Who; Who; Who Killed Them?
How one can excavate mass graves contains 300,000 bodies of an innocent victims from children, women and men of different ages? I don'tmean the technical aspects for which a forensic medicine team is going to start in January 2004, but I mean how one may endure its psychological effects? One of the biggest mass graves has been found in Hilla which is near the city of the hanging gardens (Babylon) 90 kms south Baghdad.
The massacres of the Shiites after the 1991 uprising extended over the whole south of Iraq from Basrah to Baghdad. There were massacres in each village with no exceptions. Saddam called all the southern provinces (Al Mohafadhat Al Sawdaa) which means the Black Provinces. Until now at least 270 sites discovered. One of the biggest site of Saddam's killing fields happened in Mahaweel. The Baathist and Saddam's killers used to collect the people haphazardly from under 1 year old upward and bring them by Lorries. They dig mass holes by bulldozers then put the victims inside and shot them one by one before the bulldozers return the dust on their bodies. They use to work from 9 am until 5 pm over 35 days in Mahaweel grave alone. Some estimated one millions Shiites massacred after 1991 uprising. The coalitions kept some of the sites secret to prevent relatives from taking the bodies until the forensic teams study the mass graves to get the evidence needed.
Mass graves are not new for that regime but it had been used during 1980s and may be before that. They used to carry the prisoners by helicopters to the western desert and buried them there alive. This had been witnessed by some people there. Every Iraqi knew that executions were carried out daily every where.
During Iran Iraq war they use to take absent or deserted soldiers and execute them in public by encouraging the people to attend the execution ceremonies. Thousands of students disappeared from universities and schools in since 1970s. The security ugly thugs used to come to the examination halls to take the students to the unknown. Thousands of doctors, professors, engineers, farmers, workers, whole families and others disappeared from their work places or streets or their homes since 1968.
Different ways of torture and killing have been used. Starved dogs or lions, acids, poison, decapitation, mutilation, hanging, fire, ironing, tongue cutting, genitalia cutting, drowning, etc. have been used. Ali Hassan Al Majeed Saddam's cousin used to force the Shiite after 1991 uprising to drink petroleum and then set them in fire while alive and throw them in the rivers. One officer during the Iran Iraq war once was reluctant to obey orders to save many losses among his soldiers. The security took his wife and a group of thugs among them specialised in rape, raped her one by one and recorded it in a video tape. They send him the video with a note saying if you don't obey orders again the same thing will happen to the rest of your family. One officer among those who recorded the tape whispered in the ear of his colleague, if it is me I will kill them and commit suicide. After few hours that officer had been take out and executed.
Who killed millions of Iraqi peoples? Who tortured the others? Who destroyed psychologically and emotionally the other 20 millions among the Iraqis especially Shiite and Kurds? The answer is not Saddam alone but those who worked for him as well. Some of them are big killer and some are small. Some of them are inside Iraq and some from his supporters Arabs and non Arab thugs. The Iraqis will not rest until seeing those responsible for these crimes judged and sentenced publicly and according to their crimes.
Lastly it is enough for Mr George W Bush to have these mass graves as an evidence of the weapons of mass destruction of Saddam. It's really not all that complicated. Kay's report, along with the continuing reports of thousands of bodies found in mass graves in Iraq should be sufficient to convince the world that we are all a lot better off without Saddam Hussein. There is no need to search for more evidence but for the head which created these weapons and committed these crimes. If you get him (God will soon) you will be the hero at least in the eyes of the Iraqi people and you will be the victorious leader of the coalitions. You may need to increase the reward to 100 millions dollars for any one who catch Saddam and then pay the money from Saddam accounts in the Arabs and other banks.
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