Sunday, April 17, 2005
HERE ARE THE BODIES
Last July, cynical Phillip Adams questioned the number of Iraqi deaths attributed to Saddam Hussein. “Where are the bodies of evidence?” he asked. Interestingly, Adams didn’t ask the same question over Lancet estimates that up to 100,000 Iraqis had died following the US-led liberation of Iraq:
No longer embarrassed by 100,000 dead civilians, the collateral damage will be unconstrained, as George W. Bush, no more Mr Nice Guy, celebrates his second honeymoon by making missiles rain from the heavens like confetti.
That’s our Phil, as informed as ever. One important difference between claims against Saddam (which Adams doubts) and the Lancet claims (which Phil believes) is that, in the case of the former, there actually are thousands of bodies. And more keep turning up:
Investigators have discovered several mass graves in southern Iraq that are believed to contain the bodies of people killed by Saddam Hussein’s government, including one estimated to hold 5,000 bodies, Iraqi officials say.
The graves, discovered over the past three months, have not yet been dug up because of the risks posed by the continuing insurgency and the lack of qualified forensic workers, said Bakhtiar Amin, Iraq’s interim human rights minister. But initial excavations have substantiated the accounts of witnesses to a number of massacres. If the estimated body counts prove correct, the new graves would be among the largest in the grim tally of mass killings that have gradually come to light since the fall of Mr. Hussein’s government two years ago. At least 290 grave sites containing the remains of some 300,000 people have been found since the American invasion two years ago, Iraqi officials say.
Enough bodies for you, Phil? Time for a retraction, maybe?
(Via LGF)
UPDATE. Earlier mass-grave reports from Arthur Chrenkoff.