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

even a cursory review of such archives as the one compiled by Iraq Body Count(http://www.iraqbodycount.net /) reveals that mass executions have been taking place commonlyin Iraq over at least the last six months. What is particularly striking is that many of thosekillings have taken place since the Police Commandos became operationally active and oftencorrespond with areas where they have been deployed.The clearest correlation is in Mosul, where the Police Commandos began operating in lateOctober(http://www.strykernews.com/archives/2004/10/29/special_iraqi_police_commandos_continue_operations.html ). In mid-November it was reported that insurgents were conducting an offensiveand had managed to drive most of the (regular) police from the city. There followed what wasdescribed as a joint counter-offensive by US forces and Police Commandos. The PoliceCommandos conducted raids inside the old quarter starting on 16 November in which dozens ofsuspects were arrested. During one such raid on a mosque and a tea shop, detainees, blindfoldedand with their hands tied behind their backs, were seen being taken away by commandos(http://www.smh.com.au/news/After-Saddam/Iraqi-soldiers-found-murdered-in-Mosul/2004/11/21/1100972263000.html ). In the weeks and months that followed over 150bodies appeared (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4105009.stm ), often in batches andfrequently having obviously been executed, usually with a bullet to the head (eg.http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/iraq/?id=12147 ).The victims are repeatedly stated to have belonged mostly to the security forces, with‘insurgents’ blamed for conducting a campaign of intimidation. Yet, most of the bodies weredressed in civilian clothes with little in the way of identification. In the few instances in whichpositive identifications have been reported, these are based on flimsy evidence. For instance, inthe case of nine victims described as soldiers that had been shot in the head, a US armylieutenant simply stated that a ‘unit recently moved to one of the US bases’ had ‘some guysmissing’ (http://www.smh.com.au/news/After-Saddam/Iraqi-soldiers-found-murdered-in-Mosul/2004/11/21/1100972263000.html ); photographs of the victims showed them wearingcivilian clothes. A blatant case of disinformation regards a group of 31 bodies ‘discovered’ bythe Police Commandos in March 2005 scattered around a cemetery in western Mosul. Thebodies, described by an Interior Ministry spokesman as belonging to civilians, police officers andarmy soldiers, were said to have been the victims of a single policeman, Shoqayer Fareed Sheet,who confessed to these and numerous other killings on a special television show conceived byfounder of the Police Commandos Adnan Thavit, called Terrorism in the Hands of Justice(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23448-2005Mar10.html ). Not only does thisprogramme break every conceivable moral and legal standard, but it is notorious for paradingobviously tortured detainees who are often forced to confess to being homosexuals orpaedophiles as well as murderers. (http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:OkQ0b9q9QbkJ:uniraq.org/documents/ArabicRegionalNews22 March2005.doc+quds+press&hl=en&client=safari)Given the extreme paucity of evidence, the lack of secure identification and the disinformation84