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

For Iraq, "The Salvador Option" Becomes Realityby Max Fullerwww.globalresearch.ca, 2 June 2005, 9 pagesThe URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/FUL506A.htmlAbstractThe following article examines evidence that the 'Salvador Option' for Iraq has beenongoing for some time and attempts to say what such an option will mean. It paysparticular attention to the role of the Special Police Commandos, considering both thebackground of their US liaisons and their deployment in Iraq. The article also looks at theevidence for death-squad style massacres in Iraq and draws attention to the almostcomplete absence of investigation. As such, the article represents an initial effort tocompile and examine some of these mass killings and is intended to spur others intofurther looking at the evidence. Finally, the article turns away from the notion thatsectarianism is a sufficient explanation for the violence in Iraq, locating it structurally atthe hands of the state as part of the ongoing economic subjugation of Iraq.Mounting evidence indicates that the ‘Salvador Option’ mooted for Iraq is already proceeding atfull throttle.On 8 January this year, Newsweek published an article that claimed the US government wasconsidering a ‘Salvador Option’ to combat the insurgency in Iraq(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/ ). The Salvador Option is a reference tothe military assistance programme of the 1980s, initiated under Jimmy Carter and subsequentlypursued by the Reagan administration, in which the US trained and materially supported theSalvadoran military in its counter-insurgency campaign against popularly supported FMLNguerrillas. The Newsweek article was widely cited in the mainstream media but the allegationswere rapidly dismissed by Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. Though the reportsmentioned human-rights violations, they generally made little of the fact that it was the veryunits that US military advisors had instructed that were frequently responsible for the mostunspeakable crimes* and that there was at times a clear correlation between fresh bouts oftraining and subsequent atrocities (see Noam Chomsky, ‘The Crucifixion ofSalvador’,http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/sam-2-02.html ).In an earlier interview on 10 January, retired General Wayne Downing, former head of all USspecial operations forces, took a very different line, stating that US-backed special units had been‘conducting strikes’ against leaders of the so-called insurgency since March 2003 (cited in‘Phoenix Rising in Iraq’ by Stephen Shalom,http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7227 ). However, Downing was carefulto say that implementing a Salvadoran strategy would add an extra ‘type’ of unit to theoccupation’s arsenal. What neither the press, Donald Rumsfeld, nor General Downing pointedout was that the Salvador Option was already well underway in Iraq, and far more literally than82