British tabloid newspaper The Sun published a new image of Saddam Hussein on Saturday, this time showing the former Iraqi leader through barbed wire wearing a white robe-like garment. 
The Sun's managing editor, Graham Dudman, defended the decision to publish the pictures and defied any media outlet to have withheld publication. "They are a fantastic, iconic set of news pictures that I defy any newspaper, magazine or television station who were presented with them not to have published," he said, according to The AP.
Dudman refused to name the source that provided the photos "because of the confidentially of source". The Sun earlier said the photos it published on Friday and Saturday were provided by a US military official.
The US military in Baghdad said the photos violated military guidelines "and possibly Geneva Convention guidelines for the humane treatment of detained individuals". However, senior British MoD sources Friday night revealed top British and US brass are "secretly pleased."
The senior British military source was quoted as saying Saturday by The Sun: “The Pentagon has to put up a strong public show of anger as it doesn’t look good for them if it looks like they leaked them. “But commanders on the ground will be secretly quite pleased. It is a morale blow to the resistance to see their great leader so humbled.
“And they’ll also remind a lot of Iraqis why we’re there in the first place and what we’ve achieved.”
On its part, the International Committee for the Red Cross stated the photographs violated Saddam's right to privacy.
On Friday night, a French lawyer for Saddam threatened to sue The Sun for $1 million in damages. Emmanuel Ludot said: “I think it’s a strategy duly orchestrated by the Americans to destroy the image of Saddam Hussein - to say ‘look at this man, he’s not a god, he’s only a man’.”
© 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
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