The Pentagon is aware of the accusations leveled against the Iraqi militants and has already frozen funding and any other assistance to the units that have been guilty of these war crimes. The Pentagon, therefore, would have already identified the units that have physically accomplished these atrocities, identical to those perpetrated by ISIS.
The ABC would be in possession of images defined as "disturbing" while the videos would circulate on Iraqi social media as early as last summer. Torture, mass executions, severed heads used as trophies and corpses dragged behind the Humvees (sold by the Americans) of the troops called by the US soldiers like "The Sporades Brigades".
They show themselves proud - they comment from ABC - they go around the streets with mutilated corpses.
The United States has invested 25 billion dollars in training the Iraqi army after the US invasion and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in the 2003. Many of these forces are fighting against ISIS to free the main strongholds like those of Mosul and Tikrit.
What is certain is that the accusations of brutality and torture by Iraqi Shiite government forces are not new. Indeed, they date back to the beginning of the war.
Before and after the withdrawal of the American armed forces from the country in 2011, protests by Sunnis took place against the government, accused of carrying out atrocities in Iraqi prisons. This later fueled sympathy for Al Qaeda in the country which evolved into the Islamic State. In fact, ISIS took advantage of Sunni anger to make proselytes.
Now, however, the Iraqi government is forced to prosecute the crimes committed by its own soldiers, lost the loss of significant American support.
According to the so-called Leahy Law, introduced in the 1997, the Pentagon and the State Department cannot provide assistance to any foreign military unit that violates human rights.
Their behavior must be irreproachable - they say from the Pentagon - or risk being labeled as ISIS.
One wonders what will happen one day when the United States withdraws its troops from the country.
Franco Iacch
