US Training of Death Squads in Iraq? - War Is A Crime .org

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051118/our_monsters_in_iraq.phpOur Monsters In IraqRobert DreyfussNovember 18, 2005It is time to start waving the bloody shirt. There is no longer any doubt that the men that theUnited States has installed in power in Iraq are monsters. Not only that, but they are monstersarmed, trained and supported by George W. Bush's administration. The very same Bushadministration that defends torture of captives in the so-called War on Terrorism is using150,000 U.S. troops to support a regime in Baghdad for which torture, assassination and otherwar crimes are routine.So far, it appears that the facts are these: that Iraq's interior ministry, whose top officials, strikeforces and police commando units (including the so-called Wolf Brigade) are controlled byparamilitary units from Shiite militias, maintained a medieval torture chamber; that inside thatfacility, hundreds of mostly Sunni Arab men were bestialized, with electric drills skewering theirbones, with their skins flayed off, and more; that roving units of death-squad commandos arekilling countless other Sunni Arab men in order to terrorize the Iraqi opposition. Even theWashington Post, that last-ditch defender of America's illegal and unprovoked assault on Iraq,says:Scandal over the secret prison has forced the seven-month-old Shiite-led government to confrontgrowing charges of mass illegal detentions, torture and killings of Sunni men. Members of theSunni minority, locked in a struggle with the Shiite majority over the division of power in Iraq,say men dressed in Interior Ministry uniforms have repeatedly rounded up Sunni men fromneighborhoods and towns. Bodies of scores of them have been found dumped by roadsides or ingullies.The New York Times reports that the Iraqi interior minister isn't all that upset about the torturecenter. Bayan Jabr, "speaking of the prison in an angry sarcastic tone, said, 'There has been muchexaggeration about this issue.' And he added, "Nobody was beheaded.'" So, apparently notbeheading innocents is the standard of justice in the New Iraq. And, apparently there may bedozens, scores or hundreds of similar facilities.This is not a surprise.Nearly two years ago, writing in the American Prospect, I wrote the following: "The Prospecthas learned that part of a secret $3 billion in new funds --- tucked away in the $87 billion Iraqappropriation that Congress approved in early November --- will go toward the creation of aparamilitary unit manned by militiamen associated with former Iraqi exile groups...The bulk ofthe covert money will support U.S. efforts to create a lethal, and revenge-minded, Iraqi securityforce." Except for a parallel story by Sy Hersh in the New Yorker, the story was ignored.Over the past two years, writing for TomPaine.com, I have repeatedly written about Shiite deathsquads and about abuses by the paramilitary Badr Brigade, the secret army trained and run by100