Posted on 04/06/2003 8:02:41 AM PDT by knighthawk
HUNDREDS of bodies have been discovered in a makeshift morgue by British soldiers in what may prove the first evidence of scores of execution and torture centres across Iraq.
The skulls, bundles of bone and scraps of clothing were dumped in plastic bags and row upon row of unsealed hardboard coffins in an abandoned Iraqi military base on the outskirts of Al Zubayr.
Every one of the victims had been shot in the head and many had been mutilated, it was claimed.
Elsewhere in the country, British troops found records of ear amputations carried out on Iraqi civilians who had dared speak out against Saddam Hussein’s regime.
And there were also reports of children being tortured and then hanged by members of the Ba’ath Party. Children as young as four were said to have been taken from their parents at night and murdered after extremists targeted families thought to have been aiding coalition forces. Some of the children were hung from street lights on the outskirts of Basra while their parents were forced to watch, it was claimed.
It was impossible to say how long the remains discovered at the military base near Al Zubayr had been there, but the discovery will now be investigated by forensic specialists as possible evidence of atrocities perpetrated by the Iraqi regime.
A cargo container near to the bodies - believed to number at least 200 - held pages and pages of files. Each sheaf contained a picture of a dead man or women, many of whom were so badly mutilated they no longer looked human.
Outside the building stood what one soldier described as "a purpose-built shooting gallery". A tiled foot-high plinth stood in a courtyard, with the brickwork behind it riddled with bullets.
And in several cells nearby metal hooks were hanging from the ceiling.
One shocked British officer, who asked not to be named, was in no doubt that the military base had been the site of unspeakable barbarity. He said: "Just look at those photos. Look at this place. People were being tortured and executed here."
Last night Ahmed Shames, chairman of the Iraqi Prospect Organisation, a group set up by exiles from Iraq said: "This shows the brutality of the Iraqi regime."
Shames added he believed the bodies were those of people who had fought for freedom against Saddam and were killed in uprisings.
He said: "I am afraid this may be the first of many of these morgues."
The discovery was made early yesterday by officers from the 3rd Regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery, who moved their AS90 guns to the location last night.
Captain Jack Kemp, one of the first soldiers on the scene, said he believed there were more than 200 coffins, with as many more plastic bags filled with the remains.
"The first thing I was greeted by was approximately 200 makeshift coffins," he said . Sergeant Simon Brain, a veteran of tours in Bosnia who had witnessed the aftermath of crimes against humanity, said: "Whoever they are, they have been desecrated in their death. No one should ever treat the dead like this.
"That is two countries now that I have seen mass graves."
Each coffin carried an inscription in Arabic, perhaps the identity of the person inside, and the bags were scrawled on with marker pen. Some of the paperwork appeared to date the ‘morgue’ to around 1985.
It is feared that some of the dead may be Shia rebels who were killed by Saddam’s forces during their doomed revolt in 1991.
Pathologists will carry out post mortem examinations and stand a good chance of being able to identify the victims, said Dr Bill Hunt, a retired forensic pathologist who was involved in the examination of mass graves in Bosnia in 1996 and 1997.
"They will be able to say approximately the age of the victims, and to say what sex they were, and how tall they were," he said.
Hunt added investigators may be able to work out who killed them, possibly leading to war crimes trials.
Meanwhile, separate evidence of Saddam’s brutality was found in the western desert of Iraq by British army intelligence. Records of ear amputations meted out to anyone speaking out of turn were discovered.
The detailed security service punishment dossiers were discovered yesterday by 3 Regiment Army Air Corps officers searching a deserted training camp south east of Nasiriyah.
Within meticulously hand written books, officers detailed the names and addresses of locals who had been overheard or turned in for complaining about the regime as well as their punishment.
Describing the gruesome dossier, Captain ‘Mac’ McGee, a member of the intelligence gathering team, said: "It had the names of anyone who didn’t shown enough support for Saddam, people who had complained about lack of education facilities for their children, lack of produce supplied by the regime or transport availability.
"We are not talking about people trying to overthrow the system just normal people trying to live a normal life."
The army training camp, which appeared to have been deserted in a hurry, contained bag upon bag of dossiers as well as personal items such as wallets containing family pictures.
Amid piles of English and Arabic training manuals on subjects such as the use of grenades and identifying American cruise missiles, the intelligence unit discovered personnel files on the officers and instructors next to colour or black and white passport photographs. Some of them are believed to have worked for Saddam’s security services.
McGee said details of the harsh treatment of those who opposed the Ba’ath party or even the most basic daily facilities did not surprise him.
"When we were in Kuwait one of the intelligence reports was of deserters having both their ears cut off," he said.
"Later we heard they were being branded with an X on the forehead. Just before we crossed the border we heard of hangings where the body was left up for several hours to emphasise the penalty for deserting at a time of national crisis."
McGee added the names and details of the officers involved in the atrocities would be passed on to a database in the hope of locating them down after the war.
"It is not our place to be judge and jury but in a situation like this we all feel it is right and proper that those who commit atrocities are found and follow the due process of the law."
Meanwhile, former UN interpreter Vanessa Lough, 37, revealed that she had been told of the widespread killing of children in the country.
She said: "Three women, one of whom’s niece was killed told me what happened. In one street alone they said three children could at one point be seen hanging from the lamp posts and around the corner one child lay burnt on the road. Those parents and children who resisted were badly beaten.
"One of the [Ba’ath Party] men told a father his son was being killed because the father had been seen laughing with several men from the British army that day."
And last night, one Iraqi exile told how he was tortured by Saddam’s regime.
Hamil Al-Bayati said his ankles were bound and his feet beaten until he couldn't walk. After three months, he was released without charge.
The Shi’ite muslim, now living in exile in London, said he was innocent of any crime but was tortured as a warning to would-be troublemakers.
Al-Bayati was not the victim of a freelance operation by a zealous local interrogator. He suffered because of a formal doctrine of terror which governed Iraq, written down in minute detail and dispatched to the secret police in all its 18 districts.
He was arrested when attending a funeral at a mosque in Baghdad in 1974 when Saddam was head of Iraq’s security service. "I was beaten for days. Five of them would come into our cell. We would be lowered on to fires, then rope put around our ankles and tightened by rolling up a stick. All the time asking what we knew."
A 21-page document, which British intelligence believes was a ‘Gestapo’ manual for Iraqi torturers, makes clear this was routine. Paragraph 25 of the Governorate Security Directorate - marked "secret and personal" and sent from the General Security bureau in Baghdad - spells out the benefits of random interrogation.
It reads: "Even if we make a mistake in subjecting a citizen to torture, he will describe the way he was arrested and the methods to which he was subjected, even though innocent, then how it would have been if he had a conspiratorial or treasonous mind."
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I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for the liberal media to report this when it is discovered.
I'm am so proud of our Armed Forces and Coalition Forces and the leaders who are standing tall in the defense of Liberty.
This reminds me of the virtuous widow and her sons in the story from 2 Maccabees. God help the parents.
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