Iraqs Death Squads - Deborah Davies reports from inside Baghdad

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http://www.channel4.com/news/dispatches/article.jsp?id=301


Standing in a large family house in the Hurriya district of Baghdad a little boy, no more than ten years old, with huge round eyes silently points out the bullet holes in each of the bedrooms. He goes from room to room, pointing out the marks in the wardrobe door, in the bed-frame, in the wall - he knows where they all are. It's the kind of knowledge no child should be burdened with.

Downstairs, six almost identical figures in black robes, sit in a row holding large pictures of their murdered men-folk, with a clutter of children on their laps.

These six women - all of them members of the same family, all of them recently widowed - have not been back into their bedrooms since last November, when a convoy of police cars drew up outside their home in the early hours and dozens of uniformed men burst in.

A hundred dead bodies a day

Up to a hundred bodies a day are found dumped on waste ground and rubbish tips around Baghdad. They've usually been dreadfully tortured. Acid and electric drills are the favourite methods and many of the bodies are still wearing police handcuffs.

As we discovered, there is even compelling evidence that the secret prisons of Saddam's day are back - stinking hell-holes where hundreds of victims are herded together to be raped, tortured and maimed for no crime other than belonging to the wrong sect.

And it's all happening under the eyes of US commanders, who seem unwilling or unable to intervene. These are the chilling findings of a special investigation, filmed for a Channel 4 documentary, The Death Squads that reveals how one of the most senior ministers in Iraq's new administration stands accused of presiding over a campaign to torture, maim and execute his enemies. And this is the dossier that utterly explodes the myth that peace and a liberal democracy are blossoming in the new 'liberated' Iraq.