Mass graves `are everywhere': Iraq littered with bodies, but number of dead unknown

Chicago Tribune ^ | 21Jan04 | Stephen Franklin

[xzins]

BAGHDAD -- They were killed in their hospital beds and buried in the hospital flower gardens, some with their arms still wrapped in bandages or IVs still connected.

And they were killed on long death marches in northern Iraq--Kurdish women and children, separated from their families and carrying the few household items they could drag with them.

Wherever they were killed, many were blindfolded and shot in the forehead. Saddam Hussein's whole country became a killing field.

Mass graves "are everywhere," said Sandy Hodgkinson, a U.S. State Department attorney who has been working with Iraq's Human Rights Ministry, the agency in charge of investigating the mass graves. "You follow reports, and they turn up in places you would never suspect."

Iraq is littered with bodies stuffed dozens at a time into cemetery plots, bodies shoved over cliffs, tossed in lakes or hidden in farm fields where vegetables still grow, said Saad Sultan, 32, a lawyer and detective with the Human Rights Ministry's mass graves research team.

So far, 282 possible mass grave sites have been identified, 55 have been confirmed and 20 have been explored. But nine months after Hussein's fall, the total number of graves is unknown. So, too, is the number buried, though the figure is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands.

Among Kurds alone, for example, there are at least 182,000 people missing, 8,000 of them from one clan, the Barzanis.

[redhead]

"I believe it's because he already has all of the information and is in the process of preparing a rock solid case against the nations helping Saddam violate the embargos and sanctions. IF we had revealed everything too early, shredders worldwide would fire up and wipe out everything before the case could be made. Saddam's WMDs is only ONE aspect to this puzzle. There's so many other ties that must be secured before anyone starts blabbing about this and that. However, this is purely my opinion."

No, it's MY opinion, too.

[RandallFlagg]

YAAGH!!! It's GOTTA be a CONSPIRACY!!!

[redhead]

"I think Lieberman got it right. Saddam IS a WMD."

See THIS

Check the date...

[blackie]

Ethnic cleansing ~ Bump!

[Cubs Fan]

Whenever the libs I know cry about this war I bring up Kosovo. Even if Iraq was done purely on a humanitarain, and no other basis, it is still far far more compelling than Kosovo.

Libs are hypocrites.

[bray]

This is perfectly fine with Kerry, Clark and Dean!! If there is no physical WMD and only killing fields they would just turn a blind/cowardly eye. As a matter of fact they would cut and run like Nam and let the killing restart! Unless we get France's permission let the graves fill up. Oppression only is oppression when it is a USA ally. The DNC is the third axis of evil and must be destroyed.

Pray for W and The Truth

[XHogPilot]

Iraq Mass Grave Photos Link

The US media has been suppressing this. Why?

[xzins]

Awesome post XHP, I've saved it.

The rest of you have got to look at these pictures

[WOSG]

Sorry, the Bush administration would salvage so much credibility on WMDs if they announced such intel, that it is not credible they (or the Kay report) would hold it back.

If we had anything, the Kay report in sept would have said so.

I think some of the assessments about WMDs, like all intel assessments, were not fully accurate. And that part of the inaccuracy was assuming that what was there in 1991 was still there, and trying to guess based on the opaque situation in Iraq. This is why Bush and Blair talked about tons of weapons 'still not accounted for'. But that leaves aside the possibiliy that Saddam's goons would hide their tracks, destroy evidence and then pretend the UN the stuff was never there as a way of getting the UN off their backs.

That was the gameplan. It failed, because the US wanted regime change and an honest Iraq. We got neither out of the Blix inspections.

As for WMDs, they still arent accounted for. But it seems clear that unless a great job was done of hiding them they were removed or werent there as of march 2003. Its possible Saddam had them destroyed and was waiting out sanctions before adding to stocks, and/or using its presumed existence as a threat to other nations. BUT - it is also possible that they are now in Syria or some quantity is there or in terrorist hands... but if that did happen, its most likely that we dont know, or we could have blown the lid much earlier and made a case on it.

You presume too much to think we would know something about WMDs but neither act on it nor tell the world. It's more likely we are still in the dark.

[WOSG]

Excuse me but they have found literally thousands of bodies. Thousands upon thousands. Not stated in this article, but dig through Ragtime Cowgirl's posts and some old posts talk about what has been found. Some very compelling pictures.


To expect an exact count this early in the game is to expect too much, but the killing fields of Iraq are indeed very full. The numbers of 400,000-500,000 in the ANFAL genocide of kurds in 1986-1988 and perhaps 50,000-100,0000 shiites and kurds killed in 1991/1992 is likely correct range.

[Bedford Forrest]

"The US media has been suppressing this. Why?"

Because the credit for liberating Iraq from the islamofascist stone killers belongs to President Bush, and the quisling media sock puppets are bent on avoiding a total landslide of Reganesque proportions in November. You can bet the ranch that if the sodomite Klinton had liberated Iraq, and shut down the real killing fields, the same media vermin would have been screaming to give him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency for life.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Already posted his great link at #22.

As Torie Clarke said last March, there are, and have been, reams and reams and reams of documents available to the press and public proving Saddam's atrocities. Have been for years.

According to Paul Wolfowitz, our guys have already recovered more post-war documents than they recovered post-WWII, pre-Nuremburg trial.

It will be many years before we know the extent of his crimes. We know enough now to count him in the company of the cruelest leaders in history.

It could only be a conscious choice of the press to cover them up. Again, see the links at #22.

Repeat the truth enough times...

[RandallFlagg]

Bookmarking...

THAT'S a GREAT pic!!

[Wumpus Hunter]

What's so hallowed about it? It's just another islamic $hithole. The only difference between this hell-hole and the others, is that they are now free. (Thanks to Uncle Sam!)

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Registered's great work. Timeless.

Wouldn't it make a fine poster for Freep rallies this election year?

SoreLosermen: the war years. (^:

[George W. Bush]

Ah, yes, another of Allah's little paradises.

Not exactly news.

[George W. Bush]

As Torie Clarke said last March, there are, and have been, reams and reams and reams of documents available to the press and public proving Saddam's atrocities. Have been for years.

Well, Bush I cited Amnesty International and other reporting on Hussein's cruelty and torture and mass murder tactics.

So it isn't news at all.

I don't get Register's cartoon unless he's being sarcastic.

Our pretext for going to war was either true or it wasn't. Everybody always knew Saddam was an animal so I don't get how people are supposed to be surprised unless this sudden 'discovery' of Saddam The Monster is supposed to somehow justify our lack of WMD evidence.

Lack of WMD evidence is a serious blow to our foreign policy objectives. Otherwise, it will always be said, both here and overseas, that we invaded under false or contrived pretext. We need the WMD. Even a fairly small amount of WMD will do it, provided we can prove it wa produced by Saddam's techs. And it may be even more important to find the evidence for our partners in Britain, Spain, Italy, etc. who took a lot of heat from their peacenik majorities in order to support us.

Naturally, no one will weep over Saddam. Just execute him. But an outright invasion by a major power is a serious matter when it claims it is beng threatened by WMD but can't produce any evidence. Failure to find them or compelling evidence of massive aid to Al-Qaeda by Iraq will undermine our future efforts in pursuing a War On Terror, will undermine our ability to attract allies in taking on Iran and Syria and North Korea.

[xzins]

I think the news is that it is:

1. Proven now.
2. A contrast to the mass graves that were supposed to be found in Bosnia/Kosovo and were not. Therefore, the Clinton reason for going was not proven, but he was given a pass. (And he didn't accidentally turn up Wmd's)
3. Ignored by the media and the democrats.

(BTW, Wmd's in Iraq are proven. They simply aren't in the form desired by the media which has proposed a extremely narrow standard.....a missile or warhead loaded with launchable wmds. Precursor chemicals are found; labs are found; processes are found; recipes are found; special weapons warheads are found that ONLY work with wmds.)

[George W. Bush]

I accepted it as proven when Bush I said it. No one seemed to contradict him at the time. The press seemed to report his readings from the A.I. reports favorably, apparently hoping he'd turn into a supposed human right advocate like Carter did in office.

No one ever thought Saddam was innocent, then or now.

2. A contrast to the mass graves that were supposed to be found in Bosnia/Kosovo and were not. Therefore, the Clinton reason for going was not proven, but he was given a pass. (And he didn't accidentally turn up Wmd's)

Well, the Klinton disaster in Kosovo can mostly be explained as their usual stupidity. Clinton mustered U.S. forces to bail out the trouble France/Germany/Britain had gotten themselves into. Anything to help the Third Way guys. And aiding the Moslems in murdering Christians likely proved too tempting for Hill/Bill to resist. Probably the prospect of it finally improved their sex lives. "Oh, darlin' Hillary, I'm finally gonna kill me some Christians!". "Oh, Bill, I'm swooning over your manliness." Yeah, that would be about the level of the Klinton team. At least they had bipartisan support from McCain and from W.

Another grotesque disaster and an ongoing festering hole.

3. Ignored by the media and the democrats.

The Dims won't say anything remotely supportive of Bush, even if you transported the mass graves here and put them on display on Capitol Hill. They'd never say a word if you put the corpses in their offices. And I do think the media has offered adequate reporting on the evidence for mass graves. It's not just FR where you find this.

No one mourns Saddam's demise except his henchmen and the Palis.

(BTW, Wmd's in Iraq are proven. They simply aren't in the form desired by the media which has proposed a extremely narrow standard.....a missile or warhead loaded with launchable wmds. Precursor chemicals are found; labs are found; processes are found; recipes are found; special weapons warheads are found that ONLY work with wmds.)

No, they aren't proven. There would be nowhere in America that you could hide to escape the blaring announcements from the White House if they had credibly found WMD. Trust me on this one.

Many medical labs have adequate equipment for bioweapons. And most any fertilizer plant or pharmaceuticals plant can produce chemical agents (most nerve gases are failed insecticides). The 'recipes' aren't a problem since the formulas can be found on the Internet or from many other sources. And even the special warheads are not WMD. Only proof of a delivery capability. Chem-capable warheads aren't all that rare, even in the Third World.

Only WMD are WMD. So far, the greatest biological hazard to our troops in Iraq is the lack of proper sanitation and water treatment facilities for the general populace.

I'm personally surprised that we haven't yet turned up even a single tiny sample of WMD. I still believe we will find them or prove they were removed to the Ba'athists of Syria. After all, we haven't even accounted for the anthrax our own labs sent them in the Eighties and that is some WMD we know they had because we gave it to them in the Eighties! But pretending that our pretext for war simply doesn't matter or that we can just 'discover' a justification for war once we've invaded a resource-rich country is completely incredible.

Tell me, if Russia or Germany or France declared they were threatened by WMD and invaded Kuwait or the UAE, would you accept it was all fine if they then failed to produce any WMD but showed that the local Islamic regime was barbarically cruel? And then they proceeded to divvy up the oil?

If we wouldn't believe it when they did it, why should they believe us when we say it? I'm afraid I've got bad news for you: the entire world does not believe America always operates from altruistic motives.

With that much oil involved, it is doubly important that we get the WMD evidence. With Afghanistan, we deposed a brutal regime, never having proven Osama was actually there at any given point and no one really objected and Germany even helped with garrisoning after the invasion. But with that much oil in Iraq and our severing of Europe's business relationship with that oil and its owner (the people of Iraq as represented by Saddam), we need to find and present the evidence.

Personally, I don't care that much. But the WMD would help us to shut up some of the foreign critics of the war. If for no other reason, we need them for Blair, and Berlesconi and the guy in Spain, and our allies in eastern Europe.

Without the WMD and Osama, we fail to provide the evidence we claimed was in Iraq in abundance and we fail to punish the man who did actually attack us on 9/11. Without Osama and the WMD, what we have is a bunch of oil and a 'Who, us?' look on our faces.

Getting Osama and finding the WMD is important to the success of our future diplomacy.

Wow, I'm grouchy today.

[xzins]

They'd never say a word if you put the corpses in their offices

LOL.

But if you're grouchy, I'll back off until tomorrow.

Suffice it to say that they've proven it to me.

Besides, the war on terror was not premised on finding wmd's in Iraq. It was premised on anyone who aided, abetted, harbored, etc. terrorists and particularly those terrorists who initiated 9/11.

Therefore, there is a prior reason for invading iraq. We did find terrorists; and particularly, we have found al qaeda.