THE tape was shocking. In the medical clinic at Abu Ghraib prison, nine Baghdad merchants were shown undergoing surgery to remove their healthy right hands on the orders of Saddam Hussein.

It wasn't hard to track the men shown in the video. The incident was well known in Baghdad and the tape had been widely circulated to terrorize other merchants who might dare to deal in foreign currency.

Nothing could more dramatically illustrate the depth of cruelty and inhumanity of Saddam's regime. Iraqis often say, "Cruelty is the tryant's art." And Saddam should take his place among history's cruelest tryrants.

I went looking for the men in the video. Of the nine who lost their hands in 1995, six were still in Baghdad, one had died, one escaped to Germany and one to Holland. I tracked them down and proposed I make a documentary incorporating the brutal amputation scenes, while telling their story to the world. They agreed.