Ten weeks after the end of the war, Saddam Hussein and his two sons are probably alive and in Iraq, their presence fuelling resistance to 150,000 US troops, US intelligence officials now believe.
The latest thinking on Saddam's location expressed with increasing frankness by US officials has been strengthened by intercepts of communications between fugitive members of the regime and Iraqi intelligence officials, the New York Times reported Friday
Some officials in the Bush administration had expressed certainty during the conflict that Saddam had been killed by US bombing raids, either during an attack on April 7 on an upper class neighborhood of Baghdad or the strike on a supposed leadership compound in the war's opening hours.
PHOTO: AFP
Officials are now reportedly convinced that Saddam's anointed heir, Qusay, is also alive, although there remains some debate about the fate of his elder brother, Uday.
They also believe the former ruling troika has remained inside Iraq, preferring to entrust their fate to their fellow citizens rather than risk betrayal to US forces in a foreign country.
Despite the failure, so far, to locate either Saddam or the weapons of mass destruction which were the Bush administration's stated reason for its invasion of Iraq, US officials insisted that the war had accomplished its goal.
Victoria Clarke, a Pentagon spokesman, said, "Of course, the search for all senior Iraqi regime figures is important, and is getting all sorts of effort. But what is really important is the fact that Saddam is no longer running the country and he won't be."
The newspaper quoted intelligence officials as saying that the fresh intercepts had intensified the hunt for Iraq's former ruling family by the CIA, the army's Delta Force, and an elite navy counter-terrorism unit. The same unit, known as Taskforce 20, has also been charged with finding Saddam's chemical and biological weapons.
Continued resistance by Iraqis to the US, which officials believe may be driven by a degree of centralized command, was made apparent to US forces once again Friday after troops came under fire in Falluja, a center for Saddam loyalists, injuring two soldiers. It was the fifth attack on US forces in 48 hours.
The casualty rate among forces in Iraq has climbed steadily since President George Bush made his dramatic appearance on a US aircraft carrier last month to declare victory over Saddam's regime.
Since then more than 50 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq in guerrilla ambushes and accidents, according to the Pentagon.
The special forces hunting for Saddam have failed to elicit fresh information on his location after the arrest of his personal secretary and closest confidant outside his immediate family.
Abed Hamid Mahmoud was the fourth most important member of the regime, a status recognized by the US when it named him the ace of diamonds in the deck of cards distributed to US troops.
Newspaper reports since his capture was announced this week suggested his arrest had elicited more disappointment than triumph.
Intelligence officials were quoted as saying they had hoped to find him with Saddam or that he would cooperate with his interrogators once in custody.
Such hopes have been thwarted repeatedly by Iraqi officials -- and Saddam's relatives -- with those captured proving adept at supplying vague or circuitous answers, according to intelligence officials.
Ordinary Iraqis do not appear to be forthcoming either. Nor are they impressed with the search methods employed by the Americans.
A man in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, told the Los Angeles Times, "They are asking silly things. `Have you seen Saddam Hussein? Where did you see him?' And the answer they get is, `No, I haven't seen him.' And that is reality."
He added, "If I knew where Saddam was I would never tell you because you are an American."
Taskforce 20 has also been unable to establish any significant leads from the bomb sites left by the US strikes against former Iraqi president, despite excavating the huge conical crater left by the April 7 attack.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
A French-Algerian man went on trial in France on Monday for burning to death his wife in 2021, a case that shocked the public and sparked heavy criticism of police for failing to take adequate measures to protect her. Mounir Boutaa, now 48, stalked his Algerian-born wife Chahinez Daoud following their separation, and even bought a van he parked outside her house near Bordeaux in southwestern France, which he used to watch her without being detected. On May 4, 2021, he attacked her in the street, shot her in both legs, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. A neighbor hearing
RSS