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

‘‘For some, there’s definitely a desire to make Iraq better, but for a lot of them, it’s just the lifethey know,’’ he said. ‘‘For most of them, the cause isn’t really that important. They’re more usedto working in this role. This is what they know, this is all they know. I think they feel a lot betterthat their actions now are against genuine threats, as opposed to threats against the regime,’’meaning Hussein’s government. ‘‘But I think for a lot of them, they couldn’t fathom doingsomething different with their lives.’’Whatever the motivations, the integration of the commandos into the security forces stanches oneflow of experienced fighters into the insurgency. Some commandos, and perhaps many of them,might have gravitated to the other side if their unemployment endured. ‘‘It’s human nature,’’said Casteel, the adviser to Naqib, the interior minister. ‘‘If you cannot feed your family, youwill find a way to feed your family.’’ Naqib, Casteel explained, sees the commandos ‘‘as a wayto re-employ people who could be on the other side but have skills that can be used.’’Yet their presence in the new security forces is not universally welcomed. Shiites and Kurdsfaced mass murder during Hussein’s regime, and they are understandably concerned aboutgiving a share of military power to Sunnis, especially those who served Hussein. They worry thata Sunni-led security force could be a Trojan horse for the return of oppression by Sunnis.Because Naqib chose Hussein-era military figures to lead the commandos and fill other topInterior Ministry positions, he made few friends among Shiites and Kurds in the interimgovernment, and he was not expected to retain his portfolio in the government of the new primeminister, Ibrahim Jafari, who is Shiite. As Haydar al-Abadi, an influential member of Jafari’sIslamic Dawa Party, told The Wall Street Journal: ‘‘The Baathists believe they are back, and thatthey can behave as before. People are afraid again.’’If Jafari purges former Baathists, the commandos may lose their leaders, including Adnan. Thatwould almost certainly test their loyalties. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, on a visitto Iraq in April, evoked those concerns, telling reporters, ‘‘It’s important that the newgovernment be attentive to the competence of the people in the ministries, and that they avoidunnecessary turbulence.’’ In the worst case, a purge could prompt some commandos to join theinsurgency or evolve into a Sunni militia beyond government control. Already, Iraq has aKurdish militia, the 90,000-strong pesh merga, outside the control of the central government;there is also the Badr Brigade, the Iranian-trained wing of the Supreme Council for the IslamicRevolution in Iraq, which is Shiite; and there is the Mahdi Army, loyal to the Shiite militantMoktada al-Sadr. The last thing the country needs is another militia.It is a fraught situation — a country at war without a unified and competent national army. Anddespite the improved security forces and the reduction in attacks on coalition forces, it is hard tosee an end to the war any time soon. Just as the right political developments can tame aninsurgency, so, too, can the wrong developments give new life to it. Arriving at the correctcalibration of military force and political compromise is excruciatingly difficult. Historically,insurgencies have lasted at least 5 to 10 years; the endgame tends to begin when one or bothsides become exhausted, and that rarely occurs after only a year or two.In El Salvador, Honduras, Peru, Turkey, Algeria and other crucibles of insurgency andcounterinsurgency, the battles went on and on. They were, without exception, dirty wars.19