Mass graves to reveal Iraq war toll

Jamie Wilson in Baghdad
Tuesday August 19, 2003
The Guardian

The task of identifying thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians who died during this year's war has begun with the exhumation of a mass grave at one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces in Baghdad.

-snip--

Ali Ismael Ahmed, the Red Crescent official in charge of exhuming bodies at the presidential palace and other sites in Baghdad, thought that the biggest mass graves in Baghdad were likely to be at the airport. But the Red Crescent had not been told when, or even if, it would be allowed to start exhuming bodies from the site.

--snip--

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1021466,00.html

This is so fucked up...I'm sure they're mostly soldiers, but, how the fuck do we know??? Is this regular protocol? Slaughter tens of thousands and then dump the bodies in pits??? WTF????

I thought the soldiers went around with speakers mounted on vehicles, telling the civilians to collect their own dead.

-SNIP-

Where the hell are all the bodies?” Daniel said.

“What bodies?” the officer replied.

Daniel and the rest of the world would not find out until months later why the dead had vanished. Thousands of Iraqi soldiers, some of them alive and firing their weapons from World War I-style trenches, were buried by plows mounted on Abrams main battle tanks. The Abrams flanked the trench lines so that tons of sand from the plow spoil funneled into the trenches. Just behind the tanks, actually straddling the trench line, came M2 Bradleys pumping 7.62mm machine gun bullets into the Iraqi troops.

“I came through right after the lead company,” said Army Col. Anthony Moreno, who commanded the lead brigade during the 1st Mech’s assault. “What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with people’s arms and legs sticking out of them. For all I know, we could have killed thousands.”

A thinner line of trenches on Moreno’s left flank was attacked by the 1st Brigade commanded by Col. Lon Maggart. He estimated his troops buried about 650 Iraqi soldiers. Darkness halted the attack on the Iraqi trench line. By the next day, the 3rd Brigade joined in the grisly innovation. “A lot of people were killed,”’ said Col. David Weisman, the unit commander.

One reason there was no trace of what happened in the Neutral Zone on those two days were the ACEs. It stands for Armored Combat Earth movers and they came behind the armored burial brigade leveling the ground and smoothing away projecting Iraqi arms, legs and equipment.

PFC Joe Queen of the 1st Engineers was impervious to small arms fire inside the cockpit of the massive earth mover. He remained cool and professional as he smoothed away all signs of the carnage. Queen won the Bronze Star for his efforts. “A lot of guys were scared,” Queen said, “but I enjoyed it.” Col. Moreno estimated more than 70 miles of trenches and earthen bunkers were attacked, filled in and smoothed over on Feb. 24-25.

-SNIP-

More

WAR CRIMES

A Report on United States War Crimes Against Iraq to the Commission of Inquiry for the International War Crimes Tribunal

by Ramsey Clark and Others





Incinerated body of an Iraqi soldier on the "Highway of Death," a name the press has given to the road from Mutlaa, Kuwait, to Basra, Iraq. U.S. planes immobilized the convoy by disabling vehicles at its front and rear, then bombing and straffing the resulting traffic jam for hours. More than 2,000 vehicles and tens of thousands of charred and dismembered bodies littered the sixty miles of highway. The clear rapid incineration of the human being suggests the use of napalm, phosphorus, or other incindiary bombs. These are anti-personnel weapons outlawed under the 1977 Geneva Protocols. This massive attack occurred after Saddam Hussein announced a complete troop withdrawl from Kuwait in compliance with UN Resolution 660. Such a massacre of withdrawing Iraqi soldiers violates the Geneva Convention of 1949, common article 3, which outlaws the killing of soldiers who "are out of combat." There are, in addition, strong indications that many of those killed were Palestinian and Kuwaiti civilians trying to escape the impending seige of Kuwait City and the return of Kuwaiti armed forces. No attempt was made by U.S. military command to distinguish between military personnel and civilians on the "highway of death." The whole intent of international law with regard to war is to prevent just this sort of indescriminate and excessive use of force.

(Photo Credit: © 1991 Kenneth Jarecke / Contact Press Images)

"It has never happened in history that a nation that has won a war has been held accountable for atrocities committed in preparing for and waging that war. We intend to make this one different. What took place was the use of technological material to destroy a defenseless country. From 125,000 to 300,000 people were killed... We recognize our role in history is to bring the transgressors to justice." Ramsey Clark

Ramsey Clark served as U.S. Attorney General in the administration of Lyndon Johnson. He is the convener of the Commission of Inquiry and a human rights lawyer of world-wide respect. This report was given in New York, May 11, 1991.

more...
http://www.deoxy.org/wc/wc-toc.htm

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