Stray Dogs Lead Villagers to Mass Grave in Iraq

[Khephra]

TUZ ZAWA, Iraq (Reuters) - Dogs digging for bones on a barren patch of earth in northern Iraq have alerted villagers to a mass grave that may contain as many as 50 bodies, a local official said on Tuesday.

"We found some bones," said Abdullah Mohammed, who heads a unit dealing with displaced people in the city of Kirkuk. "After that, we began excavating and we discovered that it's a mass grave," he told Reuters.

Mohammed said villagers pulled about 20 bodies from the site on Monday before it was sealed off by the Iraqi National Guard.

Forensic investigators and other specialists have been called in to make a full examination. Evidence from such graves could be used in future trials of officials in Saddam Hussein's toppled government.

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=7149398

[leftchick]

1. um....

isn't it possible these people were killed after saddam was evicted?
Oh, that's right, it would ruin this story. :eyes:

[Coventina]

2. Um, something is not right here.....

I'm a dog owner, and I can tell you that what attracts her is FRESH MEAT. Decomposed is okay with her as well (of course, I strongly discourage this behavior). Old bones, though, they aren't really her thing.

If dogs are excited about a mass grave....it kind of indicates to me that it is probably fairly fresh. I mean, Saddam hasn't been offing people for awhile now, right?

Something tells me this grave might be one of ours.
:-(

[jasop]

3. This "stinks"

I would say that having been a dog owner most of my life I have NEVER had an instance where bones from 3+ years back were ever brought home by any of my dogs regardless of their intelligence. I think this points quite directly to someone other than the "former regime" and more towards the current one, which by most accounts seems more brutal.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

39. Stinks is right

That's what my dog seeks out. The stinkier the better as far as she's concerned. If I dig up one of her old bones in the yard she won't touch it.

[Massachusetts]

5. C'mon

This is Amerika, apple pie, 4th of July, Amerikan fries,freedom and justice for all!

Just one more planted story to keep us distracted. Those who are focused know the Truth.

[zann725]

34. I agree. These are NOT Saddam's "mass graves"...

these are Rumsfield's "mass graves."

[Mabeline]

4. Saddam was a mass murderer and should have been taken out of

power long before Bush ever turned his sights on to him. I've seen on tv and in magazines where they have found numerous mass graves like this. I have problems with the UN because of this issue, they should have seen what he was doing and said something.

[uncle ray]

6. you're pretty funny!

"they should have seen what he was doing and said something."

you'd think, huh? wonder why they didn't.

turn off your tv. quit reading Time.

[CatWoman]

12. that's not funny

but it is stupid as hell.

[Calico Jack Rackham]

7. When are you shipping out?

Since you were all for Saddam's removal then you should be doing your part for the war effort.

[livinginphotographs]

8. So it's our job to police the world?

What about Saudi Arabia? What about numerous African countries? Iran? Syria?

Not to downplay how utterly horrible a person Saddam was, but this human rights argument from the right just doesn't wash with me. At first it was non-existent WMDs, then it was human rights. Pick a reason for the war and stick with, for christ's sake.

And when 100,000 Iraqi civilians lay dead at the hands of the US, is Bush just trying to one-up Saddam to see who can be the biggest butcher?

[The Stranger]

19. What about . . . .

What about Saudi Arabia? What about numerous African countries? Iran? Syria?

. . . Guantanamo Bay? Abu Ghraib?

[livinginphotographs]

21. Touche.

There's some people who need liberating right here at home. We should start there.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

28. I'll put twenty bucks on Bush

He hasn't even warmed up yet, and we still don't have a body count of Iraqis we've killed.

Fuckface is gonna out-Saddam Saddam, easy.

[livinginphotographs]

30. I'll see your $20.

Now we just have to find someone to bet against us.





(crickets chirping)

[JohnyCanuck]

9. To say something

would have meant stepping on other peoples toes too, and these toes were way more important and influential than Saddam's ever were.

West has Bloodied Hands
by Eric Margolis

<snip>

Britain, the U.S., Kuwait and Saudi Arabia convinced Iraq to invade Iran, then covertly supplied Saddam with money, arms, intelligence, and advisers. Meanwhile, Israel secretly supplied Iran with $5 billion US in American arms and spare parts while publicly denouncing Iran for terrorism.

Up to their ears

Who supplied "Chemical Ali" with his mustard and nerve gas? Why, the West, of course. In late 1990, I discovered four British technicians in Baghdad who told me they had been "seconded" to Iraq by Britain's ministry of defence and MI6 intelligence to make chemical and biological weapons, including anthrax, Q-fever and plague, at a secret laboratory at Salman Pak.

The Reagan administration and Thatcher government were up to their ears in backing Iraq's aggression, apparently with the intention to overthrow Iran's Islamic government and seize its oil. Italy, Germany, France, South Africa, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Brazil, Chile and the USSR all aided Saddam's war effort against Iran, which was even more a victim of naked aggression than was Kuwait in 1991.

I'd argue senior officials of those nations that abetted Saddam's aggression against Iran and supplied him with chemicals and gas should also stand trial with Ali and Saddam.

www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Eric_Margolis/2004/12/19/790077.html

[TO Kid]

31. I'd take Margolis with a grain of salt

Roughly three years ago he wrote a column for Sun Media that explained why the Maginot Line was successful in keeping the Germans out of France (said it worked because the Wehrmacht went around it instead of through it).

[JohnyCanuck]

37. Well lets not take Margolis' word for it.

re. the de facto support that Saddam was given by Western European nations and the US during the war with Iran (not to mention the role in putting him into power in the first place). Just click here: US and British Support for Hussein Regime and start reading (from www.globalpolicy.org ).

[Tempest]

11. Numerous mass graves?

At most they've found half a dozen. And so far only 5,000 bodies have been counted.

And that's still less than the number of mass graves Bush is responsible for.

One mass grave in Fallujah alone has over 600 bodies in it as a result of U.S. bombings.

[kurtyboy]

13. Did you ever read anything like this more updated version?

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1263830,00.html

PM admits graves claim 'untrue'
<snip>
Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that '400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves' is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses have so far been uncovered.
<snip>
On 14 December Blair repeated the claim in a statement issued by Downing Street in response to the arrest of Saddam Hussein and posted on the Labour party website that: 'The remains of 400,000 human beings already found in mass graves.'
<snip>
The Baathist regime was responsible for massive human rights abuses and murder on a large scale - not least in well-documented campaigns including the gassing of Halabja, the al-Anfal campaign against Kurdish villages and the brutal repression of the Shia uprising - but serious questions are now emerging about the scale of Saddam Hussein's murders.
<snip>
At the heart of the questions are the numbers so far identified in Iraq's graves. Of 270 suspected grave sites identified in the last year, 55 have now been examined, revealing, according to the best estimates that The Observer has been able to obtain, around 5,000 bodies. Forensic examination of grave sites has been hampered by lack of security in Iraq, amid widespread complaints by human rights organisations that until recently the graves have not been secured and protected.
<snip>


Nah, you probably figure CNN and Readers' Digest are good enough sources...Why let the pursuit of truth get in the way?

[0007]

14. Hmmm I have more problems with the U.S. than the UN

As far as Saddam is concerned, the U.S. knew what he was before putting him in power.

[leftchick]

16. I've seen on tv bush* is a mass murderer....

it was a show called "Shock and Awe"!

[UpInArms]

32. aired for several days beginning March 20, 2003

do you think there will be reruns? ;)

[leftchick]

33. I hope not...

I cried and cried through the first showing. Folks in ameriKa thought they were watching a video game. Come to find out the USA slaughtered THOUSANDS of innocent Iraqis in that show of lights! But it is worth it cuz they are "FREE"!


:(

[clem_c_rock]

36. And how 'bout that part where the US installed him and supported

nevery move for 30+ years.

Oh and how about that part where the British sent in 600,000 troops and masacred Iraqis for their oil and installed a puppet government for 30 years.

Oh and how about that part where the CIA provided the Bathist a nice fat list of intellectuals and other folks that were wacked.

Funny how he couldn't have done what he did w/out our nice tax dollars at work.

[LynnTheDem]

40. "Iraq invasion is NOT "humanitarian intervention"; Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch; Iraq invasion cannot be justified as humanitarian intervention

While Saddam Hussein had an atrocious human-rights record and life has improved for Iraqis since his ouster, his worst actions occurred long before the war, the advocacy group said in its annual report. It said there was no ongoing or imminent mass killing in Iraq when the conflict began.

"The Bush administration cannot justify the war in Iraq as a humanitarian intervention, and neither can Tony Blair," executive director Kenneth Roth said.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0126-07.htm


The vast majority of Americans say "humanitarian" is not justification

Only 27 percent of respondents said they think that countries have the right, without UN approval, to overthrow another government that is committing "substantial violations of its citizens' human rights," although another 41 percent said that intervention could be justified if the violations were "large-scale, extreme and equivalent to genocide."

In the case of Iraq, however, only 32 percent of respondents believed both that human rights abuses equivalent to genocide justified intervention and that such extreme violations were occurring under Hussein's rule. Asked, "Do you think that there are other governments existing today that have human rights records as bad as that of Iraq under Saddam Hussein?" an overwhelming 88 percent said there are.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1114-06.htm

Bliar Admits "Mass Graves" Claim Untrue

Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that '400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves' is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses have so far been uncovered.

The admission that the figure has been hugely inflated follows a week in which Blair accepted responsibility for charges in the Butler report over the way in which Downing Street pushed intelligence reports 'to the outer limits' in the case for the threat posed by Iraq.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1263830,00.html

Amnesty Slams "Bankrupt" Vision of US in Damning Rights Report

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0526-02.htm

1991:

Thousands of Iraqi troops were buried alive in their trenches, with US troops bulldozing over top of them;

"Many Iraqi soldiers were killed by the simple expedient of burying them alive: in one report, American earthmovers and ploughs mounted on tanks were used to attack more than 70 miles of trenches. Colonel Anthony Moreno commented that for all he knew, 'we could have killed thousands'.

One US commander, Colonel Lon Maggart, estimated that his forces alone had buried about 650 Iraqi soldiers.

"What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with peoples arms and things sticking out of them,' observed Moreno.

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=45

The US Pentagon defended this atrocity, saying there was a "gap" in international law that allowed for burying the troops alive.

http://jeff.paterson.net/aw/aw4_buried_alive.htm

The Highway of Death. On March 2, 1991, Iraq announced over public radio that it was withdrawing from Kuwait. The surrendering soldiers, as well as families of Iraq and other nations seeking to escape the US ariel bombings, went down the Basra road to Southern Iraq.

Above them, the U.S. bombed both ends of the highway, ensuring that there would be no escape from what was to follow. Along the seven-mile stretch, the U.S. then killed thousands. On some planes, the PA system bleated out Rossini’s William Tell Overture (the Lone Ranger theme).

WARNING: SHOCKING PHOTOS

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0212/pt04.html

The Highway of Death
“Even in Vietnam I didn’t see anything like this. It’s pathetic.“ — Major Bob Nugent, Army intelligence officer

WARNING: SHOCKING PHOTOS

http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/iraqgenocide/HighwayofDeath.html

On the Highway of Death

"It was like going down an American highway—people were all mixed up in cars in trucks. People got out of their cars and ran away. We shot them.... The Iraqis were getting massacred."
—Pfc. Charles Sheehan-Miles

"We've blown away a busload of kids."
—Unidentified platoon sergeant during March 2 assault.

http://www.cornerstonemag.com/pages/show_page.asp?7

"We're yelling on the radio, 'They're firing at the prisoners! They're firing at the prisoners!'
—Specialist 4 Edward Walker, describing February 27, 1991, incident during ground invasion of Iraq.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27c/069.html

The UK Parliament commented on the Basra road massacre:

UK Parliament
House of Commons
column 1347

Hon. Members will know that I am not emotional about many subjects. But I suggest that, emotionally, we shall be haunted for a long time to come by what has happened in the last few weeks. We shall be haunted in particular by what occurred on the Basra road. That was done in the name of the American Congress and the British House of Commons.

http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199091/cmhansrd/1991-03-15/Debate-2.html

I have problems with the American people because of this issue, they should have seen what we were doing and said something.

[Zhade]

41. Why don't you place the blame where it belongs?

Reagan and Bush Sr. supported, funded, and armed Hussein as their bitch in the Middle East. They whistled and looked away (or more likely watched the video uplink and laughed) while Hussein was committing his worst atrocities - often with American-supplied traditional and biological weapons.

The UN can't do much without the U.S. - just look at how they barely managed to unite against the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Welcome to DU! You might learn something about reality if you stick around, assuming you're here for the right reasons.

[LynnTheDem]

42. They didn't look away; they supplied Hussein...they then reassured him

that the USA remained good allies.

National Security Archives

U.S. DOCUMENTS SHOW EMBRACE OF SADDAM HUSSEIN IN EARLY 1980s
DESPITE CHEMICAL WEAPONS, EXTERNAL AGGRESSION, HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

Fear of Iraq Collapse in Iran-Iraq War Motivated Reagan Administration Support; U.S. Goals Were Access to Oil, Projection of Power, and Protection of Allies; Rumsfeld Failed to Raise Chemical Weapons Issue in Personal Meeting with Saddam

Washington, D.C., 25 February 2003 - The National Security Archive at George Washington University today published on the Web a series of declassified U.S. documents detailing the U.S. embrace of Saddam Hussein in the early 1980's, including the renewal of diplomatic relations that had been suspended since 1967. The documents show that during this period of renewed U.S. support for Saddam, he had invaded his neighbor (Iran), had long-range nuclear aspirations that would "probably" include "an eventual nuclear weapon capability," harbored known terrorists in Baghdad, abused the human rights of his citizens, and possessed and used chemical weapons on Iranians and his own people. The U.S. response was to renew ties, to provide intelligence and aid to ensure Iraq would not be defeated by Iran, and to send a high-level presidential envoy named Donald Rumsfeld to shake hands with Saddam.

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/press.htm

Be sure to read the actual NSA documents, where Reagan and Cartel make it very clear; Irasq must not lose to Iran, and Iraq's OIL is the top priority. Make nice with "good American ally" Hussein, and guard that OIL.

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/index.htm

They knew; they just didn't give a shit then, and they didn't give a shit in 1991, during the uprisings of Iraqi rebels against Hussein;

U.S. officials quickly voiced concerns about Iran's support of the Shiite rebels.

"I'm not sure whose side you'd want to be on," then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said as the uprisings began. But in trying to drum up American public support for the current invasion, Cheney suddenly was very decisive on whose side one should be...12 years later.

Colin Powell, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Shiites, as well as the Kurds in the north, "never had a chance of succeeding, and their success was not a goal for the administration."

"Our practical intention was to leave Baghdad enough power to survive as a threat to an Iran that remained bitterly hostile toward the United States," Powell said in his book, "My American Journey."

Analysts like the University of Haifa's Baram estimate the number of civilian dead in the Shi'ite intifada at between 30,000 and 60,000. Marlin Fitzwater, the White House spokesman at the time, said the administration felt no guilt for refusing to aid the rebels.

Gen. COLIN POWELL: The only issue that came up is, "Should we do something about the Iraqi helicopters?" It had never been one of our objectives to get involved in this kind of civil uprising between factions within Iraq and the Iraqi government. And so it was not clear what purpose would have been achieved by getting ourselves mixed up in the middle of that.

The American pilots patrolling the skies above Iraq could see the Kurds being chased into the mountains, but they had strict orders not to intervene.

Capt. MERRICK KRAUSE, F-15 Pilot: We saw helicopters chasing a lot of people down a road and we saw the gunships shooting at them. You could see the smoke coming out of the gunship and occasionally see flashes of the tracers, even though the sun had just started coming up.

Capt. MERRICK KRAUSE: We felt frustrated in the fact that we couldn't help the uprising that was going on on the ground, for whatever political reasons that were above our rank. And the best we could do was report what we saw and eventually hope that it was taken care of.

Pres. GEORGE BUSH: I do not want to push American forces beyond our mandate. We've done the heavy lifting. Our kids performed with superior courage and they don't need to be thrust into a war that's been going on for years.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/script_b.html

Nope. Until bushCartel needed another excuse to try & dupe Americans into supporting the war of aggression against Iraq, the US government knew and never gave a damn about the Iraqis in any way, shape or form.

LA Weekly: News: Made in the USA, Part III: The Dishonor Roll

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/23/news-crogan.php

The USA supported Iraq during the 8 years of the war, with money, sattelite photos of enemy positions, and equipment INCLUDING chemical and bio weapons, technical expertise, and plans for chemical weapons factories.

-The US rewarded Saddam after the Iran-Iraq war with billions in loan guarantees and agricultural credits right up until Aug 2, 1990, the day Iraq invaded Kuwait.

U.S. and Iraq's Weapons

In the fall of 1989, at a time when Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was only nine months away and Saddam Hussein was desperate for money to buy arms, President Bush signed a top-secret National Security Decision directive ordering closer ties with Baghdad and opening the way for $1 billion in new aid.

* In 1987, Vice President Bush successfully pressed the federal Export-Import Bank to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for Iraq, the documents show, despite staff objections that the loans were not likely to be repaid as required by law.

* After Bush became President in 1989, documents show that senior officials in his Administration lobbied the bank and the Agriculture Department to finance billions in new Iraqi projects.

* As vice president in 1987, Bush met personally with Nizar Hamdoon, Iraq's ambassador to the United States, to assure him that Iraq could buy more dual-use technology. It was three years later that National Security Council officials blocked the attempt by the Commerce Department and other agencies to restrict such exports.

* After Bush signed NSD 26 in October, 1989, Secretary of State James A. Baker III personally intervened with Agriculture Secretary Clayton K. Yeutter to drop Agriculture's opposition to the $1 billion in food credits. Yeutter, now a senior White House official, agreed and the first half of the $1 billion was made available to Iraq at the beginning of 1990.

* As late as July, 1990, one month before Iraqi troops stormed into Kuwait city, officials at the National Security Council and the State Department were pushing to deliver the second installment of the $1 billion in loan guarantees, despite the looming crisis in the region and evidence that Iraq had used the aid illegally to help finance a secret arms procurement network to obtain technology for its nuclear weapons and ballistic-missile program.

http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2000/msg00776.html

An Agriculture Department official cautioned in a February, 1990, internal memo that, when all the facts were known about loan guarantees to Iraq, the program could be viewed as another "HUD or savings-and-loan scandal."

Of the $5 billion in economic aid provided to Iraq over an eight-year period, American taxpayers have now been stuck for $2 billion in defaulted loans.


-The US supplied much of Iraq's chemical agents and technical expertise in how to weaponize, (just like the current Bush admin is offering to sell to India), as well as sattelite photos showing enemy positions

Yes, U.S. helped Iraq get chemical, biological weapons

You don't have to dig deep to find that from 1982 to 1990 the United States supplied Iraq with not only conventional arms and cash but also chemical and biological materials, including the precursors for anthrax and botulism.

A 1994 investigation by the Senate Bank Committee found that U.S. companies had been licensed by the Commerce Department to export a "witch's brew" of biological and chemical materials, including precursors of anthrax and botulism. The report also noted the exports included plans for chemical and biolgical warfare facilities and chemical warhead filling equipment.

"Only on Aug. 2, 1990, did the Agriculture Department officially suspend the (loan) guarantees to Iraq -- the same day that Hussein's tanks and troops swept into Kuwait," a Los Angeles Times expose on Feb. 23, 1992, noted.

http://www.belleville.com/mld/newsdemocrat/5674107.htm

BUSH said Saddam Hussein could AVOID ANY TRIAL for war crimes...IF he went into exile.

BUSH and POWELL and RICE and RUMSFAILED et al said Hussein could REMAIN IN POWER...IF he disarmed.

Nope, bush & Cartel never gave a shit about the Iraqi people or Hussein's brutality towards them. Until it suited bushCartel as an excuse for invasion.

[Zhade]

43. Indeed. Thanks for the backup.

NT!

[LynnTheDem]

44. You're welcome.

Too bad the vast majority of Americans have never even heard of the Basra Highway massacre, let alone the US "mass graving" thousands of Iraqis by burying them alive.

Then again, it's ok for the USA to genocide people and lie the nation to war of aggression. We have FAMILY VALUES, so we get to do anything we want to do.

:eyes:

[FloridaPat]

10. This happened before. The people in the graves were US soldiers.

Lots of stories going around that the foreigners serving are being put in mass graves or the rivers to keep the body count down.

[Just Me]

15. Hmmm,...wonder what the MIA figures are,...

,...and, isn't it curious that "the foreigners" would want to keep the body count DOWN? Doesn't seem rational.

[FloridaPat]

25. These are foreigners that have joined up to get US citizenship.

5,500 have gone AWOL. I guess they will get their own oil company when they come back home. That is the punishment for AWOL, right?

There was the newsman that was working on this story about mass graves of US servicement and he was "accidently" killed by US troops near a base when they mistook his camera for a weapon.

At least two other mass graves were found with non-Arabs in them. Those bodies were given to the Red Cross.

[salin]

17. that doesn't make sense

eg burying US soldiers to keep the body count down.

Hard to hide the missing soldier who never comes back from the families back home...

[livinginphotographs]

22. If it wasn't a huge number, it could work.

Honestly, do the 1300 groups of people who've lost soldiers all know each other? You could tell 3,000 people that their loved ones died, and they'd really have no concrete way of verifying the exact numbers. Get the media to report "1300 casualties" and there you go, you've got an artificially low body count.

[grumpy old fart]

23. Yes, and they could be aliens from Neptune.....,

If ya gonna fly without any facts, just join the * team....lol. Seriously, that kind of wild accusation just leads to tin hat labels, and does no one any good.

[livinginphotographs]

24. Huh?

n/t

[livinginphotographs]

26. Thank you for editing to make it a lot clearer.

This isn't wild conspiracy theory. YOu don't think the Bush admin has an interest in keeping casualties down? Frankly, I'm surprised the numbers being released are so low.

And I'm not saying they are doing this; I was simply responding to another poster's assertion that it could not be done. I think it could be done, not that it IS being done.

Nothing wild about that accusation...


<edited for throwing random word in that didn't belong :shrug: >

[GingerSnaps]

18. Possibly leads back to Bush

:shrug:

[malachi]

20. Wouldn't bodies buried in a mass grave decompose after 13 yrs?

Isn't that how long is has been since s.h. controlled the NORTHERN part of Iraq? I might be wrong, but I thought that the N and S parts of Iraq were controlled by the US And Britain after GW1.

[leftchick]

27. yes indeed...

and not a lot left for dogs to be digging for. This whole story is BS.. :eyes:

[OldLeftieLawyer]

29. Total bullshit

But, here comes Christmas, and there have been all those pesky bombings by the "insurgents" (if I were defending my country against invaders, would I be called a patriot or an insurgent?), so the Fuckface White House needs to hawk something hot and nasty and what's better than to blame Saddam for yet another mass grave that doesn't really exist?

[zann725]

35. We need to "mass" email Reuters, and tell them to get their facts straight

They know they're lying, knowingly covering-up for someone(s). Doesn't that make them "accessory to the fact"...for "aiding and abetting" criminal behavior?

Then again, isn't most of MSM guilty of that right now?

[Moloch]

38. That's awful.

I am starting to think that it was a bad idea to invade Iraq.