"There will be pictures released," Rumsfeld

Additional Reporting By Subhi Haddad, IOL Baghdad Correspondent

WASHINGTON, July 24 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) -  The United States will release photographs of Saddam Hussein's sons “soon”, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday, July 23, as questions raised how explicitly bodies with fatal injuries would be shown in public.

"There will be pictures released," Rumsfeld told reporters here, referring to photographs of Uday and Qusay Hussein, who were killed in a U.S. assault in northern Iraq a day earlier.

Asked when the pictures might be released, Rumsfeld answered: "We haven't decided."

Pressed by a reporter to say whether the release of the pictures might come soon, Rumsfeld quipped: "What's soon?" to which the questioner replied, "Today, tomorrow?"

"Not today," shot back Rumsfeld.

A bit miffed at the reporters' insistence, the defense secretary explained that it was not a question of delaying the release of the photographs.

"The event was yesterday, as I recall. And it was in Mosul. And the bodies were taken to Baghdad, and they were identified. And today is today. And I said soon. Now, really."

Earlier Wednesday, a State Department official who declined to be named told Agence France-Presse the photos were "undoubtedly horrible, but we have to show them" to convince all Iraqis that the brothers are dead.

Showing the two brothers’ fatal injuries explicitly however might be awkward for a government that had protested when Arab television broadcast pictures of U.S. soldiers killed in their March invasion.

After the Arab channel Al-Jazeera aired a video tape of the bodies wearing bloodstained camouflage uniforms and some appeared to have bullet wounds to the head, Rumsfeld said the move is a violation of the Geneva conventions.

General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also said allowing dead soldiers be shown on screen is “just one more crime by the Iraqi regime."

As for Qusay and Uday, Washington could weigh options for showing their dead bodies in a bid to buoy morale of the U.S. soldiers now under almost daily attacks and convince disgruntled skeptical Iraqis that the U.S. forces came to help them get rid of a tyrant regime.

"We are going to make sure the Iraqi people believe us at the end of the day," U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said.

Wolfowitz said that Washington might show "shocking" images despite the offence it might cause.

“The main consideration on the other side in our minds is saving the lives of American men and women," he said, adding that the proof the two brothers were slain might diminish resistance attacks against American soldiers.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed in separate attacks early on Thursday, July 24.

Many Iraqis felt jubilant that there are no longer under the Saddam regime, but they are furious over the presence of foreign troops on their territories.

One U.S. defense official said standards varied from region to region as to how much gore could be shown in the media.

"The Arab world has no problem at all with showing very gruesome photos of human beings," the official told Reuters.

"Our norm is that we don't do that and that we find it offensive to see that kind of thing on television. We have to balance that with our effort to ensure that the Iraqi people know that Qusay and Uday are no longer alive."

President Bush said the deaths of the brothers would reassure Iraqis that Saddam's rule was over for good.

"Saddam Hussein's sons were responsible for torture, maiming and murder of countless Iraqis. Now more than ever, all Iraqis can know that the former regime is gone and will not be coming back," Bush said after meeting Iraq administrator Paul Bremer.

Identification ‘Established’

Sanchez said among the basic evidence that the bodies belonged to Uday and Qusay is their teeth

In Baghdad, commander of the U.S. Ground Forces in Iraq, Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez failed to promise more than 100 reporters pictures of the two high-profile brothers would be shown¸ although he said that positive identification had been established through dental records and witness statements from former Saddam aides.

“What is the reason for our presence at this news conference if we can’t get any photos for Uday and Qusay?” a photographer working for a leading world news agency told IslamOnline.net

The U.S. general only showed photographs for the villa belonging to Tribal Chief Nawaf Al Zaidan and its different rooms, heavily destroyed during the battle. 

He said firstly the U.S. forces aimed at convincing the two sons of Saddam Hussein to surrender, but refusing to do so, “our soldiers were forced to attack the villa and destroy the 2^nd floor where they were hiding in,” he said.

General Sanchez said that half-brother of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Barzan Abdul-Al-Ghfower Al-Tikriti, has been arrested hours after the killing of his Saddam’s sons, Uday and Qusay, the U.S. officer said.

“Outstanding personality No.11 on the list of the wanted persons from among the high-ranking 55 officials of the former regime of Saddam Hussein, has been arrested this morning,” he told the press conference.

General Sanchez said that the two bodies of Uday and Qusay were identified by former Iraqi officials who were brought to make sure that they belonged the two sons of former President Saddam Hussein.

Among the basic evidence that the bodies belonged to both men, their teeth were identical 100 percent to be of Qusay’s and 90 percent to be of Uday’s, whose teeth were crushed during the battle,” he said.

Another evidence was the impact of the 13 bullets found in Uday’s body, which remained from an abortive attempt to assassinate him in 1996, he added.

A statement by Iraq’s U.S.-appointed “Governing Council,” expressed hope that both Uday and Qusay would have been better arrested and tried by a special tribunal,” instead of being killed in the operation.

Sanchez insisted the commanders on the ground in Mosul had done the right thing in blasting Saddam's once influential sons with anti-tank missiles and helicopter gunships after they and two companions -- one of them possibly Qusay's teen-age son -- had fired at American troops.

"It was the right approach and there is absolutely no faulting the decisions that have been made,” Sanchez added.