U.S. Accused of Failing to Protect Mass Grave

Rights workers fear lack of forensic evidence as relatives of the dead unearth more than 3,000 bodies

Rory McCarthy in Mahawil

Thursday May 15, 2003

The Guardian Human rights workers yesterday accused the US military of failing to protect and properly excavate the largest mass grave discovered in Iraq.

Villagers said they had unearthed more than 3,000 bodies from a barren field in Mahawil, close to the ancient Babylonian city of Hilla, south of Baghdad. Hundreds of clear plastic bags were lined up across the site, each containing a handful of torn clothing around broken bones, the only remains of thousands of Shia Muslims arrested and executed after the 1991 uprising.

Relatives of the missing tramped over the site searching through faded identity cards trying to find their dead. Next to one bag was a broken pair of crutches. A prosthetic leg emerged from another.

Continued.

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Lieutenant General James Conway, of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, was at the site but he and his men chose not to help in the search. "Our feeling is that you would rather do this yourself," Gen Conway told a crowd of Iraqis.

"The proper thing is for these people to be able to bury their families," he added afterwards. "We have the evidence we need."

But it was hard to see what detailed evidence the US marines might have retrieved. Instead of a forensic investigation that would hold up in a court of law, villagers wearing orange plastic gloves commandeered a mechanical digger and were tearing through the earth in a desperate search for answers. After the rush, few of the bodies could be properly identified.

Link to Guardian

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