3:00 P.M. EDT

Real Audio of Briefing

MR. DENIG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center. We have all seen on the evening news, over the past months, little snippets of some of the atrocities perpetrated by Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. But we thought it important to give you the opportunity for a more in-depth look at some aspects of his regime and what the Iraqi people went through and at how the Iraqi people are coming to terms with this horrific past that they endured.

I'm pleased today that we have a very interesting panel with us today to examine these issues, on the topic of unearthing mass graves, Iraqis coming to terms with their past. To my immediate left is Andrew Natsios, the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Next to him is the creator of a film that we'll be watching shortly on the mass graves, Jano Rosebiani, and next to him are two Iraqi gentlemen who fortunately escaped the horrors of Saddam Hussein: Taimour and Ibrahim.

What we'll do is, we'll start with Administrator Natsios, who will provide a brief introduction. We'll show you a brief excerpt of the film that was made and then we'll give an opportunity to producer Rosebiani as well as the two Iraqi gentlemen to give you some firsthand accounts, and after that we'll be very glad to take your questions.

Mr. Natsios.

ADMINISTRATOR NATSIOS: In April/May of 2003, as the war was ending, AID sent in teams of people in the immediate aftermath of the war, Disaster Assistance Response Teams, to assist people who were affected by the war. We also sent in people from what is called the Abuse Prevention Unit, human rights unit within AID, and Sloan Mann was one of the early officers in that unit, who went in.

At that time, the first mass graves were discovered near Al Hilla, which is, of course, ancient Babylon, south of Baghdad. I visited the site myself in June of last year. And as things unfolded, about 270 mass grave sites were discovered around the country; 53 have been confirmed by international teams of experts and I know some excavation has been started at one or two of them for evidence in war crimes trials. But more importantly, many family members who survived the atrocities now are taking the bones or the remains of their children, their husbands, and their mothers away from the mass graves and properly burying them.

AID has been involved in providing a hundred grants to newly created human rights organizations in Iraq. These are Iraqi NGOs, not foreign NGOs; Iraqi NGOs that are dedicated to the discovery of evidence of atrocities and of war crimes and of preventing them in the future.

And so our grants have been for the purpose of telling a story, of collecting evidence, of building capacity, of guarding against abuses of human rights in the future. We have spent over $5 million on these grants. We've given $2 million additional to the tribunal that is being set up through the Justice Department of the U.S. Government to provide assistance to the Iraqi ministries who are working on setting up the trials and doing the technical research and preparation needed for that.

So we've been involved in this and we've worked with some of the organizations that are here together: Jano [Rosebiani] and his remarkable team of film producers is a group that we've been engaged with and we'll see the film shortly.

(Film shown.)

MR. DENIG: Okay. Jano, would you like to make some opening remarks?

MR. ROSEBIANI: Yes, first of all, I thank you for coming to see this and for being here. This is just a short version of a one-hour documentary that has many more firsthand testimonials, of victims and victims' families, as well as another documentary that we just finished called "Chemical Ali," and this one documents Ali Hassan Majid's crimes in chronological order throughout his career in Iraq, and even his entrance into Kuwait where he crowns himself governor of Kuwait. And most of the crimes, including the chemical attacks, where he gets (inaudible) on the Kurds, and the Anfal genocide that cost 182,000 lives and 4,500 villages were leveled to the ground, and the destruction of the Arab marshes in the south, the mass executions and killings of the Shiite Arabs in 1991, and also the destruction of Kuwait, the looting and the killing and the destruction of the oil pipes clearly damaged the entire area, the whole environment.

And I hope these two films will reach the American public, because it is somewhat apparent that there is a lot of misinformation. There are films that are coming out that are actually belittling what has happened to the Iraqi people, how life was under Saddam, and that the American public has the right to know the type of dictator we had, the type of terror we had, who we hope is the last one of his kind. As you see, the past century had a handful of them, and let's hope Saddam is the last one. But we can only do that if we fully understand the extent of his crimes and we all work together as a human body, as human beings, and help prevent the creation of such dictators. And that could only be possible by removing Saddam. And I think the greatest gift of life that has been given to the Iraqis -- myself, I'm an Iraqi Kurd from the north -- was the removal of Saddam, because otherwise, the many mass graves we already have in Iraq -- we have an Iraq of 22 million people sitting on mass graves -- there would have been tenfold more for the many years to come.

Thank you.

MR. DENIG: Thank you, Mr. Rosebiani. I'd like to give the opportunity now to Taimour to give us some opening remarks.

TAIMOUR: Yes. First thing, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for being here today. And I want to let you know that about Saddam Hussein's crime, about the murders and mass graves that he have done in north of Iraq, and in general in Iraq.

The first thing, I want to tell you guys all about my life, how it was going before, and then I'm going to let you guys know about the story, what happened exactly. In Iraqian rule, they go by birthday. They have -- there are certain birthdays that people has to go through -- military. And my father, he -- at the time, there was a war between Iraq and Iran, and my father, he has to go to serve in the military.

And he went to serve in the military for one day and he thought about it, this is not going to work out for him, this is not a good thing for him to do, it's not worth it. And we couldn't stay in the town of Kalar -- I'm from Kalar -- because otherwise, the Iraqi government would kill him. So we had to run away to the village, by name of Kalajar. It's the north of Iraq. And at that time, my father, he became a farmer and he worked for us, you know, to support us.

And then people was living happy, everybody was happy, no problems. He was living under Peshmergas' control at the time in the villages and we didn't have any problems. And then one day, next thing we know, Iraqian government, they come to the villages with tanks, helicopter and soldiers. And they took all people to Kalar and they promised us that there is a place made for us there and we're going to stay there under Iraqian control.

Unfortunately, they lied to us. They took us to -- straight to jail, as the military base is close to Iranian border, which is called Foratu. We stayed there for about 10 days and a lot of kids, a lot of children died because of -- there wasn't any water, there wasn't any food. After the 10 days, they took us to Tadzal, with their trucks and it's a huge military jail and base off in Iraq. It's in Kirkuk.

We stayed there for about 30 days. Of course, unfortunately, there is a lot of bad stuff happened in the jail and there wasn't any food, there wasn't any water, and then there was a woman who is giving birth at the jail and American solider -- I mean, excuse me, Iraqian soldiers, they was looking at them. They were looking at the woman and that's -- by Muslim culture, that -- I think all Middle Eastern culture, that is against the Islamic religion. They can't do that, but unfortunately, it did not matter to them. They would do it. And then any womans that they want to, they could take them out and rape them and then after that kill them.

So, after 30 days, we have seen a lot of stuff. I don't want to go into details, but I wanted to let you know that, that after 30 days, they took us to -- they brought about 30 cars, it was a van -- a huge van that -- where there wasn’t any windows or there wasn't anything that you can see outside. It was completely black and they took us at 6 o'clock in the morning, all womans and children, and unfortunately, the mans, they were with us, but they separated the men from the children and womans when we got there, there to Fallah.

And then after the 30 days, they took us with the vans and it was 6 o'clock in the morning, about 6:30 to 6 o'clock. All day, they was droving until we got to the border of Iraq and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. So, before we get there, they had already digged holes with bulldozers. The holes was already made for us and was ready there. And before we get to there, to the place that where they're trying to kill us, they took us out of the van and they handcuffed us and they closed our eyes that we cannot see anything.

But I was -- at the time, I was a kid, 12 years old of age, and first, I opened my hands and I opened my eye and I was watching to see what they going to do. First of all, I couldn't see anything, but when they opened the door -- they put us back again in the truck and then they drove for another 10 minutes. We got there and they opened the doors and they took us out of the car and they throw us inside the holes that they made with bulldozer for us. And they waited for a little bit until the -- it get a little bit dark and then after that, they start shooting at us with AK-47s. And all of them, they start. It was more than 30 cars.

And then at the time, I got shot on my shoulder and I went away to the -- toward the soldier that -- "Please don't shoot us. I mean, we haven't done anything. We didn't do anything. We're just innocent people and that's against the -- I mean, the human rights. We are human. We haven't done anything."

So, unfortunately, that didn't work. They throw me back again to the hole and they start shooting again and I got several shot on my back. And after that, I'm dead until the shooting was all over, finished. And then I have to survive for the whole -- I got to get out, and then by the time when the shooting was over, the weather got dark and they couldn't -- they had a hard time seeing me, so I crawled and then I had to survive.

And at the last place, there was another -- a lot of other empty places that they made holes for us. At the last one, I think it -- I don't know, I fall asleep or I just -- you know, all I know, my body whole -- my body went numbed and next thing, I woke up. I turned around to the hole to see what's going on. Unfortunately, they moved -- bulldozer they put on those people and after that, I had no choice. I had to go walk. And, unfortunately, I was shot and I was bleed. I was -- you know, had like, three or four bullets on my back and one on my shoulder and I was bleeding. And I couldn't breathe from my mouth. You know, I could hear my shoulder, but I'm breathing from here.

And I walked for about two hours and a half, two hours, I would say two hours and a half. Some dogs, they came for me. Then when I heard the dog there, they came -- you know, for me, I got happy a little bit. I knew that this is -- like, you know, people lives here, it's not a military base.

And, unfortunately, when I got there and the gentleman came out who was Bedouin, he came out and at the time, I couldn't speak in Arabic and he couldn't speak in Kurdish and he had to take me inside the house and hide me there and give me shelter for two days. He had some family members in the city in Iraq. They had to take me there; otherwise, I would die there because of the bleeding, because of the shooting and all that.

So they took me to the city. I stayed there for three years and a half to three years, I believe. I'm not quite remember exactly. And then after that, they contact my family members, my uncles that there were in north of Iraq, and they came there to the city where I was. I don't want to bring the name up, but they came there and they took me back to Kurdistan.

And when I was in Kurdistan, in 1990, at the time it was war between Iraq and Kuwait. At that time, most of my family members -- I had some left and they were asking me, "Where did you came from? I mean, all of a sudden, after two, three years, you -- all of a sudden, you show up. Where did you come from, what you was doing, where you was at the time of the Anfal? How did you survive?"

And I had to lie to them because of -- you know, scared of my life because of Iraqian government. I told them I was working at the restaurant in Baghdad, you know, I don't know what happened, I'm not involved in this. And now, I'm coming back here because they'll think that I'm survived -- I survived from the Anfal.

And then, unfortunately, that didn't work. Somehow, people found out and then Iraqian government found out about me, and then at the time they threatened me so many times to kill me and then they hired somebody that -- I know the person and he was following me everywhere, everywhere that I go and -- but at the time, I couldn't do anything. I was hiding myself. They paid that person $1 million to take my head to Saddam Hussein.

And then at the time where, you know, I had to run away to the mountain, to the village we were going down. I went to my own village. I lived there for a while. I stayed there for a while until the Intifada happened. That's where Kurdish people came down and they started fighting with Iraqian government and they controlled most of the Kurdish area in north of Iraq.

Then after that, people -- Iraqian government, they came back to north of Iraq again, they wanted to do a second Anfal, to kill another people, another -- a lot of innocent people. So people ran away to Iran, they had to go to Iran. And I went with my uncle, with my family, there to Iran. And, unfortunately, from Peshmerga side, they sent us some information that they are still -- FBI -- Iraqian FBI, they're behind me, they're watching me, they want to kill me. And I had to run away by myself through the mountain to get to the Peshmerga. And I got to the Peshmerga. Unfortunately, a lot of people came there. They was trying to interview me and they want to know what happened. The story was out there. I mean, people want to know, everybody was opening their eye, what happened to 182,000 people got murdered.

And then I went over to Talabani's house, Jalal Talabani. I stayed there for a couple of years, until 1996, and I got here, I came here in 1997 to United States, and thanks God, I'm happy here, I'm fine, and I'm right now running my own business and I don't have no problems and I'm living really good.

Thank you.

MR. DENIG: Thank you very much for that deeply moving story. I'd like to now give the opportunity to Ibrahim to tell his story.

IBRAHIM: (Via interpreter.) Thanks for coming over. My name is Ibrahim, founder of the Association of Free Prisoners in Iraq, ex-prisoner myself. I have been imprisoned for almost six years and I have been in prison on different occasions on and off. I come from a political and religious Shiite family in Kadhimyah neighborhood of Baghdad. After I finished my secondary school in 1982, they arrested my cousins and I started to see the harassments from the people of the Baath Party. I joined different opposition movements, we're opposing the Iraqi regime, of course.

I got arrested for the first time in 1986. I was taken to the prison of the province of Karbala. For the purpose of investigation, I was also put in the torture in order to obtain confessions from me in the torture. I wasn't by myself, I was with other group of people from Kadhimyah, Najaf and Karbala as well. We have lived under horrible torture for one year, all of us. Two of us died in the torture, and some of us have had impairment for -- and disabilities.

During that year, I had my teeth broken. They pulled off the two nails, my two nails, and I have scars on my face and on my hands. They tied me up in an uncomfortable position and I got exposed to electrical shocks on my chest. And I was beaten so badly with bullwhip. It was during the time of the Iranian-Iraqi war. And whenever there was an aggression from one side or another, they come and they would torture us, torture us and beat us badly. And because I saw -- I was so troubled and I saw -- because I saw somebody being executed in front of my eyes, and I weeping so badly they decided to tie me to the window and to retaliate against me. And when they untied me from that window, my -- I was in an appalling situation. I had stillness all over my body, I couldn't even lift my hands.

And then after that, they took us to the tribunal called the Resolution Tribunal in Baghdad. Most of us who were -- got tried in that tribunal had had a capital punishment sentence issued by Judge Awad in Baghdad. I was among those people who got this kind of punishment. In the second hearing, they decided that they were going to execute 13 people amongst the people who had their names on that suit. And during that same hearing, my sentence got reduced to 15 year in prison. And after I had spent two years in the Abu Ghraib prison section of political prisoners, I benefited from a pardon, and then I got arrested for a few more occasions. Whenever there was any kind of upheaval in our country, they go and arrest us like that and just -- and different security forces come and arrest us and throw us in jail. And then I escaped to Jordan, from there to Syria, and I stayed there for almost a year. I joined different human rights organization under a fake name.

When I returned to Iraq again, however, my ordeal is not finished. There was new more arrests and harassment. The last arrest took place on the 11th of November, 2002. That was during Ramadan. And during the buildup to the war and the gathering of multinational forces, I was thinking of setting up an organization, talking to -- inquiring about those martyrs and those prisoners and shedding some light about Saddam's crimes.

And after deep planning, finally I got to set up my organization on the 11th of April, right in the aftermath of the fall of the regime, and it was the first of its kind in Iraq. My organization is comprised of four essential committees. The first committee is the administrative committee, which has the two founders, founding members sitting on it, as well as the president, founder. And their names are Mr. Abdul Sadar Idrissi and Mr. Al-Qais Atad.

And the second committee's task is searching and uncovering secret prisoners, prisons, and saving prisoners. So far, this committee was able to uncover 70 prison sites, and some of these prisoners have been subjected to chemical experimentation. The second committee is tasking to gathering evidence, the type of flagrant evidence that would be enough to incriminate Saddam and to document his horrible crimes. So far, this committee was able to gather millions and thousands of documents. And the fourth committee is tasking to uncovering mass graves. So far, this committee was able to discover the sites of 106 mass graves.

We were able to conduct all these activities, thanks to the help of our local offices. In fact, we have 17 local offices all over Iraq, that because of lack of funding and logistical support, we weren't able to pursue further some of our activities. We just marked some of these sites awaiting further assistance.

So far, we were able to document the cases of 164,000 exhumations, and we were able to put their names and a quote in the archives and in a big database. Also, we were able to document the cases of 64,000 prisoners who got released. Our accomplishments cannot account for only 10 or 15 percent of the total task that's ahead of us.

Thanks.

MR. DENIG: Thank you very much, Ibrahim. Ladies and gentlemen, our guests would be glad to take your questions now. As usual, I'd ask you to use the microphone and identify yourself and your news organization. We'll start right here with the lady in pink.

QUESTION: Nadia Bilbassy from Al Arabiya Television. I wanted to ask you, since that you personally suffered from the previous regime, and what kind of punishment do you think that Saddam Hussein should receive for all the atrocities that he committed against the Iraqi people? And since that we have heard some voices in Europe asking basically that he should not be subjected to the capital punishment. And you personally, as Iraqis, what do you think? What punishment should he receive?

IBRAHIM: (Via interpreter.) I think even if he were to kill [only] one person, if he had -- if he were to be tried in a fair tribunal, I think the punishment should be death. And there is nobody who disagrees about the kind of crimes committed by Saddam, and he has been condemned all parties. And those who refuse capital punishment as a way of a punishment for Saddam himself, we would like to know what's the basis for that, if they were just ordinary people and do not have political motivations, and we would like to know what's the reason for refusing this kind of punishment. But it they were politicians, I do not think that they have excuses in rejecting this kind of punishment. Maybe they have different motivation and different agenda motivating their refusal.

QUESTION: Do you agree with what he is saying?

TAIMOUR: Yes. Yes, I agree what he is saying.

MR. DENIG: All right. Let's go to Africa up here.

QUESTION: Oh, thank you, sir. My name is Ben Bangoura, Washington correspondent for Radio Tam Tan, based in Philadelphia.

Yes. My question to you, gentleman in the middle, you did talk about your experience under Saddam Hussein. What did you do specifically, what kind of -- type of crime did you commit as a young man at the time, 12 years, to deserve such a treatment? Did you belong to any specific political organization or ethnic/social background?

TAIMOUR: No, unfortunately, I'm not -- I'm just a person, I was a small child of age of 12 years old. I was going to school in a village, and my father, he was a farmer, we did not do anything. He wasn't any -- related to any groups up there, you know. And also, the same time, I think, Saddam Hussein, he did not care, I mean, if you are related in some type of group or not. He just loved to kill people, that's what he is.

MR. ROSEBIANI: If I can expand on that, actually, Taimour was the victim of Anfal genocide. And I think Taimour may have misunderstood part of your question, whether you belong to a certain ethnic group. The Anfal genocide was only on the Kurds, and so because he was a Kurd, therefore he fell into that genocide.

QUESTION: Did that happen in Halabja? Were you in Halabja? And what year was that?

TAIMOUR: That was Halabja that they used chemical weapon against Halabja's people. And my part was different thing. It was 182,000 people that called them Anfal. They took over villages, they burned all the villages, and whatever the people that they used to, they live in those village, they took them down and they took them to Syrian border with Kuwait and they killed them there. There's a mass grave. Still the graves are there, and I don't think Mr. Brahimi knows about it, and still there under --

QUESTION: Yeah, okay. If I could have another question, follow-up. Now Saddam is gone and we're talking about bringing him trial. But violence is still going on in Iraq today, which Saddam is not part of. What position do you have on the current situation and what would you recommend in order to help the situation finish?

TAIMOUR: Well, what you are asking me, that's a political questions, and I'm a witness only for 182,000 people who have been abused by Iraqian government, who have been killed by Iraqian government. But the answer to that, for my best of knowledge, I think Saddam Hussein, or those people who are -- they are doing these type of crimes in Iraq, they are the people who still love Saddam Hussein, they are the people who are still supported by different people.

AID OFFICIAL: Time for one more, Paul?

MR. DENIG: One more? Okay. Another question? Let's go to Japan here.

QUESTION: Thank you. My name is Sawai from Kyodo News, Japanese News Agency. We share the, you know, suffering from -- what you experienced. But I just wondering how you -- how did you feel when you heard about, you know, news, the reports of the recent Abu Ghraib scandal by the U.S. soldiers? What -- let us know how you felt about that.

TAIMOUR: I didn't get your questions.

AID OFFICIAL: I think he's talking to Ibrahim. It's Abu Ghraib --

TAIMOUR: You're talking to Ibrahim? Okay.

IBRAHIM: (Via interpreter.) It's true that there have been mistakes in Abu Ghraib prison. And with those people who are in charge, they are simple military people, they haven't had any diplomatic training. We cannot hold them up to the standards of diplomats. And I'm not trying to find justification for that. And crime is crime under any standards. But the extent to which it's received coverage, I think was motivated by some -- had some political motives behind it and the way it was covered and the whole over-exaggeration.

And I can tell you what happened there is just -- it's a joke compared to what the kind of crimes perpetrated by Saddam and his operatives. Unfortunately, the way it was covered and the light under which it was discussed pushed -- put the United States in a lot of pressure to take some decisions that we don't necessarily agree with, like releasing all the prisoners in those -- in this Abu Ghraib. And I do not think that most of them deserve to be released.

I have the impression that the way it was handled by the Arab press -- Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera, some other channels -- and it's like a storm, and it seems to me that it's not innocent -- there's some (inaudible) in there.

Why is it that they haven't given the same importance and coverage to the crimes that have been committed in Fallujah and the atrocities with which it was committed, and with those six people killed and the way the pulled their eyes and they separated their bodies -- and how bad the 35-year rule of Saddam? I mean, where was the press during the time?

MR. DENIG: Okay, I think we'll have to close up at this point the formal part, at least. And I want to thank our guests very much for being with us here today, for these explanations of what the Iraqis endured and how they are coming to terms with their past.

TAIMOUR: Thank you.

MR. DENIG: And thank you, ladies and gentlemen, as well.
[End]