Saddam Hussein's government may have executed 61,000...

Saddam Hussein's government may have executed 61,000 Baghdad residents, a number significantly higher than previously believed, according to a survey obtained by Associated Press. The bloodiest massacres of Saddam's 23-year presidency occurred in Iraq's Kurdish north and Shiite Muslim south, but the Gallup Baghdad Survey data indicated the brutality extended strongly into the capital as well. The survey asked 1,178 Baghdad residents in August and September whether a member of their household had been executed by Saddam's regime. According to Gallup, 6.6 per cent said yes. The polling firm took metropolitan Baghdad's population -- 6.39 million -- and average household size -- 6.9 people -- to calculate that 61,000 people were executed during Saddam's rule. Past estimates were in the low tens of thousands. Most were believed to have been buried in mass graves. The US-led occupation authority in Iraq had said that at least 300,000 people were buried in mass graves in Iraq. Human rights officials put the number closer to 500,000, and some Iraqi political parties estimated more than one million were executed. The survey, which had a margin of error of three percentage points, was conducted in interviews in Baghdad residents' homes from August 28 to September 4.