The "Salvador Option" in Iraq

Among those of us actively involved in covering the almost-forgotten Central American conflict, as well as policy makers and military officials, there has been a lot of buzz and debate over a recent Newsweek web exclusive saying the Pentagon was considering the "Salvador option" to improve the military situation in Iraq. The report says that the option "dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration's battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvdador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported 'nationalist forces' that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers."

Here is my two cents worth: If such a strategy were underway, it would be one of the biggest in the long line of mistakes the United States has made in Iraq. But it is a big if. The sources and/or authors of the story show a rather shocking lack of knowledge of El Salvador and the historic context of the work of the Salvadoran death squads. I covered the region extensively and won awards for my coverage of death squads there, was threatened by them and had friends killed by them. If there is one lesson to be learned, it is that such killings were what provided the rebel Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) with the vast majority of its recruits. The death squads were not primarily formed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers, although they did do that, with very limited success. They were formed to instill widespread terror in the civilian population to drive the civilian population away from the potential clutches of the rebels. The wholesale slaughter of teachers, priests, union workers, and students--coupled with the Salvadoran military's early penchant for burning villages and committing unspeakable abuses--drove tens of thousands of people with no natural affinity for the FMLN to the rebels for protection. The orphans and widows became the backbone of FMLN's army that, at its peak, numbered close to 10,000. In scores of interviews during my 10 years of living in El Salvador, almost every single rebel, regardless of rank or age, traced their path to the insurgency to some act of repression by government forces or the paramilitary death squads. This strategy would ensure the United States pays a horrendous price in Iraq because inevitably, the same thing would happen.

What is out of context in the story is that the United States, however belatedly, recognized this truth and sought to pressure the Salvadoran military and the far right to rein in the death squads. In 1983, then vice president George Bush and a young NSC aide named Oliver North visited El Salvador. They left a list of nine names with interim president Alvaro Magana, asking him to purge the 8 the military officers on the list from active duty and to arrest the one civilian. Little was done at that point, but from that time on the United States, while often unwilling to go after death squad activists and at times showing a distinct lack of interest in pursuing its leaders, did work to get the groups under control. By 1985 the U.S. ambassador was authorizing covert surveillance and actions against some of the more notorious death squad operatives. This does not mean U.S. policy was geared to stopping the death squads, but there was growing consensus, even in the Reagan administration, that death squad activities were undermining the entire concept of building a democracy in El Salvador that was attractive enough to undermine the appeal of the rebels. This was impossible when dozens of bodies a day were being dumped along the roadside or left at the notorious dumping grounds outside of the capital. Such would be the case in Iraq.

A final note; While elements of the Republican Party, led by Jesse Helms and others, actively promoted the Republican Nationalist Alliance (ARENA) in El Salvador, which included notorious death squad leaders among its leadership, there is no evidence that the U.S. government directly supported the death squads. While the U.S. helped fund and train the notorious ANSESAL intelligence center during the 1970s, and thus may bear some responsibility for its operation, the CIA station in San Salvador was shut down in 1977. The death squads were organized and trained initially by Guatemalans, who in turn had hired Argentine mercenaries to teach torture and interrogation techniques and intelligence operations. The World Anti-Communist League provided funding and support for these operations. The Guatemalans then brought in their Salvadoran allies to share in the training, and helped build a transnational "security apparatus" that operated with impunity in both countries. But this is far different from the implication of the article, either through sloppy writing or poor knoweldge from the sources, that the U.S. trained and armed the death squads. If the article meant to discuss the possibility of forming special units to track and hunt leaders of the insurgency, that is a policy that can be debated. But do not confuse that with a "Salavador Option," as the two would be unrelated. For those of you interested in following this debate more closely, see David Holiday's site here.