Mahawil, Iraq - "George Bush the elder abandoned us," Ali Abed al-Hussein said yesterday as he stood with other grieving families at the site of a mass grave where the bodies of 3,000 Shia Iraqis are being disinterred.

On Feb. 15, 1991, with the regime of Saddam Hussein dramatically weakened by its loss in the Gulf War, then-President George Bush twice made a speech that encouraged Iraqis like al-Hussein to rise up against Hussein.

Bush asked "the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands, to force Saddam Hussein the dictator to step aside."

Like thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shia Muslims, al-Hussein believed that Bush was offering a partnership in toppling Hussein.

Al-Hussein was wrong. The American military gave the rebels no air cover or other military support as the regrouping Iraqi military crushed the uprising and began a slaughter of the participants.
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In spite of the power of the personal grief and shock of the discovery of this, the largest mass grave yet found in Iraq, bereaved relatives such as al-Hussein have not forgotten the history that led their family members and friends to be dug up by a yellow mechanical digger from execution pits 12 years after their murders. Many said they were grateful for what Bush's son, the current president, had done to finally end Hussein's regime. But for the man they feel misled them and abandoned them to Hussein's butchery in 1991, they have nothing but contempt.

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A surprisingly large number of the victims were carrying identification cards when they were killed, with eyes blindfolded and hands tied behind their backs, according to witnesses and the evidence of muddy wrist bones still bound by cotton strips. Relatives moved from bag to bag, looking at the ID cards. For those bodies without cards, people looked for other clues.

A beige respirator and a white plastic bottle of pills stuck out of the pocket of one man's jacket.

A cigarette lighter marked "Gold Coast" and a black comb lay on another pile of bones.

Amber prayer beads lay on another pile and someone had written a name on a piece of card ripped from a cigarette packet: "Najim Abdullah."

Nearby there was a tell-tale cotton banner with green Arabic writing which translated as: "Saddam and his party are criminal and bad." To walk down any street in Iraq in 1991 carrying such a banner was to accept the possible consequences.

But for many of the thousands of Shia Iraqis in the southern parts of the country, it was a risk they were prepared to take once they had heard Bush's speech and what they considered its implication of U.S. military backing - or, at least, political support.

They received neither.
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"For all the endless talk by the [current] Bush administration about Saddam's horrendous crimes, if they were really serious about prosecuting these people, they would have forensic experts here today," he said. "This is writing the defense's brief for the Saddam Hussein regime. They can just say these people died in combat. Digging up a mass grave with a bulldozer is like going pigeon hunting with a tank."

Spoiled forensic evidence or not, trials or none, some mourners shelved their grief to place the blame firmly on Bush Sr., the man they say led them to this awful site. "All these people died because of you," said Ahmed. "We thank you for your son."

» Newsday.com - Bereaved and Betrayed: Mass grave renews Iraqi pain of old promises not kept