Middle East Watch, a division of Human Rights Watch with Physicians for Human Rights (MEW/PHR) have charged the regime of Saddam Hussein with crimes against humanity in its treatment of Iraqi Kurds during the Anfal campaign of 1988. The two organizations have called on the U.N. Security Council and the U.S. government to ensure that these crimes are punished and do not recur.

Their case against Saddam is based on the fieldwork of forensic scientists excavating mass graves in Iraqi Kurdistan and focused on the account of a single village, Koreme, and its inhabitants. Koreme's sufferings were...