Searching for Steele

It's ten years since America invaded Iraq. Ten years and over 120,000 dead. Among them over 4,400 American soldiers. Back then, US administration funded a deadly, paramilitary force to fight those threatening the American presence. It was a decision that helped fuel a sectarian civil war that ripped Iraq apart. At its height, three years later, 3000 bodies a month were showing up on the streets of Iraq. This is a story of James Steele - the man the Pentagon sent in to help organise and train those paramilitary squads. He's a veteran of America's so called "dirty wars" stretching back to Vietnam and El Salvador. This man was so important to the Pentagon that the then Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld saw fit to forward his personal memos to the president and vice president.