Desert mass graves provide grisly new evidence in Iraq

Skeletons, many wearing clothes and blindfolded, jut out from the desert sands in south-western Iraq where forensics experts have unearthed at least two mass graves of victims from the brutal suppression of a 1991 Shiite uprising.

The chief investigative judge in Saddam Hussein’s trial said they have documented evidence of more than 100,000 victims of the crackdown against Shiites in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War and unofficial accounts showing the number could be as high as 180,000.