Inside al Qaeda's torture and execution complex

CNN:

The hot wind swirls around the human bones and cracked skulls that litter the forsaken desert lands in Western Iraq.

We are standing in the middle of what was an al Qaeda execution site, just outside an intricate bunker complex that the organization used to torture and murder its victims, the bodies left to rot or be eaten by animals.

From the back of the police truck the opening to the first bunker is barely discernible in the distance.

"Al Qaeda came in as a massive force" one of the officers says as we bump along the harsh terrain. "They stole our cars, our personal cars. They kidnapped two of my brothers. They blew up the house over there."

In the distance we can see his village -- a set of sand colored homes surrounded by parched farmlands.

As we approach grubby children chase the truck and then stand to the side, despondent, as the officer points to their home. "Their father was killed by al Qaeda," he says.

In 2007 the U.S. military launched a series of airstrikes that drove out al Qaeda.

As we enter the first bunker Captain Khaled Bandar tells us they found the floor littered with bodies.

A gaping hole is evidence of the U.S. firepower. Insurgents used the layered and intricate labyrinth of passageways and hatches to carry out summary trials and executions.

The police show us clothing and shoes, saying they are leaving them in place in case the families of the victims decide to come back. The stench of decay still lingers.

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"Al Qaeda's strategy of taking control of areas has been abandoned for now. Their method is propaganda, instilling fear, terrorizing."

He adds that the group stopped recruiting over the last six months because of a shortage in funding and increased infiltration.

"Al Qaeda is moving towards selecting the elite and condensing its forces rather than expanding. The Americans nearly defeated al Qaeda by cornering it and reducing its operations," he says.

But those operations are still deadly, and the war is by no means over. "No, the war is not over in Iraq, a type of battle is over, but there are new battles cloaked in politics.

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I don't think Eric Holder will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the abuses that took place in the area described in this story. Probably no one ever will, but this story paints a picture of the depravity of the enemy we are fighting and it makes a mockery of the suggestion that we should treat these people like a criminal defendant in the US..