BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein's government may have executed 61,000 Baghdad residents, a number significantly higher than previously believed, according to a survey obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

The bloodiest massacres of Saddam's 23-year presidency occurred in Iraq's Kurdish north and Shiite Muslim south, but the Gallup Baghdad Survey data indicates the brutality extended strongly into the capital as well.

The survey, which the polling firm planned to release on Tuesday, asked 1,178 Baghdad residents in August and September whether a member of their household had been executed by Saddam's regime. According to Gallup, 6.6 percent said yes.

The polling firm took metropolitan Baghdad's population — 6.39 million — and average household size — 6.9 people — to calculate that 61,000 people were executed during Saddam's rule. Past estimates were in the low tens of thousands. Most are believed to have been buried in mass graves.

The U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq has said that at least 300,000 people are buried in mass graves in Iraq. Human rights officials put the number closer to 500,000, and some Iraqi political parties estimate more than 1 million were executed.

Without exhumations of those graves, it is impossible to confirm a figure. Scientists told The Associated Press during a recent investigation that they have confirmed 41 mass graves on a list of suspected sites that currently includes 270 locations.

Forensic teams will begin to exhume four of those graves next month in search of evidence for a new tribunal, expected to be established this week, that will try members of the former regime for crimes against humanity and genocide. More graves will later be added to the list.

But nobody expects all the mass graves to be exhumed, and nobody expects to ever know the full number of Iraqis executed by their government.

Richard Burkholder, who headed Gallup's Baghdad team, said the numbers in Baghdad could be high for two reasons: People may have understood "household" to be broader than just the people living at their address; and some families may have moved to the capital from other areas since the executions occurred.

"Anecdotal accounts start to support it, but they don't get you to 60,000," he said in a telephone interview from Princeton, N.J.

Even reducing the numbers slightly because of those possibilities, however, Burkholder said the number of executions the data suggest is higher than previously estimated, in the low tens of thousands.

The deadliest atrocity associated with Saddam's government was the scorched-earth campaign known as the "Anfal," in which the government killed an estimated 180,000 Kurds in Iraq's far north. Many were buried in mass graves far from home in the southern desert.

Another 60,000 people are believed to have been killed when Saddam violently suppressed rebellions by Shiite Muslims in the south and Kurds in the north at the close of the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites).

Sandra Hodgkinson, director of the U.S.-led occupation authority's human rights office, estimated that some 50,000 others were executed during Saddam's reign, including Kurds killed in chemical attacks and political prisoners sent to execution.

That 50,000 figure also would include prisoners killed in Baghdad.

The survey, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, was conducted in face-to-face interviews in Baghdad residents' homes from Aug. 28 and Sept. 4.

The people were selected at random from all geographic sectors of the Baghdad metropolitan area, and more than nine in 10 agreed to participate. That's at least double the response rate for many U.S. telephone polls.

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Niko Price is correspondent-at-large for The Associated Press.

All the good reasons why Liberals still support Saddam's government....

Just like they want to support another stalin-type regime... 30 million disappeared and they rejoice for another regime.

The United States (under the regimes of Carter, Reagan, and Bush 1) was enthusiastically supporting Saddam Hussein during much of the period when these executions were alleged to have taken place. They also supplied him with weapons of mass destruction to use against Iran. That is why he didn't have any when war broke out with the United States - he had used them up murdering Iranians in an unprovoked invasion he was pressured into making by the freedom-loving USA.

Bush 1 went to war with iraq. Remember? better get checked for alzheimers old man.

Yeah...

...really really they didn't...

...really.....

A lot of people seem to have lost their mind when talkin about the role played by the US 'in Iraq during the last 25 years. What meyer pointed out is the Us administration 's never ending hypocrisy.

to "actualy I think": Bush supported saddam (as western nations expected oil generosity from him, that s why the CIA put him there) before he went to war to liberate Koweit from Saddam. I m not asking you if you have alzheimer.

The mass execution of 50'000 people is a number hard to consider. Still, it doesn t represent more than 5% of Iraqis civilian casualties for the last decade. It s also important to point out that Saddam could not have gased Iran without the help of the US on his chemical program.

all together, Meyer makes point more than the rest put all together.

the twin -regimes of terrorism

saddam of iraq vs asad of syria

The Baath party gradually took over political and economical life in Syria&iraq and became the only legal party in the countrys. Syria&iraq are a republic by constitution, but the Socialist totalitarian regimes is governing the nation



Baath Rule of Iraq:

The opposition figures were persecuted, arrested, executed and even assassinated abroad. Iraq became a police-state ruled by fear and brutality.

The dictator of Iraq was running fake elections were he was ‘re-elected’ as president with 99.99% of the votes for consecutive terms until he was overthrown in April 2003.

Baath Rule of Syria:

The opposition figures were persecuted, arrested, executed and even assassinated abroad. Syria became a police-state ruled by fear and brutality.

The dictator of Syria was running fake elections were he was ‘re-elected’ as president with 99.99% of the votes for consecutive terms until he died in 2000. His son Bashar inherited his father’s position and policy in 2000 and started his own 99%-vote elections.

In addition to regular persecution, mass military operations were carried against Syrians who oppose the regime. In 1980 the baath regime killed thousands of Syrians in Tadmor prisons and in the city of Hama. In 1982, the regime massacred more than thirty thousands of Syrians by completely destroying the city of Hama in full aerial and land attacks.

Occupying its small neighboring country of Lebanon:

Syria is, roughly, 20 times larger than Lebanon

18,000 Lebanese believed to be killed in Syrian prisons



On October 13, 1990, the Syrian regime completely occupied its small neighboring country of Lebanon and appointed a puppet pro-Syrian government there.

Thousands of Lebanese civilians were killed or captured and spent their lives in Syrian prisons until they died. The US and the International community were busy with the Iraqi situation, which left Syria occupying Lebanon until this moment.

for the past 27 years lebanon has been under the terrorist baath party of syria,the U.N. resolution no.520 urging the syrian army to leave lebanon has been ignored by syria