Anytime you hear some Bushite touting that Iraq is better off because of our actions tell them about
this:
This from the mouth of a 14-year-old boy: "They tied the legs and hands of 11 Sunni men and hanged them off the river bridge - head-first. But they still refused to talk, so Sheik Khadum Shibley shot them in the arms and legs and then he cut the ropes."
The Sydney Morning Herald has independent reporters in Iraq. They tell a story of private Shia warriors that are the real power in Iraq.
The summary executions,
confirmed by the boy's father and others in the village, come amid anxiety by US and UN officials over widespread reports of rampant torture and killings by freelance death squads and the Shiite militiamen who now dominate Iraq's security forces.
Young Munthadar is disturbingly matter-of-fact as he tells of events that unfolded late last month in Radwania, a small farming community on the Al Ka'ad River, near Baghdad International Airport.
"The insurgents came to kill Sheik Khadum because we would not let them use our lands to launch attacks on the airport.
"We set a trap and captured them. But they wouldn't give the pin numbers to open their mobiles, so he hanged them from the bridge.
"Next morning, they still wouldn't open the mobiles for us to see who their friends were, so the Sheik shot them and then he cut the ropes. One of them had a long beard and Sheik Khadum told him: 'Your beard is dirty - the best place to clean it is in the river'."
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A Herald researcher who visited Radwania was shown a picture, said to have been taken about half-way through the killings with a mobile phone camera, in which five bodies could be seen hanging from the bridge. Locals refused to part with a copy of the image because they thought it would incriminate the Sheik.
Religious militiamen have infiltrated the Interior Ministry and police forces. They routinely conduct extrajudicial torture and killings with Ministry vehicles and weapons
Baghdad's central morgue now routinely returns handcuffs removed from the corpses, many of which show signs of torture, to police headquarters.
Some Iraqi officials have attempted to deny that elements of the predominantly-Shiite security forces are running amok, but others are confirming the suspicion voiced by diplomats, human rights groups and coalition military officers.
The Herald has obtained a gruesome document containing almost 70 images of the victims of torture which last month prompted United Nations officials in Baghdad to warn of an alarming deterioration in law and order.
Prepared by the Muslim Scholars' Association, a Sunni organisation, it focuses on a raid by Iraqi security forces in the mixed Al Hurria district of Baghdad, after which the mutilated bodies of 36 men who had been detained in the early hours of the morning were found dumped near the Iranian border.
There has been no official explanation for the raid in which individual families lost up to four members.
Local Sunnis claimed that the uniformed raiding party wore the distinctive shoulder patches of Brigade Borkan, an entirely Shiite rapid intervention force attached to the Interior Ministry. Borkan means 'volcano'.
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Last year the US occupation authority in Baghdad ordered the disbanding of all private militias, urging instead that their ranks be integrated into the security forces. This has happened but individuals have regrouped within the services, where some of their commanders tolerate or allow the use of vehicles and weapons for illegal raids and extra-judicial killings, according to sources close to the forces.
The elections present a picture of a happy Iraq on television, but there is no doubt that life there is just as brutal under American "control" as it was under Saddam. And George just laughingly accepted responsibility, absolving himself of his sins like any demi-god would.