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from the issue of December 14, 2006
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UNL prof testifies against Hussein
BY SARA PIPHER, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
In Amman, Jordan, he was asked not to leave his hotel for security reasons.
He took an early morning flight to Baghdad on a military C-130. A convoy of U.S. Marshals met him at the airport.
He stayed in the Green Zone - the "Emerald City" - but can't explain, really, where the compound was located. No one told him. At times, he heard gunfire and explosions in the distance.
When he testified, he stood no more than 20 feet from any of the defendants, including "Chemical Ali," Iraq's former defense minister, and Saddam Hussein.
"And yes," Doug Scott said, "I did look him right in the eye."
Scott has been an adjunct professor of anthropology at UNL for more than 20 years. In that time, he has traveled the world, studying historical battles and also documenting human rights abuses using the tools of forensic archaeology. Over Thanksgiving weekend, his work took him to Iraq as part of a three-person team that testified about a site of mass executions.
"In Iraq, the question we were dealing with was a very simple one: is the detailed evidence consistent with combat action, or is it consistent with the appearance of an execution site?" Scott said. "We looked at evidence, and were able to say there was a minimum of seven shooters present. We looked at the distribution of cartridge cases on the ground; it was a linear arrangement consistent with a firing squad organization. Basically, we used a combination of battlefield theory and modeling and firearms examination."
Scott actually did most of his work in Lincoln. He was given cartridge cases from the scene of the killings, as well as baseline mapping that researchers had done in the field. He plotted numbered artifacts electronically, and because he was able to identify that the shooters had used AK-47s - which eject their cartridges to the right and forward - he was able to approximate where the shooters had been standing.
Despite the maximum security surrounding his travel to the Middle East, and the high profile nature of the trial, Scott remained calm.
"When I walked in, my job was to testify," he said. "I couldn't let any personal feelings interfere with that. I had to get up there and tell the truth about what I saw. I realized I couldn't dwell on that individual person - I had to just do my job."
Following Scott's testimony in Baghdad, the trial's prosecutor asserted that the evidence Scott and his colleagues presented was consistent with what the Kurdish witnesses from the small farming village of Koreme had testified.
"Being able to present evidence - whether it helps convict Hussein or proves him innocent - is important," Scott said. "Something happened there. What we showed was that war crimes, crimes against humanity, occurred. Whether Saddam was linked to that I don't know... the trial's still ongoing."
Scott honed his skills in other post-conflict areas. In 1991, he worked with the United Nations Truth Commission and Physicians for Human Rights in Central America.
"In El Salvador, I looked at a massacre of a village - 900 people - that occurred in 1983," he said. "The 'story' was that these were all combat-related deaths. But when I looked at the cartridge cases, my hypothesis was that these were execution style murders."
Scott and his colleagues assembled forensic evidence, and after reviewing excavation work done by an Argentinian team, concluded that the deaths in the village were the result of an intentional execution. After they presented their findings, witnesses - including some soldiers who participated - came forward and corroborated the evidence. "I see real value in applying science to human rights issues. We made the intellectual leap a number of years ago, and it has proved extremely useful," he said. "There are always witnesses, survivors of these massacres. Whether they have credibility is the question. Forensic science can document whether these incidents occurred, and then history can't be revised."
Scott has done the bulk of his work in forensic archaeology on the grounds of the Battle of Little Bighorn, which he has studied for 23 years. There, he developed a method for recovering information about the battle, and by comparing historical records and oral histories, was able to surmise what occurred with great accuracy. He was also able to determine precise details about events that occurred at Little Bighorn, by recreating the movement of people and firearms.
"It is academic and scholarly knowledge that I have applied to all of this work," Scott said. "I am taking stuff literally out of the classroom and using it in a real world scenario. It is an opportunity to take broader concepts and apply them, from the process of theoretical modeling to real events. In the case of Iraq, the fact that we have witnesses who can corroborate our findings is particularly interesting."
Scott's work can be physically difficult and emotionally draining, but he believes that the results are worth the challenges.
"One of the most meaningful things I can do is recover someone's lost relative... that's where the human rights missions are valuable. When I can help families achieve closure, and document for the world what really happened, it's incredibly gratifying."
GO TO: ISSUE OF DECEMBER 14
NEWS HEADLINES FOR DECEMBER 14
Project uncovers DNA-like ice structures
Gifts of Love offers opportunity
Sen. Hagel to address graduates
UNL prof testifies against Hussein
Carr, Stump knighted by French government
Group studies Great Plains fire history begins
Housing puts lottery system into play
Quality indicators track UNL progress
Student depth reporting team headed to Berlin
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