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

President Bush also appointed neocon Elliot Abrams to be his senior adviser on the MiddleEast. Abrams was also a staunch supporter of the Salvador Option in the 1980s: whennewspapers "reported that a U.S.-trained military unit had massacred hundreds of villagers in thetiny Salvadoran hamlet of El Mozote, Abrams told Congress the story was nothing butcommunist propaganda." When confronted with the United Nations report that the vast majorityof "atrocities in El Salvador's civil war were committed by Reagan-assisted death squads,"Abrams's response: "The administration's record on El Salvador is one of fabulousachievements." Abrams was convicted of lying to Congress about Iran-Contra in 1987 - he waspardoned by George H.W. Bush in 1992. [ http://www.alternet.org/... ]The US has even hired as contractors thousands of the very same people previously responsiblefor US-sponsored extra-judicial killings and death squad activity in Latin America. [http://www.alternet.org/... ]Blackwater USA [US contractor in Iraq] has sent recruiters to Chile, Peru, Argentina,Colombia and Guatemala for one specific reason alone," said an intelligence officer in Kuwaitwho requested anonymity. "All these countries experienced dirty warsâ€_ and they have militarymen well-trained in dealing with internal subversives. They are well-versed in extractingconfessions from prisoners. [ http://www.alternet.org/... ]So, if Bush says that it is necessary to torture people in the Iraqi "central front" of the terror war,and then he moves the US death-squad personnel to Iraq, and then thousands of tortured Iraqisare found dead in the streets, just like in San Salvador [ http://www.pbs.org/... ] and GuatemalaCity, [ http://www.gwu.edu/... ] we have to draw the obvious conclusion that CIA-sponsoreddeath squads are rampant in the rampant daily killings occurring in Iraq.To my incomplete knowledge, the Administration has yet to admit that death squads are USpolicy in Iraq, but US policy in Central America was to deny the US of death squads as well.With continuing reports of atrocities and murders in El Salvador, the U.S. Congress no longeraccepted the State Department's assurance that things were getting better. Speaker of the HouseTom Foley created a special task force to monitor El Salvador's investigation of the murders.Congressman Joe Moakley of Massachusetts was selected to head up the investigation. Duringhis research and visits to El Salvador, Congressman Moakley encountered a massive cover-up,deep problems with the Salvadoran armed forces, conspiracy and lies, which led him tochallenge U.S. policy. [ http://www.pbs.org/... ]Amnesty International characterized the Salvadoran death squads as "official personnel actingin civilian clothes under the direction of superior officers." A 1989 Amnesty report, El Salvador"Death Squads"-A Government Strategy, identified a "persistent pattern of gross human rightsviolations by the Salvadoran armed forces" including "arbitrary arrest, torture, disappearance andextrajudicial execution."Although human rights groups have continually linked death squad activities to the Salvadorangovernment, most U.S. media have reported on death squads as if they were a mysterious,independent force. This convenient fiction allows the U.S. government to continue providing172