Captives buried alive

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003171402,00.html Captives buried alive



From BOB GRAHAM in Baghdad
and NICK PARKER in Al Faw

ROYAL Marines were racing against time last night to free prisoners believed to have been buried alive by Saddam Hussein?s fleeing forces.

Engineers were called in after officers heard scratching beneath the plinth of a wrecked statue of the tyrant in Al Faw.

Locals said they had seen two coachloads of prisoners being sealed in a secret chamber under the site.

A similar search was being carried out in another town where around 30 people were feared to have been cemented inside an underground vault.

The Marines launched their operation in Al Faw, close to Iraq?s southernmost tip.

They used pneumatic drills and a bulldozer in an attempt to break through a yard-thick layer of concrete thought to have been poured into a stairwell leading to the dungeon.

Scratching noises from below had been heard during silent pauses ordered in the work.

Lieut Col Simon Wolsey, of 29 Commando Royal Artillery, which called in the digging teams, said: ?I definitely heard something. A medic who was with us used his stethoscope and confirmed he heard noise.

?Locals are adamant they saw coachloads of possibly Kuwaiti prisoners from the last war being brought here before Coalition forces arrived.?

Men from 59 Commando Engineers worked in shifts inside the 30ft-high hollow plinth.

Others tried to bulldoze their way in from outside.

Staff Sgt George Lamplough, 35, said: ?I?ve just worked 12 hours solid trying to get through the concrete.?

Meanwhile in Al Amarah north of Basra hundreds of Iraqis, aided by British troops, tried to reach a group of opponents of Saddam?s regime they believed had been incarcerated.

Locals said they had heard screams for help. One would-be rescuer, Mohammed Tareq, 37, claimed the captives had been forced into an underground bunker in shackles before the entrance was concreted over.

He added: ?We will not stop until they are recovered ? whether that be dead or alive.?

Crowds around him tried to smash their way in using pickaxes and sledgehammers. But Tareq admitted: ?As each hour passes we grow less hopeful we will find them alive.?

Intelligence sources claimed last night that Saddam was betrayed by his commanders.

It was said they were bribed to surrender by America in the second week of the war. They were paid huge sums and given safe passage out of Iraq.

It meant the Americans could take Baghdad last week with minimal resistance. One of the Iraqi commanders was thought to be General Maher Sufyan, who told his Republican Guard forces to give up and go home.

The people of Baghdad began the slow process of resuming their normal lives yesterday ? amid traffic jams.

US troops have asked police, medical workers and key staff to get critical services running.

Residents were warned not to leave their homes at night for fear of attacks by stragglers from Saddam?s militia.

US President George Bush refused yesterday to declare victory in Iraq until the last resistance had been destroyed.

He said: ?Victory in Iraq is certain ? but it is not complete.?

[philly]

When our Military found the Iraqi Prisons vacant, one could only suspect the prisoners had been murdered-Location of bodies still unknown. Learning that Sadaam has ordered political and foreign prisoners entombed, shouldn't shock me because of his laundry list of brutality, but it does. We hear about murder nearly everyday in California. Yet, I am stunned each time I hear about a murder/death. Predators that exist in our world are vicious and are without regard to human life. To me, each life is of great value. To lose one life to murder is like losing a piece of life's puzzle. A puzzle that will never be complete because a life was removed prematurely. In the animal kingdom, there is a food chain. Animals kill so that they may live. Some people kill for the sadistic pleasure of it. I have often wondered how some people, like Sadaam, could reach a point in their lives that killing someone could become so easy and effortless-No remorse, no respect for human life.

[MORTARDUDE]

explain to me how the Hollywood and leftist types can say anything good about a thug and murderer like Fidel Castro !!!!!



Larry