Salvador Option

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The Salvador Option was a term quoted in a January 8, 2005 article in Newsweek^[1]. This phrase was used to refer to options then being intensely debated in Pentagon and Iraqi government circles for dealing with the rapidly growing insurgency movement in Iraq, drawing an explicit analogy to the U.S. military involvement in El Salvador, in which quasi-official death squads were instrumental in bringing a decade-long war against FMLN to a close. The article quoted anonymous military insiders, and did not specify the precise origin of the phrase "Salvador Option", or explicitly say that those words were actually used by Pentagon sources.

According to Newsweek:

"...one Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions. It remains unclear, however, whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called "snatch" operations, in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation. The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries."[1]

Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has publicly denounced the Newsweek article as "nonsense", when directly asked if such a policy was under consideration, he answered "Why would I even talk about something like that?" [2]. Observers of the Iraqi conflict have taken these and other cues to argue that the "Salvador Option" was put into operation. They point in particular to the existence of a Shi'ite led unit affiliated with the Iraqi ministry known as the Wolf Brigade.^[2]

[edit] Death squad activity in Iraq

Much of what the CIA and the U.S. Military Advisory Group in El Salvador actually knew about the Salvadoran death squads is still kept highly secret. Statements by U.S. officials regarding the activities of the Iraqi Interior Ministry's Special Police Commandos, and other MOI units (which have been accused either of being death squads, of being infiltrated by insurgents, or both), are equally opaque.

What is known is that both the key U.S. official behind both the Milgroup in El Salvador from 1984 to 1986, and the Special Police Commandos since it was formed in September 2004 is the same person, Colonel James Steele.

Main article: Special Police Commandos