by Arun Gupta (original cached)
Most disturbing, one militia in particular – the “special police commandos” – is being used throughout Iraq and has been singled out by a U.S. general as conducting death squad strikes known as the “Salvador option.”
Greg Jaffe, the Journal reporter, identified at least six such militias. Yet these militias owe their allegiance not to the Iraqi people or state, but to their self-appointed leaders and associated politicians such as interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Even the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, admitted to Congress on March 1 that such militias are “destabilizing.”
Of these militias, at least three are linked to Allawi. Jaffe writes, “First came the Muthana Brigade, a unit formed by the order of… Allawi.” The second is the Defenders of Khadamiya, referring to a Shiite shrine on the outskirts of Baghdad, which appears to be “closely aligned with prominent Shiite cleric Hussein al Sadr,” who ran on Allawi’s ticket in the January elections.
The leader of the special police commandos, Gen. Adnan Thavit, participated in the disastrous 1996 coup against Saddam Hussein that Allawi coordinated. Thavit was jailed and subsequently released shortly before the 2003 U.S. invasion. He is also the uncle of Iraq’s interim minister of the interior, under which the commandos operate.
via Democracy NOW!
Updated @ 1558 04/22/05:
The shadow Iraqi government
By Pepe Escobar
According to Washington’s script, progressive invisibility of the occupying force means increasing repression exercised by Iraqi forces. This means the return – in full force – of Saddam’s Mukhabarat agents, now posing as agents of the new Iraqi security and intelligence services. Seemingly, that is the way the disenfranchised Muqtada-regimented masses see it: Bush equals Saddam because the same people who repressed us are back. Not to mention that everyone painfully remembers how George Bush senior did nothing to prevent Saddam from smashing the Shi’ite uprising at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. The masses correctly interpreted the meaning of Rumsfeld’s “message” to the Shi’ite al-Jafaari: don’t touch the defense and interior ministries, ie, don’t touch our old Mukhabarat allies and counterinsurgency experts.
Not featured in the elaborate Pentagon plans to regiment Mukhabarat agents is that these same Sunni, Saddam-era operatives may not be exactly inclined to fight the Sunni resistance. To complicate the equation, 70% of the US-trained Iraqi security forces are former Ba’athists. The top commando, with 10,000 operatives, is almost 100% composed of former Saddam army officers. If Jaafari’s government purges them, it’s the end of the American dream of having Iraqis doing the dirty jobs.