Iraq Shows POWs On TV

2:59pm UK, Monday March 24, 2003

US military officials claim dead soldiers shown on an Iraqi TV broadcast were executed.

Pentagon requests POWs faces obscured until families have been informed

They told Sky News the bodies of four dead soldiers had bullet holes in their heads.

Iraqi TV said the Americans were captured near Nasiriyah, where a battle has been raging with US troops.

It showed four bodies in a morgue and five captured soldiers. Two of the prisoners, including a woman, seemed to be injured. One wounded soldier was shown lying on a mat.

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said all parties to the war were obliged under international humanitarian law not to allow pictures of prisoners to be broadcast.

The ICRC has started approaching relevant authorities to seek access to all those taken prisoner.

The US prisoners were interrogated on air and gave their names, military identification numbers and home towns.

One of the men, sitting up, was being interviewed by an unseen person holding a microphone labelled "Iraqi TV".

The soldier spoke in English and at one point said: "I'm sorry. I don't understand you", Associated Press reported.

"I come to shoot only if I am shot at," one prisoner said.

Asked why he was fighting Iraqis, he replied: "They don't bother me; I don't bother them."

Another prisoner, who said he was from Texas, said only: "I follow orders."

The pictures were shown on Iraqi TV and were relayed by Al Jazeera satellite television network.

The US expressed outrage over the footage.

President George Bush said he expected prisoners would be treated humanely. Captors who did otherwise would be treated as war criminals, he added.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfield said Iraq was in breach of the Geneva conventions governing the accepted rules of war by showing the film.

A US military official said he believed the prisoners were among 12 American troops declared missing after a supply convoy was ambushed near Nasiriyah.

The soldiers are believed to be the first captured by Iraq.