AMIRIYA MASSACRE

One of the crimes against humanity cannot be forgotten. It should always serve a reminder that the so called civilized world is in reality not the civilized.

The destruction of the Amiriya shelter, in a middle-class Baghdad neighborhood, on Feb. 13, 1991, at the onset of the Persian Gulf war, killed some 408 civilians in the most tragic way possible. Most were burned alive including many children. It stands as the deadliest episode of civilian casualties in the modern history. A heinous crime committed by the United States in Iraq. In the aftermath of the 1991 bombing, as images of the civilian catastrophe were broadcasted to the world by the few foreign correspondents in Baghdad, the Pentagon initially defended the attack, saying their intelligence showed it was carried on at a bunker that was a command-and-control center for the Iraqi Army. Later the episode was determined to have been a tragic mistake; Saddam was not using civilians as human shields, as had been alleged, nor was there any bunker.