An Iraqi engineer demanded the bodies of Saddam Hussein's sons be dragged through the streets of Baghdad to prove their deaths, despite US assurances they were killed this week in the northern city of Mosul.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington on Thursday he had ordered the release of US photographs of the corpses of Uday and Qusay Hussein to help convince frightened Iraqis that Saddam's reign was truly over.

Iraqi television broadcast pictures of the blood-spattered, bearded faces of the two, but many Iraqis were unable to see them due to power cuts plaguing the country.

In Baghdad, the engineer, who gave his name only as Muhammad, echoed widespread skepticism among Iraqis that Saddam's feared sons had indeed been killed in a shootout with US troops at a villa in Mosul on Tuesday.

"We will believe they are dead when Uday's and Qusay's bodies are tied to cars and dragged through the streets so everybody can see them," Muhammad said.

Businessman Khalil Ali said photographs meant nothing.

"They should have been hung up on poles in a square in Baghdad so all Iraqis could see them ...," he said.

At least one newspaper planned a special edition carrying the photographs on Friday, when most newspapers do not publish on the Muslim holy day.

A spokesman for the US-led civil authority in Iraq said journalists would be allowed to film the bodies for themselves on Friday to dispel any doubts the photographs were authentic.

Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference in Washington he felt the release of the death pictures was the right thing, outweighing any sensitivity over showing the corpses.

The US military was outraged when Arab television channels broadcast pictures of dead and captured American soldiers during the war that toppled Saddam.

'Brought to Justice' -- Bush

President Bush said the brothers had been "brought to justice."

"These two sons of Saddam were responsible for hundreds and hundreds of people being tortured and maimed and murdered," Bush said on a visit to Michigan.

"And now the Iraqi people have seen clearly the intent of the United States to make sure that they are free and to make sure that the Saddam regime never returns again to Iraq," he said.

One of the pictures shows the bearded, shaven-headed Uday lying on a plastic sheet with a gaping wound obliterating part of his nose and upper lip. A hand in a purple rubber glove holds the head to turn it toward the camera.

Another shows Qusay, Saddam's younger son and heir apparent, with his eyes closed and mouth hanging open. Trickles of blood have congealed inside one of his ears.

Military officers said Uday appeared to have been killed by a bullet in the head, but it was not yet known whether he had been shot by US soldiers or had committed suicide.

Washington hopes their deaths will tighten the noose around Saddam and demoralize guerrillas who have killed 44 American soldiers in attacks since Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

But five soldiers have been killed in ambushes since the deaths of Uday, 39, and 37-year-old Qusay.

Four of them were killed near Mosul and were members of the 101st Airborne Division, whose soldiers staged the raid on the villa where the brothers were hiding.

Dubai-based Al Arabiya television broadcast footage of a group of masked men with automatic rifles who said they were members of Uday's notorious Saddam Fedayeen militia and vowed to press on with a jihad, or holy war, against US forces.

The brothers were tracked down after a tip-off from an Iraqi informant who is expected to scoop the two US$15 million rewards offered for information leading to their death or capture.

(China Daily July 25, 2003)