"Iraq's death squads: On the brink of civil war"

[Bluebear]

Most of the corpses in Baghdad's mortuary show signs of torture and execution. And the Interior Ministry is being blamed.

By Andrew Buncombe and Patrick Cockburn

Hundreds of Iraqis are being tortured to death or summarily executed every month in Baghdad alone by death squads working from the Ministry of the Interior, the United Nations' outgoing human rights chief in Iraq has revealed.

John Pace, who left Baghdad two weeks ago, told The Independent on Sunday that up to three-quarters of the corpses stacked in the city's mortuary show evidence of gunshot wounds to the head or injuries caused by drill-bits or burning cigarettes. Much of the killing, he said, was carried out by Shia Muslim groups under the control of the Ministry of the Interior...

This was the sort of killing that touched off Lebanon's civil war in 1975. Already an exchange of populations is taking place in Baghdad as members of each community move to districts in which they are in the majority.

The ability of the US occupiers to influence the situation is not only limited, but some of their actions are seen as making things worse. The Americans have been trying to dislodge Mr Jabr as Interior Minister, accusing him of turning his ministry into a Shia bastion. But the Shia believe that the US and its allies, the Kurds, simply want to prevent the majority community from gaining full power over security despite winning two parliamentary elections in 2005.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article347806.ece

[Erika]

1. and why are we there with almost 2,300 troops dead? n/t

[catmother]

2. someone on the news the other day -- it might have been

olbermann said they only talk about the 2300 dead -- they don't mention the 25,000 wounded -- some missing limbs, blinded, etc. and for what? even my moderate republican husband who was in favor of the war has seen the light and says "for what"?:cry: