Saddam underwear

BBC NEWS reported The US military says it is investigating "aggressively" after a picture appeared in a British paper showing Saddam Hussein half naked. [As you can see, the photo was also run on the NYPost] The Sun newspaper's front page image showed the former Iraqi president in a pair of white underpants. Other pictures showed Saddam Hussein washing his trousers, shuffling around and sleeping. The US said the photos appeared to breach Geneva Convention rules on the humane treatment of prisoners of war. The conventions say countries must protect prisoners of war in their custody from "public curiosity".

Is Saddam still a prisoner of war, or has he not been turned over to the Iraqi government? I know they held a judicial hearing at which he appeared. He may still be in the custody of the US to protect him from injury that the Shia might wish to bestow on him.

The Sun cited US military sources saying they handed over the pictures showing Saddam as "an ageing and humble old man" in the hope of dealing a blow to the resistance in Iraq. "It's important that the people of Iraq see him like that to destroy the myth," the paper's source was quoted as saying. However, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad, Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Boylan, insisted "they were not released by the US military. So the claims in the Sun... are not correct".

Scott Sala blogged It's as if Abu Ghraib and Newsweek's Koran Flushing morphed into a bizarre middle finger to the Middle East everyone. No, Saddam is not a Holy symbol of Islam. No it's not abuse, but damn if it doesn't reek of humilation. It's just plain spite. I'm not for giving into overly PC treatment towards Islam, but come on. I despise this bastard, but even the lowest criminal doesn't deserve this.

Considering all of the terrible things Saddam did to his people, showing him in his tidy-whities is very minor indeed.

Jan Haugland blogged

"We thought long and hard about publishing, and took the decision that they're such incredible pictures of the world's most brutal dictator... they were a compelling image that any newspaper or broadcaster would publish," the paper's managing editor, Graham Dudman, told the BBC News website.

Yeah, they thought long and hard for all of three seconds.

Patrick Belton blogged THE SUN makes Saddam their page three girl. Circulation plummets.