John Negroponte

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte plays a central role in the conduct of covert operations. He served as US ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985. As Ambassador in Tegucigalpa, he played a key role in supporting and supervising the Nicaraguan Contra mercenaries who were based in Honduras. The cross border Contra attacks into Nicaragua claimed some 50 000 civilian lives. During the same period, Negroponte was instrumental in setting up the Honduran military death squads, "operating with Washington support's, [they] assassinated hundreds of opponents of the US-backed regime." (See Bill Venn, Bush Nominee linked to Latin American Terrorism, Global Research, November 2001)

"Under the rule of General Gustavo Alvarez Martnez, Honduras's military government was both a close ally of the Reagan administration and was "disappearing" dozens of political opponents in classic death squad fashion.

(See Peter Roff and James Chapin, Face-off: Bush's Foreign Policy Warriors , Global Research, July 2001)

This did not prevent his nomination to the position of US Permanent Representative to the UN under the Clinton administration.

Negroponte became Ambassador to Iraq in 2004, where he set up a "security framework" for the US occupation, largely modeled on the Central American death squads. This project was referred to by several writers as the "Salvador Option".

While in Baghdad, Negroponte hired as his Counselor on security issues, a former head of special operations in El Salvador. The two men were close colleagues going back to the 1980s in Central America. While Negroponte was busy setting up the death squads in Honduras, Colonel Steele had been in charge of the US Military Advisory Group in El Salvador, (1984-86) "where he was responsible for developing special operating forces at brigade level during the height of the conflict.":

"These forces, composed of the most brutal soldiers available, replicated the kind of small-unit operations with which Steele was familiar from his service in Vietnam. Rather than focusing on seizing terrain, their role was to attack ‘insurgent’ leadership, their supporters, sources of supply and base camps." (Max Fuller, For Iraq, "The Salvador Option" Becomes Reality, Global Research, June 2005)

Negroponte was appointed as the Head of the Directorate of National Intelligence in 2005, and subsequently in 2007 came to occupy the Number Two position in the State Department.