Death Squads

Today's hot topic seems to be the death squads in Iraq. It's become pretty clear from any number of news reports, including a statement from former Prime Minister Allawi himself, that the Iraqi army has really become a collection of Shiite death squads, operating at the behest of the Shia Mullahs and largely targeting Sunnis. Many people are now referring to this as the El Salvador option, suggesting that the Bush Administration has deliberately fostered these death squads, just as Ollie North, John Negroponte, and others had done in Reagan's administration.

Apart from the Negroponte link, I haven't seen any real evidence to suggest that the emergence of death squads in Iraq is due to a deliberate effort of the Bush administration to promote them. On the other hand, I don't see much evidence that Bush has tried to discourage this development either. And, there does seem to be some similarity between relying now on local death squads to control Iraq and relying on the Northern Alliance to control Afghanistan four years ago.

I suspend judgment on whether the administration is deliberately fostering the development of the death squads, but their very existence demonstrates the total failure of this administration's war policy. As Allawi said the other day, Iraq is now no better than it was under Saddam, and possibly far worse, since we have destroyed the country's already shaky infrastructure and are letting it collapse into a full blown civil war.