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

From Iran-Contra To IraqThe NationBy David CornMay 7, 2005The George W. Bush presidency has been one long rehab session for the Iran-contra scoundrelsof the Reagan-Bush administration. Many infamous veterans of the foreign policy connivance ofthe Reagan days have found a home in Bush II. Elliott Abrams--who pleaded guilty tomisleading Congress regarding the Reagan administration's secret support of the contra rebelsfighting the Sandinista government of Nicaragua--was hired as a staffmember of George W.Bush's National Security Council and placed in charge of democracy promotion. Retired AdmiralJohn Poindexter--who was Reagan's national security adviser, who supervised Oliver Northduring the Iran-contra days, and who was convicted of several Iran-contra crimes before theconvictions were overturned on a legal technicality--was retained by the Pentagon to search forterrorists using computerized Big Brother technology. John Negroponte--who as ambassador toHonduras in the early 1980s was the on-the-ground overseer of pro-contra operations there--wasrecruited by Bush to be UN ambassador, then ambassador to Iraq, and, most recently, the firstdirector of national intelligence. Otto Reich--who mounted an arguably illegal pro-contrapropaganda effort when he was a Reagan official--was appointed by Bush to be in charge ofLatin American policy at the State Department. Now comes the news that another Iran-contraalum--a fellow who failed a polygraph test during the Iran-contra investigation--is playing acritical role in Bush's war in terrorism.James Steele was recently featured in a New York Times Magazine story as a top adviser toIraq's "most fearsome counterinsurgency force," an outfit called the Special Police Commandosthat numbers about 5000 troops. The article, by Peter Maass, noted that Steele "honed his tacticsleading a Special Forces mission in El Salvador during that country's brutal civil war in the1980s." And, as Maass reminded his readers, that civil war resulted in the deaths of 70,000people, mostly civilians, and "[m]ost of the killing and torturing was done by the army and rightwingdeath squads affiliated with it." The army that did all that killing in El Salvador wassupported by the United States and US military officials such as Steele, who was head of the USmilitary assistance group in El Salvador for two years in the mid-1980s. (A 1993 UN truthcommission, which examined 22,000 atrocities that occurred during the twelve-year civil war inEl Salvador, attributed 85 percent of the abuses to the US-backed El Salvador military and itsdeath-squad allies.)Maass reported that the Special Forces advisers in El Salvador led by Steele "trained front-linebattalions that were accused of significant human rights abuses." But he neglected to mentionthat Steele ran afoul of the Iran-contra investigators for not being honest about his role in thecovert and illegal contra-support operation.After the Iran-contra story broke in 1986, Steele was questioned by Iran-contra investigators,who had good reason to seek information from him. The secret contra-supply network managedby Oliver North had flown weapons and supplies to the contras out of Illopongo Air Base in ElSalvador. Steele claimed that he had observed the North network in action but that he had never79