WAR IN THE GULF: EXECUTED
Mar 24 2003
Fury over sick parade of PoWs and dead US troops on Iraqi TV
Cara Page
SADDAM HUSSEIN'S troops have executed US prisoners of war, it was feared last night.
In a nightmare vision for America, gruesome pictures of five dead soldiers were shown on Iraqi TV yesterday.
Two looked like they had been murdered with close-range gun shots to the head.
Iraq also trampled on the laws of war by parading five American prisoners, including a woman, on state TV.
And in scenes of hysterical hatred, supporters of Saddam ran amok in the centre of Baghdad, looking for downed Allied pilots who did not exist.
Iraqi TV showed at least five American bodies, dumped in a makeshift morgue after heavy fighting around the town of Nasiriyah.
Two had gunshot wounds to the head that suggested they had been executed. Another had been shot in the groin.
The grisly tape was also broadcast continuously on Arab satellite network Aljazeera.
A smiling Iraqi shifted the bodies to show viewers their wounds. The dead soldiers' shirts were pulled up and their trousers lowered.
Aljazeera also showed what looked like a fuel or water tanker at a roadside, with a dead American in full uniform lying beside it.
The Geneva Convention says prisoners of war must not be humiliated for propaganda.
But Saddam's regime was quick to crow over the captured Americans, four men and a woman.
They are maintenance troops, seized behind the frontline in an ambush near Nasiriyah.
The tired, shocked and frightened prisoners were interrogated on air for 10 minutes, even though two of them were clearly wounded.
They gave their names, military ID numbers and home towns and said they were from the 507th maintenance unit.
One soldier from Texas lay still on a sofa, his face covered in blood. He had wounds to his side and arm and seemed to be gasping for breath.
But the Iraqi TV reporter lifted the man's head and pulled it towards his microphone. Asked his name, the PoW said haltingly: "Edgar, my name is Edgar."
The 30-year-old female prisoner had a bloody and bandaged ankle and her boots were missing.
She said her name was Shauna and she was from Texas.
A third soldier, in wire-rimmed glasses, said he was Private First Class Miller from Kansas.
Asked why he came to Iraq, he said: "I was told to come here. I come to shoot only if I am shot at."
He added: "I just followed orders. I came to fix broke things. I don't want to kill anybody."
Asked what he thought of the Iraqi people, Private Miller said: "They don't bother me, I don't bother them."
Another prisoner gave his name as Sergeant James Riley, 31, from New Jersey. He sat on a chair, ashen-faced and shaking, with his hands clasped between his knees.
One of the captives was asked how many officers were in his unit. He replied: I don't know, sir."
The PoWs are not combat troops. Their job was to support front line units advancing to Baghdad.
There has been bitter fighting around Nasiriyah, a vital crossing point of the River Euphrates that America said had been secured.
US officials believe their troops are being attacked by Iraqis who had supposedly given up the fight.
America and Britain reacted with fury to the TV pictures.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: "This is one more crime by the Iraqi regime."
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld added: "It's illegal to do things to PoWs that are humiliating to those prisoners." Tony Blair's spokesman said: "The pictures are a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention."
He said the Allies would complain to Aljazeera about the footage, and added: "We would urge our broadcasters and media not to allow themselves to be exploited by the Iraqis."
President Bush said he expected Iraq to treat prisoners "humanely, just like we'll treat Iraqi prisoners".
Rumsfeld said all 2000 of the Allies' prisoners were being well treated and given food and medicine. Several have been treated on a British hospital ship.
The Allies are being very careful about how they fight the war as they try to win the battle for western public opinion.
TV networks have been asked to avoid showing PoWs' faces because it breaches the Convention.
But critics of the Bush administration point to the regime at Camp X- Ray in Cuba, where suspected al-Qaeda fighters have been held for many months with few rights in harsh conditions.
And many Iraqi prisoners have to be reassured they are safe, after being told by the regime that they will be killed with injections of poison if they are taken prisoner.
Captain Wassim Slim, a Saudi-born British Army medic, said: "They are completely terrified. They have been told they will be injected with poisons and terrible things.
"They're in a Catch 22. They don't want to fight against this overwhelming force, but they think if they throw themselves on our mercy they will be injected.
"I explain to them in Arabic that we are not going to hurt them, that we only want to treat their wounds."
Saddam's willingness to flout the Geneva Convention is a repeat of the first Gulf War, when he paraded captured US and British pilots in a bid to whip the Iraqi people into a frenzy.
One of the captured Britons, former Flight Lieutenant John Nicol, said yesterday: "The only time I cried in captivity was after the Iraqis put us on television.
"I thought, `What the hell is this going to do to my parents?'"
Observers say Saddam will stop at nothing to stir up Iraqi hatred for the Allies.
And there was bloodlust yesterday on the banks of the River Tigris in Baghdad, when a 3000-strong lynch mob gathered to hunt two Allied pilots who had supposedly been seen baling out nearby.
Screaming supporters of Saddam's Baath Party fired guns at random, shot into the water, and thrashed at thick reeds on the riverbank with sticks.
One man leaped into the river, a knife clenched in his teeth like a pirate. Another set fire to the reeds with petrol, hoping to smoke out the enemy.
The mob ran amok as the Baath Party held a rally nearby.
US Central Command said any claims that a coalition aircraft had been shot down in the area were completely false.
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