IRAQ

Scotsman: Bullish Rumsfeld denies US is guilty of double standards

WASHINGTON stoutly defended the release of the graphic photographs of Uday and Qusay Hussein’s corpses - although the decision followed a sharp internal debate at the Pentagon.

"I feel it was the right decision and I’m glad I made it," said the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, with his characteristic bluntness.

"It is not a practice that the United States engages in on a normal basis," he said, adding: "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."

Some Pentagon officials feared the US military would be accused of double standards. The US reacted with angry condemnation when the Arab satellite network, al-Jazeera, showed television images of dead American soldiers during the Iraq war, and the station later lost its office space at the New York Stock Exchange.