No one really knows how many Iraqis died during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, as this information was hushed and sloppily gathered (if not outright ignored). The U.S. military had intended to present this war as being very clean and strategic, yet descriptions of it defy their wish:
"Corpses, half-eaten by desert dogs, lie in the sand ... some have already almost turned into skeletons ... Inside the cars, burnt bodies still clutch the steering wheels with what was once their arms." (Description of the Highway of Death near Mutla Bridge) *(1)
Attacking a Defenseless and Retreating Army
The tragedy on "Highway of Death" occurred on February 25th through February 27th, 1991. There were actually two death highways, one inland and one coastal, from Kuwait to Iraq. Today, the world regards these separate occurrences as a massacre, since the retreating forces, some with white flags on their tanks, could never fight back. Iraqi troops were already surrendering in compliance with UN Resolution 660 when bombed from the night sky in the worst air attack in the 43-day-old Gulf War.
Like a "Turkey Shoot"
Iraqi soldiers and civilians alike were trapped inside a horrendous traffic snarl on a freeway later called the Highway of Death. As thousands of people desperately attempted to flee, a fiery and thunderous death rained upon them. Even those attempting to drive off the embankment were mercilessly targeted. U.S. pilots reported that renewed missions were flown continuously with all types of bombs fixed haphazardly under jets wings without waiting for the assigned ammunition. The U.S.,part of the United Nations Coalition, had sealed off both ends of the highway with no exits, and torrents of hot steel bore through the blazing cars, trucks, vans, and buses like a sieve. The shooting fervor went so far that General Norman Schwarzkopf actually warned his pilots of excessive overuse of ammunition for economical reasons. The bombs continued for hours until nearly every human being was dead.
Aftermath of a War Crime
Only 450 people survived on the inland road bombing of Highway 80. Along 60 miles of coastal Highway 8, the other death highway taken because the first was jammed, blackened skeletons were grotesquely twisted within charred frames of dismembered vehicles, their clothes, skin, and hair burnt off. In some cases, radios still eerily played. The windshields of cars were shattered, or melted. Huge tanks were incinerated into mere shrapnel. No survivors are known and no death count was ever conducted.
We don't do body counts," said General Tommy Franks who directed the overall 1991 invasion of Iraq. Afterward, a reporter with the 2nd Armored Division wrote that his armored personal carrier's tracks, "splashed through great pools of bloody water."
As late as March 10th, scenes on the coastal road remained gruesome. Atlantic Monthly editor and reporter, Michael Kelly, who later died in Iraq, described the corpses on the Highway of Death as being human remains cooked, "into wizened, mummified, charcoal-men" with "hands that had become claws."
Transgressing International Law
The purposeful killing of civilians and surrendering soldiers violates the Geneva Conventions of 1949, Common article 111, which states non-combatants must be treated humanely, and that "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture" shall be "prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons."
"Not even in Vietnam did I experience such a thing as this," said U.S. Major Bob Nugent, whose task it was to search the wreckage for documents left behind by the Iraqi army. "It's pathetic."
Robert Fisk, in his book, "The Great War for Civilization," describes scenes of damaged military and civilian vehicles bombed while stuck in the traffic jam. "I had seen hundreds of dead here; there must have been thousands. Shouldn't we have been referring back then, not to the Highway of Death, but to the Massacre at the Mutla Ridge?"
The mutilated bodies were later buried by the U.S. Military, many bulldozed into mass graves at the scene.
The rest of the story of the Highway of Death remains untold; the dead do not speak.
*(1) Translated quote from German into English, Der Spiegel Magazine, early 1991
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