Chief of Iraq Torture Commandos: "The Americans knew about everything I did"

On March 6, the UK Guardian posted a very important story, with accompanying videos, examining in details and with witnesses the extraordinary efforts by US military and civilian personnel to assemble, train, and direct Shi'a commando brigades in Iraq. These police brigades and paramilitary units unleashed a hellish reign of terror, with massive round-ups, torture, and death squad killings.

The Guardian reveals from photos, interviews, and documentary evidence the chief role of former US Special Operations Colonel James Steele, as well as General Petraeus and other US officials in organizing this counterinsurgency-cum-terror campaign.

Steele had been in charge of training Salvadoran army personnel linked to a campaign of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and torture during the Salvadoran Civil War in the 1980s. Back in those days, Petraeus was an ambitious up-and-comer, reportedly all too willing to learn what Steele, who'd learned counter-terror techniques in Vietnam, had to teach him, even staying in Steele's house.

Steele came to Iraq as a supposed civilian adviser. He carried a lot of authority, however, according to the Guardian investigation. From whence did that authority derive? Was he on special assignment for Rumsfeld (Rummy apparently is the one who sent him to Iraq)? For the National Security Council and/or the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Was he working with the CIA or JSOC's shadowy Intelligence Support Activity (ISA)? Steele, who is described in the Guardian video as someone who is extremely cold, without feeling, is unlikely ever to reveal that himself.

The Guardian also describes how military authorities commanded US soldiers on the scene, witness to such atrocities, not to intervene when present at such crimes. The order was first issued as FRAGO (Fragmentary Order) 242. The film interviews one of these brave soldiers, a military medic, who describes what he saw when the torture commandos were unleashed in Samarra.

Others interviewed for the film include Adnan Thabit, the chief of the Iraqi Special Police Commandos from 2004-06. The Guardian has excerpted his interview for a short video highlighing Thabit explaining, "The Americans knew about everything I did."

The main article, "From El Salvador to Iraq: Washington's man behind brutal police squads," notes that the Guardian tried to contact Steele for a year to get his side of the matter. He did not respond, and that is not surprising. Spooks never talk about what they are doing, and he may wish to note that anything said could be produced in court someday, because he appears to be a major war criminal, the hatchet man for the murderous policies of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.

US Connivance in Torture and the Case of Bradley Manning

The Guardian piece fleshes out the case I presented in my own story from August 2011 at FDL's The Dissenter, The Forgotten History of David Petraeus, including using evidence I had linked to the Petraeus-Iraq torture scandal, such as the protests of the Oregon National Guard over the stand-down on torture.

The article relies on the release of Wikileaks Iraq War Logs, which documented US knowledge of torture and the orders to soldiers to ignore it. It also interviews Peter Maass, whose 2005 investigatory report in the New York Times first concentrated on the role of Steele. The Guardian appears to be the first to have highlighted the role of Colonel James Coffman, a Petraeus adviser to Thabit's torture thugs.

The role of Wikileaks here is of piquant significance, as Wikileaks' leader, Julian Assange remains huddled up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London, having claimed political asylum in the wake of persistent demands for his extradition to Sweden on what appear to be shaky sexual offense charges. The Swedish prosecutors have reportedly refused to come and interview Assange in London. The impact of this and other repressive and financial pressures on Wikileaks may have affected their operations in strange ways.

But in even more dire straits is Private Bradley Manning, who has admitted in military court to turning over documents to Wikileaks. Manning revealed his motivation: he was moved to act after he was forced to help cover-up corruption by the Iraq National Police, and participate in round-ups of men who he strongly suspected would be tortured. Indeed, as Kevin Kosztola pointed out in a March 5 article at The Dissenter, Manning had been powerfully affected by this incident in comments he purportedly made to Adrian Lamo in computer chat logs.

Manning was even more direct in his statement to the military court: he decided to leak information because the US military had turned a blind eye to corruption and torture.

As the Guardian article and documentary on Steele show, Manning was certainly correct to fear the consequences of helping turn prisoners over to Iraq authorities. Yet Manning is on trial with life imprisonment hanging over his head, while David Petraeus, James Steele, Donald Rumsfeld and others walk free, able to enjoy the good life of the freedom this country allows those who play by the rules and ignore crimes against humanity, if not engage in them.

Kosztola also reports that Wikileaks has decided to withhold (for now) the documents that would illuminate just what Manning was referring to in the incident with the INP. Apparently they think they are protecting Manning. Under such dire circumstances as Manning faces, I suppose such release should really be up to Manning and/or his attorneys.

US Denial Over Government Use of Torture

The US counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq, including the organization of police commando torture squads and secret prisons, cost over millions, perhaps billions of dollars. The Guardian explains:

In June 2004 Petraeus arrived in Baghdad with the brief to train a new Iraqi police force with an emphasis on counterinsurgency. Steele and serving US colonel James Coffman introduced Petraeus to a small hardened group of police commandos.... [Gen. Thabit] developed a close relationship with the new advisers. "They became my friends. My advisers, James Steele and Colonel Coffman, were all from special forces, so I benefited from their experience... but the main person I used to contact was David Petraeus."

With Steele and Coffman as his point men, Petraeus began pouring money from a multimillion dollar fund into what would become the Special Police Commandos. According to the US Government Accounts Office, they received a share of an $8.2bn (£5.4bn) fund paid for by the US taxpayer. The exact amount they received is classified.

With Petraeus's almost unlimited access to money and weapons, and Steele's field expertise in counterinsurgency the stage was set for the commandos to emerge as a terrifying force. One more element would complete the picture. The US had barred members of the violent Shia militias like the Badr Brigade and the Mahdi Army from joining the security forces, but by the summer of 2004 they had lifted the ban.

The Guardian report should shake up US denial over torture and the role of top US officials, such as former CIA director Petraeus, Obama's choice for the position after Panetta left to be Secretary of Defense. But US news media have largely ignored the story (though the New York Times noted it, relegating the story to a brief blog commentary), even though a report by Philip Bump at The Atlantic Wire called the Guardian story and video "staggering... blockbuster." Yet Bump's March 6 article only has (to date) about 3,600 views.

In a healthy democracy, there would immediate calls for Congressional investigations and hearings. But instead we have silence, as the US state rushes to maintain its right to project organized violence and terror wherever it wishes. A similar cover-up over the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture is now unfolding, as Marcy Wheeler reports.

The full 51-minute documentary can only for now be viewed at the Guardian site, and I have no way to embed it here. It is essential viewing for anyone who wishes to know the full history of the US invasion and policy in Iraq. Click on the video title here to watch the documentary: James Steele: America's mystery man in Iraq.

Cross-posted at FDL/The Dissenter

The Forgotten History of David Petraeus

Originally posted at FDL/The Dissenter

In July, General David Petraeus was approved as CIA Director by both the Senate Intelligence Committee and then the full Senate, whose vote was an astounding 94-0, astounding because this is a man who was deeply implicated in war crimes, including torture.

While Petraeus's record on backing both torture and death/terror squads in Iraq had been looked at before, literally no one brought up this record when the Obama administration's nomination of Petraeus was being sped through the constitutional "advice and consent" process. The failure of any U.S. Senator to ask questions about Petraeus's record on these matters demonstrates the utter bankruptcy of the two political parties, and even more, of U.S. civil society as a whole. Under the leadership of Barack Obama, torture has not only not been ended, its institutionalization has been solidified from the Bush years.

The dubious Yoo/Bybee/Bradbury OLC memos have been rescinded by President Obama's executive order, but the underlying structure of the torture program, which continually metamorphizes so that its existence will not be endangered, remains. Now a primary figure involved in the torture program is head of the CIA. These are dangerous times.

What makes them even more dangerous is the extreme complacency and passivity of the U.S. press, blogger community, and human rights organizations, who never raised a peep over the nomination of Petraeus to head the CIA, and who have for the most part let violations of the UN Convention Against Torture treaty, which makes the handing of prisoners over to state authorities who are likely to torture them a crime, become a unremarkable minor detail in their political reporting and campaigning.

Training the Torturers and the Implementation of FRAGO 242

Petraeus was promoted to lieutenant general in June 2004, and was appointed the first commander of the Multi-National Security Transition Command Iraq (MNSTC). The MNSTC was organized to train Iraqi Security Forces, with the supposed aim of making them responsible for Iraqi state security. The context was the dismantling of the Iraqi Army under the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) of L. Paul Bremer. While the CPA was busy privatizing the Iraqi economy, the cobbled-together Iraqi forces were unable to fight the remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime, and the country was rent by sectarian conflict.

It was also in June 2004 that Fragmentary Order 242 was issued, instructing U.S. forces, as the UK Guardian reported, "not to investigate any breach of the laws of armed conflict, such as the abuse of detainees, unless it directly involves members of the coalition. Where the alleged abuse is committed by Iraqi on Iraqi, 'only an initial report will be made … No further investigation will be required unless directed by HQ'."

Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the Commander of US ground troops in Iraq, was the likely high official who signed off on this policy, but as the Guardian noted, "Frago 242 appears to have been issued as part of the wider political effort to pass the management of security from the coalition to Iraqi hands." The policy amounted to turning Iraqi prisoners over to security forces trained by Petraeus's MNSTC. The Iraqis tortured the prisoners, while U.S. forces were complicit, and if anyone wanted to intervene, the order tied their hands.

Frago 242 was modified in April 2005: "MNCI FRAGO 039 DTD 29 April 2005 has modified FRAGO 242 and now requires reports of Iraqi on Iraqi abuse be reported through operational channels."

Frago 039 was released in 2005. As Angus Stickler and Chris Woods at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism noted, "It is unclear from the files what happened to the reports of detainee abuse once they had been sent up the chain of command. There are indications that some may have been investigated, but it is not known whether this was by the US or if the files were handed over to the appropriate Iraqi authorities."

A likely example of Frago 242 in operation occurred during a June 29, 2004 encounter between Oregon National Guardsmen assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 162nd Infantry, and Iraqi Interior Ministry agents, as reported by Mike Francis in the Oregonian, August 2004 (as reposted by the Seattle Times). Members of the unit had observed the beating of blindfolded prisoners on the grounds of the Ministry. The story continued.

Soon after, a team of Oregon Army National Guard soldiers swept into the yard and found dozens of Iraqi detainees who said they had been beaten, starved and deprived of water for three days.

In a nearby building, the soldiers counted dozens more prisoners and what appeared to be torture devices: metal rods, rubber hoses, electrical wires and bottles of chemicals. Many of the Iraqis, including one identified as a 14-year-old boy, had fresh welts and bruises across their backs and legs.

The Guardsmen moved in, disarmed the Iraqi jailers and Lt. Col. Daniel Hendrickson of Albany, Oregon, radioed for further instructions. The instructions came. Officers up the chain of command in the Army's First Cavalry Division told Hendrickson "to return the prisoners to their abusers and immediately withdraw." The U.S. Embassy later confirmed the incident, and said that the issue was brought up with Iraqi authorities, but wouldn't disclose details, as "it would be 'inappropriate' to discuss 'details of those diplomatic and confidential conversations.' The embassy statement, we now know, was disingenuous in the extreme.

The embassy, in a written statement, said American soldiers are "compelled by the law of land warfare and core values to stop willful and unnecessary use of physical violence on prisoners." The U.S. soldiers involved in the incident, it said, "acted professionally and calmly to ease tensions and defend prisoners who needed help."

The U.S. Guardsmen who entered the Iraqi compound that day knew they had done the right thing by disarming the torturers, but felt it was wrong to move out. According to Francis, they spoke about the incident because they were "really upset." One soldier said, "They were really moved by what they'd seen." Francis wrote, "they wanted Americans to know about the actions they took to protect unresisting prisoners — and that they were ordered by U.S. military officials to walk away."

Reports of Torture After 2004

Reports of torture by Iraqi security forces continued to leak out. In 2005, Richard Galpin at BBC posted an incendiary story about the burgeoning scandal. According to the British news agency, "Iraq's new police force... [faced] mounting allegations of systematic abuse and torture of people in detention, as well as allegations of extra-judicial killings. The minority Sunni community in particular claims it is being targeted by the Shia-dominated police force."

According to Galpin, a list of different torture techniques published by Human Rights Watch at the time included "beating detainees with cables, hanging them from their wrists for long periods and giving electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body."

From a video given to the BBC by the Association of Muslim Scholars (a Sunni Muslim organisation), it seems another particularly brutal form of torture can also be added - drilling into the knees, elbows and shoulders of victims.

And according to press reports, the Shia-dominated commandos then targeting the Sunni minority were organized by -- David Petraeus. In an interview of Arun Gupta by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Petraeus's part in this was described.

What we were talking about two-and-a-half years ago was Petraeus’s role in helping to set up the Special Police Commandos. In 2004, 2005, he was given the mission to train all Iraq military and police forces....

Now, one of the key things that Petraeus did was they decided -- him and his command decided -- that they were going to create this paramilitary force, the Special Police Commandos. They armed them. They funded them. They trained them. And they also issued the usual denials: “Oh, we're not giving them any weapons. This is an Iraqi initiative.” And so, now he’s saying the same thing with the Sunni militias.

So, anyway, the Special Police Commandos quickly morphed into Shiite death squads that were used against the Sunni insurgency and against Sunnis, in general, throughout Iraq.

One of the most notorious police commando units was the Wolf Brigade, which trained with U.S. forces, and was notorious for torture and extrajudicial murders in Sunni neighborhoods.

One of the most extraordinary reports on U.S. backing of the Iraqi terror police was by Peter Maass in the New York Times Magazine in May 2005. Maass was present at a meeting between himself and General Adnan Thabit, head of the Special Police Commandos. Also present was James Steele, "one of the United States military's top experts on counterinsurgency," Maass wrote. "Steele honed his tactics leading a Special Forces mission in El Salvador during that country's brutal civil war in the 1980's." A retired U.S. colonel, Steele was a member of General Petraeus's team working to train the police security units.

The interview with Thabit had barely started, when something bizarre and chilling occurred:

A few minutes after the interview started, a man began screaming in the main hall, drowning out the Saudi's voice. ''Allah!'' he shouted. ''Allah! Allah!'' It was not an ecstatic cry; it was chilling, like the screams of a madman, or of someone being driven mad. ''Allah!'' he yelled again and again. The shouts were too loud to ignore. Steele left the room to find out what was happening. When returned, the shouts had ceased. But soon, through the window behind me, I could hear the sounds of someone vomiting, coming from an area where other detainees were being held, at the side of the building.

Steele was not the only American involved in training the Iraqi terror police. Steve Casteel was "the senior U.S. adviser in the Ministry of Interior," working directly with Iraqi interior minister, Falah al-Nakib. According to Maass, Casteel was "a former top official in the Drug Enforcement Administration who spent much of his professional life immersed in the drug wars of Latin America. Casteel worked alongside local forces in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia, where he was involved in the hunt for Pablo Escobar, the head of the Medellin cocaine cartel."

Steele, Casteel and Petraeus have all told the press at various times that they opposed human rights abuses among Iraqi forces. Petraeus himself told New York Times reporters in May 2006 that he and his team "vigorously pursued allegations of misconduct," and that "he never received evidence of the police carrying out clearly sectarian violence, but that at his insistence three commando leaders were fired or moved to lesser positions for detainee abuse or corruption."

In a September 25, 2004 op-ed for the Washington Post, Petraeus wrote, "Helping organize, train and equip nearly a quarter-million of Iraq's security forces is a daunting task." He cited all the "progress" that had been made under his command. He noted he met "with Iraqi security force leaders every day." In a very slight nod to reports of atrocities, Petraeus wrote, "Though some have given in to acts of intimidation, many are displaying courage and resilience in the face of repeated threats and attacks on them, their families and their comrades. I have seen their determination and their desire to assume the full burden of security tasks for Iraq."

The progress and the U.S. remonstrances against torture have reportedly resulted in the suspension of a handful of Iraqi officers, but the reports about continuing torture by security forces continued, and many were revealed in the Wikileaks Iraq War Logs release earlier this year. Here is one of the reports, from August 2006. As the reader will note, while U.S. forces make a report, no investigation is initiated, and the prisoner and his torturer are said to remain at the Ramadi jail. The case is closed five days later.

*ALLEGED DETAINEE ABUSE BY IRAQI POLICE IN RAMADI ON 17 AUG 2006
SUSPECTED DETAINEE ABUSE RPTD AT 171100D AUG 06

1. DESCRIPTION OF INCIDENT/SUSPECTED VIOLATION (WHO REPORTED INCIDENT AND WHAT HAPPENED):

SGT –––––, 300TH MILITARY POLICE COMPANY, REPORTED IRAQI POLICE COMMITTING DETAINEE ABUSE AT AN IRAQI POLICE STATION IN RAMADI. SGT ––––– WITNESSED 1LT –––– WHIP A DETAINEE ACROSS HIS BACK WITH A PR-24 STRAIGHT SIDE HANDLED BATON AND 1LT –––– KICKING A SECOND DETAINEE. THAT NIGHT SGT ––––– HEARD WHIPPING NOISES WALKING THROUGH THE HALLWAY, AND OPENED A DOOR TO FIND 1LT –––– WITH A 4 GAUGE ELECTRICAL CABLE, WHIPPING THE BOTTOM OF A DETAINEE*S FEET. LATER THAT NIGHT, SGT ––––– CAUGHT 1LT –––– WHIPPING A DETAINEE ACROSS HIS BACK WITH AN ELECTRICAL CABLE. SGT ––––– DOCUMENTED EACH EVENT ON A SWORN STATEMENT FORM AND REPORTED THE INCIDENTS.

2. LOCATION (GRID COORDINATES OR OTHER REFERENCE): 38S LB 37142 99770

3. TIME OF OCCURRENCE AND TIME OF DISCOVERY: REPORTED 17 1100 AUG 06

4. WHO CAUSED (IF KNOWN) OR IDENTITY OF FRIENDLY AND ENEMY UNITS OPERATING IN THE IMMEDIATE AREA (IF KNOWN):

IRAQI POLICE FROM THE AL HURYIA IRAQI POLICE STATION

5. NAME OF WITNESSES (W/UNIT OR ADDRESS): SGT –––– ––––– –––––, 300TH MP COMPANY, MP PIT TEAM

6. UNIT POINT OF CONTACT: CPT –––– – –––– AT DNVT 551-2044 OR ––––.––––@–––––.ARMY.SMIL.MIL

7. EVIDENCE GATHERED AND ITS DISPOSITION: SWORN STATEMENTS AND PICTURES ARE ATTACHED

8. WEAPONS/EQUIPMENT INVOLVED: 4 GAUGE ELECTICAL CABLE, PR-24 BATON

9. DESCRIPTION OF DAMAGE OR INJURIES TO GOVERNMENT/CIVILIAN PROPERTY AND PERSONNEL: CIRCULAR WHIP MARKS, BLEEDING ON BACK, DARK RED BRUISING ON BACK

10. CURRENT LOCATION OF SUSPECTS AND VICTIMS (JAIL, HOSPITAL, AT SCENE, ETC.) BOTH ARE STILL AT AL HURYIA POLICE STATION

11. HOW IS THE SITE BEING SECURED? N/A

12. INVESTIGATING OFFICER. STATUS OF INVESTIGATION: NO INVESTIGATION INITIATED AT THIS POINT.

CLOSED: 22 AUG 2006

In February 2009, three years after the recognition of torture at Al Huryia police station, a U.S. military dispatch shows the Al Huryia police are still torturing prisoners, with U.S. knowledge, and no investigation. The military record merely concludes "Closed."

The case against Petraeus may be circumstantial, as we do not have a specific document that links him to torture, or even the Frago orders. But the General's culpability in these matters is highly likely, and the principle of command responsibility ties him into the policies that occurred under his command. You would have thought that there would have been a Congressional investigation of these matters, or that Petraeus would have been grilled about them at his hearing. Indeed, Petraeus explained at his recent Senate hearing that he would not rule out torture in "ticking time bomb" scenarios.

The United States has become so politically paralyzed that it cannot mount an effective political opposition to the economic fleecing being implemented currently by the executive and legislative branches of what can only be understood to be a torture state. Without a new political opposition, based on a genuine progressive popular movement, and ultimately a new political party that strives for power with a program of ending the dominance of the military and economic elites, then there is no light at the end of the tunnel, only our fear spinning solitary in the dark.

The Significance of HRW's New Call to Prosecute Bush Administration Officials for Torture

Cross-posted from MyFDL/Firedoglake

Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a new report Tuesday. As they stated in the press release announcing the 107-page report, "Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees" (HTML, PDF), there is "overwhelming evidence of torture by the Bush administration." As a result, President Barack Obama is obliged "to order a criminal investigation into allegations of detainee abuse authorized by former President George W. Bush and other senior officials."

In particular, HRW singled out "four key leaders" in the torture program. Besides former President George W. Bush, the report indicts former Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and CIA Director George Tenet. But others remain possible targets of investigation and prosecution. According to the report:

Such an investigation should also include examination of the roles played by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Attorney General John Ashcroft, as well as the lawyers who crafted the legal “justifications” for torture, including Alberto Gonzales (counsel to the president and later attorney general), Jay Bybee (head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)), John Rizzo (acting CIA general counsel), David Addington (counsel to the vice president), William J. Haynes II (Department of Defense general counsel), and John Yoo (deputy assistant attorney general in the OLC).

But the key passage in the HRW report concerns the backing for international prosecutions, under the principle in international law of "universal jurisdiction," which was used back in 1998 by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón to indict former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for genocide and murder.

Unless and until the US government pursues credible criminal investigations of the role of senior officials in the mistreatment of detainees since September 11, 2001, exercise universal jurisdiction or other forms of jurisdiction as provided under international and domestic law to prosecute US officials alleged to be involved in criminal offenses against detainees in violation of international law. [emphasis added]

Indeed, in an important section of the report, HRW details the failures and successes of pursuing such international prosecutions in the face of U.S. prosecutors' failure to act and investigate or indict high administration officials for war crimes. This is even more important when one considers that the Obama administration has clearly stated its intention to not investigate or prosecute such crimes, going after a handful of lower-level interrogators for crimes not covered by the Bush administration's so-called "legal" approvals for torture provided by the infamous Yoo/Bybee/Levin/Bradbury memos issued by the Office of Legal Counsel.

Nor has Congress shown even a smidgen of appetite for pursuing further accountability: not one Congressman or Senator has stepped forward as yet to endorse HRW's new call. Instead, they demonstrated their obsequiousness by approving Obama's nomination of General David Petraeus as new CIA director 94-0, despite the fact that Petraeus has been implicated in the organization of counter-terror death squads in Iraq, and was in charge of training Iraqi security forces who repeatedly were documented as engaging in widespread torture. It was during Petraeus's tenure as chief of such training for the coalition forces, that the U.S. implemented the notorious Fragmentary Order (FRAGO) 242, which commanded U.S. forces not to intervene in cases of Iraqi governmental torture should they come across such it (which they often did). No one during Petraeus's testimony in his nomination hearings even questioned him about this.

Why this report now?

I asked Andrea Prasow, a senior counsel at Human Rights Watch, why this report was issued now, noting that some on the left had already questioned the timing of HRW's action.

"Because it really needed to be done," Prasow explained. She noted the recent admissions by former President Bush and Vice President Cheney that they had approved waterboarding. Furthermore, "following the killing of [Osama] Bin Laden, we saw the immediate response by some that torture and the enhanced interrogation techniques led to the capture of Bin Laden. And it became a part of normal debate about torture. It shows how fragile is the current commitment not to torture."

Prasow also noted the recent closure of the Durham investigation, which resulted in the decision to criminally investigate the deaths of two detainees in CIA custody, while 99 other cases referred to his office were closed. I asked her whether she felt, as I do, that the announcement of the two investigations were meant to forestall attempts by European (especially Spanish) prosecutors to pursue "universal jurisdiction" prosecutions of U.S. officials for torture.

"I don't see how there's a defensible justification that the investigations Durham announced can do that," Prasow said. "It's pretty clear that there should be an investigation into the deaths of these detainees," she added, "but it's so clear the investigation is very limited. The scope of the investigation is the most important part. Even if Durham had investigated the 100 or so cases that exceeded the legal authorities, it wouldn't be sufficient. What about the people who wrote the legal memos? Who told them to write the memos?" she said, emphasizing the fact that Durham's investigation was limited by Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to only CIA crimes, and only those that supposedly exceeded the criteria for "enhanced interrogation" laid out in a number of administration legal memos. The torture, Prasow noted, was "throughout the military" as well, including "hundreds or thousands" tortured at sites in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo.

Prasow noted that the Obama administration has made it policy to block attempts by torture victims to get compensation for torture, asserting a policy of protecting "state secrets" to shut down court cases. "But there are other ways of providing redress," she said, adding that "providing redress is part of international laws." The HRW report itself states, "Consistent with its obligations under the Convention against Torture, the US government should ensure that victims of torture obtain redress, which may include providing victims with compensation where warranted outside of the judicial context."

The new HRW report comes on the heels of a controversy roiling around a proposed United Kingdom governmental inquiry into torture. A number of British human rights and legal agencies have said they would boycott the UK proceedings as a "whitewash." As Andy Worthington put it the other day:

As a result of pandering to the Americans’ wishes, the terms of reference are “so restrictive,” as the Guardian described it, that JUSTICE, the UK section of the International Commission of Jurists, warned that the inquiry “was likely to fail to comply with UK and international laws governing investigations into torture.” Eric Metcalfe, JUSTICE’s director of human rights policy, said that the rules “mean that the inquiry is unlikely to get to the truth behind the allegations and, even if it does, we may never know for sure. However diligent and committed Sir Peter [Gibson] and his team may be, the government has given itself the final word on what can be made public.”

Andrea Prasow echoed Metcalfe's fears, saying HRW had "some concerns about how much information [in the UK inquiry] was going to be kept secret. I think transparency, making it as public as possible, is most important."

The fight for transparency also makes HRW's call for prosecutions of high government officials, along with "an independent, nonpartisan commission, along the lines of the 9-11 Commission, [that] should be established to examine the actions of the executive branch, the CIA, the military, and Congress, with regard to Bush administration policies and practices that led to detainee abuse," very timely. In a column the other day at Secrecy News -- Pentagon Tightens Grip on Unclassified Information -- Steven Aftergood reported on a Department of Defense proposed new rule regarding classification. While the Obama administration is supposedly on record for greater governmental transparency, the new rule imposes "new safeguard requirements on 'prior designations indicating controlled access and dissemination (e.g., For Official Use Only, Sensitive But Unclassified, Limited Distribution, Proprietary, Originator Controlled, Law Enforcement Sensitive).'"

According to Aftergood, "By 'grandfathering' those old, obsolete markings in a new regulation for defense contractors, the DoD rule would effectively reactivate them and qualify them for continued protection under the new Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) regime, thereby defeating the new policy." Even worse (if possible), "the proposed rule says that any unclassified information that has not been specifically approved for public release must be safeguarded. It establishes secrecy, not openness, as the presumptive status and default mode for most unclassified information."

Much of what we know about the Bush-era torture program is due to the work of the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights, who have used the Freedom of Information Act to gather hundreds of documents, if not thousands, that document the paper trail surrounding the crimes of the Bush administration. Reporters and investigators like Jane Mayer, Philippe Sands, Alfred McCoy, and Jason Leopold have also contributed much to our understanding of what occurred during the Bush years. The work of investigators going back years demonstrates that U.S. research into and propagation of torture around the world goes back decades.

The Senate Armed Services Committee has also produced an impressive, if still partially redacted, investigation (large PDF) into detainee abuse by the Department of Defense. Their report, for instance, concluded regarding torture at Guantanamo that “Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's authorization of interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there."

When one puts together the accelerated emphasis on "state secrets"; the Obama political program of "not looking back" in regards to U.S. war crimes (while supposedly pursuing accountability for torture and war crimes committed by other countries); the political passivity, if not cowardice of Congress; the fact that Obama "has not been transparent on the rendition issue, not even saying what its policy is," according to Andrea Prasow; and finally the lies and propaganda spewed forth by the former Administration's key figures and their proxies, one can only agree with HRW that enough is enough. The time for investigations and prosecutions into torture and rendition is now.

And if they won't listen in Washington, D.C., perhaps they will in Madrid. Or some other intrepid prosecutor in -- who knows? -- Brazil or Argentina or Chile will pay back America, as a matter of poetic but also real justice for the crimes endured by their societies when the U.S. helped organize torture and terror in their countries only a generation ago. There were no U.S. investigations into actions of government figures then, and now we are faced with another set of atrocities produced by our own government. If we do not act now, what will our children face?

Could Durham's CIA "Investigation" Lead to Understanding Migration of Torture Techniques?

Originally posted at MyFDL/Firedoglake

With the news that John Durham has decided to finally open criminal, and not just "preliminary," investigations into the deaths of two prisoners held by the CIA (apparently Manadel al-Jamadi and Gul Rahman) the CIA can now "exhale," as Spencer Ackerman describes it. The CIA's sigh of release is related to the fact that of at least 101 cases of CIA abuse only two might be prosecuted. Spencer quotes outgoing CIA Director Leon Panetta:

“On this, my last day as Director, I welcome the news that the broader inquiries are behind us,” Panetta wrote to the CIA staff on Thursday. “We are now finally about to close this chapter of our Agency’s history.”

Ackerman also quoted the new CIA director, General David Petraeus: "During his confirmation hearing last Thursday, Petraeus issued a public plea to take the 'rear view mirrors off the bus' and drop any inquiries into CIA torture. He also suggested that the CIA might return to abusive interrogations in “special cases” of imminent danger..."

Petraeus was approved for his new CIA position on a unanimous Senate vote. No one in Congress bothered to ask about his affiliation with former "Salvador option" specialist James Steele, or his activities in relation to the training of Iraq security forces, at the same time as U.S. forces were given a "fragmentary order" (FRAGO 242) which told U.S. forces not to interfere with the torture of prisoners they were handing over to these same Iraqi security forces. FRAGO 242 was a direct contravention of U.S. treaty obligations under the Convention Against Torture not to turn prisoners over to forces that would likely torture them.

But this is America, and it appears most of the reporting class, both mainstream and of the more alternative, "blogging" sort, have taken to heart the no-accountability plea of the Obama administration, and never bothered to ask why Petraeus was given such a free ride re questions about torture and other abuse under his command noted above, or his association with the operations of terror groups like the Wolf Brigade. (I plan to write more about this later.)

Comparing the 2002 OLC Memos with Later CIA Iterations of its "Techniques"

But not everyone is letting things slide. Marcy Wheeler is taking a closer look at the new information that we can glean from the Durham investigations. One thing she notes, which she has covered before, is how the techniques used on Rahman were never approved by the Yoo/Bybee memos. The water dousing and exposure to extreme cold were techniques noted in a 2004 letter written by the CIA General Counsel to the OLC's Jack Goldsmith, a follow-up request concerning the CIA's "Legal Principles Applicable to CIA Detention and Interrogation of Al-Qa'ida Personnel," otherwise known as the Bullet Points memo, and the earlier OLC memos . But did someone vet some of these techniques, at another time and place, for a different agency... at DoD perhaps?

I think it's worth noting that the Bullet points memo cited 17 techniques (it's really 16, though) the CIA relied upon, and it would be worth comparing those techniques in general with the ten approved torture techniques in the 2002 Yoo/Bybee memo.

Yoo/Bybee, 2002:
1. Attention grasp
2. Walling
3. Facial hold
4. Facial slap (insult slap)
5. cramped confinement
6. wall standing
7. stress positions
8. sleep deprivation
9. insects placed in a confinement box (really, the use of phobias)
10. the waterboard

-- I'd note, as I have before, that some of these techniques were really omnibus in nature, particularly "sleep deprivation", which included within its definition (from the Bradbury 2005 memo, which avers, however, to how "sleep deprivation" was already being used), "sleep deprivation, forced sleep deficit was combined, as we can see, with shackling, forced positions and forced standing, humiliation, manipulation of diet, sensory overload, and possibly other torture procedures." (quote is from my article)

Now, let's look at the Bullet Point document (4/28/2003), written (PDF) it appears by John Yoo and Jennifer Koester, with duplicated items from August 2002 asterisked; all others are "new" and presumably unapproved (though more on that in a moment).

1. Isolation
2. Sleep deprivation*
3. "reduced caloric intake (so long as the amount is calculated to maintain the general health of the detainee)"
4. deprivation of reading material
5. "loud music or white noise (at a decibel level calculated to avoid damage to the detainee's hearing)"
6. the attention grasp*
7. walling*
8. the facial hold*
9. the facial slap (insult slap)*
10. the abdominal slap
11. cramped confinement*
12. wall standing*
13. stress positions*
14. sleep deprivation [this is a duplication in the list of #2, but is listed twice in the bullet point list, so is included here]
15. the use of diapers
16. the use of harmless insects* [though changed from the more precise use of insects in a confinement box from Yoo/Bybee 2002]
17. the waterboard*

On March 2, 2004, as Marcy Wheeler has noted, "CIA General Counsel Scott Muller [wrote] to Jack Goldsmith asking for reaffirmation of several legal documents, including [the] Legal Principles document, released with redactions". (PDF to Muller's letter)

Muller added some new techniques to the Bullet Points document, including pouring, flicking, or tossing of water ("water PFT) and "water dousing" (using water from a bucket or water hose). "Both water PFT and water dousing are used as part of the SERE training provided to US military personnel," Muller wrote, noting later in his letter, "there are virtually no health or safety concerns with water PFT as part of an approved interrogation plan."

Muller explains, too, that "[a] medical officer is present to monitor the detainee's physical condition during the water dousing session(s), including any indications of hypothermia. Upon completion of the water dousing session(s), the detainee is moved to another room, monitored as needed by a medical officer to guard against hypothermia, and steps are taken to ensure the detainee is capable of generating necessary body heat and maintain normal body functions."

These explanations about safeguards, written over a year after Rahman's death, appear to be a cover for Rahman's death, as evidently there were no safeguards used there. Or perhaps, Rahman was an experimental case, much as Zubaydah was when it came to other torture techniques ("walling" and waterboarding, for instance).

Gul Rahman died of hypothermia (and likely other torture) on November 20, 2002, shackled after a session of water dousing in a cold room in the CIA's infamous Salt Pit prison. Was there a medical monitor present? We have reason to believe that CIA doctors were at all the black sites, so what were they doing on November 20, 2002?

CIA and DoD Techniques Compared

As we have seen, by April 2004, the number of CIA known techniques have escalated to 18 (or 19, given the replication of "sleep deprivation" in the original list, which is, as I will suggest below, a typo, as most likely the second mention of sleep deprivation is really meant to be "sleep adjustment").

Finally, I think it's worth looking at the techniques approved for DoD by Rumsfeld on April 16, 2003, after the infamous "Working Group" review. I'm not going to list them all. They were divided into categories of severity. One of the techniques that led to the Working Group review was "Exposure to cold weather or water (with appropriate medical monitoring") in Jerald Phifer's October 11, 2002 memo to the Commander of Guantanamo's Joint Task Force 170 .

The DoD techniques, approved around the same time as the CIA's Bullet Point list, included (the list below is not definitive, but meant to compare/contrast with those above):

1. "Incentive/Removal of Incentive: Providing a reward or removing a privilege. 'above and beyond those that are required by the Geneva Convention, from detainees. [Sounds very much like "deprivation of reading material" in the Bullet Point document, though could be more related to sensory deprivation]
2. "Fear Up Harsh: Significantly increasing the fear level in a detainee."
3. "Pride and Ego Down: Attacking or insulting the ego of a detainee, not beyond the limits that would apply to a POW."
4. "Futility: Invoking the feeling of futility of a detainee."
5. "Mutt and Jeff: A team consisting of a friendly and harsh interrogator. The harsh interrogator might employ the Pride and Ego Down technique. [Caution: Other nations that believe that POW protections apply to detainees may view this technique as inconsistent with Geneva IIt, Article 13...]"
6. "Dietary manipulation: Changing the diet of a detainee; no intended deprivation of food or water; no adverse medical or cultural effect and without intent to deprive subject of food or water..." [bold emphasis added]
7. Environmental manipulation, including "adjusting temperature"
8. Sleep Adjustment, refers to shifting hours of sleep, i.e., playing around with circadian rhythms, "NOT sleep deprivation" [this may account for the confusion in the Bullet Points document, which appears to draw on approvals made for DoD, whatever the nature of those approvals).
9. False Flag
10. Isolation [which includes a host of caveats, including possible violations of Geneva III, Articles 13, 14, 34 and 126]

Savvy readers will remember that this was a ratcheting down of earlier DoD-approved techniques (Dec. 2002), that also included deprivation of light and auditory stimuli, stress positions, inducing stress by manipulation of detainee's fears (IPCRESS for those who remember that book/movie), 20 hr. interrogations, and hooding, among others.

It appears, from a pursuit of how the torture techniques migrated, that there was a good deal of synergy going on between DoD, CIA, and likely Special Forces. I'd point out that in the Muller letter to Goldsmith, there are some redactions, one of them concerns a redacted technique, one that is associated with SERE.

Like other approved interrogation techniques, [approximately sixteen character spaces redacted] is used as part of the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) training provided to US personnel.

The implication is that some other SERE technique was approved and the technique is being ported over from DoD. I believe the redacted technique could be "exposure to cold", which would fit the redacted area, and speaks to a technique otherwise unremarked in the Bullet Points document, but which was obviously used by CIA, as it was by DoD (under the rubric "environmental manipulation").

It's additionally worth noting there were psychologists and psychiatrists around who moved between all these agencies. Some techniques were apparently never written down or approved, but certainly used, particularly those that played on sexual humiliation or other cultural or religious sensitivities and vulnerabilities.

Factoring in the Experiments Angle

It would be a mistake to think that the documents will provide a full story of what occurred. This is especially true when it comes to considering what kinds of experimentation were actually being conducted on the detainees. Jason Leopold and I have written about the unprecedented use of the antimalarial mefloquine on all incoming detainees (see here, here, and here).

Another possible experiment may have surrounded the use of dietary manipulation, and the Seton Hall School of Law's Center for Policy and Research's study on The Guantanamo Diet noted, "The detainees’ weight varies so wildly that many have been obese briefly and underweight and malnourished at other times.... Professor Denbeaux concluded, “The most compelling question is how can the detainees’ weight swing from obese to under nourished when the medical staff is in complete control of all food intake.”

I'm looking into the latter issue, but will note that dietary manipulation, which shows up in the Bullet Point document as "reduced caloric intake", as well as DoD docs, is allowed so far as I can perceive in the current Army Field Manual (FM 2-22.3). The latter states "Depriving the detainee of necessary food, water, or medical care" is "prohibited," but I think, as in the caveat on dietary manipulation above, re the detainee's "general health" that there is a lot of room for leeway, i.e., what is considered "necessary"? Note the use of the word "intended" as regards "dietary manipulation" in the April 2003 list of DoD "techniques."

The list of AFM prohibited techniques is followed immediately by the following statement: "While using legitimate interrogation techniques, certain applications of approaches and techniques may approach the line between permissible actions and prohibited actions. It may often be difficult to determine where permissible actions end and prohibited actions begin."

No kidding.

NY Times Tale of US Soldier Intervention Against Torture is a Lie

Much more is certain to be written and reported from the 400,000 or so documents from the Iraq War released today by Wikileaks. The government is putting forth its own spin, claiming damage to U.S. security and troops, while the press has its own version of spin. One example comes from the New York Times, who along with the UK Guardian, Der Spiegel, and Le Monde, are releasing all or some of the documents, often with fancy and very interesting interactive graphs and databases.

Last July, I noted that the New York Times had listed the total number of individuals on a secret U.S. commando “capture/kill list” as "about 70," while the European press reported the more accurate number of 2,058.

Well the Times is up to its old tricks, and it is an object lesson in not believing what you read, and the necessity to review the original documents yourself.

An October 22 story, Detainees Fared Worse in Iraqi Hands, Logs Say, by Sabrina Tavernise and Andrew W. Lehren, details some of what the Times found in a review of the Wikileaks documents concerning abuse by Iraqi forces. Buried in the article is the lede, i.e., that the U.S. had a deliberate policy of ignoring wide-spread torture by their Iraqi allies (or puppet government, take your pick). At first, Tavernise and Lehren write that the "abuse cases... seemed to have been ignored, with the equivalent of an institutional shrug..." But five paragraphs into the story we learn that the indifferent "shrug" was really a deliberate policy, as it's revealed there is a "report dated May 16, 2005, saying that if 'if US forces were not involved in the detainee abuse, no further investigation will be conducted until directed by HHQ.'”

This is the now notorious FRAGO-242 (FRAGO being short for fragmentary order). According to the UK Guardian, it was issued in June 2004, not May 2005, as the New York Times article implies. So far as I can tell from the various news stories, this policy begun during the Bush years is still in effect. It certainly was as late as 2009, well into the administration of President Barack Obama.
According to the UK Guardian:

Frago 242 appears to have been issued as part of the wider political effort to pass the management of security from the coalition to Iraqi hands. In effect, it means that the regime has been forced to change its political constitution but allowed to retain its use of torture....

With no effective constraint, the logs show, the use of violence has remained embedded in the everyday practice of Iraqi security, with recurrent incidents up to last December. Most often, the abuse is a standard operating procedure in search of a confession, whether true or false. One of the leaked logs has a detainee being beaten with chains, cables and fists and then confessing to involvement in killing six people because "the torture was too much for him to handle".

But the particular New York Times article in question here has a more egregious example of spin than burying the lede. In the following paragraph, an American soldier's witnessing of torture is reported as if the soldier intervened to stop it. In fact, the very documentary evidence the New York Times links to demonstrates the exact opposite.

Here is the relevant quote from the article (emphasis added):

In August 2006, an American sergeant in Ramadi heard whipping noises in a military police station and walked in on an Iraqi lieutenant using an electrical cable to slash the bottom of a detainee’s feet. The American stopped him, but later he found the same Iraqi officer whipping a detainee’s back.

Here's the document this paragraph links to -- note, you will not find any evidence of the soldier stopping any torture. A report is made, no investigation is initiated, and the prisoner and his torturer are said to remain at the Ramadi jail. The case is closed five days later.

*ALLEGED DETAINEE ABUSE BY IRAQI POLICE IN RAMADI ON 17 AUG 2006

SUSPECTED DETAINEE ABUSE RPTD AT 171100D AUG 06

1. DESCRIPTION OF INCIDENT/SUSPECTED VIOLATION (WHO REPORTED INCIDENT AND WHAT HAPPENED):
SGT –––––, 300TH MILITARY POLICE COMPANY, REPORTED IRAQI POLICE COMMITTING DETAINEE ABUSE AT AN IRAQI POLICE STATION IN RAMADI. SGT ––––– WITNESSED 1LT –––– WHIP A DETAINEE ACROSS HIS BACK WITH A PR-24 STRAIGHT SIDE HANDLED BATON AND 1LT –––– KICKING A SECOND DETAINEE. THAT NIGHT SGT ––––– HEARD WHIPPING NOISES WALKING THROUGH THE HALLWAY, AND OPENED A DOOR TO FIND 1LT –––– WITH A 4 GAUGE ELECTRICAL CABLE, WHIPPING THE BOTTOM OF A DETAINEE*S FEET. LATER THAT NIGHT, SGT ––––– CAUGHT 1LT –––– WHIPPING A DETAINEE ACROSS HIS BACK WITH AN ELECTRICAL CABLE. SGT ––––– DOCUMENTED EACH EVENT ON A SWORN STATEMENT FORM AND REPORTED THE INCIDENTS.

2. LOCATION (GRID COORDINATES OR OTHER REFERENCE): 38S LB 37142 99770

3. TIME OF OCCURRENCE AND TIME OF DISCOVERY: REPORTED 17 1100 AUG 06

4. WHO CAUSED (IF KNOWN) OR IDENTITY OF FRIENDLY AND ENEMY UNITS OPERATING IN THE IMMEDIATE AREA (IF KNOWN):
IRAQI POLICE FROM THE AL HURYIA IRAQI POLICE STATION

5. NAME OF WITNESSES (W/UNIT OR ADDRESS): SGT –––– ––––– –––––, 300TH MP COMPANY, MP PIT TEAM

6. UNIT POINT OF CONTACT: CPT –––– – –––– AT DNVT 551-2044 OR ––––.––––@–––––.ARMY.SMIL.MIL

7. EVIDENCE GATHERED AND ITS DISPOSITION: SWORN STATEMENTS AND PICTURES ARE ATTACHED

8. WEAPONS/EQUIPMENT INVOLVED: 4 GAUGE ELECTICAL CABLE, PR-24 BATON

9. DESCRIPTION OF DAMAGE OR INJURIES TO GOVERNMENT/CIVILIAN PROPERTY AND PERSONNEL: CIRCULAR WHIP MARKS, BLEEDING ON BACK, DARK RED BRUISING ON BACK

10. CURRENT LOCATION OF SUSPECTS AND VICTIMS (JAIL, HOSPITAL, AT SCENE, ETC.) BOTH ARE STILL AT AL HURYIA POLICE STATION

11. HOW IS THE SITE BEING SECURED? N/A

12. INVESTIGATING OFFICER. STATUS OF INVESTIGATION: NO INVESTIGATION INITIATED AT THIS POINT.

CLOSED: 22 AUG 2006

The American sergeant documents each incident of torture, but there is no evidence of any other intervention.

I suppose the authors may have been unaware of what they wrote. The savagery and butchery may have made them unconsciously prettify the picture, and project fictional heroism by the American soldier. But the truth is ugly, and can't be covered up. That's the beauty of having actual documents, and we owe a great debt of gratitude to Wikileaks and the anonymous leaker(s) for bringing us the truth.

No doubt there were cases where U.S. military personnel intervened to stop torture, but even in the documents I've seen thus far, plenty of victims are left in control of their captors. The news reports seem to emphasize the wide-spread nature of the crimes.

Among whatever other truths are to be revealed, one truth stands out, and the UK Guardian headline is clear in its reporting: Iraq war logs: secret files show how US ignored torture. The truth. Both under the administration of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the United States forces in Iraq countenanced the use of torture on a massive scale by its allies in the Iraq government. They did not publicize what was happening, and to this day, they say this policy is acceptable.

The stories of the torture are horrific, as are the murders, the deaths of tens of thousands of non-combatants. And the casualty figures cannot themselves be trusted, as the U.S., for instance, reports no civilian casualty figures for the attack on Fallujah.

This is a country without a moral compass. War crimes on a massive scale, and a populace too afraid, too inured, too ignorant or self-satisfied to do anything about it. A terrible reckoning is coming, but it will not be from Al Qaeda, or from terrorists, or from God. It will be when the people of this country wake up and throw the rotten murderers and torturers and their apologists out of power.

Through its wide-ranging acceptance and tolerance of torture, the U.S. destroys its own integrity. I await the outrage or lack of it in coming days, but I won't hold my breath. The country has been made stupid by its addiction to elections funded by the wealthy, elections that only perpetuate the same evil powers, and offer little if any real choice to the voting public.

By claiming these documents will aid the enemy, the U.S. rulers only reveal their own guilt. It is not tactics and procedures they fear will be released, but an image of their own crimes.

UPDATE: Since first writing this diary, more material related to U.S. complicity in wide-spread and systematic torture by the Iraqi government is coming to light, as well as information about other war crimes. One of especial interest is a video at UK Guardian, which also has an interview with New York Times correspondent Peter Maass, who was allowed time with Iraq's notorious special commandos, Wolf Brigade. Maass puts Gen. Petraeus special adviser, James Steele, a "retired United States Army colonel who also helped develop the special police as a member of General Petraeus's team", in the same room as himself when both heard an Iraqi being tortured in another room.

A January 2007 article by Dahr Jamail noted the connections between Steele and his old El Salvador counterinsurgency boss, John Negroponte, who was U.S. ambassador to Iraq in 2004-2005. Negroponte then was U.S. ambassador as FRAGO 242 was put into operation.

It is Negroponte who oversaw the implementation of the "Salvador Option" in Iraq, as it was referred to in Newsweek in January 2005.

Under the "Salvador Option," Negroponte had assistance from his colleague from his days in Central America during the 1980's, Ret. Col James Steele. Steele, whose title in Baghdad was Counselor for Iraqi Security Forces supervised the selection and training of members of the Badr Organization and Mehdi Army, the two largest Shi'ite militias in Iraq, in order to target the leadership and support networks of a primarily Sunni resistance.

Planned or not, these death squads promptly spiraled out of control to become the leading cause of death in Iraq. Intentional or not, the scores of tortured, mutilated bodies which turn up on the streets of Baghdad each day are generated by the death squads whose impetus was John Negroponte. And it is this U.S.-backed sectarian violence which largely led to the hell-disaster that Iraq is today.

Of course, Jamail didn't know of FRAGO 242, but the implication of his article have been borne out with a vengeance, as the U.S. appears to have organized and unleashed torture and death squads in Iraq, much as they did in Latin America over the decades, in Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina, etc.

As for Steele, his presence in Iraq told ominously of the real U.S. mission there. As a 1988 article in The Nation explained, "as head of the U.S. Military Group at El Salvador's Ilopango Air Base, [Steele] was a critical operative in the contra resupply outfit run by Oliver North and Richard Secord. Steele made sure the Enterprise's planes could come and go from Ilopango." According to a 2005 New York Times Magazine piece by Maass, Steele was close to Iraqi General Adnan Thabit, leader of the Special Police Commandos. One of the latter's projects was a TV show broadcast over the U.S.-financed Al Iraqiya television station -- "Terrorism in the Grip of Justice" -- which broadcast insurgents' confessions, which appear to have been largely induced by torture.

The very first thing anyone who considers themselves progressive in this country must do is hold the current administration responsible for what is happening right now, end the FRAGO 242 policy, and begin the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. The "don't look back" policy of Obama must be renounced, and a movement for accountability and social justice began in this country. Otherwise, the torturers are waiting to take over. They already have control of much of the military.

Time is short.

My thanks to the brave folks at Wikileaks. With some luck, there will be enough time, but not unless we give up illusions in washed-up U.S. politicians who have no intent on changing the course of Empire, an empire built on terror, murder, and torture.

Cross-posted from Firedoglake and Daily Kos