The Hindu : Al-Jazeera TV shows U.S. PoWs

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 24, 2003

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Al-Jazeera TV shows U.S. PoWs

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

Captured U.S. soldiers being interviewed by the Iraqi television in a room in the southern city of Nassariya on Sunday.

Washington March 23. The Qatar-based Al Jazeera television today aired footage of captured American soldiers, some of them seen wounded and lying, sparking questions in the United States about the treatment being meted out to them. At least one media reported here that some of the captured soldiers may have been put to death.

The Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has warned Iraq to treat captured U.S. soldiers according to the Geneva Conventions; and has once again told Iraqi soldiers that they would be "well advised'' to put down their weapons. "We're not going to be deterred at all,'' Mr. Rumsfeld said here today.

"The course of the war is clear. The outcome of the war is clear. The regime of Saddam Hussein is gone,'' the Defence Secretary said in a Sunday Talk Show. The regime of Saddam Hussein is "shortly going to be history,'' he remarked.

Senior military and civilians officials have been showered with questions all morning after reports surfaced of American forces being captured in southern Iraq. Apparently, a maintenance unit strayed into a fighting zone ending in a shootout that killed some soldiers and a few others taken prisoner.

The footage on television has angered administration officials. It is a "violation of the Geneva Convention for Iraq to be showing Prisoners of War in a humiliating manner,'' maintained the Defence Secretary.

AP reports from Doha:

At least five prisoners, speaking American-accented English, were interviewed on Al-Jazeera TV. Two were bandaged.

The television crew interviewed several of the troops, including one woman. The narrator provided an Arabic translation, but it was possible to hear some of the comments in English.

In Washington, the U.S. President, George Bush, speaking to newspersons after the footage was aired, demanded that any American troops held captive in Iraq be treated humanely.

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