US Military Still Runs With Dreaded Wolf BrigadeAnalysis by Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON, Jan 2 (IPS) - Despite the U.S. command's announcement last week that it would seek to curb abuses by Iraqi commando units, the U.S. military has been extremely tolerant of the most abusive unit of all -- the notorious Wolf Brigade -- because it regards it as highly effective against the insurgents.
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The record shows, however, that the U.S. military has had a close operational relationship with the Wolf Brigade, the most hated and feared commando unit, and has even carried out joint operations with it. The U.S. command had repeatedly sent the Brigade to carry out operations in Sunni cities despite the opposition of U.S. Embassy officials who warned that such deployments would fuel sectarian tensions and violence.
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Journalists began reporting details of forced confessions through torture and indiscriminate killing of Sunni detainees by the Wolf Brigade last summer. In one case reported by the Associated Press last July, a woman detained by the Wolf Brigade in Mosul was whipped by six men with electric cables and forced to sign a false confession that she was a high-ranking local leader of the insurgency. After the Brigade left the city and turned her over to local authorities, they released her with an apology for the torture she endured.
The Financial Times reported in late June that 474 people had been seized from their homes during one Wolf Brigade sweep in the Abu Ghraib area and had suffered systematic abuse at the hands of the Brigade. A former detainee said commandoes had "attached electrical wires to his ear and his genitals, and generated a current with a hand-cranked military telephone".
(more)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31639 
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