Earlier, Air Force Master Sgt. Grant Windsor at the Pentagon confirmed one Apache was missing but said he had no information on the pilots. He said the Defense Department was evaluating the tape shown on Iraqi TV. 

The helicopter shown on television Monday did not appear to be damaged, suggesting it had been forced to land by mechanical problems rather than ground fire. 

Sahhaf said the government would consider displaying the other helicopter Iraq claimed to have shot down. 

The report of the downed helicopters and new prisoners of war came only one day after Al-Jazeera showed video images of five American prisoners of war captured in fighting near the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. 

"Yesterday was a black day and the black days will increase," Sahhaf said. 

Even so, Sahhaf said the POWs would be treated according to the Geneva Conventions. He rejected accusations that Iraq had violated such accords by allowing Iraqi television to film them and ask questions. 

Referring to televised video images of Iraqi prisoners of war, Sahhaf claimed the men were actually civilians taken away at gunpoint by U.S. forces. 

"Is no one supposed to tell them they acted inappropriately?" he asked. "These hypocrites! We tell them we abide by Geneva Conventions." 

He accused allied forces of "crying tears of crocodiles," for attacking Iraq and finding the consequences unpleasant. 

Monday night, the Pentagon declared the men prisoners of war.

The airmen were the second set of POWs displayed by the Iraqis in as many days. On Sunday, the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera carried Iraqi television footage of five U.S. soldiers who were captured near An Nasiriyah, a crossing point over the Euphrates River.

Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri said Monday his government would allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit the prisoners, as called for in the Geneva Conventions.

"I can assure you that our religion, our customs, our social values, order us to protect those prisoners and to protect their life," he said in an interview with Associated Press Television News.

Some of the soldiers shown on Iraqi television Sunday appeared to be injured, but the men shown Monday did not.

The two wore cream-colored pilots' overalls and did not speak to the camera but appeared confused. They turned their heads and looked in different directions while being filmed. One of the men sipped from a glass of water, looking wary but not cowed.

The contents of one man's wallet were displayed across a table, including a Texas driver's license, a card from the Fort Hood National Bank, phone cards and credit cards.

The helicopter was from the Army's 1st Battalion of the 227th Aviation Regiment, based in Fort Hood, Texas. Military officials said Williams has been in the service for 12 years, and has a wife and two children who live on Fort Hood. Young, an Army man for three years, is single.

In her home outside Atlanta, Young's mother said she knew there was a one in six chance her son had been shot down when she saw footage Monday of an Apache helicopter from his unit in an Iraqi field. She recognized the 1st Battalion's "Vampires" insignia on the helicopter, which only five other aircraft have.

"I just kept feeling like it was him," Kaye Young told The Associated Press. "I went hysterical. I'm numb now."

A few hours later, a chaplain and officer arrived to confirm her fears.

Later Monday, the Young family saw Iraqi state television footage showing her son. Young was holding a drink and appeared to be eating a wafer.

"I don't think he looked frightened," his mother said. "He looked stubborn, mad. He probably was frightened though."

The footage was shown after Iraq claimed it shot down two Apache helicopters and was holding the pilots.

"A small number of peasants shot down two Apaches," Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf said. "Perhaps we will show pictures of the pilots."

Franks denied that a second chopper had been lost, or that any craft had been shot down by farmers.

Iraqi state television showed pictures of one Apache helicopter in a grassy field. Men in Arab headdresses holding Kalashnikovs automatic rifles danced around the aircraft.

The station also aired pictures of two helmets apparently belonging to members of the helicopter's crew, as well as documents and other papers lying on the ground.

Al-Sahhaf said Iraq would consider displaying the other helicopter it claims to have shot down.

He, too, said the POWs would be treated according to the Geneva Conventions and rejected accusations that Iraq had violated such accords by allowing Iraqi television to film them and ask questions.