With a looming and globally divisive war in Iraq as backdrop to its deliberations, the executive board for the International Olympic Committee will meet Thursday to hear a report on allegations that athletes from that nation have been tortured on orders of Uday Hussein.

	BLOOD ON THE RINGS
	Read ESPN's series on the torture of Iraqi athletes and other allegations of abuse at the Iraqi Olympic Committee headquarters. The report includes first-person accounts by former Iraqi soccer, volleyball and weightlifting athletes; a dossier of the alleged atrocities; a chat session with Uday Hussein's former body double; and an ESPN.com poll on the issues.

The IOC Ethics Committee will present the results of its preliminary investigation into the matter. At its meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, the executive board could, among other options, order a full investigation, delay moving forward with any probe, or dismiss the matter altogether.

The complexity of moving forward with a full investigation appears to be weighing on the minds of board members, who will consider allegations that involve serious violations of the Olympic charter and its mission to protect athletes.

IOC President Jacque Rogge on Monday called a probe into the matter a "moral obligation" -- while also expressing reservations about the ability of the IOC to find sufficient evidence to move against the Iraqi National Olympic Committee or its president Uday Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein.

"I'm not pretending that we're more capable or will be more successful than inspectors of the United Nations," Rogge said, referring to weapons inspectors in Iraq. "But whether we'll be able to find the truth is a big question mark and in the current circumstances probably very difficult to achieve."

Richard Pound, an IOC member pushing for an investigation, said Rogge also expressed to him a desire not to "get caught up in (President Bush's) plan for Iraq." The concern is that any action taken by the IOC could be used as fodder for war. Bush has used human rights violations as a secondary justification for an attack on the country.

Former Iraqi athletes say the possible war should not be used as an excuse to ignore their accounts of being imprisoned and tortured -- sometimes at the Olympic headquarters in Baghdad -- for nothing more than losing games.

"The first aim of the IOC should be to protect Iraqi athletes," said Sharar Haydar, a former national team soccer player now living in London. "Besides, war is going to happen whether they get involved or not."

Haydar was among several athletes who spoke to ESPN.com in December about abuse they received from Uday Hussein. Haydar said he was dragged on his back until it was bloody, then thrown into a pool of sewage to make sure the wounds were infected.

	Issam Thamer al-Diwan, with his wife and two daughters, fled Iraq after participating in the failed uprising against Saddam Hussein in 1991.

Issam Thamer al-Diwan, a former volleyball player now living in the San Diego area, said an IOC official contacted him to request a list that he had compiled of 52 Iraqi athletes and sports officials who were allegedly killed by Uday. He said he sent along a copy of that document but, to his disappointment, has yet to hear back from the IOC.

"If they don't start an investigation, they should know we're not going to be silent about this," said Thamer, who also was coach of Uday Hussein's personal club team. "We have the evidence of Uday's crimes."

Indict, a London-based human rights group funded in part by the U.S. government, filed a formal complaint with the IOC Ethics Commission in December asking that Iraq be suspended from the Olympics. The complaint included photos of one table tennis player who says he was tortured, United Nations reports detailing crimes at the Olympic headquarters, and an affidavit from a former weightlifter who was not personally abused but knew of teammates who were harmed.

The accounts given to ESPN.com by Haydar and Thamer were not included in the Indict complaint, but both athletes now say they are willing to testify before the IOC about the torture they received.

IOC vice president Thomas Bach, an executive board member from Germany, frowns on the option of expelling Iraq from the Olympics, saying that such action would only hurt the athletes, according to a report Monday on GamesBids.com. Instead, he told the Web site that Uday Hussein, as the person most responsible for the alleged violations, should be divested of all Olympic activities.

"I agree with him in that the Olympic movement is supposed to be inclusive, rather than exclusive," said Pound, of the IOC's historical desire to include all of the world's country in its games. "It may not be the whole Olympic committee that is torturing these athletes."

The IOC has no control over a nation's choice to head its Olympic committee. But, Pound said, the IOC could use the threat of expelling Iraq from the Olympics to encourage Iraq to remove Uday Hussein as its president.

Thamer, however, said the only way to protect Iraqi athletes is to expel the Iraqi Olympic committee and effectively shut down the Olympic movement in that country. That's because the Olympic headquarters -- with its Olympic rings displayed out front -- is used as cover for Uday's criminal business operations and run by Uday's bodyguards.

Encouraging the elimination of athletes from that environment would limit their exposure to torture, he said.

"If the IOC takes the (Olympic president) position from Uday, he'll just direct the committee from some other place," Thamer said. "He's still the president's son."

On the basis of that father-son relationship alone, the IOC could arguably take action against Hussein or Iraq for violating the Olympic charter. The Olympic charter states, "Governments or other public authorities shall not designate any members" of a national Olympic committee. Saddam appointed Uday chief of the Olympic committee in 1984.

Charles Forrest, CEO of Indict, wants the IOC to treat the matter with at least the same seriousness as other scandals in recent years, such as the bid-rigging in Salt Lake City that led to the expulsion and resignation of IOC members.

"It seems to me that they certainly have enough evidence to require the removal of Uday immediately," he said. "That would be an important first step, but they need to look into the whole (Iraqi Olympic committee) bureaucracy. If they don't take any action, it would be a moral failure. Any other serious ethics scandal would have been dealt with that quickly, at least in a preliminary way -- and this is far more serious than anything they have ever faced before."

Tom Farrey is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at tom.farrey@espn3.com.