Cosmos Club, Washington, DC
March 10, 2009

Thank you [Lt.Col.] Steve [Dietrich] for the introduction. Thank you all for coming this evening. This group assembled is most distinguished. As a longtime member of the COSMOS Club, I have always enjoyed attending the events here. Tonight I am honored to be presenting one. Before we get started I would like to thank the COSMOS club for hosting us this evening. Thank you to our COSMOS event sponsor, Dr. Ruda-Brickfield. And thank you to Ms. Idy Marcus for bringing it all together. I also want to recognize a few people: My colleague, Selin Hur was a key contributor to this project. My wife, Jennifer, who provided editorial input to the book. Also with us tonight are my daughter Laura and her husband, Jed Dennis. Jed is a Commander in the U.S. Navy and spent a year in Afghanistan serving our country. Thank you to them as well.

The Truth Will Out. This may sound familiar to many of you. "The truth will out" is a line from Act 2, Scene 2 of Williams Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. During CACI's Abu Ghraib ordeal, I felt our team could use a motto that described our situation and that we could rally around. And it turned out Mr. Shakespeare had created the motto for our modern day crisis several centuries ago. "The Truth Will Out!"

Shakespeare also said, "There is a history in all men's lives." And his classic words describe all too well our experience, which unfolds in the pages of our book – Our Good Name.

In 2004 CACI – the company that I led for 27 years – endured the worst crisis in its long corporate history. In fact, we still face fall out from its effects today. CACI had always been a well known company within the government contracting industry. We were also a contractor that had maintained an impeccable reputation for over four decades. But in April 2004 most of the world heard of CACI for the first time when it was linked to the terrible abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Overnight, CACI went from being a low-profile, well-respected company to becoming a target of blame and shame. It took a very long time and a lot of effort by a dedicated team to steer CACI through this crisis. In April 2008 we published Our Good Name, a factual narrative of our ordeal.

In my time with you this evening I would like to discuss why and how this book was written. Simply put, we wanted to get the facts and the truth out, and to tell our part in the Abu Ghraib story. This was a story not always accurately reported.

First, I would like to tell you a little bit about CACI. CACI is a government services contractor that was founded in 1962. We began with one software product – a software simulation technology package (SIMSCRIPT) – that was sold by our founders from their first office – a park bench and phone booth in California. CACI has evolved over the years into a leading provider of information technology, network communications and related professional services. Our clients include the U.S. government, particularly the Department of Defense, and the U.S. intelligence services. CACI is a public company listed on the NYSE with about $2.5B in annual sales. Today, we have 12,500 employees who work in over 120 offices around the world.

But let's go back to April 2004. CACI was just about to complete our largest acquisition ever – a $400M deal - one that would propel us into the top tier of our industry. But our celebrations would soon be cut short.

On April 27, 2004 CACI's head of business communications and public relations (Jody Brown) received an unusual and disturbing call.

(OGN, p.24) "It was Seymour Hersh who was on the phone. More specifically, he was on Jody Brown's voicemail, asking something about a prison in Iraq. There was a question about CACI employees at the site, and she didn't know for sure what Hersh was talking about. But one thing about the tone of his message she knew instinctively: this was not good news."

Hersh, of The New Yorker magazine, had a copy of an illegally leaked army report which claimed – "suspected" – that one of our employees was "directly or indirectly" responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Two days later 60 Minutes II aired the now infamous abuse photos. What came next was a media feeding frenzy. And with the allegation in the illegally leaked report, CACI became part of the main course!

By the way, my daughter Laura had her first child, my granddaughter Charlotte Rose, on April 27, 2004. It was quite the eventful day!

We were as shocked and appalled as everyone at the abuses. CACI would never condone the behavior depicted in the photos. But we were confused as to how a lower-level contractor was thought to have such authority over soldiers and could be blamed for everything that happened in the photos. Especially since no one from CACI was even in any of the photos. This was the first red flag.

We also noted that another civilian contractor was falsely named in the initial army report as being a CACI employee, while an actual CACI employee was listed as working for both CACI and another company – a second red flag. Most noteworthy, both contractors had been assigned the same level of blame as two senior U.S. Army officers – a third red flag!

There also wasn't any evidence provided in the report…only a "suspicion" – yet another red flag!

These inconsistencies or omissions made us think that this was not the whole story. But nearly everyone else disregarded these questions or inconsistencies. Meanwhile, we had received nothing but good reports from our Army client in the field. Despite the many conflicting accounts which would normally raise questions – particularly among investigative reporters, the prevalent conclusion presented in the media was that CACI was somehow to blame.

What was even more disturbing – at least to me – was that very few people questioned the inconsistencies of the conclusions made in an illegally leaked report, including the allegations against CACI. This report was by Major General Antonio Taguba and I will refer to it from here on as the Taguba report. There has never been any (public) inquiry into the leak of the Taguba report. Who leaked it? And why? The army had issued a press release on the abuse investigation months earlier in January 2004 and again in March. There were a few media stories about it. So the military was clearly not hiding the abuses. And the numbers of discrepancies in the report indicated, from CACI's perspective, that it was probably still a work in progress. Furthermore, it was only one in a series of investigations that were being conducted into the abuses at that time. Yet, the Taguba report was taken as gospel – as it were, the only and final word on Abu Ghraib.

Our crisis began with Taguba's report. The report had several errors or inconsistencies, as I just mentioned. It also lacked hard evidence to support its biggest allegation – those named individuals responsible for the abuses. So what most people would accept as a credible source – a U.S. Army report – was, in fact, wrong on the some important details as far as CACI was concerned.

Yet the Taguba report was the primary source for the media and public at large on the Abu Ghraib abuses. Based on that army report, CACI's employees were accused of being unqualified and that management was putting our investors at risk. CACI was made out to be guilty of the abuses – even torture – in Iraq and other parts of the world in which we didn't even work. We were also labeled as war profiteers, torturing for profit. These errors continued to be distorted, and amplified by the media, for months to come.

And there seemed to be no limit to the wrong things said about CACI

• CACI conspired with other companies and the U.S. government to drum up business by doing the government's "dirty work" – but this was wrong – not true!
• CACI provided armed security personnel and even mercenaries – also wrong – not true!
• CACI engaged in spying and knew of assassinations– again, wrong – not true!

This is only a sampling of wrong accusations. In fact, we compiled a list of all the accusations – and their corrections – in the first appendix in the book. It is 21 pages long!

What followed was nothing short of a witch hunt. The media wasted no time pillorying us, and in trying and convicting us. Opportunists tried to make CACI a scapegoat. The government reacted with several investigations, one in particular – the GSA suspension and debarment inquiry - that could have put us out of business for good.

With this much wrong, we had no choice but to push back, full force. We had to stand up for our employees, our customers, our investors and our reputation. We had to act quickly, thoroughly, and with integrity. We had to get the facts right. And unlike others – mainly in the media – whose sense of justice was the court of public opinion, CACI would adhere to the rule of law. We would follow the principles of due process and of innocent until proven guilty.

Our Good Name is a detailed, factual account of how we responded to this crisis. We took great care to address all of the questions and accusations. We carefully researched the issues and revealed our sources. We presented the facts, as provided in official records. Our Good Name was our effort to set the record straight about CACI and Abu Ghraib, and defend the fine reputation of our company. A reputation built on over four decades of hard work by thousands of employees, quality service to the U.S. government and other clients, and the investments – of trust and money – of our shareholders. We had no choice but to stand up for ourselves.

In an information age, you wouldn't expect an information shortage. But that's what we faced in 2004. Better said, we had a shortage of facts. Sure, there were some. But the governments' hearings and additional investigations would take several more months. So, it would be some time before more facts about what happened at Abu Ghraib would surface.

The Abu Ghraib story was horrendous and salacious, yielding captivating headlines and images. There was a demand not only for more information, but also for someone to blame. So there was a large void that needed to be filled. The media, among others, filled that void with speculation, conjecture, misinformation, errors and even propaganda. This was far more appealing than the few facts at hand or waiting for more information to be revealed. And as Adrienne Rich, American poet and essayist once said, "False history gets made all day, any day, the truth of the new is never on the news."

So you can imagine what CACI was up against. But even more daunting was trying to get CACI's side of the story heard. Media coverage of CACI, at best, included only a few lines from our news releases and statements. At worst, it amplified all of the distortions and errors about the company's work in Iraq. Much of the coverage of the Abu Ghraib story lacked a basic understanding of the contracting business and even the rule of law. In several interviews I had to not only explain government contracting, but due process and the concept of being innocent until proven guilty. But, our voice was simply drowned out in the media frenzy.

We were not surprised at the lack of recourse in the media. Take newspapers, for example. While the original story may get large headlines on the front page… at best, the corrections to that story are in small print in the bottom corner of another page days later. And does anyone here remember the last time they heard a correction on broadcast news? But we were surprised when there was little interest in our side of the story – when we were the story. A prime example? The Washington Post published an Op-Ed by a critic of government military contracting whose accusations named CACI nine times, but the Post refused to publish our counter Op-Ed piece.

Most companies tend to maintain a low profile in a crisis. And that's the advice we got at first. But CACI had no choice but to step up and be heard. Too much was at risk. So we developed a hyper-crisis management strategy that addressed our various challenges and kept our stakeholders informed.

We first reached out to our employees and clients to reassure them that we were on the case. CACI employees also needed to be equipped with the facts so they could brief our clients as needed. Moreover, we stated that CACI was fully cooperating with all government investigations. At the same time we launched our own investigation using outside counsel.

We also assigned key CACI executives to talk individually to some 100 clients with major contracts. It was critically important that we maintain ongoing communications with our Army clients in Iraq so we could get the facts from the people up close and familiar with the Abu Ghraib events.

The CACI team also launched an aggressive response campaign to push back against the errors and misinformation in the media. We put out numerous news releases and held conference calls with employees, managers, and investors. We set up an FAQ section on our website and answered questions as soon as they came in. And we sent written clarifications – several hundred of them – to all the reporters who were getting their facts wrong.

CACI was included in nine probing government investigations in all. And while we felt like we were getting a "wire brushing," CACI fully cooperated with each one. CACI had absolutely nothing whatsoever to hide and we were as eager as the government to get to the truth. We also tasked our outside legal counsel with conducting a vigorous internal investigation. And we kept our Board of Directors fully informed.

Nearly five years later not one current or former CACI employee has been charged by the U.S. government with any wrongdoing. None of the government investigations and proceedings has found CACI or any of its employees culpable of the photographed abuses in any way.

As for the business side, we lost one small contract in the UK. Our stock price fell sharply at first, but soon rebounded. We are very competitive and we continued with our strategic and technology initiatives and have become twice the size we were in 2004.

Some might say, "Jack, CACI seems to have come through this crisis virtually unscathed. Business is pretty good. You're holding your own. Why rehash it all and put CACI in the forefront of this story again with a book?" The answer is simple. Because we had to. We had to make sure the truth and the facts were known, particularly where misperceptions remained. We had to make sure CACI people and our clients knew our full story. And we also have three civil lawsuits pending against us. They are clearly without merit and we are fighting them – vigorously! So we felt compelled to defend "our good name."

If you Googled 'CACI' last month, February 2009, the top 10 results were as follows: the first two were our corporate site and six referred to other unrelated organizations with the same acronym name. The other two? One was an activist non-profit's website with the description of CACI as "a Private Military Corporation that provided contract interrogators to the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad…" All true, except the false and disparaging "Private Military Corporation" label. The other is titled "CACI, War Profiteer."

Nearly five years later after the Abu Ghraib ordeal this type of destructive and lingering slander is still coming up online. So while we are not enduring a daily deluge of false accusations, CACI is still dealing with the Abu Ghraib stain.

So why did we write Our Good Name? Our primary aim was to provide the public with a comprehensive, factual account that was based on verifiable facts, government investigations, official reports and sworn testimony. It would be a book that told CACI's story about our role at Abu Ghraib, and what happened to us as a result. To set the record straight!

At the time we decided to write the book – and even now – there has not been a single resource that thoroughly and factually discussed the events at Abu Ghraib and/or the role of government contractors. I recently checked Amazon.com to be sure. So, I felt Our Good Name could be used as a historical reference. Treating it as something for the historical record, the book was extensively sourced and verifiably reported. We have 780 pages and 720 footnotes! You might say "no shortcuts." The book also has several appendices, supporting material and a robust index.

We spent much of the crisis countering misinformation and errors about CACI and our work in Iraq. So, the book was a way to have all the corrections with additional details included in one document. We were also able to provide a factual timeline of events through Our Good Name. This was especially important in describing how CACI ended up in Iraq in the first place. Then we added CACI's insider view to the crisis to fully tell our side of the Abu Ghraib story.

At the same time the book is also a business and a PR/crisis management reference. Our hyper-crisis management strategy incorporated an aggressive pushback campaign. An all inclusive book brought together the various elements of our crisis response efforts.

We detailed CACI's challenges and presented our decision making process. We even included an appendix that detailed that process, which we named a "hyper-crisis management model." We had used the famous Tylenol cyanide crisis and PR response effort of 1982 as a reference in developing our own crisis strategy. But there was little else, in scale and scope, to compare to our ordeal. We thought it would be useful for other organizations to be able to use our experience to help them through their crises.

So we definitely had a purpose in writing "Our Good Name", but we also knew we had a responsibility.

When you hear the phrase "writing a book" an image comes to mind of a disheveled author sitting in front of a computer – or a typewriter, in an earlier day – struggling to write their story. At CACI, we knew the story we needed to tell. But we had a responsibility to the truth. So we would tell it by using only facts. My team and I approached writing this book as a historical document - a faithful and factual narrative.

And mirroring the standards of conduct of the American Historical Association, CACI would honor the integrity of the historical record, leave a clear trail for others to follow, and acknowledge the different perspectives. As Cicero so eloquently put it, "The first law for the historian is that he shall never dare utter an untruth. The second is that he shall suppress nothing that is true. Moreover, there shall be no suspicion of partiality in his writing, or of malice."

With our purpose and principles set, we went to the library. Not the corner public library, but CACI's Abu Ghraib library. From the first day the scandal broke we kept detailed records. Every article that related to CACI, the abuses or other relevant topics, was assembled and retained by both date and source. Every internal and external communication from key CACI team members was printed out and organized. This included saving many emails and other pertinent electronic correspondences and documents. It also meant identifying all records related to our contracts and our Iraq project documents. Basically, if it had anything to do with Abu Ghraib, it was put in our ‘library.'

We first maintained these records to compile the facts as they emerged. They were used as references throughout the crisis. We used them to answer the many questions from CACI employees, clients and other stakeholders. We also needed those records to make sure we hadn't missed anything or made any mistakes.

We were also actively cooperating with several of government investigations. This often required providing detailed contract information on short notice. And, of course, we maintained our library as a back up legal resource. As a public company we had to have these records as a matter of accountability and transparency. The records were also necessary in our fight against the two early civil action lawsuits filed in 2004. This fulsome library served as a repository for our book. As a result, our book team had a wealth of resources to draw upon.

The first draft of our book was written by one of our outside PR consultants that had helped CACI develop and implement our crisis response strategy. He supplemented our records by conducting in-depth interviews with every key CACI team member involved. There were at least six further drafts over the three years in writing of the book and before publishing the final copy last winter.

Then my team and I finally put this book together, I visited several area bookstores. I was curious to see how other authors presented their books. There was the first impression of the cover which I wanted to capture the story at first glance. I also read the various tables of contents and looked at style and layouts. But the thing I looked at most was sources. And how were credible sources presented? For example, did the author use endnotes or footnotes? Or none at all? I was surprised to see how many authors used endnotes. As reader, I find endnotes frustrating. If there is more to be said on a subject, I do not want to flip back and forth through several pages to find the reference source. If the author made a claim, I wanted to see who they credited. In some cases I wondered if the author had intentionally obscured the sources, or it was simply a preference in style. As a reader, I did not appreciate not having the full story on the same page. Our Good Name would use same page footnotes.

And our sources would all be verifiable. NO "deep throats." NO "anonymous sources." And NO "undisclosed" sources. And where possible, only sworn testimony.

That simple decision about footnotes was not just about formatting. Our purpose was to set the record straight. So everything we would say had to be accurate, verifiable, and referenced. We would deal only with the facts. When the Abu Ghraib story broke early in 2004 there was very little about the events that had been factually established. And as I said before, the lack of facts meant there was a vast amount misinformation and conjecture out there.

However, by the time we sat down to write Our Good Name, all of the government investigations had been concluded, several congressional hearings had been held and several courts-martial had already been conducted. There was

• the sworn testimony of Major General Antonio M. Taguba; Stephen A. Cambone, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence; and Lt. General Lance Smith, Deputy Commander of Central Command before the Senate Armed Services Committee (May 11, 2004)
• the report by Vice Admiral Albert T. Church, III, (March 10, 2005)
• sworn statements of individuals named in the Taguba report
• law and treaties, like the Title 18 of the U.S. Code, as well as the Geneva Conventions
• military procedures, like the Army Field Manual for intelligence operations (September 1992)

It meant witnesses and other key players had already been interviewed or had testified under oath – or both. It also meant significant resources had been put into investigations. Although we will likely never know the full details of exactly what happened at Abu Ghraib, these proceedings and other official records provided the most complete set of facts about Abu Ghraib and CACI that was possible for us to have.

Our Good Name would also be fully documented. The Taguba report had become public through an illegal leak. It was also misrepresented through out the media, certainly as far as CACI was concerned. The infamous abuse photographs, along with the meager facts available about what happened at Abu Ghraib, exploded instantaneously all over the world in an over sensationalized and vastly distorted scandal – certainly as we saw it at CACI.

And media reports throughout the Abu Ghraib scandal often referenced anonymous sources. Some accounts never included sources at all for their claims. As I mentioned, Our Good Name has 720 "on page" footnotes. Our bibliography is 25 pages long. We also re-indexed the book ourselves when the publisher's version didn't provide enough detail. And as we said, all of our statements would be factual, and their sources readily available on the same page.

We also performed two rounds of fact-checking. The team and I went through a vast array of material to write this book. Every date, reference, statistic and quote in Our Good Name had to be verified for accuracy and consistency.

At several points during the writing of the book, we conducted peer reviews. We had both internal and external readers review the manuscript for tone, accuracy and messaging. Our reviewers included members of the original crisis response team and professionals with government contracting and military backgrounds. Typically books are reviewed during the publishing phase. But we wanted to ensure that every question was answered and that there was nothing we overlooked.

Although the abuses at Abu Ghraib were a specific set of events…in a specific period of time, there was much more to the story. For example, one of the most misunderstood issues was the use of contractors in Iraq. As it turned out, many in the public were not aware of this activity. Others used it to create bizarre conspiracy theories. A popular one was that the government was hiring contractors to do their dirty work…like "torturing" detainees.

We wanted to include appendices in Our Good Name to provide the greater context in which these events happened. And we also wanted to provide easy reference sources and tools for our readers.

One of our appendices is a timeline of events. We mark not only key events in CACI's ordeal, but key events in the Iraq war to that date. Another appendix is a detailed overview of our hypercrisis management model. We also included an extensive glossary. It defines key terms in government contracting and the war on terror.

These appendices can also be stand alone documents. We have provided Appendix A, on Setting the Record Straight, that presents a comprehensive listing of all the errors about CACI along with their corrections – to the media or other organizations. As I stated earlier, this appendix alone took 21 pages! Appendix H, describing our hyper-crisis management model, is already being used in business school classrooms. The appendices in Our Good Name are valuable supplements to our story, but were created as useful resources to stand on their own.

Another one of our extras is our photo section. The Abu Ghraib story became as big as it did because of the photos depicting the horrible abuses committed there. While a photo may be worth a thousand words, the abuse photos did not tell the whole story about Abu Ghraib. And definitely not about CACI. We felt that our readers deserved to see more than what had been presented to them elsewhere.

For example, we show several photos in and around Abu Ghraib prison. Most people have no idea how open and vulnerable this facility was. From the inside, we present two photos of interrogation rooms at the prison. Although the abuses in the photos were taken in and around jail cells during overnight hours, most people believed that this chaos was how detainee interrogations were conducted. That was not the case…not true. It was quite the opposite. Interrogations rooms had chairs, tables, two-way observation glass and even air conditioning!

We also included images that portrayed CACI's plight. One set of photos show stills from a news broadcast that discussed how contractors should be prosecuted…less than two weeks after the Abu Ghraib story broke. And before any verifiable facts had been presented... to say nothing about "being proven." We also included a few photos submitted by our employees in Iraq. One image, you see here, is of a bombed out CACI office. Luckily, the CACI employee who normally sat there was on leave. Many in the media and public forgot that the civilian contractors they were so eager to vilify, also shared the risks and dangers that our military faced every day in Iraq.

Kierkegaard, the famous Danish philosopher, once said, "Life must be lived forward, but it can only be understood backward." We at CACI, going forward during the crisis, could predict neither the challenges nor the outcomes that would arise. But looking back, we could take the time to understand the scale and scope of what we went through. CACI's entanglement with Abu Ghraib and the media – at its height – only lasted a several months. But Our Good Name took over three years to write.

Here we are now, nearly five years later. And what have we learned? There are several conclusions we can make for sure about CACI and Abu Ghraib

1. CACI was not in any way to blame, and certainly not responsible, for what happened at Abu Ghraib.
2. No current or former CACI employee has ever been charged with any wrongdoing.
3. There has never been any proof or evidence presented linking CACI to the abuses. Allegations – yes; proof – no! No CACI employee appeared in the notorious abuse photos.

We know this because

1. The original suspicions about contractors voiced in the Taguba report were never supported by any evidence that was ever made available. And we do not know of the existence of any kind of evidence, classified or publicly available, that would prove anything to the contrary.

The illegally leaked Taguba report was based on an investigation of the MPs (military police) at Abu Ghraib, and only made reference to the contractors (interrogators and translators). However, later investigations also looked in detail at the interrogators (military and contractor) as well as the interrogation practices and policies (e.g., the reports of Gen. Fay, Secretary Schlesinger and Adm. Church).

In fact, the subsequent investigations and evidence could not, and did not, conclude anything to support Taguba's initial allegations that a contractor interrogator (the CACI employee) was directly or indirectly responsible; and

2. There are no official findings (or evidence) about CACI, the company, because CACI did not do anything illegal or culpable to find out about. Further, CACI would never even entertain the thought of condoning or participating in any inappropriate or illegal activities. If any former or current employee had been found to have been involved in the abuses, it would have been the regrettable actions of the individual, not CACI.

We are confident that CACI has been long known as a company that takes the "high road" and "does the right thing!" Abu Ghraib was no exception.

One of the benefits of having written and published Our Good Name was getting these conclusions in print. There now exists a permanent, factual record of events about CACI and Abu Ghraib. CACI also has finally had it's say in rejecting the allegations made against it.

So that's the story behind our book Our Good Name. I wanted you to know why we wrote it, and what we believe it provides to the reader, and the history of Abu Ghraib.

We also have websites for the book and CACI. The book's is www.ourgoodnamethebook.com. And the company's is www.caci.com.

I also wanted to remind everyone that all royalties are donated to disabled veterans' charities, for those who have proudly served our nation.