IRAQ

WSWS: US, Israel Prepare Mass Killings In Iraq

The Bush administration is about to launch a campaign of wholesale killings in Iraq with the assistance of the Israeli military, according to both US and Israeli sources quoted in several recent news reports.

Frustrated over the growing popular resistance to the US military occupation and determined to reduce US casualties in Iraq before next November's election, the administration has authorized a policy that could well resemble the infamous "Operation Phoenix" assassination program run by the CIA during the Vietnam War. That operation claimed the lives of as many as 41,000 Vietnamese over a four-year period beginning in 1968.

In preparation for the new counterinsurgency campaign, the US military has brought urban warfare specialists from the Israeli Defenses Force (IDF) to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the headquarters of the US Special Forces. They are training assassination teams in methods that the IDF has used to suppress Palestinian resistance to the Israel occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"This is basically an assassination program.... This is a hunter-killer team," a former senior intelligence official told the British Guardian newspaper. He warned that Washington's reliance on Israeli assistance in launching the operation would only intensify anger over the US occupation throughout the Middle East.

"It is bonkers, insane," the former official said. "Here we are-we're already being compared to Sharon in the Arab world, and we've just confirmed it by bringing in the Israelis and setting up assassination teams."

The Guardian also cited intelligence sources in Washington as reporting that Israeli military "consultants" have been sent to Iraq to advise US forces there on counterinsurgency operations.

According to the British newspaper, the new operation also includes the deployment of killer squads inside Syria to hunt down suspected resistance fighters from other Arab countries before they cross the border into Iraq.

Meanwhile, an article by Seymour Hersh, the veteran US investigative reporter, appeared in this week's New Yorker magazine also warning of a "major escalation of the Special Forces covert war in Iraq" and providing additional confirmation of Israel's role in training those who will carry out the assassination program.

According to Hersh, a new Special Forces group-Task Force 121-has been formed, drawing upon Army Delta Force troops, Navy SEALs and CIA paramilitaries. "Its highest priority is the neutralization of the Baathist insurgents, by capture or assassination," he reports.

Hersh continues: "According to American and Israeli military and intelligence officials, Israeli commandos and intelligence units have been working closely with their American counterparts at the Special Forces training base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and in Israel to help them prepare for operations in Iraq. Israeli commandos are expected to serve as ad-hoc advisers-again, in secret-when full-field operations begin."

US and Israeli officials have refused to comment on the record about this collaboration on the Iraqi counterinsurgency campaign. "No one wants to talk about this; it's incendiary," an Israeli official told Hersh. "Both governments have decided at the highest level that it is in their interest to keep a low profile on US-Israeli cooperation" on the assassination program