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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Sunday, February 26, 2006

A different picture of Iraq

The source for this article left Iraq two weeks ago, so it predates the current violence, but I thought it was important nonetheless. (The Independent - UK)

Hundreds of Iraqis are being tortured to death or summarily executed every month in Baghdad alone by death squads working from the Ministry of the Interior, the United Nations' outgoing human rights chief in Iraq has revealed.

John Pace, who left Baghdad two weeks ago, told The Independent on Sunday that up to three-quarters of the corpses stacked in the city's mortuary show evidence of gunshot wounds to the head or injuries caused by drill-bits or burning cigarettes. Much of the killing, he said, was carried out by Shia Muslim groups under the control of the Ministry of the Interior.

Much of the statistical information provided to Mr Pace and his team comes from the Baghdad Medico-Legal Institute, which is located next to the city's mortuary. He said figures show that last July the morgue alone received 1,100 bodies, about 900 of which bore evidence of torture or summary execution.

5 Comments:

  • See! We are bringing American style Democracy to Iraq!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:23 AM  

  • I saw that piece in The Independent too. It's just maddening when you read stuff like that.

    Essentially we're training the Shiite police and the Sunni army so that they can fight, in Kevin Drum's words, a "more efficient civl war."

    Great - and it only cost 2290 American lives, tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, and billions and billions of dollars.

    By Blogger Reality-Based Educator, at 3:06 PM  

  • At every significant point, the wrong decision has been made. Let me change that "a wrong decision" has been made.

    In the words of Src Def Rumsfeld, the decision makeing has been "suboptimal."

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 3:54 PM  

  • Why is this a surprise to anybody? American war-fighting as usual. What are a few death squads among "friends"?

    By Blogger QuakerDave, at 4:38 PM  

  • Early on, I was a pretty strong proponent of the theory that the US was training death squads, referred to as the Salvador option, but I don't think we are now. I think our monster has now broken loose from its chains and they're desperately trying to regain control.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 5:29 PM  

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