CBS: Death Squads In Iraqi Hospitals

(CBS)  An assembly line of rotting corpses lined up for burial at Sandy Desert Cemetery is what civil war in Iraq looks like close up.

The bodies are only a fraction of the unidentified bodies sent from Baghdad every few days for mass burial in the southern Shiite city of Kerbala, CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports.

They come from the main morgue that's overflowing, relatives too terrified to claim their dead because most are from Iraq's Sunni minority, murdered by Shiite death squads.

And the morgue itself is believed to be controlled by the same Shiite militia blamed for many of the killings: the Mahdi Army, founded and led by anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The takeover began after the last election in December when Sadr's political faction was given control of the Ministry of Health. The U.S. military has documented how Sadr's Mahdi Army has turned morgues and hospitals into places where death squads operate freely.

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Reporter's Notebook
Lara Logan writes on how she found the story of the hospital death squads.

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The chilling details are spelled out in an intelligence report seen by CBS News. Among some of the details of the report are:

Hospitals have become command and control centers for the Mahdi Army militia.

Sunni patients are being murdered; some are dragged from their beds.

The militia is keeping hostages inside some hospitals, where they are tortured and executed.

They're using ambulances to transport hostages and illegal weapons, and even to help their fighters escape from U.S. forces.

Iraq's Health Minister, Ali al-Shameri, is a devoted follower of Moqtada al-Sadr. He disputes the report's claims.

"I am ready now, and in the future, to receive investigation teams and journalists to get into any place they want and see whether the Madhi Army are there or not," the Health Minister says. "They will find only doctors, nurses, pharmacy staff and labs and they would find nothing else."

But a hospital worker says Mahdi Army spies are everywhere, and would only talk with both face and voice masked.

"A man was bringing his murdered brother to the morgue. They asked him if he knew who the killers were and he said 'yes.' They shot him right there," she says.

More than 80 percent of the original doctors and staff where she works are gone, replaced by Shia supporters of the Mahdi Army.

"It's going to get worse because there is no control and no accountability," the hospital worker adds. "No one can stop them. They are terrified... No one will be safe. There will be destruction. Complete destruction is what we are watching with our own eyes, and it's getting worse."

In burial, the victims of Iraq's sectarian slaughter still have no names, only a number on an anonymous grave marker. And with neither the Iraqi government nor the U.S. willing to act, the numbers keep climbing.

[cjgermany]

We are not doing the violence, but we are guilty of causing it. If Bush had read five pages of non-neo-Conservative history he would have known that what he was going to do would result in this. Oh I forgot. He's a conservative. Conservative means never taking respoonsibility for your actions. Always blaming someone else or some conspiracy.

[globaljg]

Lara Logan's piece describing the Mahdi Militia's use of hospitals as operation centers for their crimes was hard-hitting and thought provoking. I met her briefly while stationed in Baghdad and believe she is a serious journalist.

Unfortunately, she taints her excellent work and continues to fuel unnecessary hostility when she concludes the segment with, %u201CAnd with neither the Iraqi government nor the U.S. willing to act, the numbers keep climbing.%u201D On what basis does she makes some a claim?! Thirteen American soldiers and even more Iraqi soldiers have died this week alone in battles specifically targeting the Mahdi militias. The Coalition effort throughout most of 2006 has been dedicated to reigning in the militias. If her complaint is that they have not stopped the militia from using a specific hospital, than she has underestimated the problem with these militias even more than the Bush administration has been accused of.

The overall effect of the American & Iraqi Forces%u2019 operations have been questionable. To say, however, that these forces have been UNWILLING to take on the militia is a slap in the face to the thousands who are working tireless, and sometimes sacrificing everything, to put a stop these illegally armed groups.

[btdt0304]

It isn't Sadr that is to blame for the Ministry of Health being what it is. It's the fact that wrong decisions were made when the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) ran Iraq in 2003-04. Everything that is happening today was predicted and could have been prevented, but the US advisers chose to ignore reality and build a pipe dream - $800 million of ultramodern clinics and hospitals that are sitting half-finished, instead of building responsible management in the Ministry of Health. We are getting what we paid for, and the Iraqis are getting nothing in return.

[jcomb1]

This is just the worst !
I know Bush's big big Texas ego wouldn't allow him to consider it, but I say release Sadaam, put him back in charge and get the hell out of there !

[marti1911]

Wow, That is amazing. The evil genius of using hospitals to identify victims, torture and kill them. I think things have gone beyond any
one's ability to bring reconciliation. This is stark tribalism beyond even darkest Africa. The Americans can't stop this, not even with a soldier on every corner. This will not stop until there is a Sunni run safe haven. The Iraqi government is completely
infiltrated. I am sure behind closed doors, the Shia and Iranians are planning this out, seeking revenge and establishing complete
control.

Great story.

[minx80]

Why don't they just split the country and be done with it. Shia, Sunni, Kurds. Tell them if they don't get it together the USA is going to take over the governance and really become the occupiers.

[qn_of_spades]

"Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk." - Joaquin Setanti

[rfman3]

I think oil has a lot to with the problems and bad situations that are going on in the world today. I am not with Green Peace, or some kind of tree hugger. I'm just an average America who is tiered of buying product from countries that hate us. We are a great nation, who can do better than this. I support any type of fuel alternatives; Ethanol (E85), Hydrogen, Bio Diesel, Solar, and any other fuel we can produce locally. I encourage everyone, who is tiered of seeing countries burning our flag and saying "Death To America", not to support them by buying there exports. I also encourage everyone to vote for someone that supports these ideas and who is not in any oil company's back pocket. If we would have invested the money we have spent in Iraq, into alternative fuel sources, we would have saved thousands of lives, put money into local US farmers pockets, and made these countries that hate us a little more poorer. It's kind of hard to buy bombs and WMD when you don't have the billions to spend on them....

[txgs33]

This Iraq fiasco sucks! Everybody knows this was a neo-con ( boy that sounds like a character from planet of the apes!) ***-shoot thinkin they are going to change the middle east with only 150,000 of our finest americans ( thanks Donald. Smart move dude!) The reality is in order to get out of this awfull mess is MORE troops on a three year bases ( 350,000 troops total ) and then slowly draw that down. my thinkin is with so many troops, hopefully Iraq will have some REAL security and be able to take care of Al-Sadr and sunni insugents once and for all. Where do we get this 350,000 troops you may ask? Welcome back the draft ladies and gentlemen. Hope someone else has a better way to get out of this mess besides pressing the "easy button."

[getcentered]

What the hell are we doing?! I can't take it!

We are Americans. Americans are dying in a place we should not be.

How did we come to have this HUGE problem called IRAQ?

A member of my family is an officer in the Marines, and wants to know. He is in danger.

What can we tell him? It's too late? That he might die like the rest of the 2700+ US Service men and women because President Bush, "made a mistake"? Is that supposed to raise his moral?

This is the problem.
We will fight a war FOREVER, if we don't believe WHY we're doing it is right and worthy.

We NEED leaders who CAN keep us safe. Who will not cook up reasons for us to die.

Please, get centered, vote.
"Amongst you whoever is without sin cast the first stone" %u2013Gandhi