"These two individuals are particularly vicious individuals," he said. "If it can save American lives, I'm happy to make the decision I made," Rumsfeld said.Īs Rumsfeld noted, the practice of showing enemy bodies is not forbidden by the Geneva Conventions on war conduct, though photographs of prisoners of war are. military occupying Iraq and "a greater conviction" among the Iraqi people that the Hussein regime is finished. Rumsfeld said in Washington that "it was not a snap decision," adding that he thought there will be "less enthusiasm" on the part of lower-level Baathists to continue the continuing fight against the U.S. The Bush administration engaged in a long back-and-forth between Baghdad and Washington before agreeing to send the pictures to news agencies via the Internet, senior officials said in briefings to reporters. Much of Baghdad was without power when the pictures were broadcast on Iraqi television at 9 p.m. The full impact of the photos will not be clear until the weekend, after newspapers publish again Saturday after the Muslim holy day today. "I'm not sure it was them," said Ghaydan Yatooma, 33, a liquor merchant. Others expressed suspicions that the photos had been doctored. The U.S.-led coalition promised to take local and international news media today to the morgue where the bodies are being kept and to release autopsy reports.īut on the streets of Baghdad, some Iraqis wondered why the Americans waited so long to let the public view the photos. "And now, more than ever, the Iraqi people can know the former regime is gone and is not coming back." "Saddam Hussein's sons were responsible for torture, for maiming innocent citizens and for the murder of countless Iraqis," President Bush said in Philadelphia. The Bush administration insisted that the evidence would dispel any doubts about the men's identities. Offering further proof, the Pentagon released X-rays of one body that showed pins in the legs that resembled those implanted in Odai after an assassination attempt in the mid-1990s. "These pictures are not clear," former Iraqi intelligence chief Wafiq al-Sammarai said on the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera. In cafes, shops and houses, Iraqis scanned television screens and examined the appearance of lips, teeth, eyes and build for confirmation of the men's identities. "To get closure that two particularly vicious members of that regime are in fact dead is, I believe, something that will contribute to more Iraqi people being willing to come forward with information." "The Baathists and the people of that country are frightened of Saddam Hussein and his regime," Rumsfeld said. Rumsfeld said that releasing the photographs was necessary to "save American lives." The United States has long objected to the display of photographs of American war dead. invasion.Īt the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. The brothers wore thick facial hair they had not had before the U.S. For every believer, there seemed to be a nonbeliever. In Baghdad, Iraqis debated the merits of the photos. Members, including a doctor, said there was "absolutely no doubt it was Odai and Qusai," a spokesman said. The Iraqi Governing Council was taken to an airport morgue to view the bodies. Analysts and forensic experts on pan-Arab stations dissected the four images and compared them to pre-war pictures of the men. Through the night, people in the Arab world were riveted to television reports showing the bloody, bearded faces and wounded shoulders of Hussein's sons, Odai and Qusai. BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Pentagon released graphic photographs of the slain sons of Saddam Hussein yesterday evening in an effort to convince skeptical Iraqis that they were indeed dead and that the Hussein regime had no chance of returning to power.
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