iraq has executed pow's: pentagon, page-10

If they wanted something to protest march against - why don't they march against the following.



Witnesses tell of atrocities
By Leo Schlink in London
14mar03

CHILLING new details of Saddam Hussein's reign of terror in Iraq have been revealed.

Researchers preparing an indictment of Saddam for crimes against humanity detailed evidence of torture, murder and ethnic cleansing gathered from witnesses in northern Iraq over the past few weeks.
Their horrific report included eyewitness testimony of prisoners being killed by being fed through industrial shredders and children being gassed in jail.

British MPs heard an impassioned plea for military intervention from Shanaz Rachid, daughter of prominent Kurdish leader Ibrahim Ahmed, who accused the international community of standing by for more than two decades while the Iraqi people suffered under Saddam.

Iraqi Kurds and Shi'ite Muslims would welcome war to unseat the dictator, but were fearful that chemical weapons would be used to massacre them if US and UK troops withdrew from the area without toppling him, she said.

Ms Rachid was scathing about the role of French President Jacques Chirac in leading opposition to war, which she said the Kurdish people would not "easily forget".

Presenting evidence to MPs at the House of Commons, researchers from Indict – the organisation gathering evidence to prosecute Saddam and his henchmen – said many of the stories they were told were so horrific they were difficult to believe.

But there was a "remarkable consistency" in evidence from many different sources, which boosted its credibility.

Witnesses had told them about prisoners of the regime having finger and toenails torn out, being given electric shocks to the genitals, tortured with boiling water and beaten.

Women were suspended by the hair or legs in front of their families and raped while their husbands were forced to watch.

Saddam's son Qusay – the head of Iraq's security and intelligence agencies – had administered mustard gas on prisoners, including a 12-year-old boy whose father heard his screams from a neighbouring cell, they were told.

Saddam's special adviser Barzan al-Tikriti, Iraq's former representative on the UN Commission on Human Rights, had personally taken part in the torture of detainees before their execution.

One witness, who spent 15 years in jail after being accused of using a false surname, described a particularly horrific method of execution: "There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were . . . made to watch.

"Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this.

"Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food."



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