Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, death squads
have taken root in Iraq’s political core, and with the strengthening of Shiite
militias by the Iranian regime, they have been used as a tool to inflict fear,
to ensure that Iraq’s autocratic political body remains under Shiite control.
When Nouri Maliki’s Dawa Party came to power
in Iraq in 2005 he had originally been appointed as vice-president for
de-Baathification of the former Iraqi government and its military personnel. By
April 2006, Maliki was installed as prime minister and with both the Americans
and the Iranians looking on him as a politician they could easily influence,
both were happy to back him during those early days.
As Maliki’s grip strengthened, his agenda for a Shiite dominated
Iraq firmly took root, and it soon became apparent that the only future for
Iraq under his divisive rule, came in the form of an Iranian satellite state.
As he grew in stature, the Iranian regime’s plans for hegemonic control of Iraq
began to take hold, and with the use of their subservient puppet in Baghdad;
Shiite militias under their control began to wreak havoc across the country in
the form of death squads.
Maliki’s marginalization of Sunnis had been an integral part of
his premiership, while hitting back at so-called al-Qaeda terror groups that
had been causing havoc in Iraq before the advent of ISIS, some of which had
been attributed to “false flag” operations from other quarters. Maliki cracked
down on any form of dissent in Sunni communities, where voices had been raised
against his sectarian policies.
With many Shiite militia members serving in both the armed
forces and the police force, Maliki used them to do his personal bidding, and
running in line with a continuing violent program of de-Baathification. He used
torture and extrajudicial execution to eradicate any sign of Saddam Hussein’s
Baathist regime from the country, as well as marginalize Sunnis from political
office.
Network of secret prisons
During his term in office, Maliki consolidated his powerbase and
effectively took political control of the judiciary. He used a network of
secret prisons, controlled by the interior ministry and used by the Special
Police Commanders as places of confinement. Sunni kidnap victims would be taken
there to be interrogated, using the vilest forms of torture known.
The first sign of death squads operating in Iraq became fully
apparent in May 2005, when dozens of bodies began to turn up around Baghdad.
But the irony of this whole situation, came about when it was exposed in the US
press, of how during 2005, the Pentagon was so desperate to get on top of the
rising Sunni insurgency.
It trained groups of Iraqi Shiite militias to carry out
“irregular missions” on behalf of US forces, in what was dubbed as the
“Salvador option”. The Salvador option was named after counter-insurgency
techniques used in Latin America during the 1980s.
These techniques were carried out by American-trained death
squads, and were used to terrorise the population of El Salvador into
submission, and to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathisers, who
opposed US-backed despotic right-wing government.
Obama policies
It was due to President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy of
taking a back seat that Iran managed to gain a foothold in Iraq, which looks
highly unlikely to diminish.
It was when Iraq needed US boots on the ground to fight ISIS,
none were forthcoming, and so the Iraqi authorities turned to Iran for help,
and since that time, through the IRGC’s Qods Force, the Iranian regime has been
able to entrench itself firmly in Iraq, making great strides politically,
militarily and economically to cement its position.
After serving a second term as prime minister, Maliki has
ensured that the Federal Supreme Court in Iraq overturned a vote which
prohibited a prime minister from running for a third term and was once again
able to run for office himself.
Then in April 2014, his “State of Law” coalition won an
unexpected majority of seats in the Iraqi parliamentary election, and with Fuad
Masoum, a Kurd, chosen to serve as Iraq’s new president, Maliki was expecting
to be appointed prime minister.
But since his last tenure, his political allies had taken a step
back from him, as accusations were thrown accusing him of stoking sectarian
division, rampant corruption, and failing to stem the threat of ISIS, as it
swept across northern Iraq.
Abadi’s empty promises
With Haider al-Abadi named as the new premier in September 2014,
he came in on a program of reforming Iraq’s bureaucracy, and promising to push
through concessions to Sunni tribes, which would give their leaders more
political power, which Abadi hoped would ease sectarian division. But even
under his tenure, with death squads in the form of militias still out there,
his promises of healing divisions have proven to be just empty words.
Even with ISIS virtually eradicated in Iraq, violence against
Sunni citizens continues, which has been seen markedly during the cleaning up
process.
Now that Iranian-backed militias have been integrated into the
Iraqi armed forces, the army is effectively under the control of Tehran. With
the present climate the way it is, it makes no difference what Shiite prime
minister sits at the head of the government, the militias won’t be reined in as
long as Iran has a strong influence in the country.
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