anyone think it is appropriate that almost 2.5 years after 

the incident there hasn’t been a single prosecution in the case? 

Is there anyone here that thinks it is appropriate that the Department of Justice victims’ rights ombudsman summarily rejected 

23 

Ms. Jones’ complaint 6 months ago, and she was not even seen by 

a Federal prosecutor until October? 

This is no small matter, given that there are 180,000 civilian 

contractor employees in Iraq, including more than 21,000 Americans, plus additional security contractor employees. We have got 

more civilians over there than military. 

And there are other troubling reports of similar sexual assaults 

against contractor employees. So that is why I am here to tell you 

that this Committee’s investigation will not end today. 

It is unacceptable for our own Department of Justice to refuse to 

testify today. The letter they sent last night does not begin to respond to the tragedy and injustice that we are looking at now. 

The department claims to be committed to law enforcement in 

Iraq. But they tell us nothing about what is being done in Ms. 

Jones’ case. They can’t even give us one example of a prosecution 

where the victim was a civilian contractor employee in Iraq. 

And they can’t describe any steps they have taken to ensure that 

such Americans in Iraq report crimes by contractor employees 

there to Federal law enforcement and that prompt investigation 

and prosecution will occur. 

The American people and this Committee have the right to demand justice and accountability. And I, for one, intend to see that 

that is exactly what we get. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Conyers. 

We will have statements from other Members. 

The gentleman from Ohio waives. 

The gentleman from Georgia? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to, first of 

all, thank you for promptly responding to this rapidly and publicly 

unfolding drama that first came to public attention, I believe, approximately 1 week ago. 

And here we are today holding oversight hearings in Congress. 

And I think that this is what makes us proud to—this is what 

makes me proud to serve in Congress. 

And of course, under the auspices of our Chairman, who has set 

the pace for this kind of vigorous oversight, Chairman Conyers, we 

want to thank you. 

And I also want to thank all of the witnesses for coming today, 

especially to Ms. Jamie Leigh Curtis (sic), for what you have endured and for coming here to tell us your story. 

Mr. SCOTT. Jamie Leigh Jones. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Excuse me. Did I say Jamie Leigh Curtis? Jamie 

Leigh Jones. Okay, I am sorry. All right. Jamie Leigh Jones. 

And I want to also point out that Ms. Tracy Barker is here, who 

is another victim of similar activity that was undergone by Ms. 

Jones. 

And also here are the attorneys representing both victims. Mr. 

L. Todd Kelly and Mr. Paul Walton are from Houston, Texas. And 

also, Stephanie Morris of Washington, D.C. 

And this is a case against Halliburton which actively concealed 

both of these egregious violations of the criminal law and then engaged in a coverup to keep these issues from ever seeing the light 

of day in criminal court. 

24 

And these issues have continued to this day. And for that reason 

alone, it would seem that both victims would be able to come into 

civil court and prosecute their claims for justice in front of a jury. 

Unfortunately, the issue of pre-dispute binding mandatory arbitration arose when they attempted to seek redress. And these types 

of hidden clauses in employment agreements strip citizens of their 

basic rights to a jury trial. 

Arbitration agreements were meant to be agreements between 

equal parties. But for Ms. Jones, Ms. Barker and the countless 

other employees who have tried to exercise their rights under these 

agreements, they turn out to be anything but equal. 

Companies have taken advantage of employees by forcing them 

to sign away their rights to a public justice system in favor of a 

private, for-profit justice system where the chips are stacked 

against them and where the arbitrator, playing judge and jury, 

typically sides with the big business that signs his or her paycheck. 

With over 180,000 civilian contractors in Iraq, our Federal laws 

must protect those who are working for our government. We should 

be protecting them. 

And we should have protected you, Ms. Jones, criminally, and 

you should have the protection of the civil laws here in America as 

well. 

I am hopeful that the Senate can move forward on H.R. 2740, the 

MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act of 2007, which would close 

the loophole to ensure that all contractors are accountable under 

U.S. criminal law and mandates that the Department of Justice, 

through the FBI, enforce this bill by investigating and prosecuting 

offenses under the law. 

But we also need to understand how pre-dispute mandatory arbitration agreements are contracts of adhesion and they affect the 

ability of victims, especially those who are unable to seek criminal 

penalties, from seeking civil damages when they have been truly 

wronged. 

I also want to thank Representative Ted Poe, who took prompt 

action when notified by the father of Ms. Jones and was able to get 

Ms. Jones out of harm’s way, out of the Green Zone in Iraq, and 

is here to testify today. 

And I thank you, sir, for your service to the country. 

And with that, I will yield back. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

I would recognize Members for brief statements if possible. 

In order of appearance, the gentlelady from Texas? I understand 

you had a brief statement. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me say good morning to my colleague from 

Texas and to Ms. Jones and to Professor Horton. Thank you very 

much for being here. 

I think it is the evidence of this place being the people’s house 

that we responded so quickly. 

And I thank the Chairman of the Subcommittee and the Chairman of the full Committee for their promptness in this case. 

I am holding the Constitution in my hand, Ms. Jones, because I 

want you to know that your leaving the boundaries of the United 

States does not quash or deny your constitutional rights. Protection 

under this document goes to you wherever you go. 

25 

And particularly, the Sixth Amendment indicates that there is a 

right to a jury trial. You have a right to see those who perpetrated 

this heinous and outrageous violent act against you tried by a jury 

and, frankly, convicted, from the very actor to the corporation, with 

enhanced penalties. 

So I am grateful that you are here today. And I want to tell you 

just a brief story in my brief comments. Just a few weeks ago, I 

sat in the airport. I met a young lady who was en route to Houston 

with all of the joy and excitement of her first time leaving her community in Georgia, getting on an airplane, leaving three children 

behind to be raised by her mother, to join the staff in Houston of 

the company that you worked for. 

She was on her way, or is on her way, Congressman Poe, to Iraq. 

She had a sense of pride. 

And so what I would say to those who are here today—you are 

a patriot. You are a hero. You are willing to sacrifice because you 

were moved by the cause, by the need, to go to Iraq and to serve 

your country. You deserve better. 

And I am grateful that Congressman Poe, as recognized in representing you, you are—your dad is his constituent, and he made 

good on the promise that we make coming to the United States 

Congress. The people’s house represents the people. 

And so it is disappointing to find out that there is an empty chair 

sitting there—has taken an oath. The attorney general, Department of Justice—those officers there take an oath to protect the 

American public. 

Unfortunately, with people not prosecuted, they have, in fact, not 

taken seriously their oath. 

I, too, hope that the legislation moves forward. But as representatives or contractors to the Defense Department, we may need to 

look more extensively at the punitive measures against corporations that don’t understand the rights of Americans and patriots 

and heroes who work for them. 

Let me lastly say that I hope Congressman Poe will share with 

us his involvement or his inquiry to Halliburton and KBR. There 

is a suggestion that Halliburton was not involved. 

I would like to hear whether you engaged with either of those or 

together, those corporations, and what their response was. 

So let me simply close by saying the flag does not leave you when 

you leave this country. And the fact that you were abused and violated—and the women that are with you, and your lawyers who are 

here representing you—and incarcerated is a damnation to the values of the country. 

And as we sit here today, I promise you, as I join the full Committee Chair, we will find a solution on behalf of you, who have 

served this country and can be considered a patriot and a hero. 

Thank you very much. I yield back. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

The gentleman from California? 

Mr. LUNGREN. No, I am here to hear the witnesses. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, here to hear the witnesses. 

The gentlelady from Wisconsin? 

Ms. BALDWIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

26 

Chairman Scott and Ranking Member Gohmert, I want to express my appreciation for your holding this important and timely 

hearing on U.S. contractors in Iraq. 

And I particularly want to thank our panel of witnesses today, 

and particularly you, Ms. Jones, for being here and providing testimony here today. 

I also appreciate your admirable work with the Jamie Leigh 

foundation, because you are helping other Americans who are victims of sexual assault, sexual harassment and abuse while working 

abroad. 

And I can only imagine what a difficult experience this has been 

for you, and I want you to know how much we appreciate your efforts to shed light on such an appalling and, frankly, intolerable 

issue. 

Americans abroad should have the same protections under the 

law that they receive here in this country. And U.S. civilians who 

perpetrate crimes while working abroad should be held accountable 

for their actions just like they would if they were here at home. 

This concept seems so simple that I am having trouble understanding how our government has failed this pitifully in helping 

Americans like Ms. Jones find justice. 

In light of the Blackwater shootings and other serious incidents 

in Iraq, the fact that there has been no a single completed prosecution of a crime involving a contractor implicated in violent crime 

in Iraq is inexcusable. 

The lack of accountability and oversight has apparently contributed to an environment of lawlessness among those serving as contract employees for the U.S. government. 

And despite what I have to presume are appropriate internal 

policies aimed at preventing these atrocities, Ms. Jones and other 

former Halliburton and KBR employees have described a boys-willbe-boys environment that devastated their experiences in Iraq. 

Nobody at Halliburton and KBR has yet responded effectively to 

multiple allegations of sexual assault and ongoing harassment. Instead, there was an attempted coverup. 

I am saddened to think that this unacceptable boys-will-be-boys 

attitude appears to have permeated our government agencies as 

well. 

We have applicable laws in place, but our Department of Justice 

seems unwilling to enforce them. 

And, Mr. Horton, I agree with your assessment in your written 

comments of the department’s attitude of official indifference. 

Again, I want to thank our witnesses for being here today to help 

us do a better job of making sure that these situations never occur 

again. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

The gentleman from New York? 

Mr. WEINER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank you 

for holding the hearing. 

You know, this is a remarkable example of how we sometimes 

react to things when we are fortunate enough to hear about them 

but have no idea how deep the roots of the problem go. 

27 

If we had not had someone like Ms. Jones, with remarkable 

strength, to take her breathtaking adversity and try to get some attention for it, had she not had the wisdom or her family not had 

the wisdom to reach out to her congressman, we might be reading 

about this in a postage stamp-sized dispatch in our local paper. 

We don’t know, as Ms. Baldwin just pointed out, how many dozens and dozens of cases like this might exist in this seam that exists in the law. 

And while Professor Horton is going to talk with erudition about 

the fine points of the law and how we can improve it, let’s not forget one overarching thing. The people that committed this crime 

were our employees, employees of the taxpayers of the United 

States of America. 

We might have hired someone who was not wearing the uniform 

of the United States of America, but it doesn’t make us any less 

accountable for the actions that they took. 

We sign their paychecks. We sign the contracts that put them on 

duty. We should be the ones setting the laws and enforcing them. 

The abject indifference of the Department of Justice, as exemplified by the opening remarks of Mr. Conyers and by their absence 

today, shows what their approach to this problem is. It is more or 

less ‘‘it ain’t our problem,’’ is what they are saying. 

We here on the House Judiciary Committee are saying that as 

Members of Congress, it is our responsibility. Ms. Jones has been 

victimized more than one time. She was victimized, obviously, in 

the horrific crime. 

She was victimized again when the reasonable course of justice 

was disrupted by a comprehensive effort to destroy evidence that 

might have existed, disperse people who might have been able to 

testify about it. 

She was victimized again by the Department of State and Department of Justice essentially throwing up their hands and saying, ‘‘You have got a contract. Go try to enforce it in a civil court.’’ 

And we are here to say that, you know, there is a higher imperative here. You know, there are frequently the explanations from the 

Administration that say, ‘‘Look, war is hell. Things happen. There 

is the fog of war that sometimes takes place.’’ 

But this now seems to be an organized effort by the United 

States of America not to have responsibility and expressing that by 

hiring these outside contractors to do not only the dirty work of 

war, which some of us find necessary, but also they wash their 

hands of the dirty deeds that go on. And we have to say that 

enough is enough. 

And I want to conclude the way I began, by expressing, I think, 

all of our gratitude to you, Ms. Jones. You know, it takes a remarkable amount of courage to go through what you did and not simply 

return to your home and try to heal yourself. You chose not to do 

that. You brought this forward here. 

Unfortunately, in the echo chamber of information that we have 

nowadays, without the face and the voice of someone who has actually been through it, none of these things get changed. 

Hopefully, you will change that today. Hopefully, Congressman 

Poe, by bringing this forward, has made that possible. 

28 

And hopefully, this Committee’s actions will lead us to finally, as 

a Nation, say not, ‘‘Tsk tsk, it is a shame what goes on,’’ but that, 

‘‘We as the United States of America are responsible.’’ 

And I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Weiner. 

I ask unanimous consent that a statement from the Chair of the 

Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, the 

gentlelady from California, Ms. Sa ́nchez, be entered into the record. 

As Chair of that Committee, she has been dealing with the issue 

of mandatory arbitration, and her statement relates to that issue. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Sa ́nchez follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, AND CHAIRWOMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON

COMMERCIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW


Sanchez.eps
29 

Mr. SCOTT. We have a distinguished panel of witnesses here to 

help us consider the important issues of the day. 

Our first witness was to be a representative of the U.S. Department of Justice, but in a letter sent to us just last night they have 

declined to testify. 

They cite the fact that there is a pending investigation on these 

allegations that we will hear today. And as the Ranking Member 

has properly pointed out, we do not expect the Department of Justice to testify on specific cases under investigation. 

But they failed to inform us as to why they could not appear to 

discuss other contractor crimes generally in Iraq which are not undergoing any pending investigation or prosecution or whether or 

not they have sufficient statutory authority to investigate cases 

like this. 

But they are not here. 

Our next witness will be the gentleman from Texas, Representative Ted Poe, who represents the 2nd Congressional District of 

Texas. He is the founder and co-chair of the Congressional Victims 

Rights Caucus. 

As a former criminal court judge and prosecutor for over 30 years 

in the Houston area, he is recognized nationally for his creative 

sentencing of criminals and as a dedicated advocate for victims and 

children. 

Our next witness will be Ms. Jamie Leigh Jones, who in 2005 

traveled to Baghdad as a contract employee of KBR and was placed 

in a predominantly male barracks located in Camp Hope. 

She will testify to events that occurred only 4 days after her arrival. She subsequently founded the Jamie Leigh Foundation, a 

nonprofit organization dedicated to helping United States citizens 

and legal residents who are victims of sexual assault, sexual harassment, rape and sexual abuse while working abroad for Federal 

contractors, corporations or government entities. 

We want to thank Ms. Jones for her courage and for her presence 

today. 

And finally, we will hear from Scott Horton, who is an adjunct 

professor at Columbia Law School, where he teaches law of armed 

conflict and commercial law courses. 

Since February of this year, he has managed the Project on Accountability of Private Military Contractors at Human Rights First. 

He is the author of more than 100 publications dealing with 

issues of international public and private law and is currently 

working on a book on legal policy issues relating to private military 

contractors. 

Now, each of our witnesses’ written statements will be made part 

of the record, each statement in its entirety. I will ask that each 

witness summarize his or her testimony in 5 minutes or less. 

And to help you stay within that time, I hope the timing devices 

are working at the table. They should start off green, go to yellow 

when a minute is left, and then to red when the 5 minutes are up. 

First we will hear from Congressman Poe. 

30 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE TED POE, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Chairman Conyers and 

Judge Gohmert, for holding this hearing, especially in just a short 

period of time, in 7 days, holding this very important hearing. 

I am here to introduce a brave and courageous young woman, 

Jamie Leigh Jones. She will tell you about the horrific experiences 

in Iraq as an American civilian contractor who was drugged and 

gang-raped by her American civilian co-workers. 

She went to Iraq as a patriot to help our American military. But 

what Jamie will tell you paints a picture of lawlessness, where 

criminals go unpunished and victims are vilified. 

For American civilian contractors, Iraq is reminiscent of the Old 

West days and no one seems to be in charge. The law must be enforced, and these outlaws need to be rounded up and we have to 

restore order. 

I became involved in this case when Jamie’s dad, who is here, 

called my office in Texas because I represent Jamie and her family 

in Congress. 

He relayed Jamie’s account of her assault and being held hostage 

in a shipping container and asked for immediate assistance. 

My staff and I contacted the United States Department of State’s 

Department of Overseas Citizens Services. And within 48 hours, 

the State Department quickly dispatched two agents from the U.S. 

embassy in Baghdad, rescued Jamie and brought her back home to 

Texas. 

It is my understanding that an assistant U.S. attorney interviewed Jamie and that a State Department special agent investigated the case. However, the Department of Justice has not informed Jamie or me of the status of a criminal investigation 

against her rapists, if any investigation exists. 

It is interesting to note that the Department of Justice has thousands of lawyers, but not one from the barrage of lawyers is here 

to tell us what, if anything, they are doing. Their absence and silence speaks volumes about the hidden crimes in Iraq. 

Their attitude seems to be one of blissful indifference to American workers in Iraq. 

Jamie turned to another government agency in 2006. She filed a 

formal complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity 

Commission against KBR for sexual harassment. 

In May 2006, the EEOC issued a letter of determination that 

was favorable to Jamie. The EEOC determined that Jamie was sexually assaulted by one or more KBR employees, that physical trauma was apparent, and that KBR’s own investigation ‘‘was inadequate and did not effect an adequate remedy.’’ 

Two and a half years after her assault, Jamie still does not have 

any justice. Jamie decided to go public with her case because she 

wasn’t getting answers from our government. It seems our government agencies continued to fail her. 

While the criminal justice system has certainly failed Jamie in 

the United States, the civil court system may be of no help to her 

either in holding wrongdoers civilly liable for the injuries they have 

inflicted on their victims. 

31 

The inclusion of a binding arbitration clause in Jamie’s employment contract may preclude her from accessing a judge or jury to 

hear her civil case. She may be forced into arbitration, a privatized 

justice system with no public record, no discovery and no meaningful appeal. 

As a former judge, I have always thought the best way to solve 

disputes was in a courtroom with a jury. 

Since Jamie has gone public with her experience, my office has 

heard from three other women. Of course, my office will furnish the 

names of these women to the Judiciary Committee if requested. 

One of these three women is Tracy Barker. She is a former KBR 

employee who says that she was sexually assaulted in Iraq by a 

State Department employee who still works for the State Department today. Tracy is here. 

The two other women also are former KBR employees. They both 

report sexual assaults and sexual harassment by their co-workers 

in Iraq, and neither woman has seen any Federal law enforcement 

action. 

One of the women informed my office that she was molested several times and raped once by her KBR co-workers. When she reported the crime to her supervisor, she was told that they would 

take care of it. 

She returned to work 2 days later and found her rapist working 

alongside of her. She panicked and called for the Army M.P.s, who 

escorted the rapist off of the base. However, she was subsequently 

fired. And it seems, unfortunately, Jamie’s case is not unique. 

Our government has a responsibility to protect Americans overseas. These contractors work in support of the American military 

mission. Those who work in Iraq in support of the American military have the right to the same protections that we bestow on citizens that are in America. 

It seems to me we need a new sheriff in Iraq to enforce Federal 

laws. The individual rapists must be prosecuted. Americans cannot 

go abroad, commit attacks on fellow Americans, without the long 

arm of the law holding them accountable. 

The individuals who assaulted Jamie must be rounded up and 

tried by a jury. Nonfeasance by civil contracting companies cannot 

be tolerated. 

And victims must get the justice that they deserve because, Mr. 

Chairman, justice is what we do in America. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Poe follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE TED POE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Members of the subcommittee. Thank you for 

quickly organizing and holding this important hearing. 

I am here this morning to introduce a brave young woman, Jamie Leigh Jones. 

She will tell you about her horrific experiences in Iraq as an American civilian contractor, who was drugged and gang-raped by her American civilian coworkers. 

What Jamie will tell you paints a picture of lawlessness—where criminals go 

unpunished and victims are vilified. For American civilian contractors, Iraq is reminiscent of the Old Western days and no one seems to be in charge. The law must 

intervene, round up these outlaws, and restore order. 

I became involved in this case when Jamie’s dad called my office in Texas because 

I represent Jamie and her dad in Congress. He relayed Jamie’s account of her assault and being held hostage in a shipping container and asked for immediate assistance. My staff and I contacted the United States Department of State’s DepartVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:23 Nov 18, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\CRIME\121907\39709.000 HJUD1 PsN: 39709
32 

ment of Overseas Citizens Services. Within 48 hours, the State Department dispatched two agents from the US Embassy in Baghdad, rescued Jamie, and brought 

her back home. 

It is my understanding that an Assistant US Attorney interviewed Jamie and that 

a State Department Special Agent investigated her case. However, the Department 

of Justice has not informed Jamie or me of the status of a criminal investigation 

against her rapists. It is interesting to note that the Department of Justice has 

thousands of lawyers, but not one from the barrage of attorneys is here to tell us 

what, if anything, they are doing. Their absence and silence speaks volumes about 

the hidden crimes of Iraq. 

Jamie turned to another government agency in January 2006. She filed a formal 

complaint with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against KBR 

for sexual harassment. In May 2006, the EEOC issued a Letter of Determination 

that was favorable to Jamie. The EEOC determined that Jamie was sexually assaulted by one or more KBR employees, that physical trauma was apparent, and 

that KBR’s own investigation ‘‘was inadequate and did not effect an adequate remedy.’’ 

Two and a half years after her assault, Jamie does not have justice. Jamie decided 

to go public with her case because she wasn’t getting answers from our government. 

It seems our government agencies have failed her. 

While the criminal justice system has certainly failed Jamie, in the United States, 

the civil court system may be of no help either in holding wrongdoers civilly liable 

for the injuries they have inflicted on victims. The inclusion of a binding arbitration 

clause in Jamie’s employment contract may preclude her from accessing a judge or 

jury to hear her civil case. She may be forced into arbitration, a privatized justice 

system with no public record, no discovery, and no meaningful appeal. If her case 

is arbitrated, the very company who victimized her will pick the arbitrator who will 

decide her fate. Jamie needs and deserves justice. As a former judge, I have always 

thought that the best way to solve disputes was in a courtroom with a jury. 

Since Jamie has gone public with her experience, my office has heard from 3 other 

women. Of course, my office will furnish the names of these women to the Judiciary 

Committee if needed. One of the three women is Tracy Barker. Tracy is also a 

former KBR employee, who says that she was sexually assaulted in Iraq by a State 

Department employee who still works at the State Department today. 

The 2 other women are also former KBR employees. They both report sexual assaults and sexual harassment by their coworkers in Iraq and neither woman has 

seen any federal law enforcement action. One of the women informed my office that 

she was molested several times and raped once by her KBR coworkers. When she 

reported the crime to her immediate supervisor, she was told that they would take 

care of it. She returned to work two days later and found her rapist working alongside of her. She panicked and called Army MPs, who escorted the rapist off of the 

base. However, she was subsequently fired. It seems that, unfortunately, Jamie’s 

case is not unique. 

Our government has a responsibility to protect American civilians overseas. These 

contractors work in support of an American military mission. Those who work in 

Iraq in support of the American military have a right to the same protections that 

we bestow on our citizens here in America. 

We need someone in Iraq to enforce our federal laws. The individual rapists must 

be prosecuted. Americans cannot go abroad and commit attacks on fellow Americans 

without the long arm of the law holding them accountable. 

The individuals who assaulted Jamie must be rounded up and tried. Nonfeasance 

by civilian contracting companies cannot be tolerated. Victims must get the justice 

that they deserve because justice is what we do in America. And that’s just the way 

it is. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you very much, Congressman. 

Ms. Jones? 

TESTIMONY OF JAMIE LEIGH JONES, FORMER EMPLOYEE OF 

KELLOGG BROWN AND ROOT (KBR), HOUSTON, TX 

Ms. JONES. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

Committee. 

I would first like to introduce my father, Tom Jones; my husband, Joseph Daigle; my attorney, Todd Kelly; Stephanie Morris, 

33 

my other attorney; Tracy Barker, a fellow victim; and Breanna 

Morgan, my mother. 

I went to support Operation Iraqi Freedom in the Green Zone in 

Baghdad, Iraq on July 25, 2005. Upon arrival at Camp Hope, I was 

assigned to an all-male barrack. I complained about the living conditions but Halliburton did nothing to help. 

I was subject to repeated catcalls and men who were partially 

dressed in their underwear while I was walking to the restroom on 

a separate floor from me. 

The EEOC reviewed Halliburton’s comments, found them unbelievable and credited my testimony about what happened. The 

Committee has this finding as an exhibit. 

On the fourth day in country, I stepped outside my barracks to 

take a call. Afterwards, some co-workers called me over and invited 

me to join them for a drink. 

The men, identified only as Halliburton-KBR firefighters, told me 

that one of them made really good drinks, so I accepted the drink 

from them. He handed me the drink and said, ‘‘Don’t worry, I 

saved all my ’roofies’ for Dubai,’’ or words very similar to that. 

I thought that he was joking and felt safe with my co-workers. 

I believed that we were all on the same team. I took two sips from 

the drink and don’t remember anything after that. 

The next morning, I was extremely sore between my legs and in 

my chest. I was groggy and confused. I went to the restroom and 

realized I had bruises between my legs and on my wrists and was 

bleeding between my legs. 

When I returned to my room, a man was laying in the bottom 

bunk of my bed. It wasn’t the same man who gave me the drink. 

I asked him if he had had sex with me, and he said that he did. 

I asked if it had been protected, and he said no. 

I was still feeling the effects of the drug from the drink and was 

now very upset at the confirmation of my rape. My heart sank that 

day. 

I reported this incident to a KBR worker who sent me to the 

KBR clinic. The clinic called KBR security, who took me to the 

Army CASH. Dr. Jodi Schultz performed a rape kit analysis, including photographs and a form that indicated all the bruises. 

She also took swabs, vaginal combings and scrapings from under 

my fingernails, as well as my panties and bra, and put the entire 

kit together in a small white box. I watched her give this box to 

the KBR security personnel as I was again turned over to these 

men. 

During the exam, Dr. Schultz confirmed that I had been penetrated both vaginally and anally and that I was ‘‘quite torn up 

down there.’’ She indicated that based upon the physical damages 

to my genitalia that it was apparent that I had been raped. 

The KBR security then took me to a trailer and then locked me 

in a room with two armed guards outside my door. I was imprisoned in the trailer for approximately a day. One of the guards finally had mercy and let me use a phone. 

I called my dad, who contacted Congressman Ted Poe, who took 

actions to get me out of the country. I believe he saved my life. 

I was later interviewed by Halliburton-KBR supervisors, and it 

was made clear to me that I had essentially two choices—one, stay 

34 

and get over it, or, two, go home with no guarantee of a job either 

in Iraq or in Houston. 

Because of the severity of my injuries, I elected to go home, despite the obvious threat of being fired. 

Once I returned home, I sought medical attention, both psychiatric and physical. I was originally sent to a psychiatrist of 

Halliburton’s choosing. The first question asked was, ‘‘Are you 

going to sue Halliburton?’’ So my mother and I walked out. 

Some time around May 2007, a State Department agent called 

and said that she was not aware of a rape kit or any pictures of 

my injuries. I insisted that the rape kit existed and forwarded a 

copy of KBR’s own EEOC response to prove that the Army doctor 

handed it over to a KBR employee at the hospital the night of the 

rape. 

It was a few days later that I received a call from the agent stating she had found the rape kit but the pictures were missing and 

so were the doctor’s notes attached to the top of the rape kit. 

I have had reconstructive surgery on my breasts and pectoral 

muscles due to the disfigurement caused by the brutal attack. I am 

still waiting for a follow-up surgery because I am still not back to 

normal. I have to sleep with a sports bra because of the pain. I still 

continue to go to counseling three times per week. 

It seems that nothing happens in my criminal case unless there 

is media attention. Right after I was interviewed with 20/20, I was 

flown to Florida to meet with the assistant United States attorney. 

I asked the AUSA where should I refer victims who contact me 

through the Jamie Leigh Foundation, and she responded, ‘‘Don’t 

refer them to my office, but you may want to refer them to the Office of Victims of Crime.’’ 

This problem goes beyond just me. Through the Jamie Leigh 

Foundation, numerous other women have contacted me who were 

assaulted and raped and were then retaliated against for reporting 

those attacks. 

There are at least 11 others that my attorneys are aware of, not 

including those filed by other lawyers and those who have come to 

me through my foundation. 

As indicated by the sworn affidavit by an H.R. representative 

from Halliburton, it is clear that sexual harassment was an overwhelming problem in Iraq, and this was known to Halliburton and 

KBR, but they hide it from unsuspecting victims like myself. 

There has been no prosecution after 2.5 years. My attorney, 

Stephanie Morris, wrote a letter to the ombudsman of the Office of 

Victims of Crime, also enclosed with the letter. Hopefully, the next 

victim will not have to wait so long. 

The arbitration laws are so abusive that Halliburton is trying to 

force this into a secret proceeding which will do nothing to prevent 

continued abuse of this nature. What is there to stop these companies from victimizing women in the future? 

The United States government has to provide people with their 

day in court when they have been raped and assaulted by other 

American citizens. 

Otherwise, we are not only deprived of our justice in the criminal 

courts but in the civil courts as well. The laws have left us nowhere 

to turn. 

35 

Thank you, Chairman and Members of the Committee, for inviting me to be here today. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jones follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMIE LEIGH JONES


JLJ-1.eps
36 


JLJ-2.eps
37 


JLJ-3.eps
38 


JLJ-4.eps
39 


JLJ-5.eps
40 


JLJ-6.eps
41 


JLJ-7.eps
42 


JLJ-8.eps
43 


JLJ-9.eps
44 


JLJ-10.eps
45 


JLJ-11.eps
46 


JLJ-12.eps
47 


JLJ-13.eps
48 


JLJ-14.eps
49 


JLJ-15.eps
50 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Ms. Jones, and thank you for your courage in being with us today. 

Professor Horton? 

TESTIMONY OF SCOTT HORTON, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF 

LAW, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, NEW YORK, NY 

Mr. HORTON. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today, and 

I just want to start by saying that I certainly am moved by the remarks that Ms. Jones has just made. 

In fact, it is hard to hear them without being angry. But I am 

going to try to be detached and examine some of the legal and policy issues that are presented here. 

And I want to start by saying Congressman Poe, I think, laid out 

the basic principles and stated them well, and essentially there is 

not a lot more I have to add to that. 

It is a question of fundamental justice and the Department of 

Justice failing to follow through in an area where it has clear jurisdiction and responsibilities. 

I think the Committee probably needs to look at this issue at two 

different levels. Number one is from the perspective of legislative— 

its legislative role. Has it enacted legislation? Has it appropriated 

funds that are sufficient to address this, which is clearly a recurrent problem? 

And second, from the perspective of its oversight role—that is, 

has the executive branch done everything it needs to do in the enforcement area? 

Well, I think we need to start with the fact that we have got— 

we have a community of 180,000 contractors in Iraq. Crimes occur. 

This has to be considered as something politically neutral. 

It doesn’t suggest that reliance on contractors is a mistake. That 

is an entirely independent political question for this body. 

And the community does not consist entirely of angels or devils. 

It consists of ordinary human beings, most of whom, undoubtedly, 

try very hard to honorably serve the country in fulfilling their duties. 

But you won’t find a community of this size in the United States 

or anywhere in the world where there are not violent crimes—in 

fact, violent crimes that occur hundreds of times in the year. 

And when you add to that the high-pressure circumstances that 

go with wartime, life in a war zone, where there are constant 

shootings and bombings, for instance, we know that this frequently 

leads to higher-than-normal rates of violent crime. 

So the question is who is playing sheriff. Who is providing the 

oversight? And in this case, there is a special responsibility for the 

United States. 

That responsibility arises because of order number 17 that was 

issued by Jerry Bremer in June of 2004. That order cut off the law 

enforcement powers of the government of Iraq. 

And that, I think, was an appropriate order to issue, but it created an obligation on the part of the United States to step in and 

fill the vacuum, to provide the law enforcement for this community. 

I think human experience tells us that when there is no law enforcement provided, crime is going to proliferate. That is something 

we know from the writings of Hobbes and from human experience. 

51 

Now, the accusations that come out of this case are disturbing 

in a number of different particulars, but the first is where is the 

Department of Justice when the incident occurs. 

I mean, clearly, there should have been notification to the Department of Justice right off the bat, certainly as soon as the embassy heard about it. 

There should have been involvement of the Department of Justice in the crime scene investigation at the beginning. There is no 

evidence that that occurred. 

Second, there are a number of outside indicators here suggesting 

that the embassy and others treated this as a contractor problem— 

that is, it is the contractor’s responsibility to deal with this issue. 

And I have to say now, in several months of talking with officials 

at the State Department, the Defense Department and the Justice 

Department, that is a refrain I hear over and over again—it is the 

contractor’s responsibility. 

But it is not the contractor’s responsibility to enforce the criminal 

law. That is a ridiculous attitude. It is the responsibility of law enforcement agencies to do so. So there is just a curious failing here. 

And the third thing I find particularly distressing here are the 

facts surrounding the medical examination, the preparation of the 

rape kit, and the fact that the rape kit again was turned over to 

the contractor. 

Obviously, this leads to all sorts of problems that will complicate 

far down the road a criminal prosecution. There is going to be a 

question of chain of custody, assuming it is ever found, but now it 

is missing. There is no sign of it. 

This has evidence in it that can’t be reconstructed after the fact. 

So there are going to be terrible problems here. 

So let me cut down to what are the issues again and what are 

the answers to the two questions I put up front. I think the legislation that Congressman Price put forward does address the question 

of jurisdiction. 

Jurisdiction in this case is clearly present, even under the 2004 

amendment. There is a contract that is involved that is a Department of Defense contract. 

But I think, again, it highlights the danger of having too technical a restriction in that statute. There is a need to broaden it. 

The Price legislation does that. 

But I think more important even than this, the Price legislation 

comes to a focus on requiring proper resourcing by the Department 

of Justice out in the theater in Iraq, being sure that there are FBI 

agents, there are investigators, that there is a trained, seasoned 

prosecutor. 

Had those resources been present in Baghdad, I think this case 

would have been handled properly, and we wouldn’t be facing the 

dilemma and the tragedy that we see right now. So there is really 

a pretty clear fix. 

Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Horton follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SCOTT HORTON

Is America establishing a culture of impunity among its contractors operating in 

areas of armed conflict? This is the question which a proliferation of reports out of 

Iraq invites. When I addressed this committee on June 25, I noted that there was 

52 

a troubling potential that certain categories of contractors would escape accountability altogether because of some issues that exist with the Military 

Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act. I also noted concern that the Department of Justice might not be giving sufficient resources and priority to its enforcement responsibilities over contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately all those concerns 

have been borne out. 

America’s objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan, as articulated by the President, the 

Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State, include helping to create a new 

democratic society which values the rule of law. But the contractor community that 

America has fielded to pursue this objective operates in an environment that looks 

increasingly like Texas West of the Pecos in 1890—without even a Judge Roy Bean 

to keep things in order. This obviously undermines the mission’s credibility. But it 

also creates an environment which is dangerous to all involved—contractors, the 

military and other U.S. Government personnel, and the host community in which 

they operate. 

Since June, we have witnessed a parade of further headlines which demonstrate 

precisely the shortcomings that were identified and addressed in Congressman 

Price’s legislation, H.R. 2740. And while that legislation overwhelmingly cleared the 

House—in a 389 to 30 vote—the Senate has not yet acted on a parallel measure. 

This legislation is urgently needed and should be enacted and signed into law in 

the near future. 

This committee should focus on two questions. First, is there a question relating 

to appropriations or to legislation which has contributed to the problem which the 

public now so clearly sees? Second, has the executive branch done what it can and 

should do to enforce the law? 

The horrible rape incident involving Ms. Jennifer Leigh Jones is sickening to hear 

recounted. It also provides an opportunity to consider exactly how the Government 

has responded to crimes committed by and among contractors. We have a community of 180,000 contractors in Iraq. Crimes do occur, and this is and must be considered a politically neutral fact. It does not suggest that the reliance upon contractors 

is mistaken. The decision to rely much more heavily on contractors was not a partisan decision. This community consists entirely neither of angels or devils, but of 

ordinary human beings, most of whom undoubtedly try to act honorably in fulfilling 

their duties. You won’t find a community of this size in the United States, or anywhere else in the world, that doesn’t experience serious violent crimes—hundreds 

of times in the course of a year. Add to that the fact that high pressure circumstances—such as life in a war zone in which shootings and bombings are common—frequently lead to higher than normal rates of violent crime. 

Human experience also teaches—since the first formation of human communities—that when the state fails to enforce order, to identify crimes as crimes and 

to punish them swiftly and certainly, crimes proliferate. The Government has a duty 

to the citizens of the United States, and also to the employees of the contractor community, to vigorously uphold the law. Indeed, this is one of the most fundamental 

duties of any Government. If the executive branch felt it needed new tools to do the 

job, or more money, it had a duty to come to Congress and regulate these questions. 

I have a lot of difficulty seeing how the executive branch has met this responsibility 

in the context of the United States presence in Iraq. 

I have not independently investigated the facts of the Jones case, though I personally find her account painful and compelling. But if I consider the facts that Ms. 

Jones has described, taking only those which have not been disputed by Kellogg 

Brown & Root, then I see no impediment to the exercise of the criminal law jurisdiction of the United States by the Department of Justice. As alleged the crimes occurred among employees of contractors involved in a contingency operation, on installations or facilities maintained by the United States abroad, and involve U.S. 

citizens as perpetrators and victims. These facts would provide multiple bases for 

the Department of Justice to exercise its jurisdiction. The crimes which have been 

alleged—rape, assault and false imprisonment among them—would come under at 

least two different grants of jurisdiction to U.S. federal courts, namely the Military 

Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, as amended in 2004, and the special maritime and 

territorial jurisdiction, as expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act. Of course, depending 

on the identity of the perpetrators, and potentially also the contracts which brought 

the personnel to Iraq, there might be some legal issues. This would have to be developed by investigation. 

The astonishing failure in this case is the failure of an appropriate law enforcement authority to conduct a prompt and timely investigation of the allegations while 

Ms. Jones was still in theater. It does appear that the matter was reported to the 

Justice Department early on, and Ms. Jones recalls meeting with a special agent 

of the FBI from the Baghdad Embassy. But the investigation was conducted by the 

53 

State Department, and it does not appear to have been an investigation designed 

to support a decision to take criminal action, including potential prosecution. In a 

case of this sort, having a timely, professional investigation conducted that secures 

forensic evidence in a form which is admissible in subsequent criminal proceedings 

is critical. This does not appear to have occurred. This will make prosecution by the 

Department of Justice incalculably more difficult. It may lead a prosecutor to conclude that even though a serious crime likely occurred, it will be too difficult to develop the evidence necessary to prosecute it. 

In fact the way the medical examination and resulting evidence was handled was 

truly shocking. 

These factual allegations from the Jones case strike me as significant and revealing of structural flaws in the way contractor-related crimes are being handled in 

Iraq and Afghanistan: 

(1) The Justice Department is effectively not present on the scene, does not have 

personnel deployed charged with conducting investigations, collecting evidence and 

making preliminary decisions as to whether incidents are suitable for prosecution. 

This would require a team of FBI agents with appropriate training, including access 

to forensic labs and personnel. 

(2) The case when first alleged seems to have been treated as an issue related 

to administration of a contract, rather than a criminal justice matter, triggering 

only a State Department investigation. But the State Department does not have authority to conduct criminal inquiries or to bring charges. 

(3) The Department of Defense was called upon to provide medical expertise, 

which was a reasonable step. But no guidelines appear to have been available as 

to how this was done. The alleged surrender of the rape kit by military medical personnel to Kellogg Brown & Root was grossly improper, producing a serious lapse in 

the chain of custody—and in this case, loss of evidence which cannot be reproduced. 

It reflects an attitude which I hear constantly when interviewing State Department 

and Defense Department personnel—namely, that the problem is the contractor’s. 

Of course, the contractor has an interest in performing its contract and maintaining 

a good relationship with the contracting agency. The contractor does not have any 

interest per se in law enforcement. It might well decide to terminate employees it 

believes are involved in a crime, but beyond that the contractor will, very appropriately, believe that the responsibility for law enforcement lies with law enforcement agencies. 

On December 5, the Department of State and the Department of Defense, represented through the able Deputy Secretaries Negroponte and Gordon, entered into 

a Memorandum of Agreement which sets out guidelines for cooperation in some investigations. When I first received and examined this document, I was convinced I 

must have been missing several pages. The most extraordinary thing about it is in 

fact what it does not cover. Remember, this process started in the wake of the 

Nisoor Square incident on September 16, in which private security contractors working for Blackwater Worldwide opened fire in the Nisoor Square neighborhood of 

Baghdad, leaving 17 civilians dead and severely wounding 24 more. The confusion, 

defensiveness, multiplicity of uncoordinated, ad hoc investigations, and inter-agency 

finger-pointing that characterized the U.S. government response to the shootings 

highlight the fact that the U.S. Government at this late date still had no plan or 

procedure for investigating allegations of serious violent crime involving private contractors fielded by the U.S. government in Iraq. 

The Defense Department and the State Department got into a bit of a squabble 

over these investigations, a turf battle if you will. The Memorandum of Agreement 

was supposed to work out procedures for reconciling their differences. It actually 

contains a number of important advances. But there is one agency with clear primary responsibility for the investigation of criminal conduct and action thereon, and 

that agency—the Department of Justice—is nowhere to be found. It’s not a party 

to the Agreement. In fact, while there is a fairly vague reference to ‘‘appropriate’’ 

law enforcement agencies, the Justice Department isn’t even mentioned. 

With respect to the Nisoor Square incident itself, the first Justice Department investigators appeared two weeks after it was first reported, published above the fold 

in newspapers around the United States. It made its appearance only after a public 

spotlight was focused on it, and demands were made by editorial boards and members of Congress for it to account for its inaction. 

I wish this had been a unique course of events. But it seemed to me completely 

typical. We should also look back to the first reports out of Abu Ghraib. Remember 

that the Report authored by Generals Kern, Jones and Fay identified six contractors, and General Taguba linked two of them to the most serious abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib. These matters were referred to the Department of Justice, 

and on to the Eastern District of Virginia in 2004. At the point of referral they had 

54 

been fully investigated by the Army’s Criminal Investigations Department, with a 

full dossier supporting prosecution. That same set of investigations fueled more than 

a dozen courts-martial and even more nonjudicial punishments. On the military 

side, the process may be subject to some criticisms, but at least there was a process 

that moved forward and resulted in criminal prosecutions and serious sanctions. 

And what about the Abu Ghraib cases involving contractors that were passed to 

the Department of Justice? Though there is a single newspaper report of a grand 

jury meeting at which questions were asked about these cases, there is no sign of 

any meaningful prosecutorial action—not even of efforts to interview victims and 

key witnesses. The Eastern District of Virginia has a reputation for acting quickly 

and skillfully. It has in the past years handled some of the highest profile cases in 

the country. The contrast between those cases and its handling of the cases from 

Abu Ghraib is nothing short of stunning. And the explanations that have been offered simply do not hold water. 

There has not been a single completed prosecution of a crime involving a contractor implicated in violent crime coming out of Iraq, although the reported incidents which would have merited investigation are legion. Again, it is simply impossible to believe that in a community with a peak population of 180,000 people—with 

many more people than that actually cycling in and out of these jobs, tens of thousands of them Americans—over a period of approaching five years there has been 

no violent crime. The facts point to something else: an attitude of official indifference within the Department of Justice, or at least a decision to accord these crimes 

a very low priority and no or very little resources. 

Looking back quickly to the two questions I started with: 

The developments at Nisoor Square and the tragedy experienced by Ms. Jones 

show that the legislation that Congressman Price proposed is badly needed. Congressman Price’s bill, as enacted by the House, requires the Justice Department to 

allocate the personnel and resources needed to address criminal allegations involving contractors. These cases reveal that as an urgent necessity. The Price bill also 

strengthens the Justice Department’s jurisdictional basis for action which would 

help avoid unproductive litigation over the scope of the Congressional grant of jurisdiction. 

The Jones case, and the Nisoor Square case point to a failure by the Justice Department to provide appropriate resources to address law enforcement within the 

contractor community in Iraq. There is an urgent need to have investigators, prosecutors and trained support personnel on the ground in Iraq. Back in Washington 

there should be a staff of experienced trial attorneys with depth in relevant criminal 

law and the law of armed conflict who can support prosecutions. The Criminal Division needs to be given an explicit mandate to cover this area, and dedicated funding, 

resources and personnel to do so. The fact that such resources are missing has clearly contributed to the failure to act in a timely and appropriate manner in the Nisoor 

Square event, in the case that Ms. Jones has described, and in many other incidents 

as well. It has damaged our nation’s reputation for doing justice. 

I look forward to your questions. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. Thank you, Professor. 

We will now have questions from the panel, and I will recognize 

myself for 5 minutes and begin with Ms. Jones. 

Are you aware of other cases of sexual assaults during your time 

in Iraq? 

Ms. JONES. I am aware of several other cases, yes. 

Mr. SCOTT. And do you know if any of them have been investigated by criminal law authorities? 

Ms. JONES. Everyone that has came to me through my foundation don’t know where to turn to for the criminal prosecution. And 

that is why I asked the assistant United States attorney where I 

should refer the victims to, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SCOTT. And do you know whether any of them have been investigated? 

Ms. JONES. Not to my knowledge, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SCOTT. Congressman Poe, when you called the Department 

of State, did they give you any response to the allegations? Did 

they admit it, deny it? 

55 

Mr. POE. The initial call was made and told them what had occurred, and our biggest concern at that point was getting Jamie in 

a safe environment. 

And so there were no comments—the first, obviously, they had 

seemed to have heard of any of this is when we called the State 

Department. 

Mr. SCOTT. And did you call the Department of Justice as well 

as the Department of State? 

Mr. POE. We contacted the Department of State first. Later, in 

the last 2 years, the Justice Department had been contacted by my 

office. But we have not received any response from either one. 

Mr. SCOTT. Say that again. 

Mr. POE. We haven’t received any response from the State Department or the Justice Department. 

Mr. SCOTT. Professor Horton, you indicated that the—in this case 

there seems to be no question about Federal jurisdiction over the 

crimes because KBR was a Department of Defense contractor. 

We are trying to make sure that is the same case for other contractors of the Department of State or some other—Department of 

Interior, or whatever. 

Since it is covered, who in the Federal Government should be— 

is responsible for the investigation and prosecution? 

Mr. HORTON. Well, let me start by noting Judge Gohmert, I 

think, pointed out quite correctly there are still some open questions here, of course, and we don’t know who all the perpetrators 

were. 

So of course, there could be some question with respect to some 

of the perpetrators. If those individuals aren’t in the theater in the 

context of a contract supporting the Department of Defense, that 

would be an issue. 

But the core events that occurred clearly are within the jurisdictional grant of the MEJA. So what does that mean? That means 

that the Department of Justice had the power and the responsibility to conduct the preliminary investigation in the theater and 

to handle it from that point forward. 

And I would point out something else that I noted in my written 

remarks here. That is on December 5th, there was a memorandum 

of understanding reached between the Department of Defense and 

the Department of State about conducting investigations. That is 

the thrust of your questions. 

You know, I got this agreement recently. I read it. I thought I 

was missing some pages, because the Department of Justice does 

not appear anywhere in the document. 

Not only are they not a party involved, asserting their prerogatives and their powers in connection with the investigations—and 

they are the paramount authority for this purpose—they are not 

even referred to in the agreement. They are AWOL. 

Mr. SCOTT. We have talked about the mandatory arbitration 

clause in her employment agreement. Is there any appeal from a 

mandatory arbitration decision? 

Mr. HORTON. I have to say that is beyond my field of expertise. 

Mr. SCOTT. Okay. And finally, do you know anything about other 

incidences that have not been investigated? 

56 

Mr. HORTON. Well, I have interviewed a number of individual 

contractors who described being victims of assault, involved contract—rather, fiscal contract issues and so forth, who described 

only a process of internal investigation with no government oversight investigation in these cases. 

So I guess I am aware of some other instances—not as serious 

as these, however. 

Mr. SCOTT. You mean the contractor doing the investigation and 

not criminal authorities doing the investigation? 

Mr. HORTON. That is correct. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Texas? 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And to follow up, Professor, on some of the Chairman’s questions, 

MEJA does seem to leave some questions, and so I want to ask specifically your opinion on whether part of this offense fell in cracks 

within the MEJA existing at the time of the alleged incident. 

When I say alleged, I believe there was an incident. 

Mr. HORTON. Again, I think the core of this incident certainly 

would be covered by the MEJA. 

What I am concerned about is when we get the—when we finally 

discover, if we do finally discover, who all the perpetrators are, if 

it turns out that some of those perpetrators are not in country in 

connection with a contract serving the Department of Defense, then 

they would be outside the territorial grant of the MEJA. 

I think this is one of the reasons why it is really in the interests 

of justice here to have a far broader, more expansive grant of jurisdiction to the Department of Justice so they pick up all those cases. 

I mean, it certainly would be an inefficient use of the law enforcement resources of the United States not to be able to join all 

the perpetrators in this case. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, you had said that the DOJ had responsibility for investigating. I was in the Army 4 years and familiar 

with their military justice. 

It would seem, though, that when there is an immediate problem 

in a DOD theater that there should be DOD investigators immediately step in, whether there is DOJ on the scene or not. Would 

you agree with that? 

Mr. HORTON. Absolutely. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Because, I mean, there are some incredibly professional DOD investigators, detectives, well trained, good folks. It 

would seem that that would be the perfect people to come in, if it 

is support personnel for a DOD mission. 

Mr. HORTON. I agree completely with that. You know, it seems 

to me that it would be reasonable to draw on the existing in-theater law enforcement expertise, and that would include the Criminal Investigation of the Department of the Army, medical sources 

and others. 

We would need, I think, someone with prosecutorial experience 

to supervise, and there are some gaps, of course, because the criminal justice system in our civilian courts, in our Article III courts, 

is different from the court martial system. 

57 

So the CID frequently prepares evidence to different standards, 

so you would need to have a prosecutor who could supervise the 

process to be sure that we don’t have any shortfall. 

One thing. There was a reference earlier to the Abu Ghraib 

cases. Now, those are cases, five cases, that were referred to the 

Eastern District of Virginia involving civilian contractors to Abu 

Ghraib. 

They were investigated by the CID. The portfolio and all the information was passed to the Eastern District of Virginia. There is 

no evidence, I see, of prosecutorial action. 

One thing I am concerned about is, you know, why does the Department of Justice feel that the CID investigation doesn’t meet 

standards for Federal court prosecution for some reason? I mean, 

that would be a very—— 

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, basically—— 

Mr. HORTON [continuing]. Important fact to know. 

Mr. GOHMERT [continuing]. You are probably aware they operate 

under the basic Federal rules. They kicked in back around 1980 for 

military justice courts. 

But if there is some question about jurisdiction of DOD or CID 

with the military coming in, investigating, we would welcome your 

input on how best to craft a fix to that legislatively to make sure 

that it is taken care of. 

Ms. Jones, I would like to ask, what specific thing do you think 

we could put into law that would have allowed you immediate help 

once something like this occurred? 

Ms. JONES. First of all, I think that if there was a standard procedure in place such as, you know, if someone is referred to the 

Halliburton clinic, then the Halliburton clinic should contact, like, 

FBI or whoever you all think needs to investigate it, because the 

KBR security coordinator—there is no way that that would come 

within the scope of their employment, I wouldn’t think. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Did they have a rape kit readily accessible, or was 

that something that took a while for them to get a hold of? 

Ms. JONES. I am not sure. I was taken to the Army hospital 

where the rape kit was—— 

Mr. GOHMERT. Okay. 

Ms. JONES [continuing]. Administered, but the Army doctor did 

hand over the rape kit to KBR security. 

I think that if this would have happened in the states, the rape 

kit would have been handed over to, say, a police officer, and there 

would be a chain of command. Like if the rape kit was handed to 

one person, to another, it would be, you know, written out—— 

Mr. GOHMERT. Certainly. 

Ms. JONES [continuing]. That it changed hands. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, and normally the military understands that 

and they are very good about that. That is why I am very concerned about this lapse in judgment and actually in protocol for 

how you handle these things. 

Like I know Judge Poe saw repeatedly as a judge, they had those 

same procedures in the military, and it is really shocking that that 

wasn’t followed here either. 

But I see my red light is on, and so thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

58 

The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from Michigan, the Chairman of the full Committee? 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

What a hearing. We are asking a victim about the laws and the 

Criminal Investigation Division. 

I am going to call the attorney general, Mukasey, who started 

out—it was going to be a new, clean deal, we are going to pull this 

thing back together. 

And you know, I am embarrassed that the Department of Justice 

can’t even come forward. I want him to start talking about these 

questions that we are asking the witness. 

Are they coordinating? Is the Criminal Investigation Division 

working carefully? They are real efficient. Yeah, real efficient. I am 

going to call the secretary of defense, too, Gates. 

We are acting like this is a case of first impression, that this is 

very difficult, complex stuff we are working on here. 

And we have got tens of thousands of people over there. Goodness knows how many people have preceded Ms. Jones in this kind 

of tragedy. 

And we are acting like this is something very heavy—we are 

judges, we are lawyers, we are professors. And this is an absolute 

disgrace. 

The least we could do is have people from the Department of Justice and defense over here talking about how we are going to 

straighten out the system right away. You don’t even need a hearing to do that. 

They should have responded to Congressman Poe immediately 

and said, ‘‘Let’s clean this up right away.’’ Did they do that? No. 

They are stiffing him. They are stiffing all the Jamie Joneses that 

have come and gone before. And they are stiffing us right now. 

And as one who encourages and works on the bipartisanship of 

the Judiciary Committee—and that has been my goal since I took 

over in January of this Committee—I am so pained by this big-deal 

complex law coordination expert investigators and all that, and 

nothing is happening. 

And so I am going to hope that we can do this without having 

to have countless numbers of hearings where we keep repeating 

the same thing. We are all in agreement that this is a mess that 

has got to be straightened up right away. 

And I am really ashamed as someone who has been in the service 3.5 years and served in Korea. And I know what it is like being 

over there. 

Ms. Jones, it was a great idea for the foundation. Tell us a little 

bit about it. 

Ms. JONES. I had to do it. I had to do it for other victims. I want 

to have the resources readily available at people’s fingertips who 

are going through this. I mean, there has to be a resource that is 

a refuge for victims. 

And if I couldn’t find out where to go—I tried through the assistant United States attorney—then perhaps I could help them at 

least find therapists, doctors, whatever I could do. 

59 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, that is so courageous. You know, as you 

know, this could break up, you know, a normal person. You are 

tough. You are patriotic. 

And I am just so proud that thanks to you and Congressman 

Poe, we are going to turn this thing around. You can bank on that. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Conyers. 

The gentleman from California, Mr. Lungren? 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

This is a very difficult hearing. If one of my four sisters or my 

two daughters that are younger than you, Ms. Jones, had undergone this, I am not sure I could control my rage. 

We have all seen that the first obligation of government, in my 

judgment, internationally is to provide for the common defense. 

Our first obligation domestically is to create a modicum of security and safety for our citizens so that they might be able to exercise their rights. 

Those two things shouldn’t collide. And the fact that we are out 

fighting a war doesn’t give us an excuse to forget the elements of 

our governmental structure and our criminal justice system. And 

I don’t think I could add too much to what the professor has already said. 

I think you have analyzed the law. I think you have indicated 

what some of the problems are. I would echo the comments of our 

Chairman. This isn’t rocket science. Any sophisticated law enforcement agency knows how to handle cases like this. 

Because you have a distribution of authority between the Department of Defense, the Department of State and the Department of 

Justice is not an excuse that they can’t get it together. 

Every law enforcement agency of which I am aware works with 

other law enforcement agencies and other governmental structures. 

And if you think it is important, you establish a protocol and you 

work these things. 

We had testimony here by the Department of Justice, by the FBI, 

as to what their priorities are. We know they have given, for instance, tremendous number of new agents and attorneys to look at 

public corruption. 

I mean, they talk about that all the time. They talk about it as 

one of the four keystone things that they do. I have never heard 

them talk about this. I am outraged by this. I don’t have any answer as to why this should happen. 

Ms. Jones, you are owed an apology by the government the way 

this was handled. Look, I know there are some great people that 

work at Halliburton and KBR. I am sure you would say that as 

well. 

I would probably bet that the vast majority of them are wonderful, patriotic people. But when you have got some bad apples, 

someone has got to do something about it. 

And most of our men and women who are working overseas to 

defend this country are great patriots, but there are among them 

the bad guys. And we should not allow them to hide behind bureaucratic inaction or, worse, such fear of bureaucratic inaction 

being revealed that somehow you don’t act and you cover things up. 

I think all of us on a bipartisan basis would join in the words 

of the Chairman that we need to get to the bottom of this, that this 

60 

is not a partisan issue, that I certainly grant our new attorney general the benefit of the doubt. 

I am going to presume that he personally is not aware of this 

and that personally he did not make the decision not to have someone, at least someone, here and testify as to the procedures and the 

processes. 

But we will work together on this, because this is totally, totally 

unacceptable. 

Mr. CONYERS. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. LUNGREN. I would be happy to yield. 

Mr. CONYERS. I just want to thank him for his continued cooperation that I have enjoyed on the Committee this year, and I 

just want to applaud his perceptions of this problem. 

Thank you. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, I thank you. 

Ms. Jones, did anyone ever explain to you what was going to be 

done with the rape kit, number one? 

And number two, has there been any effort to give you an explanation of what has happened to it since that time? 

Ms. JONES. The only thing that I was told by State Department 

agents is that the pictures and doctor’s notes are still missing. 

Mr. LUNGREN. See, this is an absolute outrage. Anybody who has 

ever been involved in prosecuting sexual assault cases understands 

the importance of a rape kit, understands the importance of maintaining evidence, understands the idea of chain of custody, understands you can undercut those cases if you let any of those things 

fall through the cracks. 

And this is—I don’t understand how anybody could explain it, except to say that no one knew what they were doing, no one knew 

who was in charge, somehow yours was the first case of this type 

anybody had ever heard of so they couldn’t figure out how to work 

it from an investigative and a follow up and a prosecutorial standpoint. 

And that is totally unacceptable. 

Ms. JONES. I agree. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Judge Poe, have you seen this in your experience 

as a judge on the state level in Texas? 

Mr. POE. No. After 22 years, I have never seen a case where the 

doctor takes a rape kit, does it correctly, and gives it to the perpetrator. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I mean, how many times have we been told the 

feds know how to do it and we don’t know how to do it on the state 

level? I mean, we ran—— 

Mr. POE. We hear that a lot. 

Mr. LUNGREN [continuing]. Into that all the time when we were 

in the criminal justice system in our respective states. There is no 

excuse for this. 

Do you have any opinion as to why this could happen, how this 

could happen? 

Mr. POE. I don’t know why it happened. It shouldn’t. But you 

mentioned it. I think the protocol—no one knew who was in charge, 

who was responsible, who was supposed to follow up, which—of 

course, it is our Justice Department. 

61 

Mr. LUNGREN. This sounds like the way we handled sexual assault cases 50 years ago, you know? 

Mr. POE. It does. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Where the victim was the last person thought of, 

where we didn’t know what to do with the evidence, where we 

didn’t realize how important it was to preserve the evidence, where 

we let the perpetrator sort of get away because we weren’t doing 

it on a timely basis—I mean, this is about as bad a foul-up as I 

have seen. 

And I apologize to you on behalf of the Federal Government—— 

Ms. JONES. Thank you. 

Mr. LUNGREN [continuing]. Ms. Jones. This should not happen to 

you. It should not happen to anybody else similarly situated. 

And how do we attract young people who are patriotic, as you 

are, to do the service to our country that is necessary? You were 

willing to go to a combat zone. 

We saw the reaction we had from some of the people in the State 

Department just a couple weeks ago, or a month ago, when the secretary of state suggested they needed to be out there doing stuff. 

I mean, you have been doing it, and this is the thanks you get. 

There is something rotten in Denmark, and we had better take of 

it. 

Mr. SCOTT. The gentleman’s time has expired. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Johnson? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

In watching the news last night, I saw—or heard; I was washing 

dishes during that time—a report—yes, I do wash dishes—and 

heard a report of a homicide on a military base on Fairfax County, 

Virginia that had occurred on Monday. 

And the report went on to say that the FBI has taken over the 

case and was investigating this homicide to determine whether or 

not any foul play that was involved in it. 

And something of that—a simple procedure like that was called 

for in this case, even though it occurred in the Green Zone in Iraq, 

a place where we had invaded, destroyed the infrastructure, then 

put in our own systems of justice over there, of maintaining law 

and order, especially in the Green Zone. 

And so I know that there are some—or I know that at the time 

that the incident occurred, Ms. Jones, that there was law enforcement available, a neutral law enforcement available, in the Green 

Zone to protect persons who were crime victims. 

And that system failed you. In fact, there are strong implications 

that perhaps that system and your private employer, Halliburton, 

the owner of KBR, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary—perhaps 

there was some unholy alliance between the law enforcement at 

that facility and your private employer, and that operated to deprive you of your right to justice under the criminal law up to this 

point. 

And with the state of the evidence, I am not sure whether or not 

it will be feasible to move forward with a criminal case, but certainly you having come back to the United States of America, you 

would seek to establish justice in the civil courts. 

And you have been met with resistance in doing that because of 

this mandatory binding arbitration clause in the agreement that 

62 

you signed with Halliburton in connection with your employment, 

is that correct? 

Ms. JONES. Yes, and I wanted to go and get a—do away with the 

arbitration in my case because I want justice, and I want to contribute every penny to the Jamie Leigh Foundation, to put it back 

and help other victims, and do everything that I can in my power 

to help victims of violent crime. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, let me tell you, I have got a daughter who 

is 18 years old, not much younger than you. I think you are, what, 

22 at this time? 

Ms. JONES. I just turned 23. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Twenty-three. 

Ms. JONES. Yes, on the 13th. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And I will say that if something like this would 

have happened to my daughter, I, like all of the others sitting on 

this podium, would—it is impossible to say how one would react 

until one is faced with some dilemma like this, and it could actually tear apart the family. 

And I am so happy that you are here with your family today, 

your father, your mother and your husband, who has stuck with 

you throughout this trial and tribulation. And so my hat goes off 

to that family support that you have. 

And I am proud of you for the stance that you have taken, and 

I know that they are very proud of you as well. 

Ms. JONES. Thank you. 

Mr. JOHNSON. You were 19 years old or so when you signed this 

employment agreement with Halliburton? 

Ms. JONES. I think I was 19—I think I had just turned 20. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Did you have a lawyer present to explain to you 

what was in that agreement? 

Ms. JONES. No, sir. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And did you have any idea of knowing anything 

about the so-called Halliburton dispute resolution program that 

was alluded to in that contract? 

Ms. JONES. I didn’t see that it was alluded in the contract. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. Well, now, the contract did mention about 

mandatory binding arbitration for any employment disputes. Were 

you aware of that when you signed? 

Ms. JONES. No, it was 18 pages long, and it was in verbiage at 

the time that I, quite frankly, did not understand. If you would 

have asked me at 20 years old what an arbitration was, I would 

not have been able to tell you. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And, Congressman Poe, according to an analysis 

by the National Employment Lawyers Association based on the 

American Arbitration Association’s public reports from January 

1st, 2003 to March 31st of 2007 of the arbitration decisions involving Halliburton, the Triple A arbitrators, who are the lead arbitrators in this case, found for Halliburton 82 percent of the time. Do 

you find that number disturbing? 

Mr. POE. Well, it is hard to understand that somebody could be 

correct 82 percent of the time in these type of disputes. It is somewhat disturbing. 

On arbitration, it just seems like it ought to be, in a case like 

this, optional. And it certainly shouldn’t apply to criminal activity. 

63 

Mr. JOHNSON. Why do you think a public hearing, in a public 

courtroom, with a judge paid for with public funds, charged with 

being fair and impartial, is so important in resolving disputes of 

any nature? 

Mr. POE. Oh, I am a great believer in the jury trial. I just think 

it is one of the greatest things we have in our judicial system, 

whether it is a civil case or a criminal case. I heard over 1,000 jury 

trials. 

And so I think the public courtroom and our philosophy in the 

Constitution is fundamental. And so I am a great believer in it. 

It seems to work because it is public, and you have the jury, and 

you have the judge, and you have both sides, and you are making 

your case—the lawyers are making their case before a public 

forum. So I am a believer in that. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And on the other hand, an arbitration proceeding 

is secret. Rules of evidence, rules of procedure, don’t apply. And an 

appeal is limited. So having said that, I will close my comments at 

this time. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, and I thank the gentleman for his comments. 

The gentleman from North Carolina? 

Mr. COBLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member, a very distinguished 

panel today. 

We appreciate you all being here, but particularly you, Ms. 

Jones. 

Ms. JONES. Thank you. 

Mr. COBLE. Ms. Jones, how long after the assault was the medical examination performed? 

Ms. JONES. The next morning. 

Mr. COBLE. By a physician? 

Ms. JONES. Yes, by an Army medical doctor. 

Mr. COBLE. And did he question you in any way about the facts 

surrounding the assault or just restricted to the medical exam? 

Ms. JONES. It was a medical exam. 

Mr. COBLE. Do you know, Ms. Jones, whether there were witnesses to the assault? 

Ms. JONES. To the assault? 

Mr. COBLE. Yes. 

Ms. JONES. The perpetrators that did this to me would be witnesses. 

Mr. COBLE. And you know their identities, I presume. 

Ms. JONES. We know one by name. 

Mr. COBLE. Okay. Did you remain employed after the assault 

with KBR? 

Ms. JONES. No. 

Mr. COBLE. Well, let me put my oar in these waters. Did you 

have reason to believe that if you reported it that your job might 

be in jeopardy? Did that ever cross your mind? 

Ms. JONES. Yes, when I was imprisoned in a—locked in a shipping container with two armed guards not letting me outside of my 

door, then I think that I was very aware that my job was in jeopardy. 

64 

They did not want me to come out because—it was not to protect 

me. It was to protect them. 

Mr. COBLE. Yes. 

Professor, in your opinion, is there a constitutional line in the 

sand as to how far the Congress can extend Federal criminal jurisdiction to conduct overseas, A? 

And B, in your opinion, does H.R. 2740 stay on the right or the 

appropriate side of that line? 

Mr. HORTON. There definitely are some limits to the extension of 

extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction. 

Here, there is a special hook because of the power of the Congress to define criminal law jurisdiction in connection with hostilities overseas, so it would come under the clause that grants you 

the right to define the law of nations. 

And there, a country that sends a force into the field—that could 

include both uniformed military and contractors—has the power 

and the right to enforce criminal law with respect to that force that 

is deployed wherever they are deployed. 

So it seems to me quite clear that the legislation that was recently enacted—or recently passed by the House—is well within 

the constitutional grant of jurisdiction to the extent it is tied to a 

contingency operation that is occurring overseas. 

Mr. COBLE. Ms. Jones, as the distinguished gentleman from California said, many people owe you profound apologies, and I thank 

you very much for the courage you have shown in appearing here 

today. 

Ms. JONES. Thank you. 

Mr. COBLE. Ted, Congressman, do you want to add anything before my red light illuminates? 

As the Chairman knows, I try to comply with that red light, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. POE. No, I think it has all been covered. But the comments 

from the panel regarding the apology by our government, I think, 

is well taken, well deserved to Jamie Leigh Jones and the other 

victims. 

Mr. COBLE. Ms. Jones? 

Ms. JONES. And I really appreciate all of your apologies and I 

take them to heart. 

Mr. COBLE. Thank you, Professor. 

Good to have all of you with us. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Coble. 

The gentlelady from Wisconsin? 

Ms. BALDWIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have to echo the frustrations that have been expressed by 

many, and I am sure are shared by the panel, that many of the 

Federal entities that we want to question about this aren’t here, including, of course, the Department of Justice. 

And your testimony is providing us with very important information. And my question that will follow may elicit that this is much 

more widespread than we could even know. 

But the frustration of not being able to hold folks to account that 

need to be held to account is very aggravating. 

65 

Ms. Jones, I wonder if, through your work with the Jamie Leigh 

Foundation, you might have an answer to this question. This past 

March there was an article in the New York Times titled ‘‘The 

Women’s War.’’ 

It was written by Sarah Corbett, and it detailed the experiences 

of about—well, 160,000 women soldiers who have been deployed to 

Iraq and Afghanistan. Corbett cites a 2003 study that was financed 

by the Department of Defense. 

And in that study it was revealed that nearly one-third of a nationwide sample of female veterans seeking health care through 

the V.A. said that they had experienced rape or attempted rape 

during their time of service. 

Of that group, 37 percent said that they were raped multiple 

times and 14 percent said that they were gang-raped. What I am 

wondering is if we know whether these absolutely stunning statistics would apply also to women contractors serving in Iraq. 

Are there statistics on sexual assault of women contractors 

abroad? Are any similar studies available that you know of on the 

experiences of women contractors? 

Ms. JONES. Not to my knowledge, but so far there are so many 

women coming forward I can’t even count them. And there hasn’t 

been a woman once come to the Jamie Leigh Foundation and state 

that nothing has happened to them. 

All the women that have come to my foundation have a story, 

and a significant story, and they all deserve their day in criminal 

court. And you know, their letters—you know, they make me cry, 

and that is why I am here today, not just for myself, but for these 

women that deserve justice. 

Ms. BALDWIN. I know that partially in response to these studies 

that the U.S. military has worked to become more sensitive to 

women, and they now have regular mandated workshops on preventing sexual harassment and assault. 

I am wondering whether there are similar educational programs 

for U.S. government contractors. 

And in particular, in your experience, Ms. Jones, did you learn 

about the topics of sexual harassment or preventing sexual assault 

in any of the training that you might have received before you left 

for Iraq? And did you receive any training before you left for Iraq? 

Ms. JONES. The only thing that they told women to be aware of 

was insurgency. They never once trained us about how to maintain 

an environment in the workplace free of sexual harassment and assault. 

I applaud the military. My husband is in the Navy, and he 

brings home booklets full of stuff about how to behave in a military 

environment, what to do, what not to do in regards to women, and 

men, in that matter. 

If Halliburton maybe would take the time and do the—maybe 

even the exact same thing the military does, because they are 

working among the military personnel, I think that that would be 

absolutely wonderful. But they didn’t. 

Ms. BALDWIN. Thank you again for your testimony. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Davis? 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

66 

Ms. Jones, let me echo everyone today who has thanked you and 

complimented you for your courage. 

Ms. JONES. Thanks. 

Mr. DAVIS. Someone who was once very close to me, a young 

woman, experienced the same thing that you did. She was drugged 

and sexually assaulted against her will, and I still remember her 

telling me in some detail about it. 

She was unwilling to report her crime because she felt that people wouldn’t believe her version of what happened. And all too 

many women realize that is what happens in so many of these 

cases. 

You walk in, you tell what someone did to you, and you are the 

person who falls under the critical microscope. You are the person 

who is doubted at every turn. 

So thank you for having the courage to come forward. Hopefully 

it will inspire other women to do the same. 

Let me say this much about the substance of this matter. I think 

there are two wrongs here. One of them has to do with the complete inattention of the element of the U.S. government that is 

charged with prosecuting criminal laws. 

Mr. Horton, or Professor Horton, I noticed a very interesting sentence in your opening statement, ‘‘There has not been a single completed prosecution of a crime involving a contractor implicated in 

violent crime coming out of Iraq, although the reported incidents 

which would have merited investigation are legion.’’ 

This is how I translate that: There is essentially a protection-free 

zone in Baghdad if you work for an American contractor. And I am 

sure that the Halliburtons of the world have figured that out by 

now. 

I suspect that one of the reasons why civilians who are working 

for your company or your former company and others are mistreated and subjected to criminal activity and to tortious activity 

is, in part, because a lot of the wrongdoers know very well that 

they are not going to be prosecuted, because they know very well 

that the government is not going to be interested in going after 

them for their misconduct. 

Would you agree with that, Ms. Jones, that there is some perception on the part of some of these contractors that they will not be 

prosecuted? 

Ms. JONES. I absolutely agree with it. I mean, so many women 

are coming forward with similar events that have occurred that 

have occurred to me. I mean, obviously, they know that they can 

get away with it. 

Mr. DAVIS. And I will echo Mr. Lungren’s comment that I struggle to understand the priorities of the Department of Justice under 

the best of circumstances. 

If you had been a Democratic politician in Alabama and someone 

said something about you, they would have been all over that like 

white on rice. But a young women saying that she was raped obviously did not produce the same level of attention. 

And based on the absence of prosecutions in any single case coming out of Iraq, again, I am stunned by the comparison. 

67 

If you were in Greene County, Alabama, and someone said you 

were trying to manufacture absentee ballots, it would have attracted an enormous amount of interest. 

There is another wrong here, though, and Mr. Johnson or Congressman Johnson touched on it. This is exactly the kind of case 

where arbitration clauses should not be applicable. 

Now, if somebody is saying my cable T.V. company charged me 

too much money, maybe there ought to be binding arbitration 

there. If someone is saying I am trying to get 2 months’ extra leave 

and they are saying I should get 29 days extra leave, maybe that 

is a place for arbitration. 

But when someone is alleging a serious tortious assault, that 

ought to be determined—liability, in my mind, ought to be determined in a court of law. It ought to be determined by a jury of one’s 

peers. 

You ought to have a chance to look your accusers in the eye and 

to make your claim and to recover damages, and a jury ought to 

decide that, not one individual sitting somewhere who may or may 

not be disposed to be sympathetic to your circumstances. 

And I will make this my last comment. It speaks to a broader 

point. There are too many mandatory arbitration clauses that have 

worked their way into the fabric of the employment world. They 

are too excessive. 

Most people, like you, Ms. Jones—they don’t read that stuff. 

When you get hired, you want to know when do I start. You don’t 

do the fine print on a mandatory arbitration clause. You don’t go 

out and get a lawyer to interpret it to you. There are too many of 

these things. 

And one of the things, Mr. Chairman, that I hope this Committee 

will do over the course of the next year is to do a more searching 

scrutiny of these clauses and to figure out what we can do to uproot some of them. 

My final 30 seconds—I have a bill that I have introduced which 

deals with former Guard and reservists who are coming back home 

to work at their old company and who are being terminated because they served their country. 

They go back to work for a store or a company and they are fired 

because they missed too much time serving their country. A lot of 

those individuals don’t get a chance to go to court because of binding mandatory arbitration clauses. My bill would eliminate the 

clauses in those cases. 

Thank you again for your courage, Ms. Jones. 

Ms. JONES. Thank you. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Davis. 

Ms. Jackson Lee? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I started my comments this morning, Ms. 

Jones—and you are from Texas, so there is a bond here that I hope 

you realize is in truth and honesty—that, in fact, you represent 

voices that cannot be heard. 

And I want to reaffirm the fact—and I thank your father and 

mother, lawyers, your husband, the other victims that are here— 

thank you for your service to this country. Thank you for your commitment and bravery to this country. 

68 

And I hope that Congressman Poe and myself and the Members 

of this Committee can work together, because we would like to 

hear from those who are not at the table. 

Your foundation has generated names and if they are desiring of 

those names to be public, I would like to work with you. 

Ms. JONES. Okay. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Because as I indicated, I gave you the small 

story of a young woman who was on the way where you had gone, 

and she was very proud. She was going to be gone a year. And I 

think of her even today, because she is heading out as we speak. 

And so it is imperative that we take up a number of the issues 

that my colleagues have said, and I would like to pose them with 

you using Professor Horton’s very astonishing fact and raise some 

questions with you on that. 

I do want to go to Congressman Poe again, Congressman, because I want to know, did you separately deal with Halliburton and 

KBR? We have been using Halliburton, and I know that in my absence maybe KBR was mentioned. 

But let us be very clear of the two entities or the entities together, but, in fact, the culpability of these companies falls where? 

Did you reach out to both? Did you find that they were separated 

at the time? Are they not separated? What did you find out in your 

fact finding? 

Ms. JONES. Well, I remember when my Grandma asked me who 

I was going to go work for overseas, the only answer that I knew 

to say was Halliburton. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And clearly, as the war started, you were correct to be saying that. And so I understand that in terms of your 

perception. 

I want to ask Congressman Poe who he reached out to and what 

did he find out. 

Mr. POE. We started with the State Department; expected, as we 

were informed, that the State Department would follow up on all 

the prosecutions. 

We did not deal with KBR or Halliburton. My understanding is 

they are not the same entity anymore. But this is a criminal investigation that we expected the Justice Department, who isn’t here, 

to follow up on and prosecute. 

So we didn’t deal with either entity at all. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, I think the point should be made you 

had a life and death situation to deal with, and you needed to rescue someone. And clearly, your task was completed—that is, to 

save her life and get her out of there. 

And so let me—and I appreciate that. And the reason why I mentioned that is because you are right. I think the Department of Justice owes us its duty to investigate and to determine who the culprits are and to have those particular entities, corporate and otherwise, prosecuted to the fullest of the law. 

And those companies have a responsibility to come forward, to 

shine the light on, to stand up and indicate here is our corporate 

structure, here is who was here, here is who was not here, so that, 

in essence, the investigation can go forward. 

My colleague, Mr. Weiner, said it is a shame that American tax 

dollars would be used to commit criminal activity, violent criminal 

69 

activity. What American would say send my tax dollars to make 

sure that someone is criminalized? 

So let me proceed, Mr. Horton, to the outrage of your astonishing 

fact and suggest that legislation needs to be in place. And I have 

not looked at the legislation recently that we have moving through 

this Congress. 

That is, the failure of an appropriate law enforcement authority 

to conduct a prompt and timely investigation of the allegations 

while Ms. Jones was still in theater. The facts should note that Ms. 

Jones was held without her permission. She was not given food or 

water. 

And can you believe that we believe that we have funded FBI 

agents on the ground in theater and we did not have an investigation on the ground? We did not have the FBI come there and say 

where is the rape kit, where is this doctor, what hospital, where 

is the scene, let us take pictures of the place where she was incarcerated. 

Can you believe that did not happen? Professor Horton, what do 

we need to do about this? 

Mr. HORTON. Well, I think just start with some simple numbers. 

If we go and look at the U.S. embassy’s Website for Baghdad, we 

will see that there are 200 Department of Justice employees in the 

Green Zone at the embassy. 

And out of that total, how many of them are dedicated to deal 

with questions of crimes involving contractors? Well, the answer, 

Congresswoman, appears to be zero. None. So it is a matter of incomprehensible resource allocation. 

I would just note another fact. Thirty-eight Department of Justice professionals—that is lawyers—were sent to Iraq to assist in 

setting up the international tribunal that tried Saddam Hussein 

and members of his regime. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Say that number again. I am sorry. 

Mr. HORTON. Thirty-eight lawyers were sent there to assist in 

connection with that tribunal, criminal justice process. Perfectly 

reasonable move. I don’t question that. 

But to me, it is incomprehensible that we see that level of dedication to something which is, from our perspective, really a political 

act, not really a criminal justice matter, and we see no allocation 

of resources to deal with the crime situation within the contractor 

community. 

I think that is letting down our contractors, the employees there. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. In my 30 seconds of closing, to simply say that 

we should legislatively, then, establish this unit with the FBI personnel, with the Justice Department lawyers, and an in-theater investigation should ensure immediately protection of all the witnesses and the victim and, if necessary, to be tried in theater. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you and I look forward to 

working with this Committee to respond to this huge injustice. 

Thank you again for your service, Ms. Jones. 

Ms. JONES. Thank you. 

Mr. SCOTT. I thank the lady for her questions. 

And the recommendation of the investigatory unit is in the bill 

that we have passed. It is sitting over in the Senate. So we would 

hope that the Senate would take the bill up and pursue it. 

70 

The gentleman from Texas? 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just a couple of follow-up matters. The Chairman, for whom I 

have immense respect, had pointed out, you know, what a hearing 

and what a disgrace, and pointed out that we are asking the victim 

questions about the law. 

And what I found in my 3 years in Congress is that too often we 

don’t ask the people most closely associated with problems what 

they see as a proper fix. 

And to me, this really is a heavyweight matter. As a judge, I saw 

where the state legislature made conflicting laws and as a result 

they gave technicalities for people to get off down the road. So I 

want to make sure we get this right. 

And if I could ask the professor a question about statute of limitations, because, Chairman, you had mentioned that, and a—brilliant, intuitive, right to the heart of it. 

Professor, as I understand it and recall from the military, there 

is a 5-year statute of limitations on an offense like this. I don’t 

know if that would apply. Do you know what statute of limitations 

would apply here? 

Mr. HORTON. That is something I would have to research and get 

back to you on. I don’t know. 

But actually, raising the military point is another good point, because we haven’t discussed in the course of this hearing the possibility of using the military criminal justice process to address it. 

That is also an option that is out there, the UCMJ. And its availability would turn on a number of facts, including who the perpetrators were. 

So obviously, if we had military personnel or reservists or others 

who are within the grant of jurisdiction in Article 2 of the UCMJ, 

that would be another possibility, and then we would get the 5-year 

statute of limitations. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Because listening to this hearing, it does sound 

from both sides of the aisle that one of the problems that we keep 

coming back to is I don’t think we have made clear who is in 

charge in this situation. 

And what I have seen also is that doctors—they are not criminal 

experts, so whoever appears to be in charge is the one they end up 

giving stuff to. They require somebody on the scene to tell them— 

and I hope that we can get that fixed. 

And I am concerned about the justice’s non-appearance, as my 

colleagues are, but I was presented a letter that was sent by a 

Clinton administration—Attorney General Reno basically taking 

the same position that even when there is—we are going to be 

asked questions about procedure, if there is an open case that it 

might pertain to, then we don’t want to come testify. 

And I really appreciated the Chairman stepping back here— 

sometimes you wonder what we are talking about. The Chairman 

is trying to figure out a way we can get to the heart of it and really 

appreciate that. 

And I think a bipartisan letter where it doesn’t matter which Administration, whether it is Clinton or Bush or whoever in the future—we ought to lay out some ground rules that we can agree 

with. 

71 

Look, we are not going to ask you about a pending case that you 

can’t answer, but you need to come forward. If the Justice Department doesn’t come forward and tell us proper applicability of laws, 

then that whole side is not being represented, and we may make 

a mistake in prescribing the proper laws. 

So I would applaud, Chairman Conyers, your effort in doing that. 

We really ought to be able to lay out ground rules that can force 

the hand of any Administration’s justice department to come before 

this Committee and explain their position on the laws, because 

when we get laws wrong, people suffer. 

And I applaud, Chairman Scott, your having this hearing and 

having it so quickly. And I hope we can get to a solution. 

Oh, and one other thing. I may be the only person that went 

through international arbitration testing for 3 days. And what I 

have seen is—my colleagues are exactly right. 

When it pertains to something this tortious, arbitration rules of 

evidence are far too lax to be the appropriate venue for something 

like this. So that may also be something we—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Would the gentleman yield for a moment? 

Mr. GOHMERT. Yes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I appreciate your comment on that. I just 

thought that possibly we could have a criteria that says if it is a 

criminal matter, then—that the provision that maybe an employee 

signs is waived, and that might be one element that we might consider as, you know, having arbitration but waiving it if it happens 

to be a criminal matter. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I yield back. 

Mr. GOHMERT. I agree. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

That legislation is pending now in another Subcommittee. 

I would like to thank the witnesses for your testimony today. 

Members may have additional questions for our witnesses which 

we will forward to you and ask that you respond as promptly as 

you can so they may be part of the record. 

Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 1 

week for submission of additional materials. 

And I would recognize the Chairman of the Committee for a final 

comment. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, I thank everybody, but this has been helpful 

for all of us, and I thank particularly my Republican colleagues. 

I have talked to Lungren and Coble and Judge Gohmert, and we 

are going to communicate with the attorney general and the secretary of defense and work this thing out more quickly. I mean, we 

are all lawyers. We don’t need to hold hearings on Criminal Law 

101. And that is what we are here to expedite. 

The whole thing is not how many hearings can you hold. It is 

how can you make the law more efficient and make it work. And 

that is what this hearing has done in a great way, thanks to all 

of our witnesses. 

Ms. JONES. Thank you. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

72 

Finally, as the Chairman has indicated, notwithstanding the absence of Department of Justice officials today, we will get answers 

and, if not soon, we will have other additional hearings in which 

they will have an opportunity to explain themselves. 

In any event, Ms. Jones, we may need more research, but I think 

most of the people up here believe that the statute of limitations 

on all of the criminal offenses that have been alleged in your case 

extends into the next Administration. 

And so if this Administration will not investigate and prosecute, 

I am sure the next Administration will. 

With that, without objection, the Committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:11 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

73 

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

LETTER TO THE HONORABLE JOHN CONYERS, JR., CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, FROM BRIAN A. BENCZKOWSKI, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY

GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS


DOJ-1.eps
74 

f 


DOJ-2.eps
75 


Lee-1.eps
76 


Lee-2.eps
77 


Lee-3.eps
78 


Lee-4.eps
79 


Lee-5.eps
80 

Æ 


Lee-6.eps