Latest updates

Latest updates:

• 03 March 2006: 3/4 Baghdad morgue deliveries executions, often tortured first
• 28 Feb 2006: Grievances fuelling insurgency
• 20 Feb 2006: Iran's Minister of Defence scores rhetorical points against US
• 17 February 2006: Washington Post on Iraqi sectarian violence
• 15 February 2006: Torture strengthens insurgency
• 08 February 2006: Republicans in house committee vote down torture investigation
• 05 February 2006: CIA chief fired for opposing torture
• 01 Feb 2006: Creating terrorists
• 24 January 2006: German hostages in orange overalls
• 08 December 2005: Marine tells of US torturing Afghans, commits murder-suicide
• 18 November 2005: Hamra bombing retaliation against Interior Ministry torture
• 27 September 2004: Evidence against prisoners at GTMO obtained by torturing other prisoners
• 04 March 2002: Incident: Kiyemba

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3/4 Baghdad morgue deliveries executions, often tortured first

Today The Washington Post will quote former UN human rights chief for Iraq, John Pace, saying that between two-thirds and three-fourths of the victims brought to Baghdad's main morgue are recorded as casualties of gunshot wounds. Nearly all showed signs of having been executed, tortured or both.

The statistics of deaths and causes of death in Iraq are not without politicisation and controversy. Regarding other estimates by the Washington Post

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari said on Tuesday that 379 people had been killed since Feb. 22, and he described as inaccurate and exaggerated a Washington Post report that put the death toll at 1,300.

The acting director of the morgue, Qais Hassan, also denied The Post's figure... Hassan began running the morgue when the director, Faik Bakir, fled the country a few months ago after being threatened over the release of morgue information seen as linking many killings to death squads...

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Further reading, opinions and commentary:

• Washington Post, 09 March 2003, 'Official Says Shiite Party Suppressed Body Count'
• Free Iraq, 03 December 2005