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

people up willy-nilly, and there appears, like I said, to be extensive use of torture, much of itcoming from this TV show that is now appearing on Iraq called, Terror: The Grip of Justice.There have been many accounts of this in the media, where a number of times a week on thistelevision station set up by the Pentagon, Al-Iraqiya, they parade insurgents before the TV. Andthese reports are all noting that the suspects have swollen faces, bruised, that they're very cowed.And they're also admitting to the most absurd charges, that they are participating in gay orgies,that they get drunk inside mosques, that they're pedophiles engaging in rape, that they practicebeheadings by cutting off the head of sheep. And the interesting thing is, one commentator noted,it's the exact same tactic Saddam Hussein used under his government of airing televisedconfessions.And there’s one Ba'athist in particular who is at very much the center of this. It's a GeneralAdnan Thavit, who was involved in the 1996 coup against Saddam Hussein that the formerinterim prime minister who just resigned, Iyad Allawi, headed up. And this character Thavitkeeps popping up all over the place. He is the head of the special police commandos, which aresaid to number ten to eleven thousand, which would actually make them the second largestsecurity force in Iraq, larger than the British. He was also the source for this raid a few weeksago on this insurgent camp on Lake Tharthar, that turned out to be bogus pretty much. A reporterwent there and found that there were all these insurgents still there, even though Thavit wassaying something like 85 insurgents were killed. He is also now involved in this dispute overwhat's going on in this town south of Baghdad, claiming there wasn't any kidnapping and nowthere's reports of these bodies being dragged out of the river. And the Interior Ministry a coupleof days ago even said he was assassinated, and then retracted the report the same day. He is avery shady character, and the U.S. general staff under Petraeus notes that he's very powerful, andthat if he is removed, he could take his militias with him, this huge force. And right now, there'sa power struggle going on. Donald Rumsfeld flew into Baghdad last week and warned the newgovernment not to purge these Ba'athists. This largely escaped the notice of many in the media.And Talabani, who is the new president, has said that, no, we are going to purge them, and wewant to use our militias.AMY GOODMAN: Arun Gupta, we want to thank you very much for being with us. If peoplewant to read this article, where can they go on the web?ARUN GUPTA: They can go to Z magazine. They can also go to the New York City IndyMediaCenter, nyc.indymedia.org where it will be appearing.AMY GOODMAN: Thank you so much. The piece is called, “Let a Thousand Militias Bloom.”78