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11/20/2005:

"The Dirty War: Torture and mutilation used on Iraqi 'insurgents'"

...Behind the daily reports of suicide bombings and attacks on coalition forces is a far more shadowy struggle, one that involves tortured prisoners huddled in dungeons, death-squad victims with their hands tied behind their backs, often mutilated with knives and electric drills, and distraught families searching for relations who have been "disappeared".
independent.co.uk

FLASHBACK JAN. 10,2005: Is the U.S. Organizing Salvador-Style Death Squads in Iraq?
As violence in Iraq continues into 2005, the U.S. government is considering setting up assassination squads to target leaders of the Iraqi resistance. Newsweek Magazine is reporting that the Pentagon is drawing up possible proposals to send special forces teams to advise, support and train hand-picked Iraqi squads to target Sunni rebels.
Within the Pentagon, the tactic is named "The Salvador option" after the strategy that was secretly employed by Ronald Reagan's administration to combat the guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. The U.S.-backed death squads hunted down and assassinated rebel leaders and their supporters.

The current US ambassador in Iraq is John Negroponte. As ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte played a key role in coordinating US covert aid to the Contras who targeted civilians in Nicaragua and shoring up a CIA-backed death squad in Honduras.

The Newsweek report says the Iraqi squads would most likely be made up of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen and could even operate across the Syrian border. It is also still unclear whether Pentagon or the CIA would take responsibility for the squads.