Rumsfeld snaps pic, tells Uday and Qusay, "Show the love."
Thu July 24, 2003 04:41 PM ET
By Charles Aldinger
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday defended his decision to release photographs of the bullet-torn bodies of Saddam Hussein's two sons, saying, "I'm glad I made it."
He said making the pictures public would help convince frightened Iraqis that Saddam's rule was over and that far outweighed any sensitivities over showing the corpses.
"I feel it was the right decision and I'm glad I made it," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference after the release in Baghdad on Thursday of photographs of the corpses of Qusay and Uday Hussein, who were killed in a fierce firefight with U.S. troops in Mosul on Tuesday.
The Pentagon historically has refused to release pictures of either American or enemy war dead, but the secretary said he personally ordered bending that unofficial rule.
"It is not a practice that the United States engages in on a normal basis," he said, but "I honestly believe that these two are particularly bad characters, and that 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."
Rumsfeld and Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator in Iraq, told reporters the release of the pictures did not violate the Geneva Conventions, and they hoped the deaths of the sons of Iraq's still-missing former president could reduce the number of attacks on U.S. troops in unsettled Iraq.
NO 'SNAP DECISION'
Rumsfeld said he did not make "a snap decision" because there were "proper sensitivities" to be considered, but added, "In this case, it is not a close call for me."
He said providing proof of the sons' death could increase the number of Iraqis willing to provide information about the whereabouts of Saddam and other members of his former government and also dampen enthusiasm of mid-level former Baath Party officials that the United States accuses of spearheading the current resistance.
Rumsfeld cited the case of Romanian communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu, who was executed in a 1989 revolution.
"Another vicious dictator -- and it was not until the people of that country saw him, saw his body, that they actually believed that the fear and the threat that his regime posed to them was gone," he said.
Asked whether he believed the Iraqi people would believe the evidence, Bremer said, "I think we can anticipate there will be, as there always are, programs of disinformation put out by others. But I think most of them will believe that they're dead."
Bremer said the photographs are being shown on a U.S.-run television station in Iraq that reaches at least 60 percent of Iraqis.
"The strategic importance of the killings, of their being dead, is to help us persuade the Iraqi people that having liberated the country, we're there and we're going to be sure that these Baathists have no future," Bremer said.
Bremer said he believed that, in time, the deaths would help reduce the security threat to U.S. forces although there might be an "uptick in violence" against those troops in the short term.
Link:http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3155357 |
