The sight of captured US servicemen being paraded on Iraqi television caused outrage and dismay in Washington and London. Nick Morrison looks at how a war fought at a distance suddenly took on a human face.

ASHEN-FACED, dishevelled, his eyes darting from side to side behind his steel-rimmed glasses, he seemed bewildered as the microphone was thrust towards him.

"Why do you come?" his interrogator demanded.

"Because I was told to come here. I just follow orders."

"You come to kill Iraqi people?"

"No, I come to fix broke stuff. I was told to shoot only if I was shot at. They shot at me first so I shot back. I don't want to kill anybody," he replied, struggling to keep the terror from his voice.

"How are you see Iraqi people?", he was asked.

"They don't bother me, I don't bother them."

"Why do you come to Iraq?"

"I was told to come here."

Private First Class Miller, from Kansas, was one of four US servicemen, and one woman, paraded on television, following their capture by Iraqi troops. While one of the soldiers seemed determined to defy the attempted humiliation, claiming not to have heard or understood many of the questions, the fear on the faces of the others was palpable.

Footage also showed the bodies of four Americans, lying half-stripped and splattered with blood on a hospital floor. Two of the bodies appeared to have been shot in the head.

The pictures provoked immediate revulsion and condemnation among the coalition partners, as a breach of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. President Bush declared that those responsible for mistreating prisoners would be viewed as war criminals.

The plight of those five Americans echoes the fate of pilot John Peters and navigator John Nichol when their Tornado was shot down during the last Gulf War, in 1991. Nichol, from North Shields, and Peters were tortured and told they would be shot unless they appeared live on Iraqi television. For Nichol, seeing the fear in the faces of Saddam's prisoners brought back chilling memories of his own ordeal.

"I can't emphasise enough how truly terrifying that experience is. Nothing prepares you for it and you are there in the knowledge that your fate is being decided by a truly awful regime," he says.

But parading prisoners on television is simply par for the course for Saddam, according to David George, lecturer in Middle East politics at Newcastle University.

"The regime mistreats all its prisoners, and what it did to the special forces is even worse than what it did to the two Tornado crew," he says.

The release of the footage wrong-footed the Pentagon, which had earlier denied that any US soldiers had been captured, but may end up inflaming public opinion and solidifying support for the war, says Mr George.

"People were very angry over the treatment of the two Tornado crew, and the fuss that has been made about this film, and about Baghdad breaking the Geneva Convention, along with the suggestion that American servicemen were executed, will put the Iraqis in a bad light.

"We are engaged in a propaganda battle and this will be highly unfavourable to the Iraqis," he says.

As much as a defiant signal to Washington, parading US prisoners is also aimed at bolstering morale at home for Saddam, according to Barry Sudworth, psychology lecturer at Teesside University.

"The regime needs to show that it is still a powerful force, and it needs to publicise this because at the moment it has got nothing else to publicise," he says. "Iraq is a weaker nation being attacked by someone far stronger, and in order to maintain some form of hope it needs to publicise everything it can to show it has some control."

He says the shock felt by people at home watching those pictures may be greater than the effect on soldiers serving in Gulf. Far from becoming anxious over what may happen if they were captured, servicemen are trained to look at combat in terms of equipment and units, rather than lives, he says.

"They're emotionally detached from the whole aspect of war and put the possibility of being captured to the back of their minds. That leads to them being more able to cope with the stress of the threat of being attacked.

"Capture would be something that would almost not be considered, so this will affect us more as civilians. And to us, this is very much a reminder that lives are being lost and that loved ones will suffer," he says.

Dr John Potter, former visiting professor at the Centre for Leadership at Exeter University who worked with the intelligence corps at Sandhurst for eight years and trained military personnel in interrogation skills and resistance, says the prisoners' raw fear will have now subsided and they will be drawing on their military training to cope with the psychological rigours of captivity.

"Nobody ever believes they are going to be captured," he says. "So their initial reaction will be a strong shock of capture effect, and that may be enhanced by the captors who will do whatever they can to disorientate them.

"But the military is pretty clever at ensuring their people are well prepared, and by now the hostages' training will have kicked in."

Frighteningly realistic role play exercises teach soldiers what to expect from being taken hostage and arm them with the knowledge and responses they need to survive.

"Knowledge about the process they are going through is key to coping," he says. "Soldiers know that psychological torture works better than physical torture, so will be aware of their captors' motives.

"They know that the longer they are held hostage the less value they become to the captors because any military information they might have known will be out of date. So they'll be trying to keep their heads down and get through it for as long as they can.

"They'll also be trying to stand back and see the bigger picture to remind themselves they are professionals doing the right thing."

Colin Waite, a former Royal Marine and Falklands veteran, now living in Middleton-in-Teesdale, in County Durham, says the possibility of capture does not dominate the thoughts of servicemen during the frenzy of combat.

"You don't have time to think about it. People say 'you must have been frightened', but you don't have time to be frightened. Your adrenalin level is very high - I can't even remember going to the toilet very often because you are burning so many calories," he says.

Marine training includes how to deal with capture, and what prisoners can expect.

"You are told you are going to go through sleep deprivation, water torture, being hosed down with a hose pipe - that is the sort of thing you expect. Under the Geneva Convention, the only things you are allowed to give are your name, rank and service number - anything else is normally beaten out of you," he says.

Despite the bruises, and the transparent looks of fear, relatives of Saddam's human trophies have the consolation of knowing that their loved ones are alive. But Colin believes their ordeal could be far from over.

"We're worried about what we're seeing, but it is what we don't see that worries me more than anything else," he says. "The fact that the families can see these people are alive must be a relief, but it is what will happen next that they will be worrying about."

25/03/2003