Managing Escalation: Negroponte and Bush's New Iraq Team

Dahr Jamail | January 8, 2007

Editor: Erik Leaver, IPS

*Foreign Policy In Focus *
www.fpif.org 

*As part of a massive staff shakeup of Bush's Iraq team last week, it
was announced that John Negroponte, the current U.S. National
Intelligence Director who has also conveniently served as the U.S.
ambassador to Iraq from June 2004 to April 2005 is being tapped as the
new Deputy Secretary of State.*

It is a move taking place at roughly the same time when Mr. Bush is to
announce his new strategy for Iraq, which most expect entails an
escalation of as many as 20,000 troops, if not more. Bush has already
begun preparations to replace ranking military commanders with those who
will be more supportive of his escalation.

The top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid, will
likely be replaced by Adm. William Fallon, currently the top U.S.
commander in the Pacific. Gen. George Casey, currently the chief general
in Iraq, would be replaced by Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who headed
the failed effort to train Iraqi security forces. Thus, those not in
favor of adding more fuel to the raging fire are to be replaced with
those who are happy to oblige.

Former NSA director and veteran of over 25 years in intelligence,
retired Vice Adm. Mike McConnell who happens to be an old friend of Dick
Cheney (who personally intervened on his old buddy's behalf) will
succeed Negroponte as national intelligence director. McConnell, willing
to oblige his neo-con pal Cheney, may prove more hawkish regarding Iran
than Negroponte was.

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.

In Honduras he earned the distinction of being accused of widespread
human rights violations by the Honduras Commission on Human Rights while
he worked as "a tough cold warrior who enthusiastically carried out
President Ronald Reagan's strategy," according to cables sent between
Negroponte and Washington during his tenure there. The human rights
violations carried out by Negroponte were described as "systematic."

The violations Negroponte oversaw in Honduras were carried out by
operatives trained by the CIA. Records document his "special
intelligence units," better known as "death squads," comprised of
CIA-trained Honduran armed units which kidnapped, tortured and killed
hundreds of people. Negroponte had full knowledge of these activities
while making sure U.S. military aid to Honduras increased from $4
million to $77.4 million a year during his tenure. Under his watch
civilian deaths sky-rocketed into the tens of thousands. Negroponte has
been described as an "old fashioned imperialist" and got his start
during the Vietnam War in the CIA's Phoenix program, which was
responsible for the assassination of some 40,000 Vietnamese.

At roughly that time, Col. James Steele was commander of the U.S.
Military Advisor Group in El Salvador. He also smuggled weapons to the
Contras in Nicaragua and lied about it to the Senate Intelligence
Committee, as documented in the Final Report of the Iran/Contra Special
Prosecutor.

As a result of the work done by Negroponte, assisted by Steele, during
the winter of 2004 and early spring 2005, daily life in Iraq, as
described by the Washington Post looks like what the death squads
generated in Central America under their watchful eyes: "Hundreds of
unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday--blood-caked men who
had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic
bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their
hands still bound."

Obviously it is better for Iraqi militias and resistance groups to be
fighting each other instead of uniting to battle occupation forces. The
age-old strategy of divide and conquer applied yet again.

Negroponte's strategy and oversight of the dirty war in Honduras
assisted in producing a "victory" there, but it has failed dismally in
Iraq. Nevertheless, when we have an Administration which refuses to
accept reality, bringing him back into the fold of the State Department
may be a clear signal that it is willing to see much more blood seep
into the sands of Iraq in the hope that it might produce something akin
to stability.

Negroponte's appointment signals that Bush hopes to tap into his
experiences from the medium-intensity war in Central America to do the
same once again in Iraq. Coupled with the changes in the military and
diplomatic team in Iraq it is a clear signal that the Administration is
ready, willing and able, to head down the course of massive and
indiscriminant escalation. It must be stopped.


/Dahr Jamail has reported from inside Iraq and is a Middle East expert.
He writes for Inter Press Service, The Asia Times, and is a contributor
to Foreign Policy In Focus.