Here are two articles from major news organisations directly referencing the man.

The first from the Guardian also includes a one hour documentary about Colonel Steele.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/06/pentagon-iraqi-torture-centres-link

The second is Peter Maass' piece in the New York Times written in 2005.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/magazine/01ARMY.html?pagewanted=print

The end result of the actions of Steele in overseeing the establishment, recruiting and training of these death squads was up to 3,000 tortured and mutilated bodies turning up in Iraqi streets every month, all so very reminiscent of El Salvador.

John Green in The Guardian;
“The photo of US Col James Steele with your article on the involvement of US covert forces in torture in Iraq awakened chilling memories for me (Report, 7 March). I came across Steele while filming a documentary in El Salvador in 1982. This was at the height of the dirty war and the targeted assassination of anyone deemed to sympathise with those attempting to bring democracy to this impoverished Central American country. We met Steele at Robert d'Aubuisson's office and his behaviour clearly indicated he knew his way around and had the aura of a man in charge. He certainly had close links with the rightwing death squads linked to d'Aubuisson, who was held responsible for the assassination ofArchbishop Romero. Steele smilingly refused to be interviewed by us. The evidence of horrendous torture and killing of thousands of innocent peasants in El Salvador clearly did no harm to his career. His official posting to Iraq shows that US covert policies have not changed.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/mar/07/el-salvador-to-iraq

So who was Robert d'Aubuisson whom Steele was consorting with? He was an El Salvadorian army major who was “a leader of right-wing death squads who tortured and killed thousands of civilians before and during the Salvadoran Civil War. To political prisoners, he was known as "Blowtorch Bob", due to his frequent use of a blowtorch in interrogation sessions.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_D'Aubuisson

There are those here who will close their eyes to these facts since in their minds the US can do little wrong but imagine just for a moment what you would do if the body of one of your family members was returned to you showing evidence of extreme torture.

Belly. Divergence,

Who'd a thought it was all so simple?

The US and its allies (us included) go in boots and all, the aggressors, bombing, maiming, destroying and destablilising......

And you two are waxing lyrical on what type of people these Iraqi's (see "anyone of Middle-Eastern extraction")must be!

Thanks for the new slant on Western arrogance.

Tomorrow morning we will again here about after Friday prayers deaths.
Muslim will kill Muslim.
And some how the left will blame America and the west for it.
Once the left contributed to a better world.
Forget the red neck rants,it did.
Even communism, throttled by its users was born from a wish for a better world.
What has become of the left left? true left?
They hunt in empty paddocks for some way of blaming the very system that gives them freedom to be different.
Haunt us with useless charges against us, those they need if ever they are to change anything.
And ignore the simple truth.
The middle east is not free it never will be.
Until it is free to not follow a God that demands no freedom.
Victimized by its own actions, comforted by its ability ,like the left, to blame others.
True left is dead, only the hollow echo of the few chant endless nonsense that at all costs, avoids the truth.

Poirot says: <<I in no way I put the "entire" blame on the West>>

When has she EVER criticized Islam or an Islamic state, OK, she came close on the Ifficak(the UK drop-in/drop-out[unsure of spelling])thread, but managed to sidestep at the last moment.

*No siree, I don't hold the West entirely to blame --only, 99.88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888% of it*

SPQR,

Because I look at problems over there - and choose "not" to ignore the West's input, doesn't mean I blame the West entirely.

In the case of Iraq in particular, there is something obscene in denigrating a people because they can't get their act together - in the wake of being comprehensively splattered by Western actions.

Poirot,

What Bush and his friends did in Iraq was terrible, but has it occurred to you that what they really did to set the killing off was to remove the dictator who was knocking heads together to prevent his people from murdering each other? Just consider what happened in the former Yugoslavia after the death of Marshal Tito. The US and NATO eventually did get involved, but long after the locals had started killing each other. They did it all by themselves.