Cowen condemns footage of US PoWs

Foreign Affairs Minister Brian Cowen has condemned the parading of US prisoners of war on Iraqi television as an obvious breach of the Geneva Conventions.

Mr Cowen urged the Iraqi government to comply with international laws regarding the treatment of PoWs and welcomed the fact that it had promised not to release footage in the future.

The US government also expressed outrage at the television pictures of five captured US soldiers, but there has been no international condemnation of the pictures of Iraqi PoWs which were widely broadcast throughout the Western media last week.