A terrible surprise in location but not in practice:

Workers digging the foundation of a new hospital in [the] northern city [of Suleimaniyah] discovered Wednesday a burial site that a regional human rights minister said could contain the remains of hundreds of people. At least seven bodies were removed from the excavation in Suleimaniyah's suburb of Dabashin shortly after they were discovered. Officials said the bodies were believed to be of Kurds killed while fleeing Saddam Hussein's army as it tried to crush an uprising following the 1991 Gulf War.

Speaking at the site of the dig, Salah Rashid, the regional Kurdish human rights minister, said "there are mass graves all over Kurdistan especially in areas that were under the control of the Iraqi government. This grave dates back to 1991 when Saddam's regime came to crush the Kurdish uprising." He predicted that at least 400 bodies would be found there.

What's most poignant is the year: 1991 saw tens of thousands Iraqis stuck on the tip of the world's wisdom declaring Saddam's removal too costly if not unnecessary. "A threat to no one," so the saying went, and still echoes in some dark corners. Praise the day we learned from our mistake.

What else hides beneath the rusted hulk of dictatorship?