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

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Letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)Letter to Secretary RumsfeldSubmitted by kucinich.us on March 4, 2006 - 00:00. House Floor Speeches | IraqMay 4, 2006"Mr. Speaker, [on April 5] I sent the following letter to Secretary Rumsfeld requesting recordspertaining to Pentagon plans to use U.S. Special Forces to advise, support, and train Iraqi deathsquads:"Hon. Donald Rumsfeld,Secretary of Defense,The Pentagon, Washington, DC.April 5, 2006Dear Secretary Rumsfeld:I am writing to request a copy of all records pertaining to Pentagon plans to use U.S. SpecialForces to advise, support and train Iraqi assassination and kidnapping teams.On January 8, 2005, Newsweek magazine first published a report that the Pentagon had aproposal to train elite Iraqi squads to quell the growing Sunni insurgency. The proposal has beencalled the "Salvador Option," which references the U.S. military assistance program, initiatedunder the Carter Administration and subsequently pursued by the Reagan Administration, thatfunded and supported "nationalist" paramilitary forces who hunted down and assassinated rebelleaders and their supporters in El Salvador. This program in El Salvador was highly controversialand received much public backlash in the U.S., as tens of thousands of innocent civilians wereassassinated and "disappeared," including notable members of the Catholic Church, ArchbishopOscar Romero and the four American churchwomen. According to the Newsweek report,Pentagon conservatives wanted to resurrect the Salvadoran program in Iraq because theybelieved that despite the incredible cost in human lives and human rights, it was successful ineradicating guerrillas.Mr. Secretary, at a news conference on January 11, 2005, you publicly stated that the idea of aSalvador option was "nonsense." Yet mounting evidence suggests that the U.S. has in factfunded and trained Iraqi assassination and kidnapping teams and these teams are now operatingwith horrific success across Iraq.We know that the Pentagon received funding for training Iraqi paramilitaries.About one year before the Newsweek report on the "Salvador Option," it was reported in theAmerican Prospect magazine on January 1, 2004 that part of $3 billion of the $87 billionEmergency Supplemental Appropriations bill to fund operations in Iraq, signed into law on38
November 6, 2003, was designated for the creation of a paramilitary unit manned by militiamenassociated with former Iraqi exile groups. According to the Prospect article, experts predictedthat creation of this paramilitary unit would "lead to a wave of extrajudicial killings, not only ofarmed rebels but of nationalists, other opponents of the U.S. occupation and thousands of civilianBaathists." The article further described how the bulk of the $3 billion program, disguised as anAir Force classified program, would be used to "support U.S. efforts to create a lethal, andrevenge-minded Iraqi security force." According to one of the article's sources, John Pike, anexpert of classified military budgets at www.globalsecurity.org. "the big money would be forstanding up an Iraqi secret police to liquidate the resistance."We know that some of the Pentagon's Iraq experts were involved in the Reagan Administration'sparamilitary program in El Salvador.Colonel James Steele, Counselor to the U.S. Ambassador for Iraqi Security Forces, formerly ledthe U.S. Military Advisory Group in El Salvador from 1984-1986, where he developed specialoperating forces at brigade level during the height of the conflict. The role of these forces in ElSalvador was to attack "insurgent" leadership, their supporters, sources of supply, and basecamps. Currently Colonel Steele has been assigned to work with the new elite Iraqi counterinsurgencyunit known as the Special Police Commandos, operating under Iraq's InteriorMinistry.Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, was U.S. Ambassador to Iraq from June2004 to April 2005. From 1981 to 1985, he was ambassador to Honduras where he played a keyrole in coordinating U.S. covert aid to the Contras, anti-Sandinista militias who targeted civiliansin Nicaragua. Additionally, he oversaw the U.S. backing of a military death squad in Honduras,Battalion 3-16, which specialized in torture and assassination. The U.S. had similar programs ofsupporting paramilitary groups set up Nicaragua and Honduras as its program in El Salvador. Ina Democracy Now interview on January 10, 2005, Allan Nairn, who broke the story about U.S.support of death squads in El Salvador, suspected that Ambassador Negroponte would mostlikely be involved in the economic side of U.S. support to death squads in Iraq.We know that a wave of abductions and executions, in the style of the death squads of ElSalvador, and with ties to an official government sponsor, and to the U.S., has hit Iraq.News reports over the past 10 months strongly suggest that the U.S. has trained and supportedhighly organized Iraqi commando brigades, and that some of those brigades have operated asdeath squads, abducting and assassinating thousands of Iraqis. Some news highlights:May 1, 2005 -- Los Angeles Times reports that the U.S. is providing technical and logisticalsupport to the Maghawir (Fearless Warrior) brigades, the Interior Ministry's special commandos,according to Major General Rasheed Flayih Mohammed. Iraqi authorities plan to increasedeployment of the 12,000-strong Maghawir (Fearless Warrior) brigades, which are composed ofwell-trained veterans who have worked closely with U.S. forces in Najaf, Fallujah and Mosuland include the Wolf, Scorpion, Tiger and Thunder brigades.39
Page 7 and 8: guard was called upon. Now people l
Page 11 and 12: After the commandos set up their he
Page 13 and 14: more skilled than American troops I
Page 15 and 16: ‘‘I think it was all an act to
Page 17 and 18: Ministry of Interior Security Force
Page 19 and 20: ‘‘For some, there’s definitel
Page 21 and 22: with prominent Shiite cleric Hussei
Page 23 and 24: The Police Commandos’ penchant fo
Page 25 and 26: effective at responding to the atta
Page 27 and 28: http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Nov2005/da
Page 29 and 30: In another twist, the bodies of 8 m
Page 31 and 32: Subject: [oneheartpeacework] Traine
Page 33 and 34: 3. Maass, Peter, "The Way of the Co
Page 35 and 36: We now have Judith Miller’s New Y
Page 37: arrangements with the CEO of the Ir
Page 41 and 42: March 9, 2006 -- Los Angeles Times
Page 43 and 44: http://www.newyorker.com/printables
Page 45 and 46: The former official says that the B
Page 47 and 48: officials in Colombia. The book “
Page 49 and 50: The majority of the Bush Administra
Page 51 and 52: Part Three:200451
Page 53 and 54: military base on Honduran territory
Page 55 and 56: Not everyone in Chile is opposed to
Page 57 and 58: Secret US Gulfstream jets and Swedi
Page 59 and 60: If ever possible…FOOTNOTES:Seymou
Page 61 and 62: Part Four:200561
Page 63 and 64: The organization said U.S. and Iraq
Page 65 and 66: For starters, what’s been written
Page 67 and 68: http://www.counterpunch.org/hersh01
Page 69 and 70: Fallujah I called him at home. I'm
Page 71 and 72: these people worked as night clerks
Page 73 and 74: http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/d
Page 75 and 76: y shifting their targets, concentra
Page 77 and 78: * Arun Gupta, former editor of The
Page 79 and 80: From Iran-Contra To IraqThe NationB
Page 81 and 82: his actions this time around become
Page 83 and 84: might have been imagined.According
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However, the analogy is misleading
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http://nytimes.com/cfr/internationa
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which have raised sectarian tension
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http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstr
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A grocer in west Baghdad told Salih
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use of their experience in mass rep
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Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Iraqi
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http://www.informationclearinghouse
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The slaughter and destruction in we
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SEC. RUMSFELD: I'm not going to com
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insurgency. The Iraqi forces, the m
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Part Five:2006111
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They told soldiers they were taking
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http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq
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One photo showed what appeared to b
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Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, who announ
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Baghdad, the 14 Sunnis seized from
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"You've got the facilities protecti
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Peterson, the U.S. officer in charg
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homes or mosques by men in uniform
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moniker that sounds about as unauth
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there is a general consensus that t
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the government officials, media lac
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experience with Saddam's government
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http://www.globalecho.org/view_arti
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working within the country's interi
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Mr. Karim was originally sentenced
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Close to one million Iraqis, most o
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Neither Republicans nor Democrats s
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Democratic position and that of the
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This year's Democratic primaries an
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http://www.informationclearinghouse
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Of Hariri's assassination, Syrian o
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Sourcewatch information on Aegis:
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RAMOPS RISK MANAGEMENT GROUP (compr
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Section 2: Organization of the FPS1
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The UK was criticized for starting
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http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/
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FPS, proposing to give its members
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http://www.greenleft.org.au/2006/68
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personnel and CIA operators and con
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Although Bush hasn't specifically s
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massive military aid to the Salvado
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The convoy was traveling in the Cam
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/articl
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http://news.independent.co.uk/world
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The Mehdi Army does not always have
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clarification of what happened in S
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http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Bri
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"What our police found in their car
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3. the international cadre of war f
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If you thought the U.S. wouldn't bl
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Regrettably, that is prospect that
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The initial demand from the puppet
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www.prisonplanet.com/articles/septe
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FLASHBACK: Sick strategies for sens
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into the river. That thought alone
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Zarqawi is actually a real person o
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Examples “were found during the M
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Witnesses said about 150 Iraqi pris
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A British military source has said
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Meanwhile, frantic negotiations con
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The British troops believed the two
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Naturally, the sleazy Laurence-emul
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eing arrested by the Iraqi police o
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When viewed in the context of all t
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throw rose petals at the invaders,
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enders’ in the Sunni Community. S
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thus making people believe that cas
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