The return to torture and killing by the security forces is another embarrassment for the American and British governments

The list compiled by Human Rights Watch includes beating detainees with cables, hanging them from their wrists for long periods and giving electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body.

From a video given to the BBC by the Association of Muslim Scholars (a Sunni Muslim organisation), it seems another particularly brutal form of torture can also be added - drilling into the knees, elbows and shoulders of victims

When I wrote Tom Fox, Death Squads and the Dogs of War, and named names... again the call fell on deaf ears.

By 2006, Tom Fox was murdered and the crime scenes were sanitized. At that point it was safe to let the media report on this. Even then, they buried the story. I wrote We found one of the death squads. They're part of the police force.

and opened that piece by saying:

That quote used in the title is not some lefty peacenik talking. That is Major General Joseph Peterson. He heads the training of Iraqi police forces for the US Army.

I then went on to note this was important for the following reasons:

1. This is the first official confirmation by the US of Death Squad activity in Iraq.

2. Death Squad activity has been alleged for over a year now.

3. The "Police Commando Units" you read about are Death Squads.

4. Those "Police Commando Units" were trained by US and UK contractors with the full knowledge of John Negroponte and the Pentagon.

5. The policy is colloquially known as "The Salvador Option"

6. This story has been reported before, but every one of the reporters covering it was killed.(UPDATED LINKS BELOW)

7. This is why the Christian Peacemaker Team went to Iraq.

8. This represents proof positive that the insurgents are not the only ones with competing factions.

9. This marks a shift in US military strategy.

10. The men who built these operations need to be brought to justice.

The last point was the most important. It never happened. America turned a blind eye. A few years later, David Petraeus, like Brutus, was labeled an honorable man. The truth was otherwise, but even Ted Westhusing's suicide note was not enough to convince a wilfully blind America.

Now the bodies and the stories behind the bodies are buried. The Wikileaks documents have surfaced belatedly, like the bones of victims in a mass grave silently clawing their way towards the light. But even now America still turns a blind eye.

Tom Fox may have died for our sins, but his death didn't absolve us of anything.

Most of the links in my original pieces have been wiped away and all of this criminal activity -- done in our name, with our money, by our government, enabled by our silence, and pardoned by our indifference -- is washed down the memory hole like blood from a crime scene after they hose down the sidewalk.

Even President Obama enables this whitewash when he plays the role of America's Lot and tells us "...we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards." I'm sorry Mr. President, but I can't take that journey with you. I have not mastered Umberto Eco's Ars Oblivionalis, the Dark Art of Forgetting. I cannot ignore the bitter taste memory leaves in my mouth. I know it will never go away as long as we shut our eyes to the fact we are covered in blood.

============
ADDENDUM: Some may find this claim hard to swallow. When these stories were hot topics in 2005, all three of the reporters who covered it were murdered.

Steve Vincent (New York Time), Yasser Salihee (Knight Ridder) and Fakher Haider (New York Times).

All three journalists have this in common: That was the last story these journalists covered before they were shot to death in Iraq in 2005.

All the links have been wiped clean. In response to a comment questioning this claim, I used the Way Back Machine to find the original stories and offer them to anyone else who doubts the veracity of this claim. Here they are:

1. Steve Vincent's story

2. Yasser Salihee's story

and

3. Fakher Haider's story