Searching for Steele

An investigation into the role played by a retired US colonel in Iraq's US-funded sectarian interrogation units.

Witness

Sparked by Wikileaks' release of classified US military documents, this investigation uncovers how the Pentagon sent James Steele, a US veteran of the 'dirty wars' in Central America, to oversee sectarian police commando units in Iraq that set up secret detention and torture centres to get information from insurgents.

Composed of violent Shia militias, these commandos evolved into death squads and eventually numbered over 17,000 men.

General David Petraeus is also implicated in the chain of command in this abuse of human rights. Colonel James Coffman, another special forces veteran drafted in to oversee the operation, describes himself as Petraeus' "eyes and ears out on the ground" in Iraq.

"They knew everything that was going on there, the most horrible kinds of torture," says General Muntadher al-Samari, speaking for the first time about the US role in the interrogation units. Ten years on from the invasion, the long-term impact this paramilitary force has unleashed is a deadly sectarian militia that has helped germinate a civil war claiming tens of thousands of lives.