Robert Fisk: On the shocking truth about the American occupation of Iraq

[link to www.independent.co.uk]

[link to news.independent.co.uk]

Robert Fisk: On the shocking truth about the American occupation of Iraq
Could Haditha be just the tip of the mass grave? The corpses we have glimpsed, the grainy footage of the cadavers and the dead children; could these be just a few of many? Does the handiwork of America's army of the slums go further?

Published: 03 June 2006

I remember clearly the first suspicions I had that murder most foul might be taking place in our name in Iraq. I was in the Baghdad mortuary, counting corpses, when one of the city's senior medical officials - an old friend - told me of his fears. "Everyone brings bodies here," he said. "But when the Americans bring bodies in, we are instructed that under no circumstances are we ever to do post-mortems. We were given to understand that this had already been done. Sometimes we'd get a piece of paper like this one with a body." And here the man handed me an American military document showing the hand-drawn outline of a man's body and the words "trauma wounds".

What kind of trauma? Indeed, what kind of trauma is now being experienced in Iraq? Who is doing the mass killing? Who is dumping so many bodies on garbage heaps? After Haditha, we are going to reshape our suspicions.