Success in Iraq? Heck of a job Bushie!

Iraq's Death Squads: On the Brink of Civil War

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

Published on Sunday, February 26, 2006 by the lndependent/UK

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.

Much of the statistical information provided to Mr Pace and his team comes from the Baghdad Medico-Legal Institute, which is located next to the city's mortuary. He said figures show that last July the morgue alone received 1,100 bodies, about 900 of which bore evidence of torture or summary execution. The pattern prevailed throughout the year until December, when the number dropped to 780 bodies, about 400 of which had gunshot or torture wounds.

UN: Iraqi refugees top 4 million

08/29/2007 09:57
UN - IRAQ

Geneva (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The number of Iraqis fleeing the incessant violent in their country has topped 4 million. According to data published by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of internally displaced peoples and refugees will continue to rise. “An estimated 4.2 million Iraqis have been uprooted from their homes”, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis told journalists “with the monthly rate of displacement climbing to over 60,000”. According to Iraqi Red Crescent sources the number of internally displaced persons (Idp) are more than 80 to 100 thousand a month