> 1) NBC's Today on Monday morning devoted a 7am half hour
segment to a Newsweek Web story about how the U.S. is supposedly
considering a "Salvador Option" for Iraq, what Newsweek and NBC's
Katie Couric dubbed "death squads" to hunt down terrorists. Couric
proposed to retired Army General Wayne Downing: "Is this a clear
sign though that U.S. forces are losing the war with these
insurgents?" Couric tried to impugn the policy idea by tarring it
with what supposedly occurred in El Salvador in the 1980s: "In El
Salvador many innocent civilians were killed when these kind of
tactics were employed. Are you concerned about that or the
possibility this will increase anti-American sentiment in the
general Iraqi population?" Downing rejected her premise: "This has
nothing to do with El Salvador."
Couric set up the January 10 Today segment, as taken down by
the MRC's Geoff Dickens: "On Close Up this morning, a possible new
approach in Iraq. Newsweek magazine is reporting this week that the
Pentagon is considering using a controversial secret strategy to
battle insurgents there, the same one the Reagan administration
used to fight leftist guerillas in El Salvador in the early
eighties. Retired General Wayne Downing is an NBC News military
analyst. General Downing good morning."
With "Iraqi Death Squads?" as the on-screen heading throughout
the session, Couric posed these questions:
-- "So officials at the Pentagon are now discussing a possible
option calling it, 'The Salvador Option,' according to Newsweek
magazine. What does this mean and General Downing how significant
is this in your view?"
Downing: "Well Katie I think this term is very unfortunate
because this El Salvador thing brings up the connotation of death
squads of illegal activity that took place in, by some of the El
Salvadorian military 20 years ago. But I think what they're
considering is to use a special or more special Iraqi units trained
and equipped and perhaps even led by U.S. Special Forces to conduct
strike operations against this, this insurgency,
against the leaders of it which of course is a very valid strategy,
a very valid tactic and it's actually something we've been doing
since we started the war back in March of 2003."
-- Couric: "But is this going to be used more or in greater
numbers? According to Newsweek they're going to, the, the U.S.
Special Forces will train specially chosen Kurdish forces and
Shiite militia men. So does this signal a, I guess, an escalation
of this technique at least?"
-- "But is this a, I'm sorry General Downing is this a clear
sign though that U.S. forces are losing the war with these
insurgents? That they are even more difficult to, to deal with than
once imagined?"
-- "One last question, we don't have much time General Downing,
but in El Salvador many innocent civilians were killed when these
kind of tactics were employed. Are you concerned about that or the
possibility this will increase anti-American sentiment in the
general Iraqi population?"
Downing: "Katie, this has nothing to do with El Salvador. Those
operations that were conducted down there were conducted by, by
renegade military leaders. This is under the control of the U.S.
forces, of the current interim Iraqi government. There's, there's
no need to think that we're going to have any kind of a, a killing
campaign that's gonna maim innocent civilians-"
Couric: "Alright."
Downing: "Katie it's a nasty situation in Iraq right now and
this may help it get better."
For the Saturday-posted Newsweek Web site article, "'The
Salvador Option': The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led
assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq Nuns pray over the bodies
of four American sisters killed by the military in El Salvador in
1980," by Michael Hirsh and John Barry, go to:
msnbc.msn.com
Newsweek illustrated its story with one of the most incendiary
incidents used by the left to discredit the Reagan administration's
subsequent support for the government of El Salvador. The caption
for the photo featured by Newsweek: "Nuns pray over the bodies of
four American sisters killed by the military in El Salvador in
1980."
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