Xref: utzoo misc.headlines:24797 trial.talk.politics.peace:79 talk.politics.mideast:36217 alt.desert-storm:11674 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ukma!xanth!mcnc!decwrl!world!bzs From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: misc.headlines,trial.talk.politics.peace,talk.politics.mideast,alt.desert-storm,alt.conspiracy Subject: Re: Missing in Action Message-ID: Date: 14 Mar 91 18:13:40 GMT References: <9103132214.879@mydog.UUCP> Sender: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Organization: The World Lines: 42 In-Reply-To: gcf@mydog.UUCP's message of 14 Mar 91 03:14:23 GMT From: gcf@mydog.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) >How many Iraqis were killed in the recent Gulf War? Fifty >thousand, a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand? Nobody >knows for sure. One of the reasons is that the United States >has chosen to violate the Geneva Convention in regard to the >Iraqi dead. According to the Geneva Convention, the party in >control of a given territory after combat is responsible for >making its best effort to find, count, and identify the >casualties of its adversary, including the dead. The U.S. >command has made it clear that it has no intention of doing so. >Many of the Iraqi dead were simply bulldozed into mass graves >without any attempt to count them, much less identify them, and >with no reports made or asked for. As I understand it the British War Graves unit of their Army is in charge of this particular operation, so your gripe may be with someone else, tho that's a minor nit. They are indeed burying in mass graves, and providing the location and other details of these graves to the Iraqis. I don't know if the Iraqis use "dog-tags" and whether these are being collected and provided (I suppose it might be better to leave them with the body, there must be some custom for this.) I wouldn't expect the current Iraqi govt to go to a lot of trouble to resolve this right now. I would be surprised if they were turned down if they asked to exhume the graves, I don't believe they have asked for anything (yet.) My impression is that burying in mass graves and providing the whereabouts is a step in resolving the matter. It doesn't end there as later exhumation is still available, essentially forever, but might take some settling of Iraqi internal affairs to go to a second stage given the size of the operation required to finally settle this. -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | bzs@world.std.com | uunet!world!bzs Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD