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Investigating Reports, Watch The Video  Is the U.S. Training Iraqi Death Squads to Fight the Insurgency?
President Bush sought to overcome mounting criticism of the Iraq war Wednesday in what the White House billed as a major address outlining the administration's strategy. In a 45-minute speech before the US Naval Academy, Bush again rejected a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops and recounted improvements made by Iraqi security forces. The speech was the first of a series of four Bush plans to give before the December 15th parliamentary elections. The president yesterday reiterated that Iraqi troops will eventually take over from US forces in fighting the insurgency. President Bush, November 30 "Our goals are to train enough Iraqi forces so they can carry the fight and this will take time and patience and it is worth the time and it is worth the effort because Iraqis and Americans share a common enemy and when that enemy is defeated in Iraq, Americans will be safer here at home. And as Iraqi security forces stand up then coalition forces can stand down and when our mission of defeating the terrorist is complete our troops can come home to a proud nation." Bush has repeatedly linked a U.S. withdrawal to improvements in the capability of Iraqi forces. But the mainstream media has recently detailed the existence of death squads within the largely Shiite police and special commandos. Operating through or with the Iraqi security forces, these militias have abducted, tortured and executed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Sunnis. The New York Times reported Tuesday "Some Sunni males have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills. Many have simply vanished." At a Pentagon press conference on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was questioned about the death squads. Pentagon press conference, November 29 Q: Mr. Secretary, are you concerned over -- and in fact, is the United States looking into growing reports of uniformed death squads in Iraq perhaps assassinating and torturing hundreds of Sunnis? And if that's true, what would that say about stability in Iraq? SEC. RUMSFELD: I'm not going to comment on hypothetical questions. I've not seen reports that hundreds are being killed by roving death squads at all. We know for a fact that it's a violent country. We know for a fact that there have been various militias. We know that there have been some militias that have been Iran-oriented. We also know there's been some militias in the north that have been very helpful. The Peshmerga have been very constructive in what they've done. But I'm not going to get into speculation like that. Q: But, sir, that's not a hypothetical, I don't believe. The Sunnis themselves are charging that hundreds have been assassinated, people shot in the head, found in alleys. SEC. RUMSFELD: What you're talking about are unverified -- to my knowledge, at least -- unverified comments. I just don't have any data from the field that I could comment on in a specific way. While the story only recently made front-page news, it actually first appeared in the press over six months ago. Investigative journalist Arun Gupta was one of the first to report on the presence of death squads in Iraq back in April of this year. We interviewed him at the time, he joins us again in our firehouse studios. Arun is an editor with New York City Independent Media Center's newspaper, The Indypendent. Arun Gupta, investigative journalist who writes frequently for Z Magazine, Left Turn and the Indypendent newspaper in New York. He is an editor at the Indypendent and a former editor at the Guardian weekly in New York.
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