U.S. Sends in Secret Weapon: Saddam's Old Commandos

NEAR ISKANDARIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Twenty months after toppling Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), U.S. troops still battling his followers in the heartland of Iraq (news - web sites)'s old arms industry are hitting back with a new weapon -- ex-members of Saddam's special forces.



For five months, Iraqi police commandos calling themselves the Black Scorpions have been based with U.S. Marines in the region along the Euphrates south of Baghdad, which roadside bombs, ambushes and kidnaps have turned into a no-go areas and earned it the melodramatic description "triangle of death."


"All of them were previously officers in the Iraqi army or special forces," the Scorpions' commander, Colonel Salaam Trad, said at the Marines' Kalsu base near Iskandariya on Saturday.

~snip~

"Ninety-five percent of our intelligence is from the SWAT," he said. "They can put a guy in a cafe in the way we never could ... They have a good finger on the pulse."

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=4&u=/nm/20041127/wl_nm/iraq_swat_dc

a good thing? We are supposed to trust these former special forces of Saddam? When they look around and witness what we have done to their country and their people and what we are continuingto do, they are supposed to be grateful to us and be loyal to us?

:shrug:

And, are these the same dudes that Jerry Bremer fired? Like to know how many of them are playing both sides.

I just read this stuff in total disbelief.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1025576

:)