Uday, Qusay 'indeed dead'
2003-07-26 09:14
Baghdad - The US military let the press photograph the bullet-riddled corpses of Saddam Hussein's sons, another effort to convince skeptical Iraqis the two are indeed dead.
The US military escorted about 15 reporters, photographers and cameramen to a makeshift air-conditioned morgue at Baghdad's international airport where they had unimpeded access to view the two bodies.
A pale, wax-like putty covered part of the two brothers' mutilated faces, according to an AFP photographer who viewed the bodies which lay naked on metal stretchers except for blue cloths over their midsections.
"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 told the journalists viewing the corpses in the presence of three forensic pathologists.
This was standard practice and there was no intention to deceive, he said.
The faces of the two corpses appeared more presentable than they had in the initial US military photographs taken of the two and released to the press on Thursday.
Uday's lower left leg bones, along with the metallic rod and pins which had been attached to them after a 1996 assassination attempt left him with severe injuries, had been removed and placed in a plastic bag.
Extensive dental records including X-rays were also provided and explained.
Each of the bodies had been riddled with approximately 20 bullet wounds, the photographer saw.
Further DNA and toxicology tests were being conducted on the pair, the DNA tests expressly to confirm beyond any shadow of a doubt that the two are indeed the Hussein brothers, an expert said.
Hghest-ever bounty
In Washington, the State Department confirmed it was set to pay its highest-ever bounty for wanted individuals to the informant who led US troops to the Hussein brothers.
The department expects to pay the tipster, whose information resulted in the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein the maximum $30 million it had offered for their arrest or capture, the officials said.
"Given the criteria that apply in this case, we would expect to pay the whole reward," one senior official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, Japan's parliament voted to allow Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to send troops to Iraq, but without weapons and ammunition for combat.
The first troops are to depart in August, followed by a 1 000-troop contingent in October.
The mission would help resettle refugees, rebuild facilities and provide fresh water and supplies.
Uday's former bodyguard told The Times newspaper that Saddam and his two sons did not leave Baghdad until mid-April, after the city fell, remaining there with an intention to lead resistance.
The bodyguard, identified by the pseudonym Abu Tiba, said the three appeared on April 11 at Friday prayers at a mosque in the Baghdad suburb of Adhamiya, a few kilometres from where US troops were patrolling.
Leading the resistance
Saddam, when questioned, reportedly told one woman that commanders had betrayed him.
Even outside Baghdad, Saddam, Uday and Qusay continued leading the resistance against US and British forces. Uday took personal charge of the Fedayeen, the regime's elite guerrilla forces, Tiba said.
"It was what they were planning the last time they met in Baghdad. (Uday's) only thought was about leading the resistance," said Tiba.
"I think he was still commanding the Fedayeen when he died," Tiba added.
US troops in Iraq braced for revenge, following the killing of Uday and Qusay in a standoff Tuesday with US troops at their hideout in the northern city of Mosul.
On Thursday, hooded gunmen describing themselves as loyalist militiamen of Saddam warned the coalition they would step up the guerrilla attacks.
They said they were members of "Saddam's Fedayeen" in the province of Al-Anbar, west of Baghdad, where US forces have repeatedly come under attack.
Reflecting unhappiness on the street, clerics used the occasion of Friday prayers to again vent anger at the occupation and even issue calls for resistance.
'Until when?'
"Some say do not fight. Some say do not resist. Until when?
Until now we have not seen any resistance," Sheikh Abdul Jawad Mohammed Saqr told a gathering of Sunni Muslims in Mosul.
Similarly, in the southern Shiite Muslim city of Najaf, firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr called on US forces to leave the city and said the US administration should abolish the Governing Council it named.
"We criticize the occupation force for laying siege to the city of Najaf. This is a terrorist act, and we demand that US forces leave Najaf," Sadr told tens of thousands of faithful.
"You should dissolve this Governing Council and end the occupation," he told the crowd, referring to the 25-member US-appointed Iraqi body responsible for a transition to an independent government.
He repeated his call to establish a private militia, called the "Mehdi Army", for which recruitment began last Saturday in the Baghdad Shiite suburb of Sadr City.