"Freedom Fighter" Saddam's Trial Evidence

If you're on speaking terms with Muther Sheehan, please pass along this post with evidence that will be introduced in the trial of "freedom fighter" Saddam Hussein's trial later this year:

From Der Spiegel and the New York Times:

A chain of evidence that investigators believe will help convict Saddam Hussein begins at a windswept grave in the desert near Hatra, in northern Iraq.

The burial site - a series of deep trenches that held about 2,500 bodies, many of them women and children - is one of many mass graves that dot the country. But it was the first excavated by an American investigative team working with a special Iraqi tribunal to build cases against Mr. Hussein and others in his government.
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[W]hat was found at Hatra shows how the Hussein leadership made a "business of killing people" - the scrape marks from the blade of the bulldozer that shoved victims into the trench, the point-blank shots to the backs of even the babies' heads, the withered body of a 3- or 4-year-old boy, still clutching a red and white ball.

Father and child gassed in Halabja

Investigators have also authenticated Iraqi government documents and audiotapes seized by Kurdish militias in the early 1990's. In a June 1987 document, Ali Hassan al-Majid, one of Mr. Hussein's cousins and top deputies, commanded Iraqi troops "to carry out random bombardments using artillery, helicopters, and aircraft at all times of the day and night in order to kill the largest number of persons present" in areas linked to Kurdish fighters. On an audiotape, Mr. Majid, who became known as "Chemical Ali," can be heard shouting, at a Baath Party meeting about Kurdish villagers: "I will kill them all with chemical weapons."
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Human Rights Watch, the New York-based group, has estimated that up to 100,000 Kurds, mostly civilians, were killed, and 2,000 villages destroyed, including dozens bombed with chemical weapons.

Michael K. Trimble, an archaeologist who headed the forensics team, said the first surprise was that the trench held only women and children - about 300 in all. He said two-thirds were children.

The bodies were stacked haphazardly in four or five layers. Nearly all had a single .22-caliber pistol shot behind one ear. Mr. Trimble said it looked as if the first people had been shot inside the trench, while the others had been killed at the lip and pushed in by a bulldozer.

A second trench held 150 men, each sprayed with fire from automatic weapons. Most had been blindfolded and tied together in a chain.

Mr. Kehoe said this suggested that the women and children had been killed by Iraqi security officers carrying small-caliber arms, while the men had been killed by a military unit. "This was a killing field," he said, adding that, "multiple entities knew it was there."

Mr. Kehoe said the rolling field held up to a dozen other trenches, with at least 2,000 more bodies. Mr. Nivala said a second grave site, at Samawa in southern Iraq, yielded similar results; in April, investigators excavated one trench and found bodies of 114 Kurds, all but 5 women and children. Mr. Nivala said that field had 18 trenches, and 10 were filled, with at least 1,500 bodies.

And of course the response from people who wish to avoid any sense of responsiblity for overlooking this genocide willingly point fingers at anyone but themselves.

Who stood in the way of effective action to end this evil? Who did something about it?

This is the price for peace paid by our peacenik friends!