War is hell.

More questions on Zarqawi's death.

U.S. officials denied several news reports that Zarqawi was abused by U.S. troops before he died.

An Iraqi police lieutenant who said he was among the first people at the scene told The Times on Saturday that after Iraqi police had carried Zarqawi to the ambulance on the stretcher, U.S. troops took him off the stretcher and placed him on the ground. One of the Americans tried to question Zarqawi and repeatedly stepped on his chest, causing blood to flow from his mouth and nose, said the lieutenant, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A man identified only as Mohammed, who said he lived near the Zarqawi hide-out, told Associated Press Television News that he had witnessed Americans beating Zarqawi. "They stomped on his stomach and his chest until he died and blood came out of his nose," he said.

A U.S. military spokesman said by e-mail Saturday that there was no evidence to support allegations that coalition forces had beaten the insurgent leader.

"Although Zarqawi was mortally wounded, a coalition medic treated him while he lapsed in and out of consciousness," the spokesman said.

Can you see the picture? A dying Zarqawi pulled off the stretcher and laid on the ground. An American soldier, foot on his chest, yelling questions at at him. Then a medic is brought in to try to revive him to continue the questioning. War is hell.

UPDATE: The NYTimes has another interpretation, that the efforts to get Zarqawi to speak were part of the triage.

But more interesting to me is this line by the same witness, "Mr. Abbas also said the Americans handcuffed the police on the scene, took their shirts off and searched them."

(Note: Let me say here, that I didn't intend to pass a value judgement on these actions. That's why I tried to frame this as "war is hell." Any intel that could've been gathered from a dying Zarqawi would have been practically priceless. It's just an ugly image of the reality of war.

I didn't mean to get so far into Zarqawi's last moments, but the LATimes description above was so vivid, and then I felt I should add the NYTimes rebuttal version. And honestly, I was regretting putting this up last night, but I don't think it's right just making it disappear.)