U.S. Marines have "established the Iraqi Freedom Guard, a unit of 61 men, each paid $400 monthly to fight, capture, and interrogate suspected rebels in Iraq’s sprawling Al-Anbar province, which includes the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi," Chris Shumway of NewStandard reports. -- This development is reminiscent of the death squads that U.S trained and sponsored in Central America -- all the more so in that it occurred while John Negroponte was U.S. ambassador to Iraq. -- While Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, "a special intelligence unit (commonly referred to as a 'death squad') of the Honduran armed forces, Battalion 3-16, trained by the CIA and the Argentine military, kidnapped, tortured and killed hundreds of people, including U.S. missionaries. Critics charge that Negroponte knew about these human rights violations and yet continued to collaborate with the Honduran military while lying to Congress. . . . The question of what John Negroponte knew about human rights abuses in Honduras will probably never be answered definitively, but there is a large body circumstantial evidence supporting the view that Negroponte was aware that serious violations of human rights were carried out by the Honduran government, with the support of the CIA, if perhaps not with its direct approval." ...
News Report
MARINES EMPLOY IRAQI MERCENARY FORCE TO CRUSH REBELLION
By Chris
Shumway
** Citing failure utilizing the traditional U.S. military counterinsurgency
strategy in Iraq, one Marine unit has set up a special Iraqi commando outfit
reminiscent of notorious Latin American paramilitaries forces. **
NewStandard
March 4, 2005
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1514
After experiencing little success recruiting and retaining soldiers in Iraq’s
formal military units and security forces, the U.S. military has resorted to
hiring a private, homegrown armed force to track and capture members of the
Iraqi resistance, reports Reuters.
In a program that resembles rumored plans to implement what has been dubbed
"the Salvador option" in Iraq, the establishment of a hardline indigenous
paramilitary force may indicate the first step toward a more aggressive
counterinsurgency campaign modeled in part after the notorious "death squad"
campaign used to suppress a popular revolution in El Salvador during the 1980s.
In January, U.S. Marines established the Iraqi Freedom Guard, a unit of 61
men, each paid $400 monthly to fight, capture, and interrogate suspected rebels
in Iraq’s sprawling Al-Anbar province, which includes the cities of Fallujah and
Ramadi.
Private militias operating outside the authority of the Iraqi Ministry of
Defense are illegal under Iraq’s U.S.-imposed interim constitution. Article
27(b) of Iraq’s Temporary Administrative Law reads, "Armed forces and militias
not under the command structure of the Iraqi Transitional Government are
prohibited, except as provided by federal law."
But Marine commanders deny that the Freedom Guard constitutes such an entity.
Colonel Craig Tucker, regimental commander of the 7th Marines, told Reuters the
Iraqi force is comparable to the numerous American security contractors, such as
Blackwell Corporation, working in Iraq for the military and U.S. government
officials.
Concerns that the U.S. might establish an Iraqi paramilitary force to more
effectively pursue terrorists and resistance fighters first emerged early this
year when Newsweek reported that a "senior military officer"
said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials were
seriously considering implementation of a strategy like the one credited with
the crushing of El Salvador’s FMLN guerilla movement.
Called "the Salvador option," little is known of what U.S. military planners
had in mind for an Iraqi version of the notorious, U.S.-backed Central American
death squads. In El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and Nicaragua, as well as other
countries across Latin America, noncombatants and nonviolent activists were
often killed or "disappeared" by CIA-supported paramilitary forces operating
among the civilian population.
The Iraqi Freedom Guard’s commanding officer, Monir Captain, is reportedly a
20-year-old Iraqi with no previous military training who speaks good English.
During a mission last week, Captain said he is fighting to protect his fellow
Iraqis. "Life is starting to get better in Baghdad, and I feel that it's because
of me and my guys, fighting here in the desert, so they can live in peace," he
told Reuters.
--Brian Dominick contributed to this piece.
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