American Accomplice of Terrorist Linked to Death Squads in Iraq

Havana, June 6 (ACN) US Army Colonel James Steele, who was involved in the Iran-Contras scandal along with international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles at his command, is now an advisor to death squads in Iraq.

The presence of the US army officer in Iraq has just been revealed by US Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich, Granma daily reports.

Luis Posada Carriles, currently under arrest in the US charged with illegal entry into that country, was the first to report to Colonel Steele about the downing of a DC-3 aircraft in Nicaragua and the arrest of Eugene Hassenfus, the incident that led to the Iran-Contras scandal.

In a letter addressed to the US State Department, Kucinich notes that Colonel Steele, a current advisor to the US ambassador in Iraq, implemented a plan in El Salvador under which tens of thousands Salvadorans "disappeared" or were murdered, including Archbishop Oscar Romero and four American nuns.

Colonel Steele has been assigned to the new counter-insurgence unit known as the Special Police Commando, which operates under the Iraqi Interior Ministry, said Kucinich.

A 1996 investigation by US journalist Robert Parry, who formerly worked as a reporter for Associated Press, Newsweek and PBS TV, revealed that Posada reported to two FBI officers on his participation in the huge drug trafficking and weapon smuggling operation at the orders of Colonel Steele, a close ally of Colonel Oliver North and his bosses in the White House.

In his book titled "Caminos del Guerrero" (Paths of the Guerilla), terrorist Posada Carriles boasts of his close links to Steele and wrote that in El Salvador, he, Felix Rodriguez Mendigutiand and Colonel Luis Orlando Rodriguez jointly cooperated with Colonel Steel outside their formal bounds of service."

In its article, the Granma newspaper points out that it is no surprise that —having such powerful allies— Posada now enjoys the protection and privileges that he is being given in El Paso, Texas.

At the same time that Posada is being held in that city, five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters remain in prison for having risked their lives by infiltrating Florida-based Cuban-American terrorist groups which served as faithful accomplices of the US’ dirty wars against Latin America.