May 18, 2003
The first object to come out of the ground was a blue and white trainer. Delicate brown foot bones could be seen inside.
As the arm of the mechanical digger carved one bucketful after another from the desert, ever more gruesome evidence followed that Saddam Hussein had executed 600 Kuwaiti prisoners of war who have been missing since 1991.
The blue water of Lake Habaniya sparkled invitingly beyond posts stretched with barbed wire that marked the boundaries of the former Iraqi army base where the bodies had been concealed. They were buried 9ft under. It was clear they were not meant to be found.
The story of how the corpses were discovered last week by The Sunday Times begins with a man