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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zonder who wrote (3281)	8/21/2003 6:00:07 PM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

E.T. has justified 9/11, by his logic. The U.S. was supporting a number of corrupt goverments in the Middle East. Nobody was doing anything about it, everybody was just "sitting on their ass". So, Al Qaeda "kicked the can". Tom

To: zonder who wrote (3281)	8/22/2003 5:33:30 AM
From: E. T.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

Why don't the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people who died under Saddam's reign have meaning for you? I'm not talking about the people who died during the Iran/Iraq war, but rather his own people he gassed or tortured to death or shot/kicked to death with impunity. Don't you ever wonder about the mass grave of 200 children near Kirkut (sp) and how many others there must be that haven't been discovered yet. I didn't choose to go to Iraq, but I'm not going to cry for Saddam. And for all your griping, the Iraqi people are better off today and their future is brighter than it has been for the last 25 years. How many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dead Iraqi Shi-ites is Chemical Ali responsible for? Why doesn't his murdering have meaning to you? Let the Iraqi leaders continue to butcher their people, but if anyone else steps in to stop it, that's the wrong of all wrongs. Sure you want to respect france for supporting the status quo, fine. I think the world is a better place now with Saddam off the scene, and I think most Iraqi people would agree with me.

To: zonder who wrote (3281)	8/22/2003 12:43:48 PM
From: xcr600	Respond to of 20773

Exhumations of war dead begin August 19, 2003 Digging has begun at one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces in Baghdad at the start of a painstaking nationwide program to exhume remains of Iraqis killed during the war. The Red Crescent, the Islamic branch of the Red Cross, said 45 bodies had been recovered since volunteers started digging three weeks ago at sites on the vast complex beside the Tigris River, now used as a US military headquarters. They will be returned to families after identification. "It's a long, complicated process. It needs a lot of patience," said Red Crescent spokesman Qusay Ali al-Mafraji. Although there are exact figures for US and British military casualties during the invasion and occupation of Iraq, nobody really knows how many local soldiers and civilians died. Many Iraqis have no idea where missing relatives are. Mafraji guessed between 15,000 and 20,000 Iraqis died in the US-British invasion to topple Saddam, though he stressed that was an imprecise estimate. "In Iraq we have 18 governates, and there was direct war in 15 of them. How can we know with precision how many died?" he said. "What we know is that fewer soldiers died here than in the previous two wars because many ran away this time; they did not want to fight," he added, referring to the 1991 Gulf War and the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. On the other hand, in the 1991 conflict, civilians were far away but this time the Iraqi army was inside cities, he said. An Anglo-American research group, the Iraq Body Count, says between 6000 and 7800 civilians died, according to a running toll it keeps based on reports by media and investigators. The exhumation program taking place at Saddam's main former palace in Baghdad is intended to extend to other sites in the capital and across the country in coming months. The Red Crescent is spearheading the project with the Iraq office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in co-ordination with US and British occupiers. "It is very important for the families to get the bodies back, but this has to be done in an organised, respectful and scientific way," ICRC spokeswoman Nada Doumani said. Many areas where retreating Iraqi troops or arriving Americans buried dead are known to locals, such as Baghdad airport where hundreds of Saddam's Republican Guards are thought to have died in a ferocious battle. Some Iraqis have stuck up signs on the road to the airport saying "Martyrs' Graveyard". Identity papers, items such as watches, or any distinguishable features are being used to match bodies with information given by waiting relatives, the Red Crescent and Red Cross said. Unclaimed bodies will be reburied in temporary graves. Reuters This story was found at: smh.com.au