US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday the United States will release graphic photographs of the dead sons of toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to prove they were killed by American troops.

Odai Hussein, the eldest son of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein, is seen on the Tigris River, in this December 12, 2000, file photo. [AP]

"There will be pictures released," Rumsfeld told reporters on Capitol Hill after meeting with members of the US House of Representatives.

Rumsfeld did not state what the pictures would depict, although other officials have said the bodies of Uday and Qusay had multiple wounds following a raid staged in the city of Mosul on Tuesday by US Army soldiers and special forces.

He said the pictures would be made public "soon," but indicated the release would not come on Wednesday.

Another US official told Reuters earlier that the Pentagon planned in coming days to release at least facial photographs of the two men.

"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.

"We are going to make sure the Iraqi people believe us at the end of the day," Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said during a Pentagon briefing, adding that proof that the missing Iraqi president's sons were dead might slow violence against US troops and quash Iraqi fear that Saddam will return to power.

Wolfowitz said the United States might have to show "shocking" images even if some people were offended.

"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.

This is an undated photo of former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein with his sons, Odai, left, and Qusai. Odai and Qusai were killed in a six-hour firefight on July 22, 2003 when US forces surrounded and then stormed a palatial villa in a northern Iraqi town, a senior American general said. [AP]

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.

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.

But Sanchez stopped short of saying the photographs would be released.

One US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said officials performed 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."

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