Talk:Mass graves in Iraq

Reason for creation
Peeled off from the main article about Mass graves to eliminate POV disputes RaveenS 18:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

A joke of an article
Compare with mass graves in Chechnya (which has much less bodies). --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 17:23, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That's a fact. It just needs someone to fix it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Miraclewhipped224 (talk • contribs) 07:36, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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This does need some work!
Is this claim just fiction? See news story "PM admits graves claim 'untrue'" www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/jul/18/iraq.iraq1  "Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that '400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves' is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses have so far been uncovered."  SandJ-on-WP (talk) 13:57, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Article could use better sourcing, more breadth, and NPOV
I saw the other talk sections about this being a "joke of an article" and "this does need work".

I agree, this article needs more work, and especially more sourcing and NPOV. The TL;DR is (1) mass graves have been produced from every period of Iraq, and no period has been more deadly than post-2003. Why aren't there reports for other mass graves? (2) Following on (1) Many sources suffer from assuming every grave was specifically from a specific time period and perpetrated by one Iraqi regime. Insurgents and militants were likewise well-known for execution people. Why is every single mass grave presumed to be in the same specific time period and perpetrators? (3) Some of the content is not sourced at all, and includes exceptional claims.

Mass graves in Iraq are as old as Iraq. From the British crackdowns in the 1920s, to lots of civil war in the 40s-2010s including in the north, thousands mass executed by every regime and also non-government armed groups in the nation's history, the sanctions which produced half a million child deaths, Iran-Iraq War, Gulf War, KDP-PUK Kurdish civil war, the Iraq War which was presumably more deadly than other events combined, and many more events, the time periods, causes, and perpetrators of the mass graves are mixed. Yet this article only has mass graves claimed to the period of the Baath regime and strictly perpetrated by them, and although it's not clear which were made by them or even what time periods the graves are from, the claim is all of them were, instead of most. Each source by default assumes each was specifically from the 1980s/1991 and specifically perpetrated by the Iraqi regime.

The main source is a 2003 US State Department release embodying this sentiment. Considering at that time the political objective was to use the graves to build a humanitarian justification for the war after the WMD and Al Qaeda claims were refuted producing lots of pressure on both the Bush and Blair administrations, and was coupled with claims of refuted "400,000 in mass graves", the lack of nuance, breadth, and consideration in the sources create an evidently non-NPOV article. Maybe this article should be retitled to "Mass graves in Iraq presumed to be by the Baath regime in the 1980s and 1991"?

'''One thing that is deeply confusing: as many as 1.2 million Iraqis were said to have been killed between 2003 and autumn 2007, along with presumably many more in 2007-2011. Why haven't mass graves been uncovered or reported on for this period and included in this article?'''

Much like the refuted early US claim of "300,000 in mass graves" or Tony Blair's refuted claim of "400,000 in mass graves", the article deserves better sourcing and investigation than any bodies found from any period if time are specifically from 1980s-1991 and done by the former Iraqi regime. We should recall that the Katyn massacre was for decades said to have been perpetrated German Nazi regime. If not for how famous and thoroughly investigated the Katyn graves were along with the Soviet collapse, we may never have learned that it was in fact that Soviet Union who had perpetrated it 50 years later.

For example, in the Iran-Iraq War, not only Iraq but also Iranian forces and allied peshmerga were attacking Kurdish villages and towns in northern Iraq, including with indiscriminate artillery and bombings. Many Iraqi forces and civilians died in the Iranian attacks on the southern and central fronts too. Many dead soldiers on both sides were put into trenches or shallow graves.

In the 1991 uprisings, many civilians were killed by the rebels. For example, in Suleimaniyah, PUK leader Jalal Talabani executed 1,000 Kurds at once according to Human Rights Watch. Presumably, they could have been thrown into a mass grave, were discovered after 2003, and said to be the central Iraqi regime alone. Unfortunately, no such nuance is given. The town of Mahaweel was Sunni Muslim in the southern governorate of Babil where a mass grave is located. This governorate was captured by rebels in 1991. The source in the Wiki article by default assumes there were victims of government repression. Should we automatically count out that rebels may have been responsible for that mass grave mentioned in this article?

During the sanctions period, half a million dead children, among others, died as a result of lack of medicine and food. Perhaps these could have been some of the bodies in the mass graves? Why aren't there sources considering this?

In the 1991 Gulf War, Coalition forces devastated Iraqi forces in positions in Iraq, even burying many alive in the "bulldozer assaults" as they were called. I recall hearing about one or two of these being uncovered in that area near the battle lines after 2003, and labeled as victims of government repression.

The war between the KDP and PUK in the 1990s saw fierce fighting, killings, and executions between the rival factions. It also included heavy military campaigns by Iran and Turkey, killing an unknown number of Kurdish people. How many of the graves were actually created from this period instead of automatically slotted without further thought in the 1980s by the Iraqi regime at that time?

Between 2003 and 2007 alone, as many as 1.2 million civilians were said to have been killed, largely "vanishing". Assuredly this produced the filling of many mass graves. Where is the sourcing and investigation for this? Or is it like how mass graves during Baath rule were not allowed to be exposed, the post-2003 mass graves are not allowed to be exposed under the current government? For example, the article from 2011 mentioning 800 dead bodies found in Anbar is peculiar in that the Iraqi government only suspecting to be from the 1980s when the prior 8 years were spent with the same government's death squads and non-governmental terrorist organizations killing upwards of a million people.

An observation: one of the sources used is a long-offline blog website, in which the creator notes: "This site is completely independent, nonpartisan and noncommercial. It is the product of one individual and all the views expressed in it are entirely personal" and labels figures such as Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara as "heroes".