Iraqi Orphanage Nightmare

Exclusive: U.S. And Iraqi Troops Discover And Rescue Orphan Boys Left Starving, Chained To Beds

(CBS)  It was a scene that shocked battle-hardened soldiers, captured in photographs obtained exclusively by CBS News.

On a daytime patrol in central Baghdad just over than a week ago, a U.S. military advisory team and Iraqi soldiers happened to look over a wall and found something horrific.

"They saw multiple bodies laying on the floor of the facility," Staff Sgt. Mitchell Gibson of the 82nd Airborne Division told CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan. "They thought they were all dead, so they threw a basketball (to) try and get some attention, and actually one of the kids lifted up their head, tilted it over and just looked and then went back down. And they said, 'oh, they're alive' and so they went into the building."

Inside the building, a government-run orphanage for special needs children, the soldiers found more emaciated little bodies tied to the cribs. They had been kept this way for more than a month, according to the soldiers called in to rescue the 24 boys.

"I saw children that you could see literally every bone in their body that were so skinny, they had no energy to move whatsoever, no expression on their face," Staff Sgt. Michael Beale said.

"The kids were tied up, naked, covered in their own waste — feces — and there were three people that were cooking themselves food, but nothing for the kids," Lt. Stephen Duperre said.

Logan asked: So there were three people cooking their own food?

"They were in the kitchen, yes ma'am," Duperre said.

With all these kids starving around them?

"Yes ma'am," Duperre said.

It didn't stop there. The soldiers found kitchen shelves packed with food and in the stockroom, rows of brand-new clothing still in their plastic wrapping.

Instead of giving it to the boys, the soldiers believe it was being sold to local markets.

The man in charge, the orphanage caretaker, had a well-kept office — a stark contrast to the terrible conditions just outside that room.

"I got extremely angry with the caretaker when I got there," Capt. Benjamin Morales said. "It took every muscle in my body to restrain myself from not going after that guy."

---

Find out how to help the orphans.
See the photos given to CBS News.
Watch extended video of Logan’s interviews with the soldiers who rescued the orphans.
Read Lara Logan's reporter's notebook on this story.

---

He has since disappeared and is believed to be on the run. But two security guards are in custody, arrested on the orders of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Two women also working there, who posed for pictures in front of the naked boys as if there was nothing wrong, have also disappeared.

"My first thought when I walked in there was shock, and then I got a little angry that they were treating kids like that, then that's when everybody just started getting upset," Capt. Jim Cook said. "There were people crying. It was definitely a bad emotional scene."

There was nothing more emotional than finding one boy who Army medics did not expect to survive. For Gibson, that was the hardest part:

Seeing a boy who was at the orphanage, where Logan reported from, "with thousands of flies covering his body, unable to move any part of his body, you know we had to actually hold his head up and tilt his head to make sure that he was OK, and the only thing basically that was moving was his eyeballs," Gibson explained. "Flies in the mouth, in the eyes, in the nose, ears, eating all the open wounds from sleeping on the concrete."

All that, and the boy was laying in the boiling sun — temperatures of 120 degrees or so, according to Gibson.

Looking at the boy today, as he sits up in his crib without help, it is hard to believe he is the same boy, one week later — now clean and being cared for along with all the other boys in a different orphanage located only a few minutes away from where they suffered their ordeal.

Another little boy right shown in the photos was carried out of the orphanage by Beale. He was very emaciated.

"I picked him up and then immediately the kid started smiling, and as I got a little bit closer to the ambulance he just started laughing. It was almost like he completely understood what was going on," Beale said.

When CBS News visited the orphanage with the soldiers, it was clear the boys had been starved of human contact as much as anything else, Logan said. Some still had marks on their ankles from where they were tied. Since only one boy can talk, it's impossible to know what terrible memories they might have locked away.

The memory of what he saw when he helped rescue the boys that night haunts Ali Soheil, the local council head, who wept during the interview.

Later at the hospital, Lt. Jason Smith brushed teeth and helped clean up the boys. He and his wife are both special education teachers, and he was proud to tell her what the soldiers had done.

"She said that one day was worth my entire deployment," Smith said. "It makes the whole thing worthwhile."

This is a tough test for the Iraqi government: How a nation cares for its most vulnerable is one of the most important benchmarks for the health of any society.

[bksvls]

How sad! There are no words for that. Those people need to be hanged. Period. Those poor kids dont deserve that. Thank God for the Soldiers finding them. They would have all died there.

[stevestr_cbs]

Tell me why this nation and its religious people have allowed sauch horrid treatment of its most vulnerable children? Don't be so busy, Iraqi terrorists, trying to run the Americans out of your country or blowing up people in the name of Allah.

Stand up, Iraqi people, and do the right thing. Help these children, please.

[rudy654-2009]

And the Iraqi government, what? Doesn't it exist at all to take care of these problems???? Talk about a worthless government.

[egmd]

God bless our troops.

[hypnotoad72]

Hey everybody, let's pull out of Iraq! The people and orphanages there will grow up and treat each other with civility as a result!

Obviously I'm being sarcastic.

And now I'm not going to be sarcastic:

Thank you, soldiers, for saving and helping those children. YOU are a credit to our Nation.

And thank you, CBS, for putting up a type of article we rarely see. Once I get my act together I intend to go into the same field. The good needs to be mentioned as well. And other points of view (apart from the trite "We need to pull out!" garbage.)

And, finally, how a nation treats its vulnerable is probably the most interesting footnote to have been mentioned. This is an area where the US needs to improve on as well...

[radiob-2009]

He has since disappeared and is believed to be on the run. But two security guards are in custody, arrested on the orders of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Two women also working there, who posed for pictures in front of the naked boys as if there was nothing wrong, have also disappeared


It is great that these children were found but why did they allow the caretaker to flee? Could they have not restrained him?

[kellyn_12]

Thank you for airing this story. Most of the time I think we are doing nothing good in Iraq but then I find stories like this. Maybe we really do have a purpose there. Those children would have died if the soldiers had not found them. I pray that those children will all recover and live a better life then what they have experienced.

[mediabrat60]

Let this get shoved down the throats of anyone who complains about our soldiers being in Iraq!

[sasi1-2009]

Thank you soldiers; you earned a star in your crown!

[krenz4]

And Muslims have the nerve to get outraged over abu graib! and Salmon Rushdie!!! Where is there outrage over this???? Maybe they can come up with how can they make this atrocity 'all America's fault???"

[republic1776]

A relief to see a story about our fine men and women making a difference.
The mid east has long been so much more than a war. It's basic human rights we defend.
lest, what most liberals think, Americia stands tall and proud.

[nana0403]

This was so hard to see, but our soldiers are there for this reason-the Iraqi people AND their children. Thank God that they got there in time. It is a shame that no WMD were found, but at least these poor babies were.

[lawhites]

If we had brought our soldiers home, who would have been there to save these children?

Just a thought for those of you who think our soldiers aren't accomplishing anything over there.

God bless our troops.

[zorlacskates]

that is a good story, but don't get too self-righteous, bushies. i wonder how many of those children are orphans because of american bombs.

[kjmmat]

Unbelieve site no words can describe it!
If there was some guiding light that lead our Soldiers to rescue those boys' than there is truly some amazing power; some sort of faith that probably the frail and helpless boys were not even aware of. My heartfelt prayers go out to the boys to regain their strength and health.

If there is anything that I can do, or donate-Please I would like to do what I can to help.

To Our Soldiers Phenomenal Job!!!
Sincerely,
Kjmmat
[e-mail]

[mediabrat60]

In case some of you critics didn't read the article fully, let me explain, it was an orphange for mentally disabled children, not just any orphange. They were not there because of all the bombing. Get educated!

[nlm2383]

I would put money on it that the government will have those people hanged for doing what they did to those children, thats what they deserve. But I have to agree, who knows how many of those children are orphans because of American bombs... Maybe we did this to them? Nonetheless, they are safe now, that's what matters.

[agnim]

"Thank you for airing this story. Most of the time I think we are doing nothing good in Iraq but then I find stories like this. Maybe we really do have a purpose there.
Posted by kellyn_12 at 06:49 PM : Jun 18, 2007"

Be serious!
First we go smash up the country so that the children can't be adequately taken care of; then you think you 'save' a few?

Iraqi children have been suffering for decades on account of US devilish actions.

On account of the diabolical AMERICAN INVASION, these are desperate times in Iraq!

Who has time to take care of 'special needs' children when everyone has to be scrounging to stay alive in the Iraqi hell hole that Americans help to create in the first place?

Otherwise dignified Iraqi women are out prostituting themselves just to remain alive.

Iraq is a HELL HOLE and the US is greatly responsible! What we are doing in Iraq is to create hell on earth for Iraqi women and children!
Wake the hell up from the state of ignorance and denial!
These are people who can take care of themselves under ordinary conditions!

[space_poet]

I wonder if that orphanage had electricity 24 hours a day instead of now 10-12...

I wonder if the caretakers had to sell food to get by before the bombing began...

I wonder if the children's relatives had to vacate Baghdad long ago like the other 100,000's of thousands did...

I wonder if we have places like those here in the United States, cause it seems like we probably do...

This is the horror of war, you think this is bad, you haven't seen anything...

[cdfoxtrot]

I have to laugh at the spin-masters portraying this as the US soldiers "rescuing" these abused kids. If Iraq had been left alone none of this would likely have happened. Praising the US soldiers for this is like thanking a mugger for handing back an empty wallet.

[feelfree1]

And in Afghanistan, we see that U.S.-led forces just bombed 7 more children to death. Woops!

The crocodile tears of CBS's U.S. war crimes apologist, Lara Logan, are particularly disgusting in this report.

Like she really gives a rat's arse about a few Iraqi orphans. Get real.

This story rates right up there with the rescue of a cat from a tree, and is completely ridiculous as compared to the onslaught of misery that we have delivered to the people of Iraq.

End the illegal and horrific war, the torture, the abuse, and the resource grab against the people of Iraq, and get the illegitimate and mass-murderous Bush regime butchers in front of a war crimes tribunal!!!

www.ipetitions.com/petition/OutNow

[feelfree1]

Meanwhile, around a half-million Iraqi children died as a result of the continuous bombing of Iraq and harsh sanctions under Clinton.

The toll of the current illegal U.S.-led invasion of Iraq:

- 4 million Iraqis displaced

- 1 million violent Iraqi civilian deaths

- Iraqi children turned into orphans by trigger-happy checkpoint guards spraying the brains of their parents upon them

- U.S. imprisonment of Iraqi children

- U.S. torture of Iraqis

- U.S. soldiers gang-raping a 14-year-old girl, executing her family, then the girl when they finish gang-raping her, then setting her corpse on fire in a cover-up effort

- millions and millions of Iraqis with no safe drinking water, hardly any electricity, no garbage, or sewage services

- hospitals bombed by U.S.-led forces

- little Iraqi girls forced into prostitution in order to feed themselves

- on, and on, and on

[ramos937]

It is very hard to speak. I wish I had words to condem the people responsible for this. Frankly, I wish our guys had made the people responsible for this pay. I still do not know why they did not. But, still guys you did a great thing in rescuing these kids. No matter what you do henceforth, you can always look back at this and be proud.

If someone every comes up with a way that we can contribute to help boys like this and actually have that help get to them and not in some Iraq politican's pocket, please do not keep it to yourself but post it everywhere you can.

I cannt help but think that had Saddam discovered this disgrace, he would have made the people responsible pay.

[wheels216]

I was in tears as I watched this story. These children have suffered so much at the hands of an unscrupulous man as well as the two women who stood by and did nothing. They should be held accountable. In this country, they would be. The soldiers who rescued these children should be hailed as heroes. I am so thankful for our troops. They are doing an extremely difficult and a remarkable job.

[missiowa2]

I cried when I saw this on the news. My 12 yr old and I were watching it and I couldn't hold back the tears. I am just in shock! Seems our troops are doing something great over there and it is awesome to see them save lives instead of always dying. Sad they have to die over there, really! I cried so hard and realize how much our children in our country have allot and they have nothing! The pictures they showed of that woman smiling while being pictured with those adorable children, while they lay and suffer is so cruel! I hope they are treated that way when they are found and I am sure they will be found someday. I pray for those kids and I hope you will too. God Bless AMERICA :)

[stezzer]

Please don't Blame Mr. Bush for this. This is a terrible story and thank God for the American soldiers who rescued these poor children.

I'm British, I don't know an awful lot about American politics, but I do know that America is not responsible for this. America stopped this. Be proud of your military and their decency and compassion.

[feelfree1]

cdfoxtrot,

Re: "Praising the US soldiers for this is like thanking a mugger for handing back an empty wallet."

This is a very good analogy.

###

Agnim,

Re: "Iraq is a HELL HOLE and the US is greatly responsible! What we are doing in Iraq is to create hell on earth for Iraqi women and children!
Wake the hell up from the state of ignorance and denial!"

"These are people who can take care of themselves under ordinary conditions!"

Excellent points.

###

Space_Poet,

Good questions!

[feelfree1]

Re: "Inside the building, a government-run orphanage for special needs children"

Run by the illegitimate puppet government installed under the boot of a brutal an criminal invading Army? In a country whose economy we have destroyed?

Whose fault is that?

The Bush dead-enders are really grasping at straws here.

[space_poet]

"Inside the building, a government-run orphanage for special needs children..."

Wow, TY FeelFree, that is the most significant line in the story here, i totally missed that...

[brokenspurs]

My son was a part of the operation that saved these children, I applaud CBS news for showing the conditions these innocent children were living in. Our soldiers...my son....are making a great positive change in the horrid conditions these children were subject to. I cringe to think of the ones who died prior to them being found. I thank god each and every day for our guys who are putting their lives on the line so we can all live in a safer world. Even the ones who do not appreciate it.

[rsmp1]

The fact that those women could pose for photos with those little boys as if nothing was wrong just reenforces the difference between Iraq and the United States. I am so proud of those soldiers who did not hesitate to help those kids. They could easily have passed right on by leaving the situation as it was. didn't matter to those soldiers that the children were mentally disabled, and it didn't matter to them how they came to be starving to death. All that mattered was that these kids were starving to death while their caretakers fed their own faces and sold the food and clothing meant for the orphans. I only hope that the tears shed by the Iraqi government official who supposedly didn't know about this were for real because the last sentence of the above article says it all. A country whose government would knowingly allow their disabled children to starve to death is,in my opinion, not worth even one of the nearly 4,000 soldiers we have lost.

I am also proud of the families of our soldiers in Iraq. I know how much they must be missed and how worried the families must be. The statement made by Lt. Smith's wife about what the soldiers did for those special needs children being worth his whole deployment was absolutely awesome!

[space_poet]

I recall reading that the Iraqian health care system was one of the best in the entire middle east before we invaded. I dare anyone to refute me on this, i have a very good memory. Go ahead, Goggle it...

[wheelie6]

I can't believe that people are still wondering why we are there.
Those young men are Heroes in my eyes.

[space_poet]

and the second...

Pre-Gulf War Iraq was %u201Cbelieved to have the best health care system in the Mideast, so it had enough altitude that it could fall some and still survive,%u201D says Gilbert Burnham, principal author of the Johns Hopkins survey.

Today, the country%u2019s health care is in free fall. Most of the $1 billion that Washington transfused into the medical system has bled out through the open wounds of wars. Of the 34,000 doctors in Iraq at the time of the invasion, more than half are gone. Most fled the country; 2,000 were murdered.

That's right Freepers, go crawl back into your hole, this is not the good news story you were looking for...

[antoniof123]

I am so sick of this yes, the soldiers did a great job however, did some of you morons miss the real point. WE SHOULD NOT BE IN IRAQ! It doesn't matter how you spin it or how you turn it around it will always be the same WE SHOULD NOT BE IN IRAQ IT WAS BASED ON A LIE. Now my daughter even she has said that if we leave the real hell will break lose but what else can we do. For started hold those who did this to our country responsible and take it all the way. This is the ilk of human kind and you must put the blame where it lies. This can of worms should never have been opened.

[teh_j00ish_1]

For "Space Poet"-

The threshold for debate amongst grown-ups is to provide cited facts, then challenge their refute. Simply saying "I read an article somewhere that said the moon is made of cream cheese and I DARE ANYONE TO REFUTE ME! GOOGLE IT!" really doesn't hold much water.

I googled "Iraqi Health Care" and the first thing that came up was a page from whitehouse.gov. Of course, I'm sure it's all just a pack of lies and a grand conspiracy to project untruths about the much vaunted (lol) Iraqi health care system, but the facts presented on that site seem to be generally favorable.

Of course, the next site was one that claimed that the United States was deliberately targeting and destroying the Iraq health care system (when they're not kicking puppies, raping artists and eating babies, I'm sure) but here lately, I'm having a harder and harder time taking that stuff seriously. It is usually based on anecdote, assumption and conjecture.

[space_poet]

Let's continue our lesson...
from the 4th site-
In the year ending in June, the team calculated Iraq's mortality rate to be roughly four times what it was the year before the war.

Of the total 655,000 estimated "excess deaths," 601,000 resulted from violence and the rest from disease and other causes, according to the study. This is about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout the country.

The survey was done by Iraqi physicians and overseen by epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. The findings are being published online today by the British medical journal the Lancet.

The same group in 2004 published an estimate of roughly 100,000 deaths in the first 18 months after the invasion. That figure was much higher than expected, and was controversial. The new study estimates that about 500,000 more Iraqis, both civilian and military, have died since then --
Gee, yea, wow, we found a couple kids sleeping on the floor and being underfed, ew...

[junogoose]

rsmp1: "A country whose government would knowingly allow their disabled children to starve to death is,in my opinion, not worth even one of the nearly 4,000 soldiers we have lost."


yeah. we only test pesticides on ours.

[feelfree1]

Here is a related article that might help to explain the idiotic nature of this one:

"Mental Illness In The Military On The Rise"

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/15/eveningnews/main2936403.shtml

[junogoose]

wheelie6: "I can't believe that people are still wondering why we are there."

If you acquire a gram of perspective, it's not too hard.

I have to admit that I never read these stories and I rarely do anymore, I spent 21 years in the military and retired 6 years ago, I have blogged, written letters to our congressman, made phone calls etc. All we can do now is ride out the storm until Bush is out of office. God Bless us all

[teh_j00ish_1]

Also regarding your most recent post, that probably has to be the most logically fallacious and outright stupid thing I've read in at least the past 10 minutes.

The collinearity between an increase in overall mortality rates AND A COUNTRY BEING AT WAR kinda explains itself. What does that have to do with the health care system?
(PS- I for one, would like to say that I believe that Saddam was the perfect ruler for those people. Ya see, I have that luxury. I just don't care about Iraq, Iraqis or Arabs in general

You are in the auspicious position of having to be "against the war" that overthrew a brutal, abusive tyrant, yet simultaneously against the byproducts that come from having that dictator in power.

Behold "the left". Here lately, not quite as corrosive as the right, but equally frustrating.

[space_poet]

Teh_J00ish_1- It does when i know what I'm talking about. I see you can not refute what i say with any facts, AS I HAVE in the last 4 posts. Shall I continue my lesson?

Is that all you read, the white house log? hahahahah, silly human, you need to look for more unbiased viewpoints...

[stezzer]

I'm British, but tonight I'm proud of America.

I feel sorry for the people on here, who are so politically motivated, they cannot thank the American soldiers who have liberated these poor children.

God Bless America, and thank you.

[space_poet]

You know Teh_J00ish_1, that's fair, i can accept that, i was just posting the 1st thing i saw even closely related to the proof of there being a better situation before we started this thing, it may have been a little off skew, so thank you for pointing that out.

I still ask you to refute that what I originally said was false. If not, then everything you got to say is moot.

[teh_j00ish_1]

SpacePoet- That reply was about what I expected.

You will notice that your claim of Iraq having such a wonderful pre-war health care system is still relying on people believing that "you read it somewhere" and golly, you dare them to refute you!

I maintain the cellular structure of the dodo bird is arranged in such a way that if you examine it under heavy microscopy, it spells out "SPIRO AGNEW".

I bet you cannot disprove me, so obviously, it means I am right.

wheelie6 wrote:

"I can't believe that people are still wondering why we are there.
Those young men are Heroes in my eyes."

Yes, the young men serving over there are heroes, but whether we should be there is something else entirely.

The saddest part, though, is that these scenes are nothing new, and they happen all around the world, including the United States.

[andrew_693]

This is just another consequence of imbread politics and the illegal invasion. A consequence of bush, cheney, the republicans and the christians who decided to invade that country to steal their oil, they didn't think that those bombs they threw would kill parents, mothers and leave orphans. A million people died consequence of the sanctions the UN imposed on them, when they didn't have any weapons of mass destruction as we know now and as the leader of the retards that voted for the Republicans. Throwing money at the problem ain't going to solve it. This is a perfect example of the corruption that runs iraq today, billions of dollars wasted on nothing.

[i080909]

God bless those poor young children who were subjected to such harsh conditions. God bless our soldiers who with their Iragi friends rescued these souls from thier living hell. That is what we Americans and the rest of the civilized world are all about. Nothing more nothing less.

[feelfree1]

There are already 50 more dead U.S. soldiers, so far, in June. It remains to be seen whether or not the Bush regime will continue their current streak of killing more than 100 U.S. solders per month, in their despicable Stupid People's war of failure.

Without a doubt though, the Bush regime will/create and kill many, many more disabled Iraqi children, as a result of the tons and tons of Depleted Uranium poison that they have dusted the landscape with.

It's like the Bush regime's very own, slow motion, WMD attack on the people of Iraq, and on our soldiers, of course.

The Bush regime out-tyrants Saddam yet again.