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

This is a shadowy struggle, which involves tortured prisoners huddled in dungeons, murdervictims mutilated with knives and electric drills, and distraught families searching for relationswho have been "disappeared".Iraq's savage sectarian war is now regarded as a greater obstacle to any semblance of peacereturning than the insurgency, and was the main reason for the Americans recently pouring12,000 troops into the capital - an operation that, they now acknowledge, has failed.Yet, ironically, the death squads are the result of US policy. At the beginning of last year, withno end to the Sunni insurgency in sight, the Pentagon was reported to have decided to train Shiaand Kurdish fighters to carry out "irregular missions". The policy, exposed in the US media, wascalled the "Salvador Option" after the American-backed counter-insurgency in Latin Americamore than 20 years ago, which led to 70,000 deaths and countless instances of human rightsabuse.Some of the most persistent allegations of abuse have been made against the Wolf Brigade, manyof whom were formerly in Saddam's Baathist forces. Their main US adviser until April last yearwas James Steele, who, in his own biography, states that he commanded the US military group inEl Salvador during the height of the guerrilla war and was involved in counter-insurgencytraining. The complaints against Iraqi special forces continue. At the end of last year, while inIraq, I interviewed Ahmed Sadoun who was arrested in Mosul and held for seven months beforebeing released without charge.During that time, he said, he was tortured. He showed marks on his body, which were the resultsof the beatings and burnings. Mr Sadoun, 38, did not know which paramilitary group,accompanied by American soldiers, had seized him, but the Wolf Brigade was widely involvedin suppressing disturbances in Mosul at the time.Mr Sadoun fled to Amman to escape further official attention. His family, however, had stayedbehind in Mosul, and last month his 27-year-old brother, Rashid, was arrested by paramilitaries.His body, shot in the head, was dumped on a stretch of waste ground five days later.As the US and British policies in Iraq reach the last stages of unravelling, there are increasinglyfrantic calls to the Prime Minister, Nour al-Maliki, from Washington and London to rein in thegovernment-sponsored death squads. The problem is that the militias, well armed andentrenched, are connected to political parties who know that Mr al-Maliki is dependant on theirsupport. Two violent incidents last week illustrated the extent of the grip the gunmen now haveon Iraqi society.US and Iraqi forces went into Sadr City, the vast Shia slum on the outskirts of Baghdad, tocapture, according to the military, "a top, illegal armed group commander directing widespreaddeath-squad activity".Instead of congratulating the troops, Mr al-Maliki, purportedly the commander-in-chief of Iraq'smilitary, angrily complained he was not told about the operation, adding: "We will ask for182