Managing Escalation: Negroponte and Bush's New Iraq Team

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3877

<snip>The timing of this move is what should raise eyebrows, and for two main reasons. First, Negroponte is relieved of his job of intelligence director as the drums of war continue to be pounded by the die-hard neocons, and Negroponte wasn't playing quite loud enough to the Tehran tune. McConnell may well be able to carry a louder tune for his pal Cheney, which may come in the form of a Sonata of manufactured intel to justify an attack on Iran, which is important since time is growing short for Cheney and Co.

Second and more immediate, the transfer of Negroponte into the State Department comes conveniently just as the announcement of the escalation of troops in Iraq is planned. Bush needs someone with experience in managing escalations and he needs look no further than this man. It is Negroponte who oversaw the implementation of the "Salvador Option" in Iraq, as it was referred to in Newsweek in January 2005.

Under the "Salvador Option," Negroponte had assistance from his colleague from his days in Central America during the 1980's, Ret. Col James Steele. Steel, whose title in Baghdad was Counselor for Iraqi Security Forces supervised the selection and training of members of the Badr Organization and Mehdi Army, the two largest Shia militias in Iraq, in order to target the leadership and support networks of a primarily Sunni resistance.

Planned or not, these death squads promptly spiraled out of control to become the leading cause of death in Iraq. Intentional or not, the scores of tortured, mutilated bodies which turn up on the streets of Baghdad each day are generated by the death squads whose impetus was John Negroponte. And it is this U.S.-backed sectarian violence which largely led to the hell-disaster that Iraq is today.

Under Reagan, Negroponte was the U.S. ambassador to Honduras in the early 1980's where he played a major role in U.S. efforts to topple the Nicaraguan government. The political history of John Negroponte shows a man who has had a career bent toward generating civilian death and widespread human rights abuses, and promoting sectarian and ethnic violence.

[blogslut]

1. kick

This is important. Negroponte the Wraith is to me, the scariest figure of this administration. The "Salvador Option" = death squads.

May the ghosts of the innocents, killed in Central America under Negroponte's watch, rise up and reveal this man for what he is.