Iraqis dig up mass grave, Baghdad police reappear

8.00am

BAGHDAD - Iraqis dug corpses from a mass grave on Sunday and police reappeared in Baghdad as Iraq grappled with the brutality of Saddam Hussein's rule and the lawless aftermath of the US-led invasion that ended it.

At a farmland site near the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Najaf, Iraqis clawed through earth to uncover scores of bodies, some with blindfolds and hands tied, of men and women apparently executed during a 1991 Shi'ite uprising.

In Washington, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he was confident Saddam would be found if still alive and his weapons of mass destruction uncovered.

One of the main reasons the United States and Britain invaded Iraq in March was to rid the country of weapons of mass destruction -- of which nothing has so far been found.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell also said he was "absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there, and the evidence will be forthcoming".

Tens of thousands of Shi'ites and Kurds are thought to have been killed when Saddam's forces crushed revolts after US-led forces drove Iraqi troops from Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War.

At the farm site near Najaf, Iraqis searching for missing friends and family found rotting clothes held together little more than skeletons or bones. Witnesses watched them being wrapped in white sheets and tagged with plastic identity cards.

By the end of the day, 47 bundles of remains had been reburied in unmarked graves.

"This is the tip of the iceberg in this country," said Captain Mike Urena, a US Marines civil affairs officer who visited a second site on Sunday and then turned it over to local Red Crescent authorities. "I am sure you will find more."

Rumsfeld, fresh from an eight-nation tour of the Gulf region following the war, told Fox News Sunday the decisive US defeat of Saddam's government was "a demonstration to the world that an awful lot of countries don't think it's a good idea for countries to have weapons of mass destruction, or to be on the terrorist list, or to have relationships with terrorist networks".

"That message is a good message for the world. It's a healthy one...and we may see some behaviour modification."

Thieving and lawlessness erupted in Baghdad on April 9, the day US troops toppled Saddam. Security in the volatile city of five million has improved since then, but is far from complete.

Hundreds of unarmed police were back in their familiar uniforms of blue trousers and white shirts on Sunday, directing traffic at clogged junctions and patrolling in blue-and-white police cars.

As a reminder of the mammoth task they face, a Reuters photographer saw armed looters emerge from Saddam's Republican Palace in central Baghdad, taking lamps, paintings and even a badly damaged vintage car.

Powell said he knew nothing about a report in The Washington Post that a suspected nuclear facility in Iraq had been heavily looted, with radioactive materials possibly missing.

"I don't know that there was a special concern that there was nuclear-related material at that particular site," he told CBS.

Hundreds of Palestinian families have also fallen victim to the war.

More than 35,000 Palestinians who lived in Iraq since they were displaced from their homeland on Israel's founding in 1948 had enjoyed Saddam's protection, often being housed in the homes of Iraqis evicted by authorities for opposing the government, or in government property.

But now many have found themselves on the streets after some original homeowners returned to claim their property or when other Iraqis have simply taken over government houses, forcing tenants out.

A 10-nation stabilisation force led by the United States, Britain and Poland plans to deploy in Iraq by the end of May. But many Iraqis say US troops have done too little to quell disorder and restore basic services like water and power.

The US-led body charged with Iraq's reconstruction said it had appointed Thamir Abbas Ghadhban, an experienced, British-educated Iraqi oil technocrat, to run the oil ministry.

US officials have said Iraqis will run all ministries with the help of American advisers and experienced Iraqis who have been living abroad in the United States or elsewhere.

Phillip Carroll, former head of Royal Dutch/Shell in the United States, will head an advisory board to the ministry, backed up by Fadhil Othman, an Iraqi exile who had 20 years' experience in Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organisation.

Reviving Iraq's oil industry, which boasts the second largest proven reserves after Saudi Arabia, is crucial to rebuilding a ravaged economy dependent on crude exports.

The United Nations, which oversees the "oil-for-food" programme set up to alleviate the suffering of ordinary Iraqis under UN sanctions, has said it needs a competent authority in Iraq to sign and certify exports before sales can resume.

But a new interim authority may still be four weeks away.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq