Iraq gives up its grim secrets
Abandoned warehouse is a tomb for hundreds of tortured and executed IraqisBack to the War On Saddam Hussein Page
06 April 2003From Paul Harris in Al Zubayr, Southern Iraq
THE coffins are laid out in neat rows in an abandoned warehouse. In each lies a crumpled bag of bones, old and dusty but still recognisably human. Out of the open end of one sack, a skull can be seen buried in the fragments of skeleton.
Its eye sockets are empty. Its teeth are smashed. Two ribs point out like accusing fingers.
Something terrible happened here. Something murderous. Something evil.
The proof lies in a cargo container nearby. Its metal door hangs open and inside are pages and pages of files. Each sheaf of notes contains a picture of a man or woman. Each and every one has been shot in the head. Their wounds are mangled and gaping. Many of them barely look human any more as the anonymous photographer chronicled their dead faces. It is a horror almost beyond words.
It is hard not to look at the black-and-white photographs -- two for each victim -- and wince. Yet each was a brother, a father or a son; or a mother, a daughter or a sister. Each had a past and hopes for a future, yet each ended here, in this dry and dusty hall of the dead. There must be at least 200 of them in the plywood coffins, roughly hammered together by a hurried carpenter. All of them are in bags, jumbled together in sad piles of remains.
'Whoever they are, they have been desecrated in their death. No one should ever treat the dead like this,' said Sgt Simon Brain, a veteran of tours in Bosnia, who has seen places in the Balkans that look similar to this. 'That is in two countries now that I have seen mass graves,' he added with a shake of his head.
There are signs of torture too. Outside the warehouse stands a wall. It is dotted in the centre with a spray of bullet holes. Nearly all of them are at head height. There is a ditch behind it. If anyone was shot against the wall, their blood would have drained cleanly away. In another warehouse, a dozen tiny concrete cells have been built of breeze blocks inside the hangar. In some of them, portraits of Saddam Hussein stare from the grey walls. In several, an iron pole has been hung from the roof. Dangling from it are cruel, rusting metal hooks. They are ideal torture chambers.
'We can't speculate on what this is until an investigation,' a British military spokesman said. But one officer, speaking privately and looking in shock at the warehouse, was more blunt. 'Just look at those photos. Look at this place.
'People were being tortured and executed here,' he said.
The warehouse has now been declared off limits after being discovered by British soldiers of the Third Regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery yesterday morning. An investigation is now to be launched into exactly who lies in the coffins. War crimes investigators have been alerted to the discovery and the building sealed off and guarded.
Though it is hard to imagine who would want to go inside. The warehouse lies on a sprawling and abandoned military base on the outskirts of Az Zubayr, a small town near Basra. Nobody lives nearby. It can only be reached by travelling on rough and pitted mud causeways that traverse a lunar landscape contaminated by oil leaks from nearby refineries. Multi-coloured slicks soak into the dust of the drained salt marshes as they bake in the midday sun. There is no sign of life apart from the stray dogs that swarm over this part of Iraq.
The base itself is a mess. Most of the buildings have been trashed or looted and destroyed over the previous decade or so of war and sanctions. There are holes in many of the buildings and roofs missing from some of the barrack huts, yet the warehouse of bones was locked and intact.
There is little doubt that the bones are at least several years old. No flesh remains on the long brown leg and arm bones or bits of rib. Only a few tufts of tough black hair lie scattered on the floor, where dogs have tugged at a few of the bags and spilled their grim contents on the unforgiving concrete.
But there is no doubt the base was inhabited until only a few weeks ago. Among the buildings are Iraqi army shirts still in their bags, new gas mask respirators, signal huts for an artillery unit and maps with military drawings upon them. Yet the Iraqi soldiers who were living here were literally living beside the corpses of hundreds of people.
Exactly who they were is so far a mystery. But there are a few clues. Some of the bags are made of plastic and inside them can be seen a few pieces of military equipment. The green belt of the Iraqi army is plainly visible in several of the sacks.
Were they soldiers suspected of disloyalty in recent years? Were they Shia rebels from 1991, many of whom were in the army? More than 50,000 Shia were killed by the forces of Saddam Hussein in their doomed revolt. Are these some of their corpses? In most of the bags there is no trace of clothing. Just bones.
In one sack a single photo lies. It is a simple ID card. On it a middle-aged man stares out. He has black hair, a long face and a drooping moustache. In life he would perhaps have looked pensive. But lying, half-covered by his own dusty remains, the man pictured within looks sad and forlorn. He looks regretful for the life stolen from him. A splotch of bloodstain on the corner of the card is reminder enough of the brutality of how all his hopes died.
It is hard to stay in the warehouse long. In one corner, empty coffins are stacked four or five high. Whoever was doing this grim work was stopped before they finished their task. That is a small mercy but no respite for those already dead.
Inside the hangar, the air is still and thick with dust. It hangs close around the clothes and almost makes one retch to think what is being breathed into the lungs of those who have ventured inside. It is a relief to leave such a charnel house. Outside, the sun is shining over southern Iraq. There is a stiff breeze that blows some of the bone dust away. But inside the horrors remain, testimony to the crimes of a regime that is itself now being killed.
Yet these are not isolated horrors. Last night allegations of the torture and murder of dozens of children by Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party also came to light, with bodies discovered hanging from street lighting.
The killings were carried out after the party headquarters in Basra was bombed last week, said some Iraqi women, one of whom's niece had been killed. Families believed to have been aiding coalition forces were targeted.
Interpreter Vanessa Lough, formerly attached to the UN and based in Basra said: 'In one street alone they said three children could be seen hanging from the lamp posts, and around the corner one child lay burnt on the ground.
'The women said some of the children's bodies are now being held in the city's hospital mortuary.'
Copyright © 2003 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088
British Forces Find 200 Coffins At Former Iraqi Army Barracks
The Bangkok Post (Thailand), by AFPOriginal Article Posted By:Coral Pink, 4/5/2003 7:49:15 PM KUWAIT CITY (AFP) British forces have found 200 coffins containing human remains stashed in bags at a former army barracks in southern Iraq, a British officer told AFP. "We found approximately 200 coffins, each containing bags, each labelled, and each bag contained human remains," said the officer on condition of anonymity.
Comments:
This story gets grislier the further you read.
Reply 1 - Posted by: michiganrepublican, 4/5/2003 7:54:02 PM
And the Commies dare to call GWB Hitler. Will any of them repent when the story is told??
Reply 2 - Posted by: LadyVet, 4/5/2003 8:13:31 PM
I suppose the innocent explanation of this is that this site is the wholly-owned Baghdad subsidiary of the Georgia DemocRAT undertaker who was waiting to get the crematorium fixed. Sounds more like Chemical Meng Ali.
Reply 3 - Posted by: Novice, 4/5/2003 8:15:16 PM
It is in no countries national interest to let such evil exist. War is better than this. War is not the ultimate evil - there are two evils worse. The greatest evil is he who perpetrated such heinous acts. The second are those that defend those perpetrators.
The defenders in this case are the French and even worse than the French are all the anti-war protestors. These groups represent an evil greater than war.
Reply 4 - Posted by: golla, 4/5/2003 8:17:58 PM
Sodamn's Auschwitz ????
Reply 5 - Posted by: Standing Wolf, 4/5/2003 8:21:32 PM
More Islamic honor.
Reply 6 - Posted by: dainbred, 4/5/2003 8:26:08 PM
Knowing Saddam's penchant for viewing things over and over; I would not be at all surprised if these are the bodies of the missing Kuwaiti's from the 1991 Gulf War..
He's so whacked out. When you meet him, you are supposed to kiss his "armpits".... Imagine?
Reply 7 - Posted by: SFGOP, 4/5/2003 8:36:11 PM
No war for oil? Shutup you spineless liberals.
THIS IS A JUSTIFIED WAR TO RID THE WORLD OF THIS DEVIL!
Reply 8 - Posted by: Frank G, 4/5/2003 8:41:40 PM
Its like liberating Nazi Germany!
No wonder the Krauts were against US.
Reply 9 - Posted by: Ruskin, 4/5/2003 8:43:26 PM
This is what the French and other lefties worked so hard to protect.
Reply 10 - Posted by: Embee, 4/5/2003 8:43:56 PM
You think this is bad?
Wait until you find the story about what he did last week to the children.
I'm not reading anymore stories about this evil life form.
Reply 11 - Posted by: cinc, 4/5/2003 8:49:41 PM
I heard that the Iraqis are saying these remains were sent back from Iran recently and are from the Iran-Iraq war. They said they merely stored them in this warehouse pending being returned to their families which has been delayed because of the start of this war. Anyone got any beachfront property in Arizona for sale?
Reply 12 - Posted by: Q-tip, 4/5/2003 8:53:40 PM
These bodies are over 10 years old, and most are wrapped in "shreds & pieces of Iraqi army uniforms," according to Fox News. Why preserve the evidence of mass murders in this way? These MAY be the remains of Iraqi KIAs returned recently by Iran, from the Iran-Iraqi war. Saddam has murdered hundreds of thousands, BUT I'm not sure THESE bodies are his victims. Even Hitler tried to blow up the crematoria at the last minute. Saddam had 10 years! Why? This doesn't add up much. Homicide investigators are trained to maintain an open mind & not get tunnel vision. That's what I am going to do. Too weird.
Reply 13 - Posted by: judy, 4/5/2003 9:10:55 PM
Let's see how long it takes the UN to respond..so far all the UN has condemned is the 15 civilians killed ...not condemning the homicide bombers..holding women and children as hostages..killing after raising white flags...it's amazing how the UN never condemns the bad guys but jump on ONE action of the other side..what a bunch of ????
Reply 14 - Posted by: teegore, 4/5/2003 9:23:51 PM
Just one of the many torture and execution offices of the Butcher of Baghdad, his foul sons, and his henchmen. As time goes on, much worse, and more recent atrocities will surface.
Reply 15 - Posted by: radrelic, 4/5/2003 9:48:25 PM
"He's so whacked out. When you meet him, you are supposed to kiss his "armpits".... Imagine?"
I hate to be hypercritical but that's one step up from our own Prezident Billy.
Re the "Cradle of Civilization', it seems as people became civilized they must have vacated the "cradle".
Reply 16 - Posted by: judy, 4/5/2003 10:03:32 PM
On the 1st day of the war the Kuwaits demanded Iraq turn over their dead from the war in 1991..the dead were photographed and listed along with how the death occurred and how long it took them to die..my guess is these people are the ones who rose up against Saddam after 1991...the reporter said it was clearly a torture chamber by the gun shot holes at head height, hooks on the ceiling and the way the bodies were stacked ...the Brits are doing a great job ...glad they came along
Reply 17 - Posted by: Hillaryisanidiot, 4/5/2003 10:49:21 PM
Maybe Susan Sarandon has something to say about this???
Reply 18 - Posted by: kennowen, 4/5/2003 10:50:03 PM
These stories need to continue to be told! The lefties need to see who it is they are defending! I'm sick of hearing the 'free speech' argument being made by the same people who only recently were whining about 'hate speech'.
