Killing Fields of Iraq: A Personal Accounting of the Discoveres of Mass Graves, and How SMDC Located Them

摘要

Somewhere in Iraq: The buses would arrive early in the morning; having driven all night from some small village; each packed with men, women and children. They would find themselves in a desolate, barren stretch of nowhere...their final resting-place. The Soldiers would empty the buses, lining up their victims, hands bound and--if lucky, eyes blindfolded--at the edge of a trench. The Soldiers would begin their long day's work of methodically slaughtering the families. At the end of the day, they'd bury their work, pack up and prepare for their next day of loyal duty to Saddam. Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, there have been bone-chilling discoveries, almost on a daily basis, of the atrocities committed by the former Baath party. These grisly reminders come to us in the form of mass graves, dotting the landscape in more numbers than anyone would care to imagine. At last count, there are more than 270 reported mass graves with more than 50 verified by international forensic teams. The number of Iraqi and foreign victims of Saddam's regime is estimated anywhere from 100 to 400 thousand people. Kurds from northern Iraq, Shias from southern Iraq, Kuwaiti and Iranian prisoners of war...touching almost every person's life in the region.