U.S. Marines hire private Iraqi force to hunt insurgents

[Monkie]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=546535&contrassID=1&subContrassID=8&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

"HADITHA, Iraq - U.S. Marines are using a private Iraqi security force to help them hunt down insurgents and say the tactic, while little used so far, is working.
The Marines set up the force, the Iraqi Freedom Guard, in January before embarking on their ongoing offensive in Iraq's vast and rebellious western province of Anbar. It consists of 61 men hired on a three-month contract for $400 each a month.

The Marines are quick to emphasis that the Freedom Guard is not a private militia, which are banned under Iraq's interim constitution unless under the authority of the armed forces."

its a private iraqi security force but not a private militia??
maybe i'll just call them mercanary deathsquads, or should i ask negroponte what they should be called as he has more experiance in tese matters?

[atreides1]

1. Sounds like Deathsquad to me

I guess those insurgents are just too much for the modern US military.

I'm willing to bet the members of this "Freedom Guard", aren't even from this region of Iraq.

[yellowcanine]

2. "The tactic is working"? WTF does that mean? Body counts up?

[bemildred]

4. It means its cheap, compared to say Blackwater (real cheap).

And of course the marines don't have to run around and be
targets as much.

[leveymg]

3. How Does One Say "Mano Blanco" in Arabic?

What's next, does Negroponte move the "Iraqi Freedom Guard" to Miami after they assassinate the Grand Ayatollah?

Bet they find some way to blame Iran and Syria.

[Larkspur]

5. I wonder how many of these mercenaries will become double agents

as the insurgents hire them the hunt and kill US Marines and Iraqis who oppose the insurgents?

[Moderator]

6. kick to combine threads

[ckramer]

7. Marines hire private Iraqi force to hunt insurgents

U.S. Marines are using a private Iraqi security force to help them hunt down insurgents and say the tactic, while little used so far, is working.

The Marines set up the force, the Iraqi Freedom Guard, in January before embarking on their ongoing offensive in Iraq's vast and rebellious western province of Anbar. It consists of 61 men hired on a three-month contract for $400 each a month.

The Marines are quick to emphasise that the Freedom Guard is not a private militia, which are banned under Iraq's interim constitution unless under the authority of the armed forces.

Their creation appears to be part of Washington's efforts to build up and add backbone to Iraq's security forces in any way possible after nearly two years of repeated setbacks.

"The analogy that I would use is the contract security that the Marine Corps uses like Blackwater," Col Craig Tucker, regimental commander of the 7th Marines, told Reuters.

reuters

[harrison]

8. Is this the Salvadoran Option we have heard so much about?

[jpak]

9. You mean US sponsored Death SSquads?????

Let's also not forget that the CIA is spending $3.5 billion to establish an Iraqi Secret Police.

Free, Independent and Democratic Iraq????

Yeah right....

[Beetwasher]

10. A Death Squad By Any Other Name

:eyes:

[Zech Marquis]

11. now hold on a second

why are the US Marines, some of the baddest mofos you could face in any battle, hiring a local hit squad? :shrug: something doesn't add up here...

[daleo]

13. Death squads can kill civilians with impunity.

The U.S. military sometimes takes a little flack for it.

[shadowknows69]

12. why don't we hire the private iraqi security force

to train the iraq army so we can come the fu*k home!!! we'd save about $999 million a month.

[Hobarticus]

14. As if they don't despise and mistrust each other as it is....

Jesus....the Nazis did the same thing: hire locals to suppress local minorities.

[Moderator]

15. kick to combine

[bemildred]

16. Marines Employ Iraqi Mercenary Force to Crush Rebellion

Mar 4 - After experiencing little success recruiting and retaining soldiers in Iraq’s formal military units and security forces, the US military has resorted to hiring a private, homegrown armed force to track and capture members of the Iraqi resistance, reports Reuters.

In a program that resembles rumored plans to implement what has been dubbed "the Salvador option" in Iraq, the establishment of a hardline indigenous paramilitary force may indicate the first step toward a more aggressive counterinsurgency campaign modeled in part after the notorious "death squad" campaign used to suppress a popular revolution in El Salvador during the 1980s.

---

Private militias operating outside the authority of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense are illegal under Iraq’s US-imposed interim constitution. Article 27(b) of Iraq’s Temporary Administrative Law reads, "Armed forces and militias not under the command structure of the Iraqi Transitional Government are prohibited, except as provided by federal law."

But Marine commanders deny that the Freedom Guard constitutes such an entity. Colonel Craig Tucker, regimental commander of the 7th Marines, told Reuters the Iraqi force is comparable to the numerous American security contractors, such as Blackwell Corporation, working in Iraq for the military and US government officials.

New Standard News

[0007]

17. Hmmmm is this John Negroponte idea, cuz he's good at the

death squad thingie.

[bemildred]

18. It's a sign of desperation.

They don't resort to these methods when less ham-handed one's
will do the job. It's basically a stalling tactic, there is no
way you win the war with this, you hope in the end to bargain these
hired thugs away in an eventual political settlement, like what
Negroponte pulled off in Nicaragua.

[0007]

20. I can just see those big mustached macho cigar smoking

mercenary mother fuckers stomping around like a bunch of wet squawking parrots, telling Negroponte, "no problemo"

And I do agree with you bemildred that these methods are the last resort.

[bemildred]

21. But Iraq is NOT Nicaragua.

The Iraqi resistance is far better equipped and trained.
These "death squads" will soon become "dead squads".

[0007]

22. As Meyer Lansky use to say, "Ded" as in dead.

You got that one right bemildred. "No problemo" - The only question now is how long will they last?

[Calico Jack Rackham]

19. Freedom Guard?????

Is this the Iraqi Freicorps?

[tom_paine]

23. These Bushevik Monsters use the word "freedom" the way Stalin used to

and twice as frequently.

and just as falsely.

Sounds like the Right-Wing Death Squads have come to Imperial Freedomstan, formerly Iraq.

How many decades until the Right-Wing Death Squads come to Amerika?

Maybe much sooner...

[Cocoa]

24. they're also using Shiite militias

the Salvador Option is well underway. This is going to be blowback city.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/10993445.htm

[The_Casual_Observer]

25. I doubt that this is working/will work. Death squads don't

lead to peace, they lead to revolution.

[LynnTheDem]

26. Nicarauga death squads. Worked so well then. What a co-incidence;

Negroponte in Iraq...US military hires death squad mercs in Iraq...