Saddam's Atrocities

In the never-ending debate as to whether or not invading Iraq was “worth it”, people seem to ignore or minimize what a vicious, cruel dictator he was. I will recount my two personal eye-witness accounts of what I saw.

About half way through my tour, I was tasked to drive a carload of US academics from a think tank to the town of Hillah, south of Iraq and near the ancient city of Babylon. We toured the sites of Babylon, including the spot where the Tower of Babel was built, and then set about to our business for the day. After Desert Storm in 1991, the Shias rose in rebellion against Saddam. Most of them live in the southern part of the country. Saddam’s army triumphed over the rebels. In the town of Hillah, five thousand Shia soldiers who were deserters from Saddam’s Army and captured were executed. A large hole was dug in the ground, about 100 yards across. As witnesses tell it, the Shias were brought up in truckloads in open bedded trucks. Their hands were tied behind their backs and they had blindfolds on. An executioner stood in the back with the men and as the trucks circled the edge of the pit, he shot the prisoners in the back of the head and they fell into the pit. Five thousand of them. I saw them. By this time de-composed, but with blindfolds over skulls and bullet holes in the back, who could doubt the story? After we arrived, relatives who had loved ones in the pit began to dig it up and look for them by way of their dog tags, wallets, etc. Those that found relatives in that horrific pile pulled out the remains and buried them beside the pit. On the top as a grave marker they would drive a wooden stake in the ground and tie parts of the soldier’s uniform to it. Think the Holocaust, Rwanda, or Bosnia and you get the picture. Saddam is conservatively estimated to have killed over one million of his own countrymen from 1978-2003.

Closer to the end of our tour, we went to visit Iraq’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Not really “Unknown”, but that’s a loose translation. The Tomb complex is right beside the Convention Center, a five minute walk away. We went there plenty of times, but this time with guides. We went inside the building (which was shaped like a clam shell-see pic) and walked though the marble hallway that circumscribed the building. The floors were also marble. Our Iraqi guide stopped us at one point and pointed to the floor. You could see a wider than normal seam between the marble slabs. He motioned, and we bent down and pried the floor panel up. Underneath was a staircase! (see pic above) Flashlights out, we descended down a spiral staircase to what turned out to be a torture chamber. In the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier building. It was mostly emptied out, but had an old bed frame where victims where shackled and had electric shocks applied to them. Blood stains on the floor. You know, I really don't care that we didn't find any "weapons of mass destruction", and neither do the vast majority of Iraqis.