Wharehouse of horrors found in Iraq

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Dreadsox

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Warehouse of horrors found at abandoned military base
April 6 2003
The Sun-Herald

Hundreds of human remains were found by British soldiers in a makeshift morgue in southern Iraq yesterday.

The remains included bundles of bones in strips of military uniform.

They were found in an abandoned military base near Al Zubayr, about 20 kilometres south-west of Basra. Sky News carried video images of the morgue, showing a line of cardboard boxes with what appeared to be white shrouds in each of them.

A British soldier was also seen flipping through what appeared to be a handwritten list of the dead.

In a graphic description of the scene, Press Association chief reporter Vanessa Allen, who is embedded with the British Army's Royal Logistic Corps, told of cardboard coffins "stacked five deep in a warehouse".

A neighbouring building "contained apparent cells and catalogues of photographs of the dead, most of whom had died from gunshot wounds to the head".

"Others were mutilated beyond recognition, their faces burned and swollen in the faded black and white photographs," she reported. "Outside stood what one soldier described as 'a purpose-built shooting gallery'."

She said it was not known how long the remains had been there, but they will be investigated by forensic specialists as possible evidence of atrocities carried out by Saddam's regime.

One of the bags and coffins contained an identity card written in Arabic, while military webbing and boot soles were visible in others.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/05/1049459863679.html
 
I agree, that is what is being portrayed in other newscasts also. Once againt the US media has swallowed the Rummy Pentagon spin crazed spin before the total facts are found out.
 
Ummm..check again...there are catalogues found with them detailing about how each one was killed. Why would Iran go to that trouble for their enemy? Also, you don't find it a little bit coincidental that they had only recently got the bodies from Iran after all these yeras, and were just about to return them to tehir families when war broke out? That's very convenient. Also, please remember taht the original source of teh claim that these are bodies from the Iran/Iraq war was NOT Al Jezeera, but the Iraqi minister of information, the same king of denial/liar that has repeatedly said "oh no, the colaition isn't anywhere near Baghdad or the airport. Those videos are fakes!" Come on, people, do you really take the word of a man like that and his regime that gassed their own people?
 
Mr 80s-
Sadly some ppl are not after the truth as evidenced here w/ alot of the posts and mentailty of those posts.

DB9
 
80sU2isBest:

that's why i told the source of the news.
but anyway it could be like that, the negotiations about pow's and about dead germans of world war II with the allies took about 40 years, so for me it's not that surprising.

And in time of Iraq/Iran war the western world gladly ignored this dirty war. Both side got weapons from the US for example, US espionage saelite photos were provided so that Saddam could use his chemical weapons more effectively. at the end afik there was also "revenge" from iranis so they killed POWs
But let's see what less biased media has to say about it. The US/UK troops have the names list, when they give it to the red cross it should be easy to verify/falsify the al-jazeera statement.
I'm surprised they didn't onounce that step (irk) allready.

diamond:
Because i'm interested in the truth i didn't just mention the source of my information but also the source of the source so that everyone can make his picture of the situation.

Klaus
 
Scarletwine said:
I agree, that is what is being portrayed in other newscasts also. Once againt the US media has swallowed the Rummy Pentagon spin crazed spin before the total facts are found out.

Scarletwine....


I want to go on the record, that I could not find the story in the American Press until later yesterday, hours after I posted the first links. So please, give the propaganda about the US media being in bed with Rumsfeld and the Pentagon a rest. I understand, as do most of the regulars, that you hate the Pentagon and Rumsfeld. There was, no reason, to respond to my post this way and again, attack the people who put their lives on the line for this country.

I just want to point out that I got this from a foreign paper. The first place I found the story was from an Indian newspaper. I waited to post the story until I could find the story in another paper. I found the story in the Austrailian paper that I linked to. I posted the other link because the Indian paper had pictures that I did not feel comfortable linking to. The other article had no pictures.

I could not find this in the US press at the time of my post, nor did I hear it on CNN which I had on most of the day until later.


Here is the paper I first found the news:

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/stories/2003040601401400.htm
 
'These are all executions'


Piles of bones lie in plastic bags
Hundreds of bundles of bone in strips of military uniform have been found by British soldiers at an abandoned Iraqi military base on the outskirts of the town of al-Zubayr.
Faded black-and-white photographs show corpses mutilated beyond recognition, their faces burned and swollen.

Most of the victims appear to have been executed by gunshots to the head.

Skulls, their teeth broken and missing, look out from plastic bags in unsealed hardboard coffins stacked five deep in a warehouse.

Some of the bags have split open, spilling bones and scraps of clothing onto the dirt floor.

Outside, in a courtyard, a brick wall riddled with bullets stands behind a foot-high tiled platform, with a drainage ditch running in between.


The soldiers think this bullet-riddled spot was a "shooting gallery"

It looks like "a purpose-built shooting gallery" says one British soldier.

Next to the courtyard, a building contains what look like cells with metal hooks hanging from racks on the ceiling - and a picture of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Some of the paperwork suggests the "makeshift morgue" was operating in 1985.

Each coffin carries an Arabic inscription and the bags have been scrawled on with marker pens.

The first British soldier into the warehouse, Captain Jack Kemp, of the 3rd Regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery, said it contained more than 200 bags filled with "very old" human remains.


Coffins are stacked five deep
"It is certainly not from the recent conflict but it could be from the one before," the 40-year-old from Fraddam, near Newquay, Cornwall, added.

"We have placed it out of bounds to all personnel and will treat it as a mass grave.

"It's part of being at war - just another thing you have to deal with and get on with it.

"As the war goes on you expect to see everything."

A younger soldier studying the book of photographs said: "These are all executions. You can see the bullets - shots to the head."


Gruesome catalogues show mutilated corpses
The BBC's Ben Brown said local people had told him the remains were those of Iraqi soldiers killed in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, recently sent back from Iran.

But other reporters said items in the base, such as the cells and the "shooting gallery", suggested a far more sinister history.

There was also evidence that soldiers had lived at the base until recently, with new army shirts found still in their bags.

Some of the British soldiers believe they may have chanced upon a death camp.

"Isn't it important for Muslims to be properly buried?" one said. "It's like a deliberate disrespect.

"Whoever these people were, they weren't very important to the people who did this."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2920039.stm
 
Human remains 'are Iranian soldiers'


The identity of the remains is the subject of huge debate
Human remains found in an abandoned Iraqi military base are those of Iranian soldiers killed in the Iran-Iraq war, an Iranian general has said.

Brigadier-General Mirfeisal Baqerzadeh said the bodies were discovered at the base near al-Zubayr in southern Iraq recently after a joint search operation between the two countries.

But, he said, the current conflict had meant arrangements to return the bodies to Iran had been put on hold.

Forensic scientists from the UK are due to examine the skulls and bones, which were discovered wrapped in fragments of military clothing in makeshift coffins, in an attempt to establish their identities

Evidence found at the scene suggests many of the deaths occurred on the premises.


Scientists will sift through reams of documents to identify the bodies
Human rights groups suggest they may even be victims of the 1991 Gulf War.

Hania Mufti, of Human Rights Watch, told BBC News Online that thousands of executions of people accused of plotting against the Iraqi government had taken place since the conflict.

The Iraqi regime has refuted all claims that the skeletal remains are those of executed opponents of Saddam Hussein.

It says the remains are those of Iraqi soldiers killed during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq conflict and had been returned recently from Tehran.

The area has now been sealed off and is being treated as a mass war grave by UK troops.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2921711.stm
 
Obviousely there is lots of propaganda-like information on the big american newschanels, also there is much presure on providers who host non-patriotic or "enemy-friendl"sites (like al-jazeera) but i wouldn't call every single wrong information in the media propaganda.
If they put it in right context later it's ok, if they ignore that their first thought was wrong... well that's a good point to start thinking why they behave like this.

We'll know afterwards which media were trustworthy (and should be remembered for the future) and which lied and just forwarded propaganda from one party (US/UK or Iraq).

Not easy to decide that now.

We all know that Saddam could do something like that, but let's not speculate if he did this one with (iran war) or without (Desert Storm) US approval - we'll see

Klaus
 
Well, they have to have buried some of the dead from the Iran-Iraqi war somewhere. Maybe this is that. There are other pretty damning things turning up in Iraq like alleged torture chambers. Iraq is not the only country on the planet with a crummy human rights record (China, Syria, others are terrible as well), but that doesn't mean that its human rights record isn't atrocious. I don't need Donald Rumsfeld to figure that out since I'm not convinced he gives a damn about human rights.
 
verte76 said:
Iraq is not the only country on the planet with a crummy human rights record (China, Syria, others are terrible as well), but that doesn't mean that its human rights record isn't atrocious. I don't need Donald Rumsfeld to figure that out since I'm not convinced he gives a damn about human rights.

Well said, verte. I just wanted to let you know that I agree with you.
 
I read this too, from another source, but the ones you guys cited didn't have the most gruesome detail of all, which I don't want to repeat here. It's beyond what I can even imagine evil to be... And yes, the part about the ID info inside every 'casket' was a little puzzling. That didn't make sense.

foray
 
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/07/1049567619708.html

Article above is talking about these 'killing rooms' and using it as an example of how a certain media organisation is putting a little bit of a slant into their reporting.

If I have learned one thing over the last 18months, it's this: if it's anything Murdoch related, News Limited newspapers, Fox News channel, it's not even going to be remotely close to the truth.

I can't believe the Fox News coverage of Iraq is the highest rating in the US. It scares me to think that everyone who watches it, believes it.

It's a surreal thing to watch....
 
An example of what Rumsfeld warned about today!!!



No evidence of atrocities found at mass coffin site

April 7, 2003

BY PATRICK MCDOWELL








ZUBAYR, Iraq--A warehouse full of hundreds of bodies appears to have been a repatriation facility for soldiers killed during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, military investigators said Sunday.

Preliminary reports by a coalition special task force contradicted speculation that the site in southern Iraq was the scene of a major atrocity.

British troops discovered two tin sheds full of bodies and coffins Saturday on Zubayr's northern outskirts.

Some speculated that the site was a torture and execution ground and mass morgue, possibly for opponents of President Saddam Hussein's regime.

But forensics experts and criminal investigators said Sunday that injuries on corpses examined so far appear to be war-related.

''There is a canvass going on right now of the local population to see what they know about this facility,'' said Chief Warrant Officer Dan Walters, a senior criminal investigator for the coalition's 75th Exploitation Task Force.

Investigators counted 408 sets of human remains and 664 caskets. Using documents at the site, investigators determined that about 85 percent of the corpses are Iraqi and the rest Iranian, Walters said.

Walters confirmed that a wall in the building was riddled with 23 bullet holes, but said there were no shell casings or similar evidence that would indicate the shed had been used for executions.

AP
 
Klaus said:
According to "Tageschau" Al Jazeera said that they are victims of the Iran/Iraq war the soldiers were given back to Iraq 6 months ago and Iraq was trying to find out their names before burying them

Klaus


and al-jazeera is a credible news source?
 
Apparently because Al Jazeera reports from another point of view it is automatically suspect?
 
sulawesigirl4 said:
Apparently because Al Jazeera reports from another point of view it is automatically suspect?


I dont' know if anyone here has actually watched al jazeera...but it's a pretty sad joke of a news network



it makes fox news look objective.

A lot of arabs actually prefer western news outlets to al jazeera because of this.

But that's neither here nor there in this thread..I hope in fact that it is true that he iraqis were trying to give those ppl a proper burial...it might show that this regime is somewhat human
 
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JOFO:

you didn't read the first page to the end, did you?

Same answer again:

Because i'm interested in the truth i didn't just mention the source of my information but also the source of the source so that everyone can make his picture of the situation.

Klaus
 
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