U.s. Body May Reveal ?torture Hospital' Secrets

[MORTARDUDE]

U.S. BODY MAY REVEAL ?TORTURE HOSPITAL' SECRETS

By BRAD HUNTER
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HORROR SCENE:
A car battery adjacent to a metal bed frame is evidence of Iraqi torturers' work.
- CNBC

March 30, 2003 -- At least one of the bodies of the four American soldiers discovered in a shallow grave was "brutalized and mutilated," Pentagon sources revealed yesterday.
The corpses were unearthed in the vicinity of the "hospital" at Nasiriyah where U.S. Marines found evidence that the Iraqis had operated a torture chamber.

Military officials are now investigating whether there is any connection between the hospital and the fate of at least 12 members of a U.S. Army mechanical unit that disappeared last Sunday.

President Bush, in his weekly radio address to the nation, said the latest horrors from Iraq illustrate how evil Saddam Hussein's regime is.



"The regime continues to rule by terror. Prisoners of war have been brutalized and executed," the commander-in-chief said.

"War criminals will be hunted relentlessly and judged severely. Every atrocity has confirmed the justice and urgency of our cause."

Officials would not immediately confirm whether the dead soldiers were members of the mechanical unit who had taken a wrong turn and were ambushed by Iraqi forces.

Two members of the convoy are known to be dead while another five are listed as prisoners of war.

"We're not sure who it is [in the graves] at this point," said Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

U.S. forensics experts and mortuary personnel are now trying to determine the identities of the dead soldiers. But officials fear the worst.

Inside the hospital, the shocked Marines found bloodied pieces of an American female soldier's uniform. Her name badge and American flag were missing.

Now, investigators believe that the hospital was a den of horror rather than healing and was used by the fanatical Feyidah militia as a staging area and headquarters. Inside, the leathernecks found one room that was equipped with a bed and a car battery, indicating that it was used to electrically torture prisoners.

The five POWs have been paraded on Iraqi television in a sickening violation of the Geneva Conventions on war.

Also shown was twisted footage of five dead American soldiers. Several of the bodies appeared to have execution-style gunshot wounds to their heads.

And it's believed at least some of the missing soldiers were at the hospital.

[Desdichado]

Remind me again why we want to SAVE these people?