US Exposes Bodies of Saddam's Sons

26/07/2003| IslamWeb

The US has shown journalists the bodies of what it insists are Saddam Hussein's sons, in a bid to convince doubting Iraqis and stem anti-American attacks. Uday and Qusay Hussein are thought to have been killed in a firefight in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday. Surgeons removed the metal rod from Uday's leg which had been put in after a 1996 attempt on his life. They said the serial number was proof positive the body was Uday's. Andrew Marshall, a Reuters journalist who saw the bodies, said: "They made the faces look just like the two men were when they were alive. For that reason the bodies look like Uday and Qusay Hussein's, but it could leave doubts in some Iraqis' minds about whether these really are their bodies or whether they've been cosmetically enhanced to look that way." The surgeons also released what they say are perfect matches of dental records and surgical X-rays. Washington hopes the graphic images will help convince Iraqis that Saddam's reign is truly over, but many say the US could have made the two faces look like anybody's. Expressing a common view, one man said: "I won't believe it unless I see it with my own eyes." ** Muslims Take Offense to Footage of Bodies*** "Showing dead and deformed bodies on TV is not acceptable," protested Amer Ahmed al-Azawi, a 55-year-old Baghdad merchant. "But the Americans are criminals and unbelievers. We got rid of one tyrant and we ended up with a bigger one." Muslims bury their dead as quickly as possible, a fast burial is the highest honor to the memory of a deceased loved one. And the rituals before burial are far simpler than those practiced in the West. The dead are simply washed, shrouded in white cloth and buried. No embalming is carried out, and bodies are not rebuilt or retouched to look as they did in life. Autopsies are not performed unless the deceased is a murder victim or died in mysterious circumstances. In life and in death, Islamic scholars say, the sanctity of a Muslim body must be respected. "What happened is a mutilation of the body of the dead," said Souad Saleh, an Islamic theologian who sits on a committee entrusted with issuing fatwas, or edicts, at Egypt's Al-Azhar University, the world's highest seat of Sunni Muslim learning. "But the Americans are infidels, and whatever Islam says doesn't apply to them," he said. "Showing them this way just to prove they are dead is the most blatant violation of the sanctity of the body," said Saleh. During the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam's regime, Iraqi authorities in Baghdad released pictures of dead American soldiers. They were broadcast by TV stations around the world, prompting Washington to accuse Saddam's government of violating international conventions. Sheik Abdul-Aziz al-Qassim, a Saudi lawyer and a former judge, said the handling of the bodies by U.S. authorities in Iraq contravened Islamic law as well as the rules of war, arguing that Odai and Qusai died as soldiers who died in battle. "It goes against Islamic sharia laws to display bodies of fallen soldiers to influence enemy morale," said al-Qassim, who spoke from the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Another scholar from the Gulf Arab region saw the display of the bodies as inhumane, although he described the two sons as criminals. "This is a political game to instill fear in the hearts of others that follow their path or support them," said Sheik Adil Isa, a Sunni Islamic scholar from Bahrain. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Iraqis watch images of the bodies of Saddam Hussein's sons Odai and Qusai on Al Arabiya television network at an electronics shop in Baghdad, Iraq on Friday July 25, 2003. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)