A new report by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh 
confirms that U.S. troops massacred Iraqi soldiers on March 
2, 1991, after the cease-fire that ended the Gulf War. 
Hersh's report is carried in the May 22 New Yorker 
magazine. 

The massacre was cited in war crimes hearings held by 
anti-war groups shortly after the war. 

According to the transcript of the May 11, 1991, 
Commission of Inquiry for the International War Crimes 
Tribunal: 

"A division of the Republican Guard withdrawing on a long, 
unprotected causeway, high above a swamp, on Highway 8, was 
attacked.  The footage tells us what happened: the U.S. 
assembled attack helicopters, tanks, artillery, and opened 
fire with laser-guided weapons. The footage shows, and the 
commander describes: `We went right up the column like a 
turkey shoot, we really waxed them.' That's on tape! 
Thousands of Iraqi soldiers were killed; not one U.S. 
soldier died." 

This was part of the summary of charges presented by Sara 
Flounders, now co-director of the International Action 
Center. 

The massacre was ordered by Gen. Barry McCaffrey, now the 
"drug control officer" for the Clinton administration, a 
cabinet-level position. That means that the "retired" four- 
star general is part of the White House's inner circle. So 
much for the claim of civilian control over the U.S. 
military; it appears that it is the generals who are 
setting policy. 

McCaffrey is also the architect of the current U.S. 
military buildup in Colombia. McCaffrey's plan, including 
the $1.7-billion "aid" package recently passed by Congress, 
is widely described as setting the stage for the next 
Vietnam-like war by the Pentagon. 

Hersh's report adds details to what was cited in the 1991 
war crimes hearings, particularly on the role played by 
Gen. McCaffrey. According to Hersh, McCaffrey's operations 
officer, Patrick Lamar, said that the alleged firing by 
Iraqi troops used by Gen. McCaffrey to justify the attack 
was "a giant hoax. The Iraqis were doing absolutely 
nothing. I told McCaffrey I was having trouble confirming 
the incoming'' fire. 

Retired Lt. Gen. John J. Yeosock said, "what Barry 
[McCaffrey] ended up doing was fighting sand dunes and 
moving rapidly.'' He said that McCaffrey was "looking for a 
battle.'' 

Maj. Gen. Ronald Griffith said McCaffrey "made it a battle 
when it was never one.'' 

Since the beginning, the Pentagon has had documentary 
evidence, including hours of videotape, of the deadly 
assault on a defenseless unit. The May 8, 1991, New York 
Newsday carried a report on the massacre based on this Army 
footage. 

The Army opened an investigation in August 1991 into 
charges of war crimes, including the massacre of retreating 
soldiers and an earlier incident involving the murder of 
unarmed Iraqi prisoners.  According to Hersh, McCaffrey's 
unit fired high-powered machine guns into a group of more 
than 350 disarmed Iraqi prisoners. The official 
investigation confirmed that McCaffrey had ordered the 
killing of the retreating Iraqi troops, but concluded that 
it was justified and not a war crime. It was a decision 
that can be compared to the official justification of four 
New York cops shooting 41 bullets and killing unarmed 
Amadou Diallo last year. 

The May 15 New York Times reports that "allegations about 
the March 2 attack did not apparently cloud General 
McCaffrey's career." 

IT WAS ALL WAR CRIMES 

The massacre of retreating Iraqi soldiers was also 
described in the 1992 book "The Fire This Time," written by 
Ramsey Clark, former attorney general and founder of the 
International Action Center. In it, Clark also describes 
other crimes committed by the U.S. military during the 
ground war, including the slaughter of unarmed Iraqi 
soldiers as they walked towards U.S. soldiers with their 
arms raised in an attempt to surrender. Clark also writes 
about Iraqi troops who were buried alive during the first 
two days of the ground offensive. Plows were mounted onto 
tanks to carry this out. 

The book, however, focuses on another war crime that has 
become a mainstay of U.S. imperialism since the Iraq war: 
the systematic destruction of the civilian infrastructure 
of the country. "The Fire This Time" quotes a June 23, 
1991, Washington Post article based on interviews with some 
of the Gulf War's top planners. 

Reporter Barton Gellman wrote: "Many of the targets were 
chosen only secondarily to contribute to the military 
defeat of [Iraq]. . Military planners hoped the bombing 
would amplify the economic and psychological impact of 
international sanctions on Iraqi society. . Because of 
these goals, damage to civilian structures and interests, 
invariably described by briefers during the war as 
`collateral' and unintended, was sometimes neither. . They 
deliberately did great harm to Iraq's ability to support 
itself as an industrial society." 

This same strategy was used again eight years later in the 
U.S.-NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. A new war crimes hearing 
into this war has been initiated by the International 
Action Center. A Commission of Inquiry into U.S.-NATO War 
Crimes in Yugoslavia opened on July 31, 1999. Ramsey Clark 
brought 19 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity 
and crimes against peace against the leaders of the U.S. 
and NATO countries. 

On June 10 in New York City, the International Action 
Center will hold a World Tribunal on U.S./NATO War Crimes 
Against the People of Yugoslavia. Sara Flounders, a co- 
coordinator of this Commission of Inquiry, said: "While we 
are not now holding the named criminals under lock and key, 
we see the tribunal process as a challenge to arrogant and 
arbitrary power. We are confident that it is the first step 
in a process that will continue to resonate throughout the 
NATO countries and among all the peoples targeted by the 
New World Order.