The Bones of ‘Anfal’

A multicultural team of archaeologists and forensic experts unearths the grizzly evidence of Saddam Hussein’s genocidal reign.

By Dennis Fisher

The horror began to emerge from a rocky patch of Iraq’s Al Hajara Desert 17 miles from the nearest military outpost.

Each scrape of a 7,000-pound backhoe bucket revealed more and more unspeakable violence, cemented in time beneath the arid soil: mothers cradling infants, both bodies riddled with bullets, children still grasping favorite toys, and even the body of a woman with a near-term fetus in her womb.

A forensic team’s grisly work provided the clearest look to date at what came to be known as “Anfal,” the slaughter of about 100,000 ethnic Kurds Saddam Hussein orchestrated in the waning days of Iraq’s 1988 war with Iran.

A group of American archaeologists, anthropologists, and forensics experts led the team, which had been dispatched to the isolated, war-torn region to document the graves and other evidence of the atrocities.

Although the debate over the effectiveness of U.S. efforts in Iraq continues, the Americans who worked on the difficult and dangerous forensics project are certain their efforts were vital in documenting the brutal actions of a despotic regime, as well as helping bring a measure of justice to the Kurdish people.

The evidence they gathered was used in 2006 to help convict Hussein and several of his top military advisers on charges of crimes against humanity. The horrific pictures and reports the team produced also provided the most graphic evidence yet of the extent of Hussein’s crimes against his own people and the severity of his retribution against those who turned against him. Hussein may not have been stockpiling nuclear weapons, but he executed his genocidal plan the old-fashioned way: with terror squads, midnight kidnappings, and wholesale slaughter.

The team’s work, which began in April 2005 before U.S. troops secured the Muthanna province, was perilous, says Dr. Michael “Sonny” Trimble, a civilian employee of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and one of the project leaders. Members also included Marine and civilian experts. “That period of the war was absolutely the most violent. If we needed to leave, we’d go by air in the middle of the night,” Trimble tells Newsmax. “They shelled our compound every night. In the field, there would be 80 or 90 people guarding 12 of us working. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

The main excavation site in Muthanna was a shock to the archaeologists and anthropologists, many of whom were used to working in calm and safe surroundings with the luxury of time to do their work.

Roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices were everywhere, so the team faced the choice of driving 17 miles each way between the excavation site and the closest military base, or staying in a makeshift camp at the site. They chose the latter, reasoning that the site’s natural topography was the better option, with its protective ridgeline and a security force of more than 100.

Once Trimble and his team hit the ground, they crisscrossed the site looking for indications of burial grounds. There was plenty to see. The team found 10 mass graves, filled with bodies buried just 18 inches below ground. “If Steven Spielberg ever did a documentary on what happened to the Kurds, this is where he would come,” Trimble told Archaeology magazine. “There are graves as far as the eye can see.”

Hussein’s goons were so sure they never would be caught that they barely bothered to disguise the graves. The bodies were in a nice neat line, just waiting for Trimble’s team to stumble upon them.

Finding the graves was one thing; excavating them was something else entirely. Although archaeologists are accustomed to dealing with human remains, the bodies typically are hundreds of years old and there is little emotional involvement for the field team.

But in this case, the scientists became attached to the victims and tried to be as clinical as possible to preserve the scenes forensically for use in the trials of Hussein and his accomplices. “You have to remain as objective and dispassionate as you can in order to maintain the scene and your professionalism in those situations,” says Dr. Cliff Boyd, a forensic archaeologist and professor at Radford University Virginia.

“It’s far more dangerous in Iraq, and it adds several levels of stress,” he says.

The discovery of the bodies of so many women and children in the graves was key to the prosecution’s case against Hussein and his associates. The dictator had argued that the Anfal campaign targeted only the rebels who had sided with Iran during the war. The work of Trimble’s team put the lie to that argument.

“Doing the excavations showed they were trying to eliminate this population. You can’t argue that women or children were a threat to the Baath party or Saddam’s regime,” says Zach Zorich, a senior editor at Archaeology who documented the work of Trimble’s team. “I think [researchers] were proud of what they’d found. Their ability to give a voice to these people gave them satisfaction.”

Satisfaction and convictions. Ali Hassan al-Majid al-Tikriti, Sultan Hashem Ahmed al-Ta’l, and Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti all got death sentences, and two other defendants, Sabir Abdul al-Aziz al-Douri and Farhan Mutlaq al-Habouri, received life sentences. Hussein himself was executed for other crimes before the trial ended. For Trimble, who testified at length during the trial, it was a poignant experience.

“You’re very aware of where you are,” Trimble says. “It’s not TV anymore. You see Saddam and Chemical Ali sitting there 10 feet away. I was so locked into my presentation and wanting to do a good job. I really did not want to let down the people I had worked with for those years.”

The results of the team’s work were positive, but that outcome doesn’t erase the horror of the regime’s deeds or the effect it had on the team members.

Trimble says the time his team spent in Iraq, which totaled nearly three years, was emotionally and physically draining.

“It just wears you away to the point that you don’t know what’s happening,” he says. “Some people could only take two to three months. You’re living on a base, which is effectively an island. There’s no getting away from work. All those things wore people out.

“It reminded me of being sanded away with the finest-grain sandpaper. You have to kind of steel yourself.”

As originally published in Newsmax magazine.