Photos of Hussein Sons 'PR Disaster'

The photographs released by the Bush Administration of Uday and Qusay Hussein's dead bodies have provoked strong reactions throughout the world. The Guardian's Mark Borkowski writes in his column Stuntwatch: "What was the Bush administration's motivation in making the images public and how did the outcomes relate to the stated objectives? Since this is war, this is PR and the Uday and Qusay photograph incident, planned as a surgical media strike, has turned mucky (both in media and military terms) because no one had the sense to think through the PR implications properly. It's been a total PR disaster." The photos are part of a larger administration failure to convince the people of Iraq that war has been about their liberation. In addition, the grim pictures of reconstructed corpses have fueled wide ranging conspiracy theories in Iraq. "There's a strong likelihood these were Saddam's sons, I'm sure," Borkowski writes. "So why do so many people disbelieve it? Because the administration mismanaged the information and because - so bizarrely given the media history of this conflict - it was honest about the way in which it opted to manufacture an image to suit the needs of the media."