New mass grave found in Iraq

BBC News Online ^ | June 07 2003

[knighthawk]

Another mass grave has been discovered in Iraq at Salman Pak, just south of Baghdad, in the grounds of what used to be a sprawling military complex.

Relatives of missing people have begun excavating the site and on Saturday morning they recovered at least five bodies.

Local residents say they helped bury more than 100 bodies at the military complex in April and they believe many more may be hidden underground.

They say the victims were young men killed in early April, after the American-led invasion had begun.

One body was dressed in pyjamas, another had been blindfolded, while a third had his hands tied and had been shot in the back of the head.

Many of those looking for relatives told Reuters news agency they had not heard of the grave until a Shia party, Daawa, which lost many of its members to Saddam Hussein's death squads, organised a trip to the site.

Most Iraqis at the site are from Baghdad's Sadr City, a Shia slum formerly known as Saddam City.

Many arrived with white sacks filled with cloth to carry away the remains of the dead.

One of them, Kathim al-Darajee, says he spent 10 years at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison and left with only one eye because the other was removed during torture.

"I am looking for my nephew. They showed him and others on television after they were tortured and said they were guilty of opposition to Saddam," he said.

Beyond these freshly-dug graves lie rows and rows of furrowed earth, where earlier victims of the regime may be buried, says the BBC's Chris Morris.

Forensic task

There is a huge forensic task to do here, but hardly anyone available to help, our correspondent says.

British forensic experts are investigating grave sites, but the identity of those buried will not be easy to establish because those searching for loved ones are unknowingly tampering with the evidence.

"Iraq is the land of mass graves and secret prisons," said one man.

Suspected mass grave sites have been identified right across the country.

Human rights groups believe that more than a quarter of a million people disappeared during the long rule of Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party.

[knighthawk]

Kirkuk: Kurdish officials report discovery of 2,000 bodies
Muhammad Sakran: Reports say more than 1,000 bodies found
Babylon: Children's bones reportedly among remains found Al-Mahawil: Up to 15,000 bodies feared buried
Najaf: 72 bodies found
Basra: Grave believed to contain about 150 Shia Muslims
Abul Khasib: 40 bodies reportedly found

[knighthawk]

Ping

[Galtoid]

Will they be able to determine the causes of death in these cases?
Will these mass graves be the definitive proof after all of SH's possession of WMD?
Just wondering . . .

[Larry Lucido]

New mass grave

Sorry, only interested in WMD's, not NMG's.

[TomB]

Will these mass graves be the definitive proof after all of SH's possession of WMD?

It is looking more and more like Saddam and his regieme WAS a weapon of mass destruction.

[gortklattu]

It is looking more and more like Saddam and his regieme WAS a weapon of mass

Ping, to you, sir!

[Mike Darancette]

They say the victims were young men killed in early April, after the American-led invasion had begun.

Too bad we can't ask some of these guys where the WMD are. But dead men tell no tales.

[Waco]

Boy, that Sadman was one one hellava reducer of CO² emissions wasn't he? Wonder when the queer-bait commie libs are going to put him up for a Nobel prize of some kind?

[Larry Lucido]

No, "mass destruction" is a highly technical term. Killing 30 million people over 10 to 20 years is just a "Cultural Revolution." Now, an evil "street sweeper" shotgun is a WMD!

[Clara Lou]

Sorry, only interested in WMD's, not NMG's.
Isn't that the sad truth? The general media philosophy is "report it and forget about it." About this topic the liberal media don't choose to editorialize the way they do about those missing WMDs.

[TomB]

No, "mass destruction" is a highly technical term. Killing 30 million people over 10 to 20 years is just a "Cultural Revolution." Now, an evil "street sweeper" shotgun is a WMD!

LOL.

"One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic." (Stalin)

[MEG33]

Sigh

[OldFriend]

Tomorrow the BBC will say the Americans planted the bodies to enhance their image in the world.

[mr.pink]

The discovery of the existence of the mass graves certainly proves Saddam was a brutal guy (I've never heard anyone argue otherwise), but it does nothing to bolster the argument that the Iraqi regime was an imminent threat to the USA.

Its critical that we turn up the WMDs within the next couple of months.

[TomB]

Its critical that we turn up the WMDs within the next couple of months.

Only to you.

[troublesome creek]

critical? pink? (just another) brutal guy? no threat to us? barf.

[mr.pink]

I'd have to think besides "only me", the folks who "supplied" the intel also would like to see themselves and their veracity vindicated as opposed to becoming laughingstocks and having their reputations destroyed.

[Republican Wildcat]

The mass killing continued right up until the end...

[Republican Wildcat]

The connections to Al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations weren't signs of a threat to the U.S., I suppose.

[TomB]

I'd have to think besides "only me", the folks who "supplied" the intel also would like to see themselves and their veracity vindicated as opposed to becoming laughingstocks and having their reputations destroyed.

I belive you are basing you opinions on the hope that, in a couple of months or a couple of years, when an announcement comes that there are or were no WMDs, the world will fall into an earth-shattering snit. Given the attention span of most people, and the good news coming out of the region, the chance of that coming to pass are slim, either because WMDs (or traces of their destruction, precursors, or production facilities) will be found or people just won't care.