Dead sons go on display

1.30pm - By ANDREW MARSHALL

BAGHDAD - Striving to convince fearful Iraqis that Saddam Hussein's sons are dead, US officials have shown Reuters and other journalists two bodies that Washington says are those of Uday and Qusay.

Unlike grisly, blood-spattered photographs published by US forces earlier, the faces had been retouched and shaved to make them more closely resemble the brothers in life.

A US official said the aim was not to deceive. But Iraqis, brought up in a culture of conspiracy theory, were divided on the identity of the resulting waxy corpses.

Washington underlined its confidence that the notorious brothers had been killed by saying it expected to pay the full US$30 million reward to the Iraqi informant whose tip-off enabled the US military to find Saddam's sons.

"We would expect to pay the whole reward," a senior US State Department official told reporters. Washington had put US$15 million rewards on each of their heads.

The net might be closing on Saddam himself, US forces said. Acting on a tip-off, they rounded up several men near the former Iraqi president's home town of Tikrit suspected of belonging to his bodyguard unit.

"We continue to tighten the noose," said 4th Infantry Division commander Major General Ray Odierno. Saddam has a US$25 million price on his head. The Americans hope that can loosen tongues, as money seems to have done in the case of his sons.

About 15 journalists saw the two bodies, almost naked and riddled with bullet and shrapnel wounds, laid out in a tented military mortuary. They did look like the two brothers, who US troops said they killed at a villa in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday. A faint smell of disinfectant hung in the air.

The face of Uday, 39, had been repaired. The US pictures had shown wounds that officers said he suffered in the siege of the villa, where he and his younger brother went down fighting an overwhelming, rocket-firing US force.

"The two bodies have undergone facial reconstruction with mortician's' putty to make them resemble as closely as possible the faces of the brothers when they were alive," a US military official said. He called it standard practice, although most Muslims frown on such post-mortem work.

It is not clear what will happen to the bodies. Muslim tradition demands they be buried quickly. It is possible they could be discreetly handed to clan elders in Tikrit.

Washington says it has conclusive proof of the identities based on dental and medical records, as well as visual testimony from four senior aides to Saddam's family.

Officials said they matched the serial number on a plate implanted in Uday's leg after a 1996 assassination attempt.

Qusay's beard, visible in the US photographs, had been shaved but the moustache he normally wore had been left.

The gaping wound in Uday's face, visible in the pictures, was gone but a hole in the top of his head was still visible.

US officials said they had ruled out earlier speculation that he might have shot himself in the head to avoid capture.

Many Iraqis, brought up on official lies and mistrustful of their American occupiers, were unconvinced.

At a Baghdad coffee shop, men smoking a water pipe as they watched the grim film on television, were in two minds.

"These are not Uday and Qusay. It doesn't look like them at all," said Hussein Abed. His friend Mohammed Ali Salman disagreed: "No, it's true. These are Uday and Qusay. I am so glad... We now hope we will live in safety."

Yet some Iraqis say they would feel safe only if they saw for themselves the bodies of Uday, a feared rapist and torturer, and Qusay, 37, Saddam's calculating heir apparent.

"They should have been hung up on poles in a square in Baghdad so all Iraqis could see," said businessman Khalil Ali.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he ordered the bodies to be shown - brushing aside questions on ethics and accusations of hypocrisy - to help convince Iraqis that Saddam's reign was over, despite taped messages of defiance purportedly issued by the former Iraqi leader from hiding.

The Americans hope proof of their deaths will encourage more Iraqis to cooperate with US troops and undermine daily guerrilla attacks that they blame on die-hard Saddam loyalists.

But Iraqi analysts warn that other groups with no loyalty to Saddam may be involved in some of the attacks, including Islamic militants and nationalists giving vent to widespread resentment at the American takeover of their oil-rich country.

At Friday prayers in Falluja, west of Baghdad and a hotspot of resistance to the US presence in Iraq, angry Muslims said the bloodshed would go on until the Americans were driven out.

"All Iraqis want to kill the Americans because of the way they act," said Muhammad Abbas, a shop owner.

US troops raided a house in the town that local people said was home to associates of Saddam, and seized what they called a large weapons cache in a house and three adjacent bunkers near the town Samarra, north of Baghdad.

Televised images of the bodies shocked many Arabs in the Middle East who said it was un-Islamic to exhibit corpses, however much the brothers were loathed.

"Although Uday and Qusay are criminals, displaying their corpses like this is disgusting and repulsive. America claims it is civilised but is behaving like a thug," Saudi civil servant Saad Brikan, 42, said in Riyadh.

- REUTERS

Photos: The bodies

Herald Feature: Iraq