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

and it is generally believed that Baathists hold key positions. But the commandos, who are theheroes of ‘‘Terrorism in the Grip of Justice,’’ are also led by Sunnis and have many formerBaathists in their ranks, so the Sunni-and-Baathist aspect of the insurgency is carefully obscured.Of course, propaganda need not be wholly accurate to be effective. The real problem with theprogram, according to its most vocal critics — representatives of human rights groups — is thatit violates the Geneva Conventions. The detainees shown on ‘‘Terrorism in the Grip of Justice’’have not been charged before judicial authorities, and they appear to be confessing under duress.Some detainees are cut and bruised. In one show, a former policeman with two black eyesconfessed to killing two police officers in Samarra; a few days after the broadcast, the formerpoliceman’s family told reporters, his corpse was delivered to them. The government’s humanrights minister has initiated an investigation.‘‘Terrorism in the Grip of Justice’’ is a ratings success because it humiliates the insurgency,satisfying a popular desire for vengeance against the men who spread terror and death. Yet theprogram plays rough not only with its confessing captives but also with the rules and laws thatgovern the conduct of war. As I learned in Samarra, this approach was not just for television. Itwas Adnan’s effective yet brutal way of conducting a counterinsurgency.Building a Home-Grown CounterinsurgencyMost of the Pentagon’s official statements in the past two years about the ability of Iraqis topolice their own country have been exaggerated. But now reality is beginning to catch up withrhetoric. In the months that followed the January elections in Iraq, attacks on allied forcesreportedly fell to 30 to 40 a day in February and March, from 140 just before the vote. It’s hardto tell whether this trend will continue; in April the insurgency showed signs of renewedstrength. But the successes that the counterinsurgency has enjoyed are in no small part becauseof Adnan’s commandos. With American forces in an advisory role, the commandos, as well as afew other effective units, like the Iraqi Army’s 36th Commando Battalion and its 40th Brigade inBaghdad, have inflicted more violence upon insurgents than insurgents have inflicted upon them.That is much of what fighting an insurgency amounts to. But successful counterinsurgencies, ifhistory is a guide, tend not to be pretty, especially in countries where violence has been a way oflife and rules governing warfare and human rights have been routinely ignored by those inuniform.The template for Iraq today is not Vietnam, with which it has often been compared, but ElSalvador, where a right-wing government backed by the United States fought a leftist insurgencyin a 12-year war beginning in 1980. The cost was high — more than 70,000 people were killed,most of them civilians, in a country with a population of just six million. Most of the killing andtorturing was done by the army and the right-wing death squads affiliated with it. According toan Amnesty International report in 2001, violations committed by the army and associatedgroups included ‘‘extrajudicial executions, other unlawful killings, ‘disappearances’ and torture.. . . Whole villages were targeted by the armed forces and their inhabitants massacred.’’ As partof President Reagan’s policy of supporting anti-Communist forces, hundreds of millions ofdollars in United States aid was funneled to the Salvadoran Army, and a team of 55 Special8