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Forensic Scientists to Excavate Iraqi Graves
The killers kept bankersâ hours. They showed up for work at the barley field at 9 a.m., trailed by backhoes and three buses filled with blindfolded men, women and children as young as 1. Every day, witnesses say, the routine was the same: The backhoes dug a trench. Fifty people were led to the edge of the hole and shot, one by one, in the head. The backhoes covered them with dirt, then dug another hole for the next group. At 5 p.m., the killers - officials of Saddam Husseinâs Baath Party - went home to rest up for another day of slaughter.Rat bastards. In this wind-swept field in the central town of Mahaweel, witnesses say, this went on without a break for 35 days in March and April of 1991, during a crackdown on a Shiite Muslim uprising that followed the first Gulf War. "I watched this with my own eyes," said Sayed Abbas Muhsen, 35, whose family farm was appropriated by Saddamâs government for use as a killing field. "But we couldnât tell anyone. We didnât dare." The mass grave at Mahaweel, with more than 3,100 sets of remains, is the largest of some 270 such sites across Iraq. They hold upward of 300,000 bodies; some Iraqi political parties estimate there are more than 1 million. "Itâs as easy to find mass graves in Iraq as it once was to find oil," said Adnan Jabbar al-Saadi, a lawyer with Iraqâs new Human Rights Ministry. But no one on the left protested the graves.
I can understand both sides of this. Now, an Associated Press investigation has discovered, forensic teams will begin digging in January to preserve the first physical evidence at four grave sites, their desert locations kept secret to prevent relatives from disturbing them first. Much more at the link. Posted by: Steve White 2003-12-07 |
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