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| Iraq |
| Iraq Says It Will Follow Geneva Convention |
| 2003-03-23 |
| Iraq said on Sunday that it would respect the Geneva Convention guaranteeing humane treatment of prisoners after taking at least five U.S. soldiers captive and displaying them on television. "Iraq will not harm the captured prisoners of war," Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed told a news conference. "It will treat them in accordance with the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war." Starting any time now... At least four dead Americans and five prisoners were filmed by Iraqi television, in footage relayed on Sunday by the Arabic network Al-Jazeera, which said they had been taken during a battle at the southern town of Souq al-Shuyukh. The prisoners were asked questions in what Washington said was a violation of the Geneva convention. Pictures of Iraqi prisoners have also been shown widely in the United States. Ahmed also said that the bodies of U.S. soldiers were lying on a battlefield near the Iraqi city of Nassiriya, apparently different from those whose corpses were shown on television. "A number of Americans were killed and their corpses are still abandoned in the area of Khomeiteh (near Nassiriya) in front of our forces," he said. I would tend to doubt that statement, but then I tend to doubt every statement these orifices make... He also said that Iraq had destroyed 10 tanks and 20 armored personnel carriers in fighting across southern Iraq and shot down one unmanned spy plane. Ahmed denied that the U.S. and British forces had entered any city in Iraq and said there was fierce fighting near Najaf 100 miles south of Baghdad. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |