For Immediate Release
June 3, 2003

Global Message

KEY POINTS: FROM THE G-8 SUMMIT

President Bush went to the G-8 Summit in Evian, France to encourage cooperation on key global priorities: spurring economic growth; combating terrorism; preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; and promoting prosperity in the developing world.

MASS GRAVES

Many mass grave sites have been identified in Iraq, providing further evidence of Saddam Hussein's atrocities against the Iraqi people. The Coalition is working to help grieving families search for lost relatives and preserve evidence for future prosecutions by the new Iraqi government against the perpetrators. Some activities include:

• A team of U.S. forensic experts has arrived to assess the sites and determine security needs. They will work with other Coalition assessment teams.
• To strike the delicate balance between the interests of families searching for loved ones and broader justice issues, ORHA is working with local leaders where digging has already begun to coordinate the process; providing security at sites where digging has not begun; and sending forensic teams to conduct exhumations of grave sites.
• ORHA will work with existing Iraqi organizations to establish an Iraqi Committee on Missing Persons (ICMP). It will collect the records of Iraqis who have disappeared and compile a national database to integrate the information with findings of the forensic investigative teams.
• Prosecution of crimes against humanity committed by the former regime will be conducted through an Iraqi-led process assisted and supported by the international community as needed.
• To ensure that prosecutors have access to evidence, ORHA will form an evidence coordination team. The team will create centralized and systematic warehouses for the storage, documentation and preservation of evidence.