Mile of Death

Images we never got to see during this war...

During the night of the 25th of February and the day of the 26th of February in 1991, Allied aircraft strafed and bombed a stretch of the Jahra Highway ("Mile of Death").

A few days after the end of the Gulf ground war, an American soldier inspects carbonized bodies of Iraqi soldiers killed when their convoy of vehicles was bombed and strafed by Allied aircraft as the convoy attempted to retreat from Kuwait back to Iraq. This was a different and much less exposed convoy that was bombed than the one from the "Mile of Death". This one was on an obscure road to the north and east of Kuwait City. The bodies of the man Iraqi soldiers were later buried by Allied Forces at the end of the war.

Photojournalist Peter Turnley's impressive coverage of the "Mile of Death" and what else occurred in these two days of February 1991 in the desert, not far from Kuwait, is a lasting testimony to the horros of the war.

Turnley's note to the editor of the Digital Journalist in December 2002

As the US was on the brink of another Gulf War with the impending invasion of Iraq, Peter wrote to Dirck Halstead
Excerpt:

"During the Gulf War, I refused to participate in the pool system. I was in the Gulf for many weeks as the build-up of troops took place, then sat out the air war. I flew from my home in Paris to Riyadh when the ground war began and arrived at the “mile of death” very early in the morning on the day the war stopped. Few other journalists were there when I arrived at this incredible scene, with carnage that was strewn all over. On this mile stretch were cars and trucks with wheels still turning and radios still playing. Bodies were scattered along the road. Many have asked how many people died during the war with Iraq, and the question has never been well answered. That first morning, I saw and photographed a U.S. military “graves detail” burying many bodies in large graves. I don’t recall seeing many television images of these human consequences. Nor do I remember many photographs of these casualties being published."

I recommend reading his note in full. Turnley describes a truth that was deliberately concealed from the public ... by the then responsible politicians as well as the media. His words are a haunting warning to all of us.
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