Many of the bodies appeared to have died from gunshot wounds to the head.
Each coffin carried an Arabic inscription and the plastic bags had scrawled notations made with marker pens.
An adjacent building contained detention cells, equipped with meat hooks hanging from the ceiling, and portraits of Saddam Hussein stared down from some of the grey walls.
In offices, British soldiers found catalogues filled with handwritten lists and photographs of the dead.
"Bloody hell, these are all executions," Captain Jack Kemp was quoted as saying as he leafed through the gory photographs.
Capt. Kemp said he believed there were more than 200 coffins, with hundreds of plastic bags filled with the remains.
Inside the warehouse, one of the bags contained an identity card written in Arabic, while military webbing and boot soles were visible in others.
"Each of the bags is labelled and there are human remains inside them," said Capt Kemp, 40. He said the remains were "obviously years old" and were not from the current conflict.
Some of the black and white photographs showed corpses that were mutilated beyond recognition, with burned and swollen faces.
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