Posted on 04/20/2003 7:37:09 AM PDT by buffyt
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- In a city where marauding mobs have carried off everything from furniture to priceless cultural artifacts, one building seems oddly untouched, at least by looters.
It's Iraq's Directorate of Special Security, or secret police headquarters, the one place in Saddam Hussein's Iraq that people who spoke against him or his government tended to visit. Many people were held there during investigations and proceedings or were incarcerated there after receiving sentences for criticizing the regime.
Located in a heavily fortified compound in eastern Baghdad, the directorate was battered by U.S. bombs during the war.
The Marines are standing guard, trying to keep the headquarters' vast archive of paperwork safe so that someday Iraqis might better understand what happened in their country, and perhaps track people who were forcibly arrested and never heard from again. The collection of records in the directorate's headquarters includes many politically motivated court rulings.
Marines from the 1st Regiment, which controls eastern Baghdad and took over the complex a week ago, said it must have been empty when U.S. airplanes bombed it, because they found no one inside, dead or alive.
"There is one piece of paper I showed to an interpreter, and he said this is what we need to show the people," Lt. Tom Klysa of the Marines' 3rd Civil Affairs Group told journalists during a tour.
One Iraqi Intelligence Service document, written in Arabic on official letterhead, detailed a case against an Iraqi citizen in 1988. The man had criticized Iraq's war against Iran and said the people should not have had to suffer for it because the war was between two leaders. The outcome of the case was not known.
The Marines also showed the inside of the adjoining prison where political prisoners were held, beaten and abused while Saddam's regime was in power. The grim one-story building reportedly housed hundreds of prisoners. As many as 12 could be kept in one squalid, tiny cell on metal bunks without mattresses, according to reports.
Now metal bars separate the cells, each of which has a dilapidated bathroom with a sink and squat hole.
"This was one of the most feared buildings in Baghdad," said Cpl. John Hoellwerth, a public affairs officer for the 1st Regiment. "There was a shadow of evil hanging over the whole place. This is the place where people disappeared to."
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