"At the heart of the questions are the numbers so far identified in Iraq's graves. Of 270 suspected grave sites identified in the last year, 55 have now been examined, revealing, according to the best estimates that The Observer has been able to obtain, around 5,000 bodies."
This seems to me that they don't know how many bodies. The 5k are just for the "55" they've opened so far. But even then, no one has released official numbers. Interesting, if you go to the site that has all of the pictures I listed, the amount of records that they have to pour through, seems like a lot more than 5k people missing or dead.
"Forensic examination of grave sites has been hampered by lack of security in Iraq, amid widespread complaints by human rights organisations that until recently the graves have not been secured and protected."
I guess I'll wait until they have found all of the sites or release something official. You know I think about the holocaust when I see these pictures and how no one would ever know how many people were actually killed by the Nazis if it wasn't for their meticulous record keeping. And the Ba'athi appeared to have the same type of function.
So, I'll take the mass graves at face value, say a monster existed and, if we're lucky we might be able to document the extent of his ruthlessness.
What disturbs me is the endlesly repeated 400,000 found and then revised down to 5000. There's been too much of this kind of thing dateing all the way back to Desert Storm.
All I ever asked for was the truth. All I ever got was lies.
Paul, I think you are mistaking the situation here. Frankly, I think the observer did not get all of Tony Blair's quote either.
But even the paper is not "revising" it down to 5k. That's just what they found SO FAR with 220 some known sites to go. 220 known sites is a lot of dead bodies if you ask me. The 400k comes from amnesty international, I believe. And I think that includes the not only the number of people in mass graves, but everyone else that Saddam had murdered. Including those whom he head their bodies returned to their families in pieces or with a bill for the bullets. Sounds like Stalin doesn't it? Or Hitler? both were his idols.
Considering that AYS at Iraq at a glance told us about his brother being taken away from university a few years ago and never seen again.
This picture http://massgraves.info/ on page 31 seems to be a list of at least 500 names. That's just one site.
I think you may be ignoring the fact that the number has not been quoted by the government to my knowldege. All of the numbers come from organizations like this one:
or here, amnesty 97: http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aireport/ar97/MDE14.htm
Hundreds of people were executed during the year. At least 96 members of the opposition Iraqi National Congress (inc) and four members of the Iraqi National Turkman Party were executed by government forces following their capture in Qoshtapa, near Arbil, in August. Among the victims were Lieutenant Ra'ad 'Umar al-Khalidi and Fahd Muhammad Sultan. Hundreds of suspected government opponents, including possible prisoners of conscience, were also arrested in Arbil. They included members of the inc and the Iraqi Communist Party, suspected members of Turkman and Islamist parties and other non-Kurdish political opponents. They were said to be detained in government-controlled areas but their fate and whereabouts remained unknown. At least 12 Iraqi army officers were reportedly executed for objecting to orders to intervene in the take-over of Arbil. They included Brigadier General Adham al-'Alwani, Major Jihad 'Abd al-'Aziz al-'Alwani and Major Faisal 'Abd al-Hamid al-'Issawi. More than 120 army officers believed to be connected to the opposition Iraqi National Accord, were executed following an alleged coup attempt against President Saddam Hussain in June. Among those executed were several high-ranking officers, including Major-General 'Abd Mutlaq al-Jibburi, Major Fawzi Karim al-Hamdani and Colonel Riyadh Talib Jassem. Up to 300 had been arrested but the fate and whereabouts of those detained remained unknown."
And every year they issued a report, it was the same kind of information and numbers.
"The fate of thousands of people who had "disappeared" in previous years remained unknown (see previous Amnesty International Reports). "
"Since the Saddam Hussein regime was overthrown in May, 270 mass graves have been reported. By mid-January, 2004, the number of confirmed sites climbed to fifty-three. Some graves hold a few dozen bodies—their arms lashed together and the bullet holes in the backs of skulls testimony to their execution. Other graves go on for hundreds of meters, densely packed with thousands of bodies."
may 2003 A MASS grave containing the remains of 200 Kurdish children has been discovered in the northern Iraqi province of Kirkuk, the Kurdish newspaper Taakhi reported today.
According to human rights officials who were in the now disbanded US administration in Iraq, some 300,000 opponents of Saddam were buried in 263 mass graves.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) put the number at 290,000 people and has been calling for exhumation.
http://hrw.org/editorials/2003/iraqmassgraves.htm
This month, the looting of the Security Directorate in Basra yielded an interesting handwritten document, which is now posted at every mosque in town. "Name," "Age," "Date Killed," "By Whom" read the categories across the top, and 140 victims' names are listed. The document suggests they were executed in groups, some by relatives of those who had been killed in the Shiite uprising and some by security officers.
According to the document, Mustafa was shot by security officers on May 8, 1999. Was this bizarre site west of Basra the mass grave where Jawad Ali's son was buried? He wanted to believe it.
anyway..the information is there to find. And I only quoted one newspaper. If you want to believe that their are only 5k in these graves, that is up to you.
I'll wait until the reports from each site are released. Until then, the pictures speak for themselves, I think.
I find it telling that some people would deny the suffering of these people to make a political point.
I remember seeing images of families raiding the mass graves and carrying off the remains of their loved ones on CNN shortly after the fall of the regime. How could you possibly count how many bodies there were in a mass grave when you are left with those which are unclaimed?
We're talking about a regime here that actually hired and paid people with the job title "Rapist".
The 5,000 number is so obviously skewed in view of information like this, that the political motivation for its utterance is clear. It would appear the Democrat's feigned penchant for cultural sensitivity does not extend to the Kurds and Shi'a of Iraq.
Um, clicking the banner doesn't lead to the site.
ReplyDeleteG man...couldn't figure out how to make the embedded image link. Click on the blue words to go there.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the numbers may be inflated though.
ReplyDelete"At the heart of the questions are the numbers so far identified in Iraq's graves. Of 270 suspected grave sites identified in the last year, 55 have now been examined, revealing, according to the best estimates that The Observer has been able to obtain, around 5,000 bodies."
ReplyDeleteThis seems to me that they don't know how many bodies. The 5k are just for the "55" they've opened so far. But even then, no one has released official numbers. Interesting, if you go to the site that has all of the pictures I listed, the amount of records that they have to pour through, seems like a lot more than 5k people missing or dead.
"Forensic examination of grave sites has been hampered by lack of security in Iraq, amid widespread complaints by human rights organisations that until recently the graves have not been secured and protected."
I guess I'll wait until they have found all of the sites or release something official. You know I think about the holocaust when I see these pictures and how no one would ever know how many people were actually killed by the Nazis if it wasn't for their meticulous record keeping. And the Ba'athi appeared to have the same type of function.
So, I'll take the mass graves at face value, say a monster existed and, if we're lucky we might be able to document the extent of his ruthlessness.
What disturbs me is the endlesly repeated 400,000 found and then revised down to 5000.
ReplyDeleteThere's been too much of this kind of thing dateing all the way back to Desert Storm.
All I ever asked for was the truth.
All I ever got was lies.
Paul, I think you are mistaking the situation here. Frankly, I think the observer did not get all of Tony Blair's quote either.
ReplyDeleteBut even the paper is not "revising" it down to 5k. That's just what they found SO FAR with 220 some known sites to go. 220 known sites is a lot of dead bodies if you ask me. The 400k comes from amnesty international, I believe. And I think that includes the not only the number of people in mass graves, but everyone else that Saddam had murdered. Including those whom he head their bodies returned to their families in pieces or with a bill for the bullets. Sounds like Stalin doesn't it? Or Hitler? both were his idols.
Considering that AYS at Iraq at a glance told us about his brother being taken away from university a few years ago and never seen again.
This picture http://massgraves.info/ on page 31 seems to be a list of at least 500 names. That's just one site.
I think you may be ignoring the fact that the number has not been quoted by the government to my knowldege. All of the numbers come from organizations like this one:
http://www.indict.org.uk/crimedetails.php?crime=March1991
or this one:
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aireport/ar99/mde14.htm
or here, amnesty 97:
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aireport/ar97/MDE14.htm
Hundreds of people were executed during the year. At least 96 members of the opposition Iraqi National Congress (inc) and four members of the Iraqi National Turkman Party were executed by government forces following their capture in Qoshtapa, near Arbil, in August. Among the victims were Lieutenant Ra'ad 'Umar al-Khalidi and Fahd Muhammad Sultan. Hundreds of suspected government opponents, including possible prisoners of conscience, were also arrested in Arbil. They included members of the inc and the Iraqi Communist Party, suspected members of Turkman and Islamist parties and other non-Kurdish political opponents. They were said to be detained in government-controlled areas but their fate and whereabouts remained unknown. At least 12 Iraqi army officers were reportedly executed for objecting to orders to intervene in the take-over of Arbil. They included Brigadier General Adham al-'Alwani, Major Jihad 'Abd al-'Aziz al-'Alwani and Major Faisal 'Abd al-Hamid al-'Issawi.
More than 120 army officers believed to be connected to the opposition Iraqi National Accord, were executed following an alleged coup attempt against President Saddam Hussain in June. Among those executed were several high-ranking officers, including Major-General 'Abd Mutlaq al-Jibburi, Major Fawzi Karim al-Hamdani and Colonel Riyadh Talib Jassem. Up to 300 had been arrested but the fate and whereabouts of those detained remained unknown."
And every year they issued a report, it was the same kind of information and numbers.
"The fate of thousands of people who had "disappeared" in previous years remained unknown (see previous Amnesty International Reports). "
http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/pdf/iraq_mass_graves.pdf
"Since the Saddam Hussein regime was overthrown in May, 270 mass graves have been reported. By mid-January, 2004, the number of confirmed sites climbed to fifty-three. Some graves hold a few dozen bodies—their arms lashed together and the bullet holes in the backs of skulls testimony to their execution. Other graves go on for hundreds of meters, densely packed with thousands of bodies."
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6539723%5E25777,00.html
may 2003
A MASS grave containing the remains of 200 Kurdish children has been discovered in the northern Iraqi province of Kirkuk, the Kurdish newspaper Taakhi reported today.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=42493&SelectRegion=Iraq_Crisis&SelectCountry=IRAQ
According to human rights officials who were in the now disbanded US administration in Iraq, some 300,000 opponents of Saddam were buried in 263 mass graves.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) put the number at 290,000 people and has been calling for exhumation.
http://hrw.org/editorials/2003/iraqmassgraves.htm
This month, the looting of the Security Directorate in Basra yielded an interesting handwritten document, which is now posted at every mosque in town. "Name," "Age," "Date Killed," "By Whom" read the categories across the top, and 140 victims' names are listed. The document suggests they were executed in groups, some by relatives of those who had been killed in the Shiite uprising and some by security officers.
According to the document, Mustafa was shot by security officers on May 8, 1999. Was this bizarre site west of Basra the mass grave where Jawad Ali's son was buried? He wanted to believe it.
anyway..the information is there to find. And I only quoted one newspaper. If you want to believe that their are only 5k in these graves, that is up to you.
I'll wait until the reports from each site are released. Until then, the pictures speak for themselves, I think.
I find it telling that some people would deny the suffering of these people to make a political point.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing images of families raiding the mass graves and carrying off the remains of their loved ones on CNN shortly after the fall of the regime. How could you possibly count how many bodies there were in a mass grave when you are left with those which are unclaimed?
We're talking about a regime here that actually hired and paid people with the job title "Rapist".
The 5,000 number is so obviously skewed in view of information like this, that the political motivation for its utterance is clear. It would appear the Democrat's feigned penchant for cultural sensitivity does not extend to the Kurds and Shi'a of Iraq.
BTW if you need some HTML help (i.e. to get the banner to be a link), drop me a note.
ReplyDelete