Bush's Questionable Fact Sheet: Repression and Atrocities by Saddam Hussein's Regime
Fact Sheet
Repression and Atrocities by Saddam Hussein's Regime
For over 20 years, the greatest threat to Iraqis has been Saddam Hussein's
regime - he has killed, tortured, raped and terrorized the Iraqi people and his
neighbors for over two decades.
When Iraq is free, past crimes against humanity and war crimes committed
against Iraqis, will be accounted for, in a post-conflict Iraqi-led
process. The United States, members of the coalition and international community
will work with the Iraqi people to build a strong and credible judicial process
to address these abuses.
Under Saddam's regime many hundreds of thousands of people have died as a
result of his actions - the vast majority of them Muslims.
According to a 2001 Amnesty International report, "victims of torture in Iraq
are subjected to a wide range of forms of torture, including the gouging out of
eyes, severe beatings and electric shocks... some victims have died as a result
and many have been left with permanent physical and psychological damage."
Saddam has had approximately 40 of his own relatives murdered.
Allegations of prostitution used to intimidate opponents of the regime, have
been used by the regime to justify the barbaric beheading of women.
Documented chemical attacks by the regime, from 1983 to 1988, resulted in
some 30,000 Iraqi and Iranian deaths.
Human Rights Watch estimates that Saddam's 1987-1988 campaign of terror
against the Kurds killed at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 Kurds.
- The Iraqi regime used chemical agents to include mustard gas and nerve
agents in attacks against at least 40 Kurdish villages between 1987-1988.
The largest was the attack on Halabja which resulted in approximately 5,000
deaths.
- 2,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed during the campaign of terror.
Iraq's 13 million Shi'a Muslims, the majority of Iraq's population of
approximately 22 million, face severe restrictions on their religious practice,
including a ban on communal Friday prayer, and restriction on funeral processions.
[Editors' Note: In America, by Constitutional
rights, freedom of religion is a most cherished right.]
According to Human Rights Watch, "senior Arab diplomats told the London-based
Arabic daily newspaper al-Hayat in October [1991] that Iraqi leaders were privately
acknowledging that 250,000 people were killed during the uprisings, with most of
the casualties in the south." Refugees International reports that the "Oppressive
government policies have led to the internal displacement of 900,000 Iraqis,
primarily Kurds who have fled to the north to escape Saddam Hussein's Arabization
campaigns (which involve forcing Kurds to renounce their Kurdish identity or lose
their property) and Marsh Arabs, who fled the government's campaign to dry up the
southern marshes for agricultural use. More than 200,000 Iraqis continue to live
as refugees in Iran."
The U.S. Committee for Refugees, in 2002, estimated that nearly 100,000 Kurds,
Assyrians and Turkomans had previously been expelled, by the regime, from the
"central-government-controlled Kirkuk and surrounding districts in the oil-rich
region bordering the Kurdish controlled north."
"Over the past five years, 400,000 Iraqi children under the age of five died
of malnutrition and disease, preventively, but died because of the nature of the
regime under which they are living." (Prime Minister Tony Blair, March 27, 2003)
- Under the oil-for-food program, the international community sought to make
available to the Iraqi people adequate supplies of food and medicine, but the
regime blocked sufficient access for international workers to ensure proper
distribution of these supplies.
- Since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, coalition forces have
discovered military warehouses filled with food supplies meant for the Iraqi
people that had been diverted by Iraqi military forces.
The Iraqi regime has repeatedly refused visits by human rights monitors.
From 1992 until 2002, Saddam prevented the UN Special Rapporteur from visiting
Iraq.
The UN Special Rapporteur's September 2001, report criticized the regime for
"the sheer number of executions," the number of "extra judicial executions on
political grounds," and "the absence of a due process of the law."
Executions: Saddam Hussein's regime has carried out frequent summary
executions, including:
- 4,000 prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in 1984
- 3,000 prisoners at the Mahjar prison from 1993-1998
- 2,500 prisoners were executed between 1997-1999 in a "prison cleansing campaign"
- 122 political prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib prison in February/March 2000
- 23 political prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib prison in October 2001
- At least 130 Iraqi women were beheaded between June 2000 and April 2001
Posted 04 April 2003
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