June 10, 2006
George Bush is right; Iraq is "the central battlefield in the global war on terror". Regrettably, it is United States that is the main sponsor and supporter of that terror in the form of American-trained death squads. Death squad activity in Iraq now accounts for more than 1,000 casualties per month. The Baghdad morgue has become a conveyor-belt for American-generated carnage.
Up to now, the US involvement in the killing has been effectively concealed by the media. The blame for the sectarian violence has been adroitly shifted to "alleged" terrorist mastermind, Abu Musab al Zarqawi. But the evidence suggests that Zarqawi’s role and the role of foreign fighters has actually been very small and has nothing to do with the thousands of dead men who are turning up every day around Bagdad. That is the work of the death squads which operate out of the Interior Ministry.
Once again, the media is covering the facts and creating a narrative that absolves the administration of culpability. Unfortunately, most leftist web sites seem more eager to debate whether Zarqawi actually existed or not. This debate goes nowhere. What is imperative is to realize that Zarqawi has become more important to the Bush administration dead than alive. The media has taken the shadowy details of his life and shaped them into a storyline that is supposed to rewrite the history of the war in Iraq. Zarqawi is now being held responsible for everything from initiating the sectarian violence to stopping the political dialogue between Sunni leaders and the new government.
Last night on The Jim Lehrer News Hour, news-anchor Margaret Warner interviewed American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad. Both Khalilzad and Warner agreed that Zarqawi was the main obstacle to achieving peace in Iraq. Warner, who is an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), even implied that Zarqawi had blocked the political process from going forward by frustrating opportunities for dialogue.
MARGARET WARNER: "And on the reaching out to the Sunni insurgents, do you think that Zarqawi's death increases the chances that some Sunni insurgents may be more willing now to engage in backchannel negotiations with the government, maybe that they don't have as much fear of reprisals?"
This is pure fiction and is clearly intended to mislead the American people. Zarqawi’s role is minor, at best. He has had no effect on the political process or "backchannel negotiations". The reason there has been no dialogue between the warring parties is because Rumsfeld has stubbornly refused to negotiate with the resistance; preferring violence to the exclusion of any other option.
The media is now using Zarqawi in the same way that Israel used Arafat; by creating a "straw man" who is supposed to be "the obstacle to peace". The recalcitrant Israeli leadership has never made any concessions since Arafat’s death; neither has Rumsfeld. This new fairytale (that Iraq’s troubles derive from Zarqawi) was picked up later in the show by The News Hours’ resident neocon, David Brooks.
Brooks simply expands on the theme that was begun by Margaret Warner saying:
"The things that (Zarqawi) introduced to this war was, first, the understanding that you could build on aspects of racial superiority to really stir up a sectarian war between the Shia and the Sunni, he really self-consciously tried to set that off and very successfully did set that off."
And then the second thing was the awareness that, with a certain sort of really horrible killing, you could destroy a civil society, make violence pervasive. And so, his death doesn't end the violence. He set off forces which now are rampant in Iraqi society. "
We can expect that Brook’s analysis will be echoed throughout the press; revising America’s bloody history in Iraq and shunting the blame off onto the inconsequential Zarqawi.
The destruction of Iraqi "civil society" (as Brooks says) has nothing to do with "racial superiority", "cycles of violence" or foreign terrorists. It is entirely the result of an illegal invasion, a brutal occupation, and a deliberate campaign of terror organized and executed by American intelligence agencies.
On May 4, 2006 Congressman Dennis Kucinich gave a speech on the floor of the House which articulated the root causes for the massive violence in Iraq. He clearly linked the Bush administration to the death squad’s in Iraq. Reading from a long list of newspaper articles he had compiled, Kucinich provided a detailed account of America’s disturbing undercover war. Naturally, his speech was shunned by the major media and consigned to the memory hole. Never the less, it outlines the extent of America’s complicity in the ongoing slaughter and asks us to question whether any additional involvement can be morally justified.
Kucinich’s speech was framed in the context of 2 letters which he delivered to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and President George Bush. His comments are entered below:
April 5, 2006
Dear Secretary Rumsfeld:
I am writing to request a copy of all records pertaining to Pentagon
plans to use U.S. Special Forces to advise, support and train Iraqi
assassination and kidnapping teams.
On January 8, 2005, Newsweek magazine first published a report that
the Pentagon had a proposal to train elite Iraqi squads to quell the
growing Sunni insurgency. The proposal has been called the "Salvador
Option," which references the U.S. military assistance program,
initiated under the Carter Administration and subsequently pursued by
the Reagan Administration, that funded and supported "nationalist"
paramilitary forces who hunted down and assassinated rebel leaders and
their supporters in El Salvador. This program in El Salvador was highly
controversial and received much public backlash in the U.S., as tens of
thousands of innocent civilians were assassinated and "disappeared,"
including notable members of the Catholic Church, Archbishop Oscar
Romero and the four American churchwomen. According to the Newsweek
report, Pentagon conservatives wanted to resurrect the Salvadoran
program in Iraq because they believed that despite the incredible cost
in human lives and human rights, it was successful in eradicating
guerrillas.
Mr. Secretary, at a news conference on January 11, 2005, you
publicly stated that the idea of a Salvador option was "nonsense." Yet
mounting evidence suggests that the U.S. has in fact funded and trained
Iraqi assassination and kidnapping teams and these teams are now
operating with horrific success across Iraq.
We know that the Pentagon received funding for training Iraqi paramilitaries.
About one year before the Newsweek report on the "Salvador Option,"
it was reported in the American Prospect magazine on January 1, 2004
that part of $3 billion of the $87 billion Emergency Supplemental
Appropriations bill to fund operations in Iraq, signed into law on
November 6, 2003, was designated for the creation of a paramilitary
unit manned by militiamen associated with former Iraqi exile groups.
According to the Prospect article, experts predicted that creation of
this paramilitary unit would "lead to a wave of extrajudicial killings,
not only of armed rebels but of nationalists, other opponents of the
U.S. occupation and thousands of civilian Baathists." The article
further described how the bulk of the $3 billion program, disguised as
an Air Force classified program, would be used to "support U.S. efforts
to create a lethal, and revenge-minded Iraqi security force." According
to one of the article's sources, John Pike, an expert of classified
military budgets at www.globalsecurity.org. "the big money would be for
standing up an Iraqi secret police to liquidate the resistance."
We know that some of the Pentagon's Iraq experts were involved in
the Reagan Administration's paramilitary program in El Salvador.
Colonel James Steele, Counselor to the U.S. Ambassador for Iraqi
Security Forces, formerly led the U.S. Military Advisory Group in El
Salvador from 1984-1986, where he developed special operating forces at
brigade level during the height of the conflict. The role of these
forces in El Salvador was to attack "insurgent" leadership, their
supporters, sources of supply, and base camps. Currently Colonel Steele
has been assigned to work with the new elite Iraqi counter-insurgency
unit known as the Special Police Commandos, operating under Iraq's
Interior Ministry.
Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, was U.S.
Ambassador to Iraq from June 2004 to April 2005. From 1981 to 1985, he
was ambassador to Honduras where he played a key role in coordinating
U.S. covert aid to the Contras, anti-Sandinista militias who targeted
civilians in Nicaragua. Additionally, he oversaw the U.S. backing of a
military death squad in Honduras, Battalion 3-16, which specialized in
torture and assassination. The U.S. had similar programs of supporting
paramilitary groups set up Nicaragua and Honduras as its program in El
Salvador. In a Democracy Now interview on January 10, 2005, Allan
Nairn, who broke the story about U.S. support of death squads in El
Salvador, suspected that Ambassador Negroponte would most likely be
involved in the economic side of U.S. support to death squads in Iraq.
We know that a wave of abductions and executions, in the style of
the death squads of El Salvador, and with ties to an official
government sponsor, and to the U.S., has hit Iraq.
News reports over the past 10 months strongly suggest that the U.S.
has trained and supported highly organized Iraqi commando brigades, and
that some of those brigades have operated as death squads, abducting
and assassinating thousands of Iraqis. Some news highlights:
- May 1, 2005 -- Los Angeles Times reports that the U.S. is
providing technical and logistical support to the Maghawir (Fearless
Warrior) brigades, the Interior Ministry's special commandos, according
to Major General Rasheed Flayih Mohammed. Iraqi authorities plan to
increase deployment of the 12,000-strong Maghawir (Fearless Warrior)
brigades, which are composed of well-trained veterans who have worked
closely with U.S. forces in Najaf, Fallujah and Mosul and include the
Wolf, Scorpion, Tiger and Thunder brigades.
- May 16-20, 2005
-- Los Angeles Times and New York Times reveal discovery of 46 bodies,
all Iraqi men abducted and slain execution-style, in various locations:
floating in the Tigris, dumped in ditches and garbage-strewn lots, and
buried at a poultry farm.
- June 15, 2005 -- Washington Post
reports that U.S. forces had knowledge of secret and illegal abductions
of hundreds of minority Arabs in Kirkuk. The abductions were by forces
led by Kurdish political parties and backed by the U.S. military.
- June
20, 2005 -- Los Angeles Times reports that Saad Sultan, of Iraq Human
Rights Ministry said that police and security forces attached to the
Iraqi Interior Ministry, thousands of whom have been trained by
American instructors, are responsible for abusing up to 60% of
estimated 12,000 detainees in prison and military compounds. He says
the units have used tactics reminiscent of Saddam's secret intelligence
squads.
- July 3, 2005 -- Reuters News reports that the
government of Iraq publicly acknowledged that the new security forces
were using torture. Article further says that accounts are common of
people being seized by armed men in the uniforms of the police, army or
special units like Baghdad's Wolf Brigade police commandos, and then
disappearing without trace or being found dead.
- July 28,
2005 -- Los Angeles Times reports that members of a California Army
National Guard company, the Alpha Company, who were implicated in a
detainee abuse scandal, trained and conducted joint operations with the
Wolf Brigade, a commando unit criticized for human rights abuses. In an
online Alpha Company newsletter, Captain Haviland wrote, "We have
assigned 2nd Platoon to help them transition, and install some of our
'Killer Company' aggressive tactical spirit in them." The article
further states that despite the Wolf Brigade's controversial reputation
for human rights violations, it is regarded as the gold standard for
Iraqi security forces by U.S. military officials.
- August
31, 2005 -- BBC reports that on the night of August 24, a large force
of the Volcano Brigade raided homes in Al-Hurriyah city in the Baghdad,
kidnapping and then executing 76 citizens. The victims were all shot in
the head after their hands and feet had been tied up. They suffered the
harshest forms of torture, deformation and burning.
- November
16, 2005 -- Reuters News reports the discovery of 173 malnourished men,
some of whom were tortured, imprisoned in a secret jail run by Shi'ite
militias tied to the Interior Ministry.
- November 17, 2005
-- Newsday reports that in the past year, the U.S. military has helped
build up Iraqi commandos under guidance from James Steele, a former
Army Special Forces officer who led U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in
El Salvador in the 1980s. The brigades built up over the past year
include the Lion Brigade, Scorpion Brigade and Volcano Brigade.
- February 15, 2006 -- Associated Press reports that the Interior Ministry has launched a probe into death squad allegations.
- February
19, 2006 -- BBC reveals that morgues in Baghdad receive dozens of
bodies picked up daily from rivers, sewage plants, waste burial sites,
farms and desert areas. Most of the bodies are handcuffed and
blindfolded civilians with a bullet or more in the forehead, indicating
that they were executed. The handcuffs used on the victims are like
those used by the Iraqi police.
- February 26, 2006 -- The
Independent reports that outgoing United Nations' human rights chief in
Iraq, John Pace, revealed that hundreds of Iraqis are being tortured to
death or summarily executed every month in Baghdad alone by the death
squads working from the Ministry of Interior. He said that up to
three-quarters of the corpses stacked in the Baghdad mortuary show
evidence of gunshot wounds to the head or injuries caused by drill-bits
or burning cigarettes.
- March 9, 2006 -- Los Angeles Times
reports that Iraqi police officers who worked at the Interior
Ministry's illegal prison had received American training, and that U.S.
trainers have also given extensive support to 27 brigades of heavily
armed commandos accused of a series of abuses, including the death of
14 Sunni Arabs who were locked in an airtight van last summer.
- March
10, 2006 -- Sidney Morning Herald reports that men wearing the uniforms
of U.S.-trained security forces, which are controlled by the Interior
Ministry, abducted 50 people in a daylight raid on a security agency.
Masked men who are driving what appear to be new government-owned
vehicles are carrying out many of the raids.
- March 27, 2006
-- The Independent reports that while U.S. authorities have begun
criticizing the Iraqi government over the "death squads," many of the
paramilitary groups accused of the abuse, such as the Wolf Brigade, the
Scorpion Brigade and the Special Police Commandos were set up with the
help of the American military. Furthermore, the militiamen were
provided with U.S. advisers some of whom were veterans of Latin
American counter-insurgency which also had led to allegations of death
squads at the time.
Mr. Secretary, in light of this evidence of U.S. support for and the
existence of death squads in Iraq, what is the basis for your January
11, 2005 statement, that the idea of a Salvador option in Iraq is
"nonsense"?
I request a copy of all records pertaining to Pentagon plans to use
U.S. Special Forces to advise, support and train Iraqi assassination
and kidnapping teams. I look forward to receiving your response.
Sincerely,
Dennis J. Kucinich,
Member of Congress
Kucinich’s speech gives us a much better idea of what is really going on in Iraq. He exposes the US as the real power behind the paramilitary units that are currently torturing and killing vast numbers of Iraqi civilians. The entire operation has been set into motion by American intelligence agencies with the intention of inciting sectarian violence and thrusting the country towards partition.
The appearance of Colonel James Steele, as counselor for the Iraqi Security Forces, should remove any doubt about the real nature of America’s involvement. Steele’s "stock and trade" is the "spreading terror through the application of extreme violence".(Max Fuller’s apt description of US counterinsurgency campaigns in El Salvador) Steele was clearly enlisted to train others in the techniques of guerilla warfare and spread mayhem throughout the country.
Kucinch’s claims form a counter-narrative to the cock-and-bull story of the mainstream media. They should be regarded as the basis for disputing the fabrications about Zarqawi and "Islamo-fascism". The violence in Iraq in America’s doing. It begins and ends with the Bush administration, and that’s where the blame lies.
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