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Massacre Leaving Kuwait - Desert Storm
Incinerated body of an Iraqi soldier on the "Highway of Death," a name the
press has given to the road from Mutlaa, Kuwait, to Basra, Iraq.
U.S. planes immobilized the convoy by disabling vehicles at its front and
rear, then bombing and stafing the resulting traffic jam for hours. More
than 2,000 vehicles and tens of thousands of charred and dismembered
bodies littered the sixty miles of highway. The clear rapid incineration
of the human being [pictured above] suggests the use of napalm,
phosphorus, or other incendiary bombs. These are anti-personnel weapons
outlawed under the 1977 Geneva Protocols.
This massive attack occurred after Saddam Hussein announced a complete
troop withdrawal from Kuwait in compliance with UN Resolution 660. Such a
massacre of withdrawing Iraqi soldiers violates the Geneva Convention of
1949, common article 3, which outlaws the killing of soldiers who "are out
of combat."
There are, in addition, strong indications that many of those killed were
Palestinian and Kuwaiti civilians trying to escape the impending siege of
Kuwait City and the return of Kuwaiti armed forces. No attempt was made by
U.S. military command to distinguish between military personnel and
civilians on the "highway of death." The whole intent of international law
with regard to war is to prevent just this sort of indiscriminate and
excessive use of force.
(Photo Credit: © 1991 Kenneth Jarecke / Contact Press Images)
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