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On a 60-mile stretch of road from Mutlaa, Kuwait, to Basra, Iraq, a convoy of more than 2,000 vehicles and tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians were fleeing. These were people who were putting up no resistance, many with no weapons, leaving in cars, trucks, carts, and on foot. The American armed forces bombed one end
of the main highway from Kuwait City to Basra, sealing it off and
then bombed the other end of the highway, sealing it off. They
positioned mechanized artillery units on the hill overlooking the
area and then, both from the air and the land, massacred every living
thing on the road. Fighter bombers, helicopter gunships, and armored
battalions poured merciless firepower on those trapped in the traffic
jams, backed up as much as 20 miles. One U.S. pilot reportedly
said, It was like shooting fish in a barrel. That fateful stretch
of road has since been dubbed the Highway of Death.
In a report submitted to the Commission of Inquiry for the
International War Crimes Tribunal, charges are made that those killed
were Palestinian and Kuwaiti civilians trying to escape the siege of
Kuwait City and the return of Kuwaiti armed forces. The report claims
that no attempt was made by U.S. military command to distinguish
between military personnel and civilians.
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The Guardian newspaper in the UK has written of the 9000
Iraqis killed by the RAF bombs in 1920, one of the 6 times
British oil interests have violated the people of Iraq in the
last 86 years.
