Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 24, 1991 TAG: 9102240185
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: DHAHRAN, SAUDI ARABIA LENGTH: Medium
The remarks by Brig. Gen. Richard Neal, deputy chief of operations for U.S. Central Command, came just hours before the deadline set by President Bush for Iraq to begin withdrawing from Kuwait. They appeared aimed at lending urgency to the military campaign by U.S.-led coalition forces to eject Iraqi troops from the Persian Gulf emirate.
Neal's comments were the U.S. military's first endorsement of reports reaching Dhahran from Kuwait that paint a terrifying picture of mass arrests, executions and persecution of Kuwaitis by Iraqi authorities in recent weeks.
There is "a systematic campaign of executions, particularly of people tortured, apparently to destroy evidence" of atrocities, Neal said, adding that Iraqi troops were "grabbing people from highways and streets and summarily executing them."
Neal said U.S. military officials had received much of their information from "Kuwaiti resistance" forces, but also had "corroborating evidence" from other sources, which he declined to specify. "We feel very comfortable" about the accuracy of the reports, he said.
An exiled Kuwaiti who is among those receiving regular reports of events inside his country got a dispatch Saturday that told of teen-agers being executed, naked bodies being dumped in a cemetery and the mass arrest of worshipers inside a mosque in the Kuwait City suburb of Qadisiya on Friday, the Islamic day of prayer. It was not known where those arrested were being taken, he said.
This Kuwaiti and others who say they are in direct, regular contact with Kuwaitis inside the emirate have reported a pattern of increased violence against civilians since the war began Jan. 17, with new intensity in the past few days.
"Never before has a nation suffered so much in such a short period of time," Kuwaiti Planning Minister Sulaiman Mutawa told the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva on Thursday.
"The conclusion we have is that the Iraqis, in trying to leave the country, whether by force or by peaceful means, are covering their tracks," Mutawa said.
The U.S. military has set up an office in Riyadh to collect information on alleged war crimes by Iraqi officials. Neal suggested Saturday that with an Iraqi departure from Kuwait coming soon, they may be killing those who could detail such crimes.
"Maybe when they think the game is up, they are trying to destroy the evidence," he said, adding that the violence has "become endemic in the last 24 to 48 hours. . . . This is terrorism at its finest hour."
In Riyadh on Saturday, British military spokesman Group Capt. Niall Irving said there was an unsubstantiated report that Iraqi troops were rounding up males over the age of 13. He said, however, he had heard no reports of executions. "No, I don't know anything about executions, and that wasn't part of the reports I had."
The allegations of terrorism came a day after President Bush and U.S. military officials accused Iraqi forces of adopting a "scorched-earth" policy in blowing up scores of Kuwaiti oil wells and other petroleum-related facilities. Neal said Saturday that the number of Kuwaiti oil wells set ablaze had risen to 190.
Kuwaitis with access to reports from inside the emirate often have names of those who have been slain or arrested, and details about specific incidents. They have asked, however, that names not be used because relatives living abroad sometimes do not yet know of those who have been killed.
One source said that as of Feb. 20, his contacts had counted 317 bodies of Kuwaitis executed since the war began. Another report received Feb. 21 detailed how Kuwaitis had been decapitated, hit over the head with an ax, had their eyes torn out and their ears cut off, suffered burns from electrical shock and had been tortured with drills. The mutilations, the report said, had been investigated and confirmed by people in Kuwait.
by CNB