Press Release - Commonwealth War Graves Commission

[Gnr Murray]

COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES IN IRAQ

With Coalition forces and the media now moving freely in Iraq, there have been a number of items in the press about the 'discovery' of Commonwealth war cemeteries from previous conflicts.

Given the poor condition of some of these sites, the understandable assumption has been that they have lain forgotten for many years but this is not the case. Before the current conflict the Commission had been involved in a long process of quiet diplomacy with the Iraqi government designed to reach agreement over long term care for the cemeteries, and Commission staff visited them all as recently as November last year.

The scale of the Commission's task in Iraq is extensive - more than 54,000 Commonwealth war dead are buried or commemorated at 13 locations, most of them casualties of the Mesopotamian campaign during the First World War - and every effort had been made to resume work there in the years since maintenance first became difficult during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

Persistent but sensitive efforts by Commission staff led eventually to an agreement with the Iraqi authorities for an extensive maintenance programme to begin in December 2001 and by the end of February this year the first phase of work had been completed in the largest of the Commission's cemeteries in Iraq, Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery. More than 500 new headstones had also arrived in Baghdad in the first phase of a major headstone replacement programme before the current crisis brought all Commission work in Iraq to a halt once more.

Despite many setbacks the Commission takes the long term view of the situation. Parallels can be drawn between the current difficulties in Iraq and those faced in the Lebanon some years ago where Beirut War Cemetery, reduced to a wilderness by the long civil war, is now fully restored. Because of the number and spread of the cemeteries in Iraq the task will be much greater although the Commission has full details of the graves and their locations at each site. There have already been discussions about how soon work can resume and the Commission is very hopeful of the support of Coalition forces stationed in the country who have already shown considerable interest in the cemeteries.

The time scale is difficult to predict at the moment but the Commission wishes to reassure the public that, as soon as circumstances permit, it will do everything in its power to restore the graves to a fitting standard."

[One N@tion]

Lets hope they clean up the cemeteries ASAP