Posted on 11/18/2002 10:42:36 AM PST by robowombat
Evening Standart | November 7, 2002 | by Sam Kiley
Massacre of Iraq's women Gagged and blindfolded, 15 women knelt in the dirt in terror. Five men, with turbans wrapped around their faces, stepped forward and each unsheathed a gold-etched silver sword.
Families stood craning their necks for a better view from the balconies of cramped houses overlooking the square. The cry of traders faded. Members of professional associations, manual labourers and school students, who had been bussed in for the occasion, stood in a semi-circle in front of the women. The only sound was a muffled keening, and the sniffling of frightened children.
"It was very quick. The knives hissed, stchuk, stchuk, stchuk. Then the heads rolled on to the ground. It was like killing sheep," said one female witness, Ashraq Jabr, 32. "Then we were told to go away."
In recent speeches both Tony Blair and George Bush alluded to the execution of women in Iraq in 2000 and 2001 as an example of the sort of atrocity which makes Saddam Hussein unfit to rule. But, until now - and the chilling scene described by the eyewitness in Basra, Iraq's biggest port - there has been little evidence to support their claims.
Ashraq, who had been ordered to attend the Basra execution by her branch of Saddam's Ba'ath party, said she was told the women were being killed because they were prostitutes - although, even in the bizarre country that is Iraq, prostitution is not normally considered a capital offence.
"Less than half of them were known to be whores, but the others were far from it and were professional ladies. In fact, one of those I saw die was a physician and two others were teachers. This is what I saw with my own eyes," said Ashraq, a primary school teacher who fled into exile in Jordan shortly after the executions.
A two-month investigation into the killings took the Evening Standard from London to Amman, Washington, Basra and Baghdad, and into the heart of Saddam's state of terror. It has revealed that hundreds of women were executed simply for criticising the regime and that Saddam's eldest son, Uday, has created a private militia - the Fedayeen Saddam ( Saddam's Redeemers) - whose atrocities have spread fear into every corner of Iraqi society.
Ordinary Iraqis interviewed in Basra and the capital Baghdad, exiles, and a foreign businessman working in Iraq have confirmed that they witnessed the state-sanctioned killings. But, according to officials in Baghdad, the beheadings never happened.
A K Hashemi, Saddam's top foreign policy adviser, scoffed at reports of the killings: "Nonsense - American propaganda. When Iraq's enemies haven't got real evidence, they come up with this sort of silly accusation," he snorted.
News of the executions was kept out of the Iraqi media but it spread by word of mouth amid fearful speculation about the reasons behind the killings.
One of the women murdered in October 2000, Najat Mohammed Haidar, was a middle-aged obstetrician, according to human rights groups. Opposition organisations said she was killed because she complained about the black market in medicines at her hospital.
Umm Liq'a, a mother of three whose husband was a jailed Shi'ite activist, was abducted by Uday's men and taken to a dusty square - used as a children's football pitch - about 200 yards from the Baghdad Sheraton Hotel. Near the goalmouth, her head was virtually removed from her body with the single stroke of a sword embossed in gold with the words, "For the honour of Saddam Hussein".
There were signs of torture on her body due to beating and slashing," said Rasha Juma, 34, a mother of two, who saw the execution from her flat overlooking the pitch. "I knew the woman and she had blonde hair, but it had been shaved off.
"After she was executed, her head remained attached to her body by a thin layer of skin. When they lifted her, the head separated from the body. People were disgusted; they picked up the head and placed it in the rubbish container. It was a terrifying scene.
"My sister is still suffering from memories of the incident. She is a young child. How can she go on with her life?"
Rasha fled Iraq with her husband, Hassan. He knew Uday personally, having worked alongside him in Iraq's so-called student union which is really a front for the Ba'ath party.
He had good reason to fear Saddam's notorious eldest son. Hassan said that since Uday had survived an assassination attempt in 1996, which left him partially crippled, he had become more violent and his sexual appetite increasingly bizarre.
"When Uday was shot, he was confined to a wheelc hair. He was no longer the Uday who would attend celebrations, go to the racing club or ride a horse. Previously he was a very active man but his situation changed and he became aggressive and devoid of humanity," said Hassan.
Today Uday still struggles to stand, and walks with extreme difficulty, with bodyguards close by to catch him if he stumbles. He speaks in a slurred mumble but manages a chilling sneer.
Yet Uday has developed a passion for rape - as Hassan Juma, and another former Uday assistant, Hassan al Janabi, testify. Both witnessed terrifying scenes involving several women who were kidnapped from the street or college campuses by Uday's Fedayeen Saddam thugs.
"He took the women to his palace, to his offices, anywhere he wanted, and with his friends he sexually abused them. He raped them - I saw it," said Hassan Juma.
A former security guard at Baghdad's racecourse claimed that Uday and his friends would gather at the club house where, after consuming prodigious amounts of Johnny Walker Black Label whisky, they would force naked women to wear numbers and race around the track.
"Uday and his friends would shoot in the air behind them to make them go faster. The girls were terrified - they never knew if they were going to be shot themselves," said the former guard.
Uday Hussein has managed to usurp his father as the man most feared in Iraq. The colour drains from the faces of government officials at the mere mention of his name.
Uday controls Iraq's only private radio and television stations, and all of the newspapers. Jealous of his younger brother, Qusay, 34, who is in charge of Saddam's security services, Uday has used his control of the media to build up a personality cult to rival his father - and a massive business empire. And when people are slow to flatter, he is vicious. If they cross him, they are tortured - or worse.
Hassan Juma helped rescue a young student Uday had taken a shine to and smuggled her out of the country to safety in Canada. Soon after, Hassan was picked up by two men from the Fedayeen Saddam and taken to the notorious abu Ghraib prison.
He spent days suspended by his wrists. A torturer cut his back open with a razor - leaving him with a 2ft scar. Then, three long weeks later, Hassan was released without explanation and sent back to work at the student union, where he resumed his working relationship with Uday.
"Uday wants everyone to know that they can be taken away and killed, tortured, humiliated or executed for any reason - or no reason at all. That sort of fear paralyses opposition, it paralyses thought," said Hassan's wife, Rasha.
Uday's Fedayeen Saddam, which carried out the executions of alleged prostitutes, are the storm troopers of oppression in Iraq. Their training methods are fanatical, bordering on the insane.
Video tapes of the training obtained by the Evening Standard show one of their rites of passage. It is a grotesque carnival of blood. Bare-chested men are thrown a live dog. They tear it limb from limb, dig their hands into its entrails, and fight over which pieces to eat, raw.
"We sacrifice our blood and souls for Saddam," the fighters chant, stripped to the waist and covered in the dog's blood. The film was shown on Iraqi television - it was not intended to impress, it was meant to terrify. Treated to parades by the Fedayeen Saddam, all Iraqis know that the masked marchers in the white combat uniforms are the specially-trained suicide bombers who have pledged to die for Saddam and his family. In Baghdad, they're known as "the ghosts".
Recruited as adolescents into "Saddam's Lions" - the regime's equivalent of the Scouts - Fedayeen members are officially the ruling family's last line of defence. "But their real role is internal terror - their mission is t o spread fear. They are the ultimate faceless monsters, Saddam's bogeymen," said Hassan al Janabi, Uday's former assistant.
Today, al Janabi lives in a safe house somewhere in the British Midlands following his escape from Iraq four years ago. He takes no chances. We meet only in busy public places such as railway stations and airports - and for only 20 minutes at a time while bodyguards hover in the background.
During a rendezvous, al Janabi got a text message on his mobile from Saddam's agents: "We're watching you." Publicly, Saddam has been trying to clean up his image. Last month he emptied his prisons and thousands of his victims, along with common criminals, poured through the gates and back to their families.
Many of his political prisoners even joined in the Fedayeen chant: "Saddam, Saddam, we'll give our blood and souls for you."
But the releases were a gigantic charade - a parade of madness. Everyone who came out o f jail knows that they're not free in Iraq. In fact, they're now a danger to whoever they meet. Political prisoners will be watched day and night while the regime seeks out so-called plotters against Saddam's rule.
When they fall under suspicion everyone knows the consequences - Uday's men in masks will be back with their swords.
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Well Said
Dear, God. Do I need to put a <<<sarcasm at the end of my statement? And, even though it was a sarcastic comment, I certainly didn't need a dissertaion from the likes of you. Lighten up for pete's sake.
I have never heard of Iraq practicing this kind of thing. Sadaam, I suspect is a lot like Stalin (whom he openly admires) in how he kills- quitely and out of public view.
Meanwhile, the Saudis shut girls up in burning buildings
because they don't have scarves on. Yet we treat the
Saudis as being fit to rule. So much evil, so little cajones.
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