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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRevealed: Pentagon’s Link To Iraqi Torture Centers
Revealed: Pentagons Link To Iraqi Torture Centers
Mona Mahmood, Maggie OKane, Chavala Madlena and Teresa Smith| The Guardian
The Pentagon sent a US veteran of the dirty wars in Central America to oversee sectarian police commando units in Iraq, that set up secret detention and torture centres to get information from insurgents. These units conducted some of the worst acts of torture during the US occupation and accelerated the countrys descent into full-scale civil war.
Colonel James Steele, then 58, was a retired special forces veteran nominated by Donald Rumsfeld to help organise the paramilitaries in an attempt to quell a Sunni insurgency, according to an investigation by the Guardian and BBC Arabic. After the Pentagon lifted a ban on Shia militias joining the security forces, the membership of the Special police commandos was increasingly drawn from violent Shia groups like the Badr brigades.
A second special advisor, retired Colonel James H Coffman (now 59) worked alongside Steele in detention centres that were set up with millions of dollars of US funding. Coffman reported directly to General David Petraeus, sent to Iraq in June 2004 to organise and train the new Iraqi security forces. Steele, who was in Iraq between 2003 - 2005, and kept returning to the country through 2006, reported directly to Rumsfeld.
The allegations made by both American and Iraqis witnesses in the Guardian/BBC documentary, for the first time implicates US advisors in the human rights abuses committed by the commandos. It is also the first time that General David Petraeus - who last November was forced to resign as director of the CIA after a sex scandal - has been linked through an advisor to this abuse. Coffman reported to Petraeus and described himself in an interview with the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes as Petraeuss eyes and ears out on the ground in Iraq.
- more -
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/pentagon_iraq_torture_centers.php
Mona Mahmood, Maggie OKane, Chavala Madlena and Teresa Smith| The Guardian
The Pentagon sent a US veteran of the dirty wars in Central America to oversee sectarian police commando units in Iraq, that set up secret detention and torture centres to get information from insurgents. These units conducted some of the worst acts of torture during the US occupation and accelerated the countrys descent into full-scale civil war.
Colonel James Steele, then 58, was a retired special forces veteran nominated by Donald Rumsfeld to help organise the paramilitaries in an attempt to quell a Sunni insurgency, according to an investigation by the Guardian and BBC Arabic. After the Pentagon lifted a ban on Shia militias joining the security forces, the membership of the Special police commandos was increasingly drawn from violent Shia groups like the Badr brigades.
A second special advisor, retired Colonel James H Coffman (now 59) worked alongside Steele in detention centres that were set up with millions of dollars of US funding. Coffman reported directly to General David Petraeus, sent to Iraq in June 2004 to organise and train the new Iraqi security forces. Steele, who was in Iraq between 2003 - 2005, and kept returning to the country through 2006, reported directly to Rumsfeld.
The allegations made by both American and Iraqis witnesses in the Guardian/BBC documentary, for the first time implicates US advisors in the human rights abuses committed by the commandos. It is also the first time that General David Petraeus - who last November was forced to resign as director of the CIA after a sex scandal - has been linked through an advisor to this abuse. Coffman reported to Petraeus and described himself in an interview with the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes as Petraeuss eyes and ears out on the ground in Iraq.
- more -
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/pentagon_iraq_torture_centers.php
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Revealed: Pentagon’s Link To Iraqi Torture Centers (Original Post)
ProSense
Mar 2013
OP
Solly Mack
(90,773 posts)1. K&R
ProSense
(116,464 posts)2. Kick! n/t
Berlum
(7,044 posts)3. Republicans have an Evil Torture fetish
Just part of the degeneracy that lies occultly in the Republican soul.
Fire Walk With Me
(38,893 posts)4. Kick
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)5. Is anyone ever going to face justice for any of this crap?
Auntie Bush
(17,528 posts)6. Remind me again why Rumsfield isn't in jail?