The United States military has allowed TV journalists into a morgue in Iraq to film two bodies said to be Uday and Qusay Hussein, in another attempt to convince Iraqis the men are really dead. Earlier US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended the release of graphic pictures showing the mutilated bodies of the men the US says are Saddam Hussein’s sons. But even this has left lingering doubts among some Iraqis that two of the old regime’s most feared men were killed when US forces raided a house in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday.
May have to let them drag the bodies through the streets.
On Friday US military morticians and forensic pathologists told journalists that each body contained more than 20 bullet wounds, but there was no evidence the men committed suicide. The bodies had undergone post-mortem "facial reconstruction", officials told Reuters.
"OK, which body does this ear belong too?"
Mr Rumsfeld told reporters on Thursday that the decision had not been easy. However, he said, "it’s important for the Iraqi people to see them, to know they’re gone, to know they’re dead and to know they’re not coming back". "I feel it was the right decision and I’m glad I made it," the defence secretary added. After the pictures were shown on Arabic satellite television channels, cars in Baghdad could be heard honking their horns and there was a sustained burst of gunfire. |