Investigators Say Iraqi Mass Graves Hold 300,000

[idadem]

Investigators Say Iraqi Mass Graves Hold 300,000

Nov. 8 — By Andrew Hammond
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi and U.S. rights investigators said on Saturday they suspected Iraq had up to 260 mass graves containing the bodies of at least 300,000 people murdered by the former regime of Saddam Hussein.

They told a conference that the task of identifying bodies and preparing evidence for tribunals could take years and millions of dollars, but the long process would be worth it to heal the wounds of three decades of brutal Baath Party rule.

"We have reports of 260 mass graves and we have confirmed approximately 40 of them," said Sandra Hodgkinson, director of the Coalition Provisional Authority's (CPA) mass grave action plan'.

"We believe, based on what Iraqis have reported to us, that there are 300,000 dead and that's the lower end of the estimates.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20031108_70.html

[Mikimouse]

1. To use an eloquent quote...

"Show me the money!!!!!" Then we'll talk, but not before!

[the_red_pill]

4. money=mass grave sites?

or do you mean the money that it is going to take to conduct the investigation?
-red

[Mikimouse]

13. It was intended figuratively, not literally...

It was meant to say that I will believe it when the evidence is presented to me in a manner that demonstrates not only that there are graves, but what those graves contain, how long they have been there, and proof that they are all victims of the previous Iraqi administration, not before. I wouldn't, for a single moment, put it past these folks to dig up a well established cemetary and shrilly broadcast that the graves all contain Sadaam's political victims.

[Barrett808]

2. A goodly number of these murders we can lay at the feet of Poppy Bush

For encouraging the uprising in 1991, then abandoning the rebels; probably one of the most cynical abuses of power in US history.

[0007]

45. Your absolutely correct!

Didn't much about in those days.

When no WMD can't be found here comes the righ wing spin.

[bleedingheart]

3. This is all a guess...they only found 40... yet they don't have

a specific count of how many are buried in those 40...

that falls way short of 260...

once again...where are the facts?

[gristy]

5. That's a lotta dead Iraqis

Note the source of the number: based on what Iraqis have reported to us. Probably the same Iraqi's who were telling us all about Saddam's WMD's.

Whatever the number, Saddam had decades to reach that total. The U.S. is responsible for the documented deaths of, what, a paltry 8,000-10,000 civilians in comparison (link). But we achieved that in just 7 months, so our rate of killin' is almost as high! Hooowah.

[wtmusic]

9. Don't leave out the ±30K military deaths

from our illegal invasion of a sovereign state.

[realFedUp]

6. Bodies, What Bodies?

An oldie but goldie about the bodies...

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14633

Bodies? What Bodies?

By Patrick J. Sloyan, AlterNet
November 25, 2002

Leon Daniel, as did others who reported from Vietnam during the 1960s, knew about war and death. So he was puzzled by the lack of corpses at the tip of the Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Iraq on Feb. 25, 1991. Clearly there had been plenty of killing. The 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized) had smashed through the defensive front-line of Saddam Hussein's army the day before, Feb. 24, the opening of the Desert Storm ground war to retake Kuwait. Daniel, representing United Press International, was part of a press pool held back from witnessing the assault on 8,000 Iraqi defenders. "They wouldn't let us see anything," said Daniel, who had seen about everything as a combat correspondent.

The artillery barrage alone was enough to cause a slaughter. A 30-minute bombardment by howitzers and multiple-launch rockets scattering thousands of tiny bomblets preceded the attack by 8,400 American soldiers riding in 3,000 M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, Humvees, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles.

snip

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."

[lumpy]

7. Mass grave of Iraqi soldiers buried by US forces

during Iraq War One. Yes.

[the_red_pill]

8. wow

here is an article I found:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1021466,00.html

So basically, America has been the significant contributor in the filling of these "mass graves" at least as of late...and our news sources have been spinning it as if the "mass graves" that are important are the ones that Saddam filled, not ours?

[realFedUp]

11. Learn the truth and spread it around.

The mass graves thing is about the only reason
this administration has left for invading Iraq...
send this to your Representatives. They still
don't seem to get it.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

18. Great post and an imprtant article. I read this months ago and

have since wondered how many of these mass graves are the ones that we created in GWI.

[Old and In the Way]

10. Where's the UN in this?

Timing is everything in these stories.

Mass graves? Sure, no doubt.

* Iraq/Iranian War (Iraq being our proxy in this fight)
* DS1 - A real slaughter
* UN sanctions from 1991-2003
* DS2 - Dimson's bloodlust

[loudnclear]

12. My question is how do we know who killed those people?

It could have been Saddam, the Kurds, the US, Iran... How long have these people been dead, who are they and maybe some of them are the victims of Desert Storm. We can get the Iraqis to say anything we want them to say if we offer enought money.

We went on a carpet bombing spree today in retataliation for the downing of the Black hawk yesterday. How many people did we kill? Who were they? Are we now entering into an era of bulldozzing and bombing indiscriminately as does Israel with the Palestinians...a policy that has yet to stop anything but guarantees that more people will come to hate us.

[the_red_pill]

15. CSI: Iraq

I have no doubt that this information can be found...carbon dating/decay could give you a timeline, and then from there I'm guessing how they died could be established. But do these sort of investigations really happen after wars? Who is responsible for these investigations? And why the hell aren't reporters allowed to show us what is really going on? How else are we supposed to find out?

[DuctapeFatwa]

43. I think carbon dating does within 50 years

So it might be hard to say who they were killed by, since both the US and Iran have killed quite a few Iraqis over the last few decades.

If there is some kind of prize involved, maybe Iran and US could agree to split and share.

[DubyaSux]

14. Iraqis?

How do they know they are even Iraqis?

Millions of both Iraqis and Iranians died during the Iraq/Iran war. There may be nothing unusual about this (at least, in that part of the world).

[mhr]

16. Which Investigators and Who is Paying The Bill

Always follow the money to see the hidden agenda.

Our country is so corrupt at this point in history that the current leaders have ZERO credibility left.

Let 9/11 happen
Stonewalling 9/11 commission

Lied about WMDs and imminent threat
Lied About yellowcake and Niger
Lied about remotely piloted vehicles
Lied about mobile weapons labs

Lied about outing CIA operative

Lied about tax cuts to the wealthy

Purposefully withheld war costs to prevent debate

Purposefully funnel fat contracts to Halliburton cronies

Need we say more?

[demdave]

17. Poor Sadaam would NEVER have done anything like this.

Ask any Iraqi.


The number of Sadaam apologists around here always amazes me.

[Gin]

19. And.............we helped....... what a pathetic attempt to sway opinons..

the cabal is desperate.

[Wickerman]

20. I don't think anyone here would say that Saddam was a Boy Scout

I don't see any evidence of anyone being an apologist. What I see is a lot of concerned Americans and citizens of the world saying, hold on a second, the Bush* misadministration is lying to us, lying to the world, and generally falsifying data to trump up their justification of an illegal invasion.

[mhr]

21. demdave, Seems You Are a Bush Apologist

Better check your crticism at the door until you do some soul searching in front of the mirror!

[demdave]

23. Show me where I have apologized for Bush.

I simply am tired of us losing elections and coming back here to crybaby about things. Waaaaa...the election machines are fixed..waaaaaa...LIHOP...waaaaaaa...Sadaam didn't kill his own people..waaaaaaa....Jessica Lynch is a lying whore.....waaaaaa..now Jessica Lynch is a hero.......waaaaaaa...sheeple, Nazis and Hitler....WAAAAAAAA


Sometimes the political blinders some people around here wear keep them from seeing the fact that the average voters don't agree with all the over the top name-calling, denials, apologies and conspicacies. I believe it has cost us in 2000, 2002, 2003 and could ultimately cost us 2004.

THAT is what I worry aboutand I don't apologize for that at all.

[mhr]

24. demdave, So How Is Pointing Out BFEE Flaws A Bad Thing?

I don't follow your logic.

I would be sincerely happy to hear your strategy for improving things.

[0007]

46. Who can follow demdive's logic?

[piece sine]

25. How dare you impune Saddam's motives?!?!

He's Mother Teresa with a mustache, and you act like he was some common undemocratic dictator! 300,000 murdered humans identified by a left-leaning NGO are no concern of ours. In fact, we have to inconveniently step-over all those dead bodies to score political easy points. Those damn bodies get in our way! You don't see Europe worrying about them do you??? The are expendable; those people were watercolors -- they wash off!

Oh Demdave! How could you sully these silken threads by pretending these mass graves are somehow liked to henious mass-murders? These are mere people who had heart-attack after Bush's State of the Union address! Get with the program, Dave. No SOULS allowed!!!!!!!!!

[Old and In the Way]

31. No one is disputing that Saddam was a ruthless tyrant,

just that we also know who supported him with money and arms in the 80's. You obviously parrot the "Saddam Evil/America Good" viewpoint of this administration. He was a friend of Reagan/Bush1...until his value became expendable.

Here's a couple of links for you that might help you understand just how good a friend we (Reagan/Bush) were to SH in the 80s (actually right up to the point when we double-crossed him just before DS1).

http://www.casi.org.uk/info/usdocs/usiraq80s90s.html

U.S. Diplomatic and Commercial Relationships with Iraq, 1980 - 2 August 1990
Prepared by Nathaniel Hurd.
15 July 2000 (updated 12 December 2001 by Nathaniel Hurd and Glen Rangwala).
Before 1980
• Following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War Iraq severed diplomatic relations with the U.S. In late 1979 the State Department (SD) put Iraq on its list of States sponsoring groups categorized by the SD as "terrorist."<1>
1980
• The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) asserted in a report that Iraq has been ‘actively acquiring’ Chemical Weapons capacities since the mid-1970s.<2>
1982
• Despite intelligence reports that Iraq still sponsored groups on the SD's terrorist list, and "apparently without consulting Congress", the Reagan Administration removed Iraq from the State terrorism sponsorship list in 1982.<3> The removal made Iraq eligible for U.S. dual-use and military technology.<4>

<snip>

Another article that explores our relationship with SH-

What Caused the War?
A reminder of some Middle Eastern history
by Kenneth R. Bain

<snip>
Did a lone, demonic figure pull the world into this bloody confrontation? Who is this Saddam Hussein, this mustachioed general who dared to interrupt our celebration of Cold War victories? We forget so easily now our first thoughts on this affair and how
the sense of concern grew within us. When news of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait first reached the U.S., some Americans saw little reason to react and even blamed U.S. policy. "If American diplomacy hadn't been on vacation for the better part of a decade," Alex Molner wrote in the New York Times in late August 1990, "we wouldn't be in the spot we are today." Molner asked of President Bush the question so many. people found disturbing: "Why, until the recent crisis, was it business as usual
with Saddam Hussein, the man you now call a Hitler?"
<snip>

And here is yet another link if you care to read;

"Iraqi Mass Graves In Perspective"
by Mark Gery
(Wednesday 03 September 2003)

http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/432/

[piece sine]

29. time to start countering the flamers, folks

soul-searching?! good start -- THINK about 300,000 new deaths in mass graves and then re-read what is written here and then YOU can so some soul-searching.

The degree of immorality in this thread takes one's breath away.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

30. If you find it so offensive, why stay?

[Old and In the Way]

32. Try searching your own soul while you're at it.

The depth of your hyprocrisy takes my breath away.

[bahrbearian]

38. Who said they were NEW deaths..

[homelandpunk]

52. you exaggerated: your breath was not taken away.

another exaggeration is "300,000"...just like that innocent exaggeration about WMD. Interesting that the reply to those of us who know this is just another lie by warmongers is the same stupid reply we receieved when we emphatically stated that there were no WMD: "Oh, so Saddam is just such a sweet person, he would never have WMD, would he?" Why do you guys who bought into the bullshit once, want to give them the benefit of the doubt, again?

[Barrett808]

26. Ya know, demdave, "Saddam apologist" is a pretty inflammatory accusation

I doubt there's a single DU member who could accurately be characterized that way...except perhaps for the occasional troll.

Of course Saddam was a mass-murdering dictator. He was almost deposed in 1991, but for Poppy Bush's policy decision of "malevolent interference". Does it make you a Bush apologist if you refuse to acknowledge that fact?

[piece sine]

28. that fact that you point out

(and fail to nail Demdave on) actually vindicates Bush 2. If, as you say, Poppy failed to vanquish a force everyone here concedes is evil, that it's hard to argue an eventual continuation of the policy is wrong.

Your logic MAKES the case for war.

[Barrett808]

35. Condemning Poppy's cynical policy doesn't imply approval of W's

Any more than condemning Poppy's cynical 1991 policy implies approval of the previous cynical policy (adopting Saddam as a client).

These three Bush-era policies:

1. arming Iraq;
2. destroying Iraq and abandoning the 1991 rebellion;
3. invading Iraq,

are foreign policy disasters on an immense scale. All three have been the proximal cause of the deaths of some millions of people.

[xxqqqzme]

22. they seem 2 B real good

@ finding 'mass graves' but not so hot w/ the mass WMD! OR are those bodies on tp of the WMD?

[Mackay]

50. When you bury it, you know where to find it...

How can they guestimate "300,000"? Probably because that's a rough estimate of the troops waiting in trenches in Gulf War I just before they were bulldozed over with sand.

If Saddam had killed that many people, there would have been a lot more noise about it. Oh yeah, no one disputes the fact that he is a killer, but he is a rank amateur next to Bush I and the US armed forces.

Although, it does seem we have a lot of Bush apologists on this board tonight, eh, DemDave? eh Piece Sine?

[TomNickell]

27. Sanity Check

300,000 graves / 30,000,000 Iraqis= 1%.

That would be 1 in 100 people. Presumably more from selected groups and regions.

Possible.

[bahrbearian]

40. 400 U.S. Soldiers deaths

400 / 130,000 =.52% in 6 months ...BFEE LIHOP

[Media_Lies_Daily]

33. How many are from the Iran-Iraq War, and how many from Desert Storm?...

Winners write the history books, right?

[The Magistrate]

34. It Would Be Very Foolish To Doubt Hussein Killed Many People

That is far too well attested over the years. There is certainly uncertainty as to the precise number, but something on the order of a quarter million killed as political opponents or suspected rebels seems likely.

[Barrett808]

37. Not to mention Iranian civilians killed in the War of the Cities

By Saddam's ballistic missiles.

[Minstrel Boy]

36. "we don't do body counts...a number I'm not terribly interested in..."

And killing 500,000 children was "worth it," Albright said, for sustaining sanctions.

They don't give a shit about the dead they've killed. And they don't give a shit about the dead Saddam killed except to score points. It's a bloody and shameless disgrace.

[gulliver]

39. I doubt it.

I hope we remember that number well, though. When they finally disposition the bodies in these "mass graves" and find out that there are only 50,000 and that 47,000 of them were killed in the war with Iran I won't be surprised.

But suppose that number is true, and suppose the typical Baathist murderer killed 6 people. That would mean there are 50,000 mass murderers running around Iraq.

[gulliver]

41. Investigators have identified six major crime periods

From the article...

"Investigators have identified six major crime periods: 1983 attacks on Kurds, a 1988 campaign against Kurds, chemical weapons attacks on Kurds 1986-88, the 1991 crushing of a southern Shi'ite revolt, 1991 crushing of Kurdish insurrection, and crimes against all sectors of the population during the entire period of Baath rule."

What is unusual about those dates? Maybe the article should be subheaded "Most Killings Occurred During Reagan/Bush Years"

And here is something from USA Today:

"Hodgkinson said the majority of people buried in the mass graves are believed to be Kurds killed by Saddam in the 1980s after rebelling against the government and Shiites killed after an uprising following the 1991 Gulf War."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-11-08-iraq-mass-graves_x.htm

So essentially Rummy was shaking hands with Saddam while most of this was going on, and Bush I let the Kurds and Shia's die in '91.

[The Magistrate]

42. That Makes Little Difference To The Dead, Mr. Gulliver

They are still in their graves unshriven, no matter who shook hands with whom.

[gulliver]

48. True, Magistrate.

And no disrespect for the dead intended... I'm addressing the living and the reasons for war given to the living. I think we can agree that nothing makes a difference to the dead.

I just literally can't stand the idea of Bush using these dead to justify the awful thing he has done in Iraq. I originally said I doubted the 300,000 number, and I do. But it looks to me like the vast, vast majority of the crimes took place when Saddam was Reagan's friend or when Bush I was a false friend to Saddam's enemies just after Gulf I.

Rewinding to just before Gulf War II, we need to know Saddam's murder rate at that time to distinguish his threats, and no such number was provided. Now the number 300,000 is being sprung on us for shock value. This dishonors the dead and abuses the credulity of the living.

[The Magistrate]

51. That Is True, Sir

A great proportion of the villainy was done at a time Hussein enjoyed support from U.S. reactionaries, as a bulwark against the Iranian reactionaries. Another great portion of it was done at a time when it was both militarily and politically feasible for the U.S. to have prevented it.

It is unfortunate, but these distinctions will not make much impact on the people of our country. Pressing them hard will be taken as nothing more than apologizing for Hussein's villainy, and "blaming America" instead. Opposition to the venture in Iraq is best centered on its cost in U.S. soldier's lives, and U.S. treasure, and in the corrupt boodling of reconstruction contracts.

[Beaker]

44. If mass graves and a brutal despot are reasons for war-

When will we be sending troops to Myanmar? Sudan? Nigeria? to name a few...It seems as tho' there's a whole lotta ass-kickin' left around the globe for our boys.

[0007]

47. 1 + 1 + 1 =3

One to start, one to fuel, and one to carry on.

coyotes always hunt in pairs.

[Darranar]

49. Some of these...

are dead Iraqi combatants from the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf war.

Additionally, how many he has killed shouldn't matter when dictating national policy; it should be how many he will kill. What's done is done.

And the majority of these deaths were from times when the US supported Saddam, too...

[wellst0nev0ter]

53. DU Article On Mass Graves

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/09/12_graves.html