Baghdad Morgues Under Pressure NOT to Investigate #s of Execution&Torture

Pressure Seen on Probes at Baghdad Morgue
Former U.N. Envoy Says 'Both Sides' Exerting Influence; Death Count in Dispute

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 1, 2006; Page A13

BAGHDAD, Feb. 28 -- Officials overseeing Baghdad's morgue have come under pressure not to investigate the soaring number of apparent cases of execution and torture in the country, the former U.N. human rights chief for Iraq said Tuesday.

John Pace, who left his post this month, spoke as Iraqi and U.S. officials offered widely varying numbers for the toll so far in the explosion of sectarian violence that followed last Wednesday's bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra.

Pace said the pressure had come from "both sides," but declined to give further details. The statement seemed to refer to both the Shiite-led government and the Sunni insurgency fighting it.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari said Tuesday that the death toll provided to The Washington Post by morgue workers -- more than 1,300 dead since last Wednesday -- was "inaccurate and exaggerated." Jafari said the toll was 379. Gen. Ali Shamarri of the Interior Ministry's statistics department put the toll at 1,077.

U.S. and Iraqi officials offered figures on Tuesday both higher and lower than Jafari's count. The U.S. military said it had confirmed 220 deaths. Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a military spokesman in Iraq, said that the country's joint Iraqi-U.S. operations center reported receiving accounts of 365 civilian deaths and that officials at the center believed the count could reach about 550.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/28/AR2006022801466.html