More on the bones found in Iraq:

According to the BBC, virtually all had been... sod it. I'll quote:

'These are all executions'


Hundreds of bundles of bone in strips of military uniform have been found by British soldiers at an abandoned Iraqi military base on the outskirts of the town of al-Zubayr.
Faded black-and-white photographs show corpses mutilated beyond recognition, their faces burned and swollen.

Most of the victims appear to have been executed by gunshots to the head.

Skulls, their teeth broken and missing, look out from plastic bags in unsealed hardboard coffins stacked five deep in a warehouse.

Some of the bags have split open, spilling bones and scraps of clothing onto the dirt floor.

Outside, in a courtyard, a brick wall riddled with bullets stands behind a foot-high tiled platform, with a drainage ditch running in-between.

It looks like "a purpose-built shooting gallery" says one British soldier.

Next to the courtyard, a building contains what look like cells with metal hooks hanging from racks on the ceiling - and a picture of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Some of the paperwork suggests the "makeshift morgue" was operating in 1985.

Each coffin carries an Arabic inscription and the bags have been scrawled on with marker pens.

The first British soldier into the warehouse, Captain Jack Kemp, of the 3rd Regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery, said it contained more than 200 bags filled with "very old" human remains.

"It is certainly not from the recent conflict but it could be from the one before," the 40-year-old from Fraddam, near Newquay, Cornwall, added.

"We have placed it out of bounds to all personnel and will treat it as a mass grave.

"It's part of being at war - just another thing you have to deal with and get on with it.

"As the war goes on you expect to see everything."

Moments later, a younger soldier dashed over to Capt Kemp with a catalogue of photographs.

"Bloody hell," he whispered. "These are all executions. You can see the bullets - shots to the head."

Moments later the soldiers and the five western journalists who had been allowed to visit the site were hurriedly ushered out, as senior officers began to realise the possible significance of what had been discovered.

The soldiers are already asking if they could have chanced upon a death camp.

"Isn't it important for Muslims to be properly buried?" one said. "It's like a deliberate disrespect.

"Whoever these people were, they weren't very important to the people who did this."

There's photos at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2920039.stm, including one of the stacks of coffins in what looks like a warehouse.