Excavating Iraq's Mass Graves

State Department - Agency for International Development ^ | March 18, 2004

[pleikumud]

Iraqi and U.S. officials have prepared a long-range plan to excavate mass graves in Iraq and prepare forensic evidence of crimes against humanity, according to Andrew Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in May 2003, more than 270 mass graves in Iraq have been reported, Natsios told reporters March 17 at the State Department's Foreign Press Center in Washington.

Some of the graves are relatively small, containing a few dozen remains, while other graves are hundreds of meters long, according to a report distributed at the briefing.

There are 300,000-400,000 bodies reported to lie in mass graves in Iraq. "The bones tell a story of horror and shame. Arms bound together. Skulls pierced from behind. Hundreds in one long trench," Natsios said.

Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis all were killed, along with people from Kuwait, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran living in Iraq, Natsios said. The killings during the Saddam Hussein regime are surpassed only by the Rwandan genocide of 1994, Pol Pot's Cambodian "killing fields" in the 1970s, and the Nazi Holocaust during World War II, the report said.

[pleikumud]

The media seems to have no interest in Saddam Hussein's mass murder of hundreds of thousands. I wonder how many bodies have been found.

[McGavin999]

I haven't heard much of anything on this other than the fact that a new mass grave was discovered as they were digging sewer lines. I think they are going to be digging up dead bodies for decades there.

[armymarinemom]

The media seems to have no interest in Saddam Hussein's mass murder of hundreds of thousands. I wonder how many bodies have been found.

Sickening isn't it. I have talked to some of our troops who dug up some of these graves. The descriptions kept me loose sleep.

[Hunble]

There are 300,000-400,000 bodies reported to lie in mass graves in Iraq.

Print this out and literally shove it down the throat of the next anti-war idiot you see.

I know that I will....

[WilliamofCarmichael]

There are 300,000-400,000 bodies reported to lie in mass graves in Iraq.

With U.S. troops recently in country but still nearby and Saddam on the run (the Gulf War) Iraqis were encouraged to rise up.

They did. About 300,000 to 400,000 did.

Gee, I wonder why the after-war planners were surprised that all Iraqis didn't immediately swarm cheering around our troops as they returned twelve years later. Heck, even the French greeted us with flowers and things.

[satchmodog9]

So many of these buttholes have been screaming for decades that we need to do something about the tyrants and dictators of the world. Now that we have done something, they are all pissy. Leftists are stupid by nature.

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I was going to say I haven't heard about this on tha tee vee so it musn't be true. I then, however, remembered that the MSM is a pack of lying scum-sucking traitors who report nothing that doesn't fit the DNC agenda. Silly me.

I hope the armed forces are documenting everything they find concerning these mass graves the same way they documented the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. This must not be forgotten.

[backhoe]

When the Dungeon Doors Swing Open...
various FR links | 04-09-03 | The Heavy Equipment Guy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/889383/posts

[pleikumud]

I've been searching for current reports about mass graves. Finding very little. Here's one from Nov. 2003
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,102568,00.html
The media doesn't want to report this info, because it further supports President Bush's decision to go to war. The UN is probably doing nothing, unless it's trying to hide facts.

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It makes me sick to think people are ignoring this because of politics.