Are Iraqi Hospitals Hunting Grounds?

(CBS)  In a makeshift Baghdad clinic, all of the patients are Sunnis. The patients say they are too frightened to go to hospitals run by the Ministry of Health because those have been infested by Shiite death squads, reports CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey.

Such is the fear, that even Sunni doctors don't want to be identified.

"I've seen many doctors targeted and killed just because they were Sunnis," says Dr. Ahmed "so I resigned from the hospital and came here."

In an unprecedented prosecution, two senior health ministry officials, both Shiites, stand accused of using hospitals to systematically kidnap and kill hundreds of Sunnis.

American legal advisers say the importance of the trial cannot be overstated.

"This is the first time senior government officials are going to be facing trial, potentially facing trial, for having used the power of their office against the Sunni minority," said Col. Mark Martins, the senior military lawyer in Iraq.

The charge sheet will accuse a former deputy Health Minister and his security chief of turning hospitals into hunting grounds. Ambulances were used to transport weapons, morgue workers were pressured to falsify death certificates and cover up executions and Sunni patients were dragged from hospital beds and murdered.

"There are chilling accounts of savage beatings of Sunnis in the basement of the Ministry of Health headquarters, and Hakim actually ordering their killing," said Martins.

The trial will be held in the high security "Rule of Law Complex" built by the American military with $49 million of Iraqi money. At least half a dozen witnesses have been offered U.S. visas to guarantee their safety, and both the Iraqi judge and American advisers are pushing to get this case to court.

Under Iraqi law the health minister must approve the prosecution -- a test of whether the Shiite-dominated government is willing to protect Sunnis by punishing sectarian-based killing.

[glaswolf]

me4usa at 08:38 AM : Dec 02: "justice must be for all a hard thing to do in iraq due to tribal mindset" ... Societies built by tribal aggregates normally implicitly view thru protocols metropolitan societies as laminations, as rational melting pots are not possible. So to, each laminant has its own laws. I was told explicitly that members of other tribal groups must be allowed to solve their internal problems according to their own tribal dictates. Thus, there are two categories of law: Umbrella laws that apply uniformly to all members of the aggregate society and Tribal specific laws which apply strictly to members of each tribe regardless of locale of commission. Basicly, we are only equal under aggregate laws and some of us are outside of any specific tribal laws. Priests must be celibate whereas ministers can marry, for example. Don''t feed orthodox jews, christians or moslems pork on friday, whereas we eat carnitas anytime. Don''t ask others to do anything which violates their own subtribal specific constraints. We work 24/7 during production of whatever, but we are not to demand those with religious constraints work alongside our people during restricted periods. Fairness takes on a different turn, because we have to work by our work ethic whereas they must not work because of theirs. We don''t compensate our guys for taking up the slack. Productions requires no slack, regardless.

[mvguy-2009]

The U.S. is using dogs to anally sodomize those they capture, killing hospital patients is no biggie. There are no outrages too terrible for men at war when they decide that the Geneva Convention is "Quaint, outdated". Occupiers always tend to intimidate those they occupy with random violence and gross degredation. War brings out all our worst qualities, but the occupied have more to lose and Vietnam showed that how the U.S. military has no compunction in the mass murder of innocent civilians, and then there is Hiroshima.

[sevenveils]

"I felt sorry for the civilians that were apparently murdered by U.S. troops, and thrown into the river, too, and for their friends and families." - FeelFree1

This statement is a blatant lie. Substitute the word U.S. Troop with al Qaeda or Iranian backed terrorist and your statement will be a SOLID FACT.

I don''t feel sorry for you or your pathetic lies. The Invasion of Iraq is legal, see the papers in the UN that made it so. See all the mid-eastern countries who helped make it happen.

You don''t feel sorry for the innocent Iraqis murdered by their Islamic brethren do you? Nope, no remorse.
Nor do you see anything wrong with what this story is really about, High Level Government Officials using there power and Hospitals, of all places, to carry out real torture and murder. But of course, these guys you silently support are your own.

[redbarron73]

BUSH, listen up. New strategy. Just drop all pretense. Stop pretending to give a *** about the Iraqi people. Just protect the OIL. Pull out of all civilian areas and just let ''em kill each other. It''s gonna happen sooner or later until one group gains the upper hand anyway.

We could keep our boys out of harm''s way and still do a better job protecting our REAL interests.

[me4usa]

justice must be for all a hard thing to do in iraq
due to tribal mindset
this case may go a long way to changing that

[hissteps4u]

Yes the surge is working but if the Government does not deal with its failure to act and protect all including the sunnis then this will eventually fail.

There is a chance that this all will work but only if they are forced to do the right thing and held accountable.

[nwihoosier]

feelyfeely
You''re still playing dizzyboy?
Take a hike Ha Haaaaaaa

[feelfree1]

glaswolf,

Re: "Our soldiers must learn to be respective of waterways in a water short region."

That is a good point, Access to clean and safe drinking water in Iraq continues to be shockingly poor, as a result of the illegal invasion. Same goes for electricity, sewage treatment, etc....

I felt sorry for the civilians that were apparently murdered by U.S. troops, and thrown into the river, too, and for their friends and families.

Episodes like this make it obvious to all, that the people of Iraq are justified in trying to defend themselves.

[glaswolf]

FeelFree1 at 12:00 AM : Dec 02: "dead people were thrown by the U.S. troops into the Euphrates River". This is perhaps the worst form of biolittering I have heard of. Polluting community water sources is not tolerable. It would be better to burn the bodies or feed them to large pigs as our predecessors were wont to do. Our soldiers must learn to be respective of waterways in a water short region. The risk of pestulence is just not worth the expediency. We should probably give our soldiers classes on environmental practices to green the war as best we can.

[andrew_693]

They kill people in the hospitals now!! another milestone success of the Bush administration. !! and those shiites get the weapons bought with US taxpayer''s money. !!!