Death squads didn't work in Vietnam, but the CIA is betting they'll be gre

[seemslikeadream]

Saturday 8th May 2004 :
Death squads didn't work in Vietnam, but the CIA is betting they'll be great in Iraq
Operation Phoenix Rises from the Ashes of history Death squads didn't work in Vietnam, but the CIA is betting they'll be great in Iraq

by Nick Schou

Never pretty, the war in Iraq is about to get a whole lot uglier. U.S. officials have begun to recruit ex-officers of Saddam Hussein's infamous Mukhabarat, or secret police, to hunt down resistance forces fighting U.S. troops in Iraq.

According to human rights groups, the Mukhabarat was responsible for torturing and murdering tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians during Hussein's brutal reign. Nonetheless, the CIA has already reportedly begun sending paychecks to dozens of Saddam's former thugs, who reportedly assisted in the successful hunt for Hussein and suspected Iranian and Syrian spies in Iraq.

Ex-CIA officials have compared the program to Operation Phoenix, an agency operation that assassinated and tortured tens of thousands of mostly innocent South Vietnamese civilians between 1967 and 1970, a period that marked the most brutal years of the Vietnam War.

"They're clearly cooking up joint teams to do Phoenix-like things, like they did in Vietnam," said former CIA counterterrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro in a Jan. 4 London Sunday Telegraph article.

more

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=945

[lapfog_1]

1. Hey, but

aren't these guys the heart of the insurgency? You know, the "dead
enders and thugs" that fight on because democracy is the one thing they
fear the most... blah blah blah. So now we pay them to hunt down what
will likely turn out to be "freedom fighters" and Iraqi patriots sick
of what we are doing to their country, people who never supported
Saddam, and now just want us to leave. Great.

[Eye and Monkey]

3. Hire the Dead-Enders - that's how Cheney picked Junior's Cabinet.

[daleo]

5. I guess 'we hate them for their freedoms'

When will Bush just give Saddam amnesty and his old job back, I wonder.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

6. Why change what the CIA has always done... they fight for us

in the day time and against us at night. Same old story.

[Tellurian]

2. Hmm... and no wonder so much $$ was needed to continue funding the war.nt

[bemildred]

4. I have to view this with a certain skepticism.

Not that they would not try it, but this is not the old
days under Saddam. These guys will get a hot lead injection
in no time, and publishing the information just makes sure
that nobody will mistake what is going on. On the other hand,
stupid is this administrations middle name.

[Barrett808]

7. Why else would they appoint Negroponte? He has the skillz. n/t

[seemslikeadream]

8. Negroponte: Nominee for Baghdad Embassy, a Rogue for all Seasons

Recently released declassified documents that had been requested by the Senate for the Negroponte hearing were always on Negroponte's mind because they repeatedly articulated a concern over any bad publicity that could becloud his reputation. An undesirable outcome of this kind would have hardened opposition to President Reagan's extremely controversial policy of trying to suck Honduras into the Contra war in exchange for secret bribes to a number of that country's political and military officers, as well as hundreds of millions in U.S. funds being allocated for economic and military assistance programs to the Honduran regime.

Another high-profile case in which Negroponte claims to have intervened was the disappearance of a suspected leftist, Inés Murillo. A number of reports at the time stated that a U.S. Embassy (or perhaps a CIA) official had visited the Honduran torture facility known as INDUMIL, where Murillo was being held and tortured. The daughter of a prominent local family, Murillo's parents were relentless in trying to locate their daughter, even taking out a full-page advertisement in the Honduran newspaper, El Tiempo. Negroponte professedly vocalized concern over Murillo's status, again fearing bad press coverage, and brought up the matter when meeting with Honduran officials. Four days later, Murillo was, in effect, narrowly saved from a certain death when she was publicly sentenced to two years in prison.

Contra Connections

Starting in the early 1980s, Hondurans had become the primary U.S. support base for the Contra war. The Honduran Army provided facilities and logistical support in a swath of territory adjacent to Nicaragua which became known as "Contraland." Honduran channels were also used to funnel U.S. funds to the Contras, without disclosing their source, at a time when such funding to the rebels was prohibited by Congress, but was still flowing from other U.S. funding sources, including the CIA.

During his stint in Tegucigalpa, Negroponte expanded the embassy staff's size ten-fold and it came to house one of the largest CIA deployments in all of Latin America. The same scenario inevitably will be the case in Baghdad once Negroponte initiates his ambassadorship, and presides over what is being touted as the largest U.S. overseas diplomatic mission in the world, with anywhere from one to three thousand personnel being employed there. Hondurans frequently referred to Negroponte as the U.S. "proconsul" of the country, as his arrogant and stealthy style of operating was more like that of an intelligence officer than a traditional diplomat, redolent of his days as a young agent in Vietnam. Utilizing this persona, he was able to guarantee the cooperation of a Honduran base for the Contra rebel army through his domination of compromised local officials and institutions.

more
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=946

[bemildred]

9. Well. Agreed. Stupid is their middle name.

But he will never have any power in Iraq, we have very little
power there now, and it won't get any better. Bremer is
already essentially irrelevant. There is no reason to think
Negroponte will do any better, however clever or vicious he
might be.

Edit: let me be clear, I'm sure your reasoning is correct, that's
why he was selected, but I don't think it's going to work out as
well in Iraq as it did in Nicaragua (from their point of view),
Negroponte is not an Arab and we are clearly blind as bats
intelligence-wise in Iraq.

[htuttle]

11. Indeed, there are very few Catholic nuns to murder in Iraq...

Negroponte will be lost.

[bemildred]

12. What I was thinking in post #4 was that we will

most likely see more "crispy critters" if the occupation
continues to resort to these methods. We have pockets of
beleaguered security in a sea of hostile and well armed
Iraqis, and there is NO REASON to think things will get
any better than they are now no matter how many troops or
how much money we scrape up and send over there.

[seemslikeadream]

13. I wonder if he knew these souls

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. I bet this is a job that Tom Ridge really wants...

...some suspect he was part of Operation Phoenix.