international humanitarian law imposes obligations on those engaged in armed conflict regarding the treatment of prisoners not only must prisoners not be abused but those detaining prisoners also have an obligation to ensure respect as well it is not acceptable to turn a blind eye. because absolutely responsibility of every u.s. service member if they see in you mean treatment. to intervene to stop or. make you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it's to report. if you are present when in your main treatment is taking place or they have an obligation to authorise them. but the masses of secret iraq war communiques released by wiki leaks showed that a u.s. soldier as well routinely handing prisoners over to the iraqi police force even before the police commandos were officially launched. the top u.s.

military knew from the soldiers daily logs that torture was going on inside detention centers they even issued a new official military order in june two thousand and four it was called frog zero two four two it directed u.s. troops to note but not investigate torture of iraqis by iraqis unless ordered to take action by headquarters. but later that month members of the oregon national guard was so disturbed by the abuse they witnessed at a police detention center that they intervened to try and stop it. i saw some horrific things. but i saw one room that had. seventy five prisoners are crammed into one one small space and they asked for asked for help and they asked for better cory we gave them every bit of scrap of food. that we had every bit of water and you could see evidence of

a torture chamber where they had a broken lamp where they used a logical shot and it was quite evident what they had been doing to these fellows. said the command approached the man who appeared to be in charge of this. according to several the man immediately got on the telephone to u.s. military headquarters right after he made that phone call the order came that we were to stand down we were ordered to pull away right now. i know that that order came from someplace very high. we went directly back to our compound and the commander called a soul in there together and told us that what we saw didn't happen to forget about it but the oregonians didn't forget they went to the american press and blew the whistle a high level u.s. military investigation followed and the top just stopped that. there is no evidence

that steel was involved in this incident but a year later the special commandos took over the facility and used it for interrogation and torture. there's great continuity. and really if you go back to the to the nature of the regular warfare and the that there is always a dark side it's not called dirty war for nothing so it's no surprise to see individuals who are associated in a sort of know the ins and outs of the kind of war reappear at different points in these conflicts. after a few months in the studio and all salvador i didn't have any contact with them whatsoever until i saw their peter maass article and saw that although he's in iraq

it was not surprising there's a worry unlike james steele would appear again he had been sidelined by the u.s. military after a congressional committee decided that he had lied about his role in all of the north's illegal gun running operation against the left wing government in nicaragua . however his work in el salvador had not been forgotten by powerful washington insiders like vice president dick cheney who knew steele cheney was the first senior american politician to draw parallels between el salvador and iraq today el salvador's of. the power of the concept is an. ally in afghanistan and. dick cheney as a congressman made any number of visits to central america did members of the reagan administration who were in the four runners of the neoconservatives come into office and really take the whole approach to its next level in iraq.

they opened the cover story in the new york times magazine that and saw that it described the creation of this new police commando unit within the iraqi interior ministry and mentioned that the the u.s. military adviser in charge of this was jim steele. was probably more alarmed when i started to hear reports a few months later that that particular unit was carrying out death squad activities in iraq the publication by wiki leaks of thousands of diplomatic cables show that by july two thousand and five the u.s. embassy in baghdad was telling washington about the abuse being committed by the commandos. we also learned that adnan tarbet was a guest at the american embassy in baghdad he met the u.s. ambassador for counterterrorism and talked about his approach to police in this is an extract from what he's reported to have said summary fight terror with terror

major general target who created in command special police forces is a sunni officer who served time in prison for attempting to overthrow the saddam regime they expressed the view that it is necessary to fight terror with terror. and that it is critical that their forces be respected and feared as this was what was required in iraqi society to command authority. we asked embassador crampton if he had been aware that adnan targets commandos were engaged in torturing detainees . although i assure you if i knew there was torture going on. at that time with the people i was talking to out of origin and discussed it. here you're employing that i did know that and i resent that question the way you phrased it frankly. but there are indications that the u.s. government knew what the commanders were doing. we

remain troubled by the indications that at times units commanded by target crossed the line despite these concerns adnan tarbet remained officially in charge until the middle of two thousand and six he told us that the american officials he dealt with were aware of what his men were doing. are. wrong or remove. them or better. woman and would prefer men rather walk and we're going to. the police commandos were growing in numbers and importance they had a national headquarters in a sewer square in baghdad it could hold around one thousand detainees at any one time and was the nerve center of a national network of interrogation centers. this notorious detention center was

situated just outside the fortified green zone and less than a mile from the american and iraqi joint command. major general remembers that james steele and portrays his military adviser james kaufman were a constant presence here. he says they were there to receive the high value detainees from the so-called intelligence committees that operated at each regional commander center. the one of them walk on a gun other than. that i mean as i. saw the foot or. just. on. you know it's an either. for the had. them or. and that's. the. yes that.

got a little. two iraqi generals who worked with steele say that one of steele's responsibilities was to give the commandos lists of people that the americans wanted picked up. steel would then allegedly arrange to transfer them to a u.s. run interrogation center near baghdad airport. one man who survived antinous to a square says that the police commandos lied about the fate of some of his fellow detainees . go awol to the home where the. water. became very obvious that this was criminal activity by the special commandos they were written eliminating their own opposition and terrorizing citizens from the sunni community we lost the support of

a lot of iraqi citizens who became very cynical and very anti-american even the ones who were friendly with us couldn't understand why we were allowing this to happen. good afternoon folks. are you concerned over and in fact if united states looking into growing reports of uniformed death squads in iraq perhaps assassinating and torturing hundreds of cities and if that's true of eventually of all stability on record. hypothetical questions i've not seen reports that hundreds are being killed by roving death squads at all i'm not going to get into the speculation like there was next not a hypothetical i don't believe of the series i'm sick of the charging that hundreds have been have been exacerbated people shot in the head if our. alan. you're talking about unverified to my knowledge at least on for comments i just don't have any data from the field that i could comment on in

a specific way but donald rumsfeld should have known about the death squad activities james steele had written to rumsfeld six weeks earlier warning him that the police commandos and financed by the us were effectively a shia militia engaged in death squad activities. memo to don rumsfeld from jim steele. and thugs like the commander of the wolf brigade who has been involved in death squad activities extortion of detainees and a general pattern of corruption. nearly all of the new recruits within the commandos are shia many of them are barber members. general muntadhar resigned from the interior ministry he had come to view the commandos as death squads. to close colleagues were killed following a summons to the ministry their bodies were found on a rubbish tip. he got out of iraq and fled for his safety to jordan. despite the

risk he decided to speak out about what was happening inside the ministry of the interior. plant when i was far from the woman but by the route of the property. we were gone and all. that but. a few days after the broadcast general in one charge i was contacted by james steele. it seems that former colonel steele had made an unexpected trip to jordan he was very anxious to meet with muntadhar. james steele was staying at the luxury sheraton hotel in a man. he asked if they could meet about seven pm that night. when tiger greet and went to the hotel. but i wouldn't have a story and jim says there was a notice. in the energy sector. if this agreement which is honest will

endure. in the cut that bit hard. for them. to know and. it's the law of the law but with the negative. than a lot of gone there for the good. of the. sick at my own. one draw better idea of the. hell i lived at she just didn't sit still on that but i saw what i did i thought i'd hear that she could have a. guardian of the. other person and take it on and. then there were the. who often.

lose their way out the. agents. and. with the whole balance. of the but the most that could be the. people should know about what was going on because i was shocked when i came back to the states and found out that. most people didn't even know they were involved in quarter over there. there is little chance that james steele will be investigated within months of entering the white house president obama issued a statement saying we've been through a dark and painful chapter in our history nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy lang blamed for the past. james steele and david petraeus left iraq in september two thousand and five. the ranks of the police commandos increased to over seventeen thousand and the allegations of abuse against

them sought. a year later the country was in the grip of a bloody sectarian civil war. at its height the civil war was claiming the lives of three thousand people a month some were so badly tortured they could not be identified. many victims found a final resting place in desolate dumps like this one. a rusty tin can mox each grave. on talbot has now retired on an iraqi government pension and lives in jordan. donald rumsfeld resigned as defense secretary at the end of two thousand and six he never replied to any of our questions. rumsfeld had presented james deal with a distinguished public service medal for his extraordinary service in iraq. steele

is now living in bryan texas and gives occasional lectures on contra insurgency. he did not respond to our many requests to be interviewed for this documentary.