THE STANDARDS OF PROOF ARE HIGH WHEN THE CONSEQUENCES OF MISTAKE ARE DEADLY.

So the US will prove to the Iraqis that the Hussein sons are dead, even if it doesn't play well in Berkeley.

Its a simple choice to me. We either reap the results of allowing the Iraqis to believe, or accept the continued results of allowing the Iraqis to fear.

But the left-most among us will bleat on about dignity, morality and human rights for two amoral individuals, all the while overlooking it was precisely those things denied to 25 million Iraqis by the Husseins.

Not a single Iraqi interviewed expressed anything but delight at the prospect that the loathed sons of the former dictator might be dead, signaling perhaps the first time that nearly all Iraqis and their occupiers have agreed in their reaction to events here.

But so strong are the beliefs among Iraqis that the U.S. occupying forces routinely lie to them and that the Hussein family is a fixture in Iraqi politics that the deaths of Uday and Qusay are not yet a reality in the minds of many.

"We don't believe it; it's just a rumor," said Samira Al-Khazali, 45, a customer at a beauty salon in the Adhamiya neighborhood. "We have to see it to believe it."