[lit-ideas] Re: A Brief History of Willie Pete's Role Reversal
- From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 09:18:51 -0500
"300,000 Dead Under Saddam Argument"*
*Proof not included.
____
Proof will have to wait for the final count; in the meanwhile I
offer some citations. The 300,000-bodies argument shows up at the
end of this piece.
Babies found in Iraqi mass grave
A US investigator said bodies were bulldozed into the graves
A mass grave being excavated in a north Iraqi village has yielded
evidence that Iraqi forces executed women and children under
Saddam Hussein.
US-led investigators have located nine trenches in Hatra
containing hundreds of bodies believed to be Kurds killed during
the repression of the 1980s.
The skeletons of unborn babies and toddlers clutching toys are
being unearthed, the investigators said.
They are seeking evidence to try Saddam Hussein for crimes
against humanity.
[PHOTOS of Tiny bones, femurs - thighbones the size of a
matchstick, P Willey US investigating anthropologist]
It is believed to be the first time investigators working for the
Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST) have conducted a full scientific
exhumation of a mass grave.
"It is my personal opinion that this is a killing field," Greg
Kehoe, an American working with the IST, told reporters in Hatra,
south of the city of Mosul.
"Someone used this field on significant occasions over time to
take bodies up there, and to take people up there and execute them."
Tiny bones
The victims are believed to be Kurds killed in 1987-88, their
bodies bulldozed into the graves after being summarily shot dead.
One trench contains only women and children while another
contains only men.
The body of one woman was found still clutching a baby. The
infant had been shot in the back of the head and the woman in the
face.
"The youngest foetus we have was 18 to 20 foetal weeks," said US
investigating anthropologist P Willey. "Tiny bones, femurs -
thighbones the size of a matchstick."
Mr Kehoe investigated mass graves in the Balkans for five years
but those burials mainly involved men of fighting age and the
Iraqi finds were quite different, he said.
"I've been doing grave sites for a long time, but I've never seen
anything like this, women and children executed for no apparent
reason," he said.
Mr Kehoe said that work to uncover graves around Iraq, where
about 300,000 people are thought to have been killed during
Saddam Hussein's regime, was slow as experienced European
investigators were not taking part.
The Europeans, he said, were staying away as the evidence might
be used eventually to put Saddam Hussein to death.
"We're trying to meet international standards that have been
accepted by courts throughout the world," he added.
"We're putting a package together on each body removed - pictures
of bones, clothes, a forensic report."
Iraq's human rights ministry has reportedly identified 40
possible mass graves across the country.
The dig at Hatra, where a makeshift morgue has been erected, was
due to be completed on Wednesday.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3738368.stm
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