The United States says the war is going well while Iraq says they are battling the "invaders." Based on the barrage of video beamed to households around the world, both sides are taking hits.

In a shocking advance on Sunday, Iraqi TV broadcast images of a handful of U.S. troops being questioned by their captors. The soldiers are shown watching their captors intensely as they quietly and obediently give their names, homes and military attachments.

In the battle for public support, such images can create a significant psychological boost, says Michael O'Hurley-Pitts, a former Congressional aide on U.S. Defense and International Affairs.

"By capturing young American men and woman and showing them to be frightened, it shows the Iraqi people that they are human and gives their soldiers a reason to believe that they are an army that can be defeated on the battlefield," O'Hurley-Pitts told CTV.ca News.

Such video could also stir anti-war sentiment in the United States. "The peace movement will believe that these men and women would not have been either killed or captured had it not been for President Bush sending them into a war that could have been averted," O'Hurley-Pitts added.

Much is at stake for the United States, after it decided move on Iraq without the broad support of the United Nations.

In return, the U.S. has also offered up images of its successes. They include the surrender of hundreds of Iraqi soldiers and a massive bombing campaign in Baghdad -- a full light and colour show.

"In this time of 24-7 coverage, small things have extraordinarily powerful political impact," says Harlan Ullman, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Intelligence Studies and the author of the "shock and awe" military strategy.

While the U.S. says the war is going well, the two contradictory images offered Sunday may cause the public to think differently.

However, the images of the American prisoners of war won't likely cause the U.S. to pull out of Iraq, as it did from Somalia, after the bodies of U.S. troops were shown being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in 1993.

"Suppressing a war in a region of potential famine is a lot less clear than evicting a dictator and disarming weapons of mass destruction," said O'Hurley-Pitts, who served in the 82nd Airborne Division and 1st Ranger Battalion.

Barry McLoughlin, a media consultant, said the footage of the captured American soldiers would ultimately backfire on Iraq. "I believe it will hurt them in the court of public opinion, who are starting to see some of the brutality of that regime in their living rooms," McLoughlin told CTV News.

The medium is the message

In contrast to the 1991 Gulf War, which offered satellite images of bombs hitting trucks and other targets, much of the footage of this war appears to be coming from the ground, due to the "embedded" journalists travelling with the troops.

Some of the more startling first-hand accounts consist of CNN's Walter Rodgers scurrying away from a camera as an Iraqi missile passed overhead and NBC's David Bloom bouncing on the back of a military vehicle racing through the desert.

However, O'Hurley-Pitts says that while reporters are seeing the war through their lenses, it isn't necessarily a true account of what is happening.

"While we hear the number of weapons being dropped over Iraq, we really don't know any more how many of those are hitting their targets, how many civilian casualties there may be, are they effectively supporting their troops in the field. "With powerful imagery, the truth is always the victim," he said.

So, what's more important? The truth or boosting public opinion?

"The Canadian master Marshall McLuhan said the medium is the message," O'Hurley-Pitts said. "The ability of the government to control the images that are beamed to millions of households, no longer just in the United States but around the world, is crucial to the public and political outcome of this war.

"The truth, however, is essential to the reality of life in the region once the war stops."

With a report from CTV's Roger Smith