New Iraq Mass Grave May Contain 500 Bodies - PM

[Khephra]

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Labourers digging on a construction site in northern Iraq uncovered human skulls and bones on Tuesday, which interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said were part of a mass grave believed to contain some 500 bodies.

Allawi told Iraq's National Council in Baghdad that the grave was found near the city of Sulaimaniya in the autonomous Kurdish region in the northeast of the country, where Saddam Hussein's forces carried out atrocities in the late 1980s.

``Today a mass grave was discovered in the city of Sulaimaniya, with the initial number of 500 martyrs,'' he said.

Allawi gave no further details but residents living nearby said workers found the remains while preparing the ground for a new hospital near a highway in Debashan, north of Sulaimaniya.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-grave.html

[russian33]

1. Very creative article

On one hand, the point of 'bad Saddam, we liverated them' is made. On the other hand '...preparing the ground for a new hospital...', see? It's safe, and the country is getting better every day, why they're building a new hospital!

:)

[tanyev]

2. Well, there's the top headline

for the rest of the day.

[Khephra]

3. Peterson and the Medal of Freedom Fries

knocked it out. I haven't seen this on CNN since I started watching this morning. Sure, I could have missed it, but those are the two stories I've been seeing all day. Notice that this story came out at 9AM.

[denverbill]

4. "He killed his own people".

Yeah, Saddam was bad that way. The Kurds rose up in revolt, and he brutally suppressed it, killing thousands.

But it's different from what we're doing now in Fallujah.

I'll let you know when I figure out how it's different.

[quiet.american]

5. The irony is beyond words n/t

[Stella_Artois]

6. I have no idea if Iraq is better off now or not

Iraqis are still dying.

At least now there is the potential that things can be better for the Iraqis, if America doesn't turn the place into another debacle.

I still cling to the belief that the average Iraqi wants the same things i do. To be free, well fed, and able to provide for his/her children. I hope they can suceed despite the incompetance of a certain few transitory American politicians, and the dubious agenda of sundry other groups.

[atreides1]

7. Iraqis Do Want The Same Thing

But in there own way, that respects their beliefs, not something that is being forced on them with the barrel of a gun and the point of a bayonet.

Until the US steps back and allows the Iraqi people to make the choices that they want, any governemt that is backed by the US will
only be a puppet government.

At least with Saddam you didn't have car bombs.

[Bridget Burke]

9. Iraq is already a debacle.

And they won't be free until we're gone. Although, maybe not then....

[Tempest]

8. How do they know the Kurds didn't do it?

There was a lot of infighting among the Kurds during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

That's one reason Saddam went there.

[Norquist Nemesis]

10. Maybe they should carbon date the bones

since the residents seem to have no memory of this mass killing and burial...or did I miss something. :shrug: