WASHINGTON, July 23: US officials were debating whether to release graphic photos of the dead sons of Saddam Hussein to prove to Iraqis they were killed by American troops, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said on Wednesday.

He spoke after one official said the Pentagon planned in coming days to release at least facial photographs of the two men.

“We are still weighing the decision,” Wolfowitz said at a news conference. But he left little doubt Washington was leaning toward releasing the pictures.

“We are going to make sure the Iraqi people believe us at the end of the day,” he said, adding that proof the missing Iraqi president’s sons were dead might slow violence against US troops and quash Iraqi fear that Saddam will return to power.

Mr Wolfowitz said the United States might have to do something that makes people say “You are giving us all this shocking stuff - why should our children have to see this on television?”

“...The main consideration on the other side in our minds is saving the lives of American men and women who are on the line,” he said.

US officials were incensed in March when the former Iraqi government released television pictures of American troops killed or captured in an ambush in southern Iraq.

Another US official said the photographs of Uday and Qusay were unlikely to be released on Wednesday, but “there are plans to do so. They are pretty bad,” the official said of facial photographs he had seen of the two sons.

The faces are recognizable despite wounds, the official added.

In Baghdad, the top US commander, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said positive identification had been established through dental records and other means and that the United States would provide proof to the Iraqi people that Saddam’s sons were dead.

One US defense official said officials were performing a “balancing act” in deciding whether to release the graphic photographs of the dead bodies.

“Standards are different for different regions of the world for television. In the United States, our standards for network television are more conservative than those in other places in the world. Specifically, the Arab world has no problem at all with showing very gruesome photos of human beings,” the official said.

“...Our norm is that we don’t do that, and that we find it offensive to see that kind of thing on television. We have to balance that with our effort to ensure that the Iraqi people know that Qusay and Uday are no longer alive.”—Reuters