IRAQ: The US military authorities have launched an aggressive investigation into the disclosure of photographs published in yesterday's Sun newspaper in Britain of a half-naked Saddam Hussein in his prison cell.
Last night lawyers for Saddam in Jordan said they would sue over the use of the pictures.
President George Bush gave his backing to the investigation, while saying he did not believe publication of the photographs would incite insurgent violence in Iraq.
However, there were warnings that the pictures could endanger British prisoners in the future, as a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad conceded they might be in breach of the Geneva Convention governing the treatment of prisoners of war.
Lieut Col Steven Boylan also told the BBC "an operational security violation" would have been committed if, as claimed, the person handing over the pictures had told the newspaper the secret location at which the former dictator is being held.
The Sun refused to give any information about when the pictures - believed to be about one year old - were taken or how long they had been in its possession. Managing editor Graham Dudman mounted a robust defence of a decision to publish what he maintained was in the public interest.
Dudman said the images - one showing Saddam in a pair of white underpants, another of him hand washing his clothes - proved that the former Iraqi ruler was not being mistreated.
Dudman also said he was surprised at critical reaction focused on Saddam's human rights.
"This is a man who has murdered a minimum of 300,000 people and we're supposed to feel sorry for him because someone's taken his picture? He's not being mistreated, He's washing his trousers. This is a modern-day Adolf Hitler. Please do not ask us to feel sorry for him."
Yesterday's Sun cited US military sources saying the motive for handing over the pictures was to show "an ageing and humble old man", in the hope of destroying "the myth" and dealing a blow to the continuing resistance in Iraq.
But Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Arabic newspaper Al Quds al Arabi, insisted: "They are mistaken if they think this kind of picture will put an end to the insurgency. It will add more fuel to the resistance and cause more bomb attacks."
Contrary to the Sun's legal advice, a number of experts said the publication of the pictures would amount to a breach of the Geneva Convention, whether or not Saddam was being held as a prisoner of war.
Human rights lawyer Mark Stephens said: "By publishing this footage, effectively we have lowered ourselves to the same level as Saddam Hussein.
"What we are doing is we are giving our opponents in war the justification to target our soldiers in just the same way as the Americans have targeted the Iraqis."