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

The commandos reached an isolated farmhouse and detained al-Takhi’s son, who looked to be inhis early 20’s. This was an excellent catch. The son of a suspect usually knows where the suspectis hiding; if not, he can be detained and used as a bargaining chip to persuade the father tosurrender. With al-Takhi’s son flex-cuffed in the back of one of the pickups, the commandos,excited, drove to another farmhouse less than a mile away. They believed that al-Takhi might bethere, but a quick search yielded nothing. The leader of this raid was a short, chubby captain whowas enthusiastic and, as I noticed on previous raids, effective at leading his men. (When I laterasked his name, he refused to give it.) The captain was convinced that al-Takhi was nearby, butthe son was telling him he didn’t know where his father was. Was he lying?The captain’s methods were swift and extreme. He yelled at the son, who was wearing a loosetunic; in the tussle of the arrest the young man had lost one of his sandals. The captain pushedhim against a mud wall and told everyone else to move away. Standing less than 10 feet from theyoung man, the captain aimed his AK-47 at him and clicked off the safety latch. He wasthreatening to kill him. I was close enough to catch some of the dialogue on my digital recorder.‘‘Where is your father?’’ the captain shouted. ‘‘Say where your father is!’’‘‘He left early in the morning,’’ the son responded, clearly in terror. ‘‘I told my father to divorcemy mother, to not leave us in such a state.’’The son asked for mercy. ‘‘I swear, if I knew where he is, I would for sure take you to him.’’ Helooked around. ‘‘Oh, God, what should I do?’’The captain was not persuaded.‘‘Just tell us where he is, and we will release you now,’’ he shouted.‘‘I swear to you, though you did not ask me to make an oath, instead of enduring all thesebeatings I would tell you where he is if I knew.’’Major Rooker was just a few feet from the angry captain. He moved closer and nudged thecaptain’s AK-47 toward the ground.‘‘You are a professional soldier,’’ Rooker told him. ‘‘You know and I know that you need to putthe weapon down.’’The captain scowled but ended the execution drama.‘‘O.K., guys,’’ he shouted to his men, ‘‘let’s ride back.’’As the commandos pulled their prisoner away, Lieutenant Johansen conferred with Rooker.‘‘They don’t operate the way we do, that’s for damn sure,’’ Johansen said. ‘‘We have to be niceto people.’’ Especially in the aftermath of Abu Ghraib, they were both aware that threatening aprisoner with death was illegal under the Geneva Conventions.14