Saddam to troops: 'I am the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate'

[thedrifter]

Saddam to troops: 'I am the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate'


By Alexandar Vasovic, The Associated Press
European edition, Monday, December 15, 2003


ADWAR, Iraq ? "My name is Saddam Hussein," the fallen Iraqi leader told U.S. troops in English as they pulled him out of a dank hole that had become his home. "I am the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate."

U.S. soldiers replied: "Regards from President Bush."

The exchange, recounted by Maj. Bryan Reed, operations officer for the 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division one day after Saddam's capture was announced, suggested the Iraqi leader would be willing to tell U.S. intelligence everything he knows. Of the most immediate importance would be any information on the insurgency responsible for the deaths of nearly 200 American soldiers.

On Monday, a series of car bombings at police stations around the Iraqi capital left eight policemen dead and at least 14 wounded, police officials said. The deadliest attack was a suicide mission at a station house in northern Baghdad where the eight officers were killed. Two other car bombings at a west-side station caused four injuries.

President Bush had warned attacks would continue as experts pored over documents found with Saddam and his interrogation got underway.

Saddam's exact whereabouts Monday were unclear. U.S. officials said only he had been moved to a secure location. The Dubai-based Arab TV station Al-Arabiya said he was taken to Qatar, though that could not be confirmed.

Eventually, Saddam could be tried for war crimes by a new Iraqi tribunal. More immediately, the Americans made clear he faces intensive interrogation ? foremost, to find out what he knows about the ongoing rebellion against the U.S.-led occupation and later, about any weapons of mass destruction his regime may have had.

The former dictator ? one of the world's most-wanted fugitives was captured by Special Forces along with the 4th Infantry Division conducting a massive raid on a farmhouse near Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, according to Capt. Desmond Bailey.

The tip off came from an individual who was arrested in Baghdad Friday and brought to Tikrit Saturday morning for an interrogation which made clear Saddam was in the area, according to Col. James Hickey, who led the raid. Soldiers were seconds away from throwing a hand grenade into the hole when Saddam surrendered, Hickey said.

Saddam was hiding in a Styrofoam-covered underground hide-out near one of his former palaces in his hometown of Tikrit late Saturday. He was disheveled and wearing a thick beard, and though he was armed with a pistol, the man who waged and lost two wars against the United States and its allies did not resist or fire a shot.

In images broadcast on television to prove his capture, Saddam resembled a desperate fugitive, not the all-powerful president who had ordered his army to fight to the death.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we got him," U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer told a news conference. "The tyrant is a prisoner."

The lack of communications equipment in Saddam's cramped quarters indicated the ousted dictator was not commanding the resistance, Odierno said.

"He was just caught like a rat," said Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, whose 4th Infantry Division troops staged the raid. "When you're in the bottom of a hole you can't fight back."

However, during his arrest U.S. troops discovered "descriptive written material of significant value," a U.S. commander told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. He declined to say whether the material related to the anti-coalition resistance.

Saddam will now "face the justice he denied to millions," said Bush, whose troops and intelligence agents had been searching in vain for Saddam since April. "In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over."

The United States had posted a $25 million bounty for Saddam, as it did for Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al-Qaida terrorist network still at large despite a manhunt since November 2001.

It was not known immediately if anyone has a claim to Saddam money, though U.S. forces found him after receiving information from an Iraqi ? a member of a family close to Saddam, Odierno said.

Within three hours of the tip, troops were at a farm in Adwar, 10 miles from Saddam's home town of Tikrit, where they found Saddam in a coffin-sized hole.

His capture leaves 13 figures at large from the list of 55 most-wanted regime officials; the highest ranking is Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a close Saddam aide who U.S. officials say may be directly organizing resistance.

Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, saw Saddam afterward and said the deposed leader "has been cooperative and is talkative." He described Saddam as "a tired man, a man resigned to his fate."

Eager to prove to Iraqis that Saddam was in custody, the U.S. military showed video of the ousted leader, haggard and gray-bearded, as a military doctor examined him. In Baghdad, radio stations played jubilant music and some bus passengers shouted, "They got Saddam! They got Saddam!"

But some residents of Adwar recalled fondly how Saddam used to swim in the nearby Tigris River and bemoaned the capture of the leader who donated generously to area residents.

"This is bad news to all Iraqis," said Ammar Zidan, 21. "Even if they captured Saddam Hussein, we are all Saddam Hussein. We want freedom and independence from the Americans."

Speaking on CBS's "60 Minutes," Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Saddam would be accorded the rights of prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention, but added that any participation by Saddam in the insurgency against coalition troops might lead to different classification.

Saddam was captured almost five months after his sons, Qusai and Odai, were killed July 22 in a gunbattle with U.S. troops in the northern city of Mosul. Coalition officials hoped the sons' deaths would weaken the Iraqi resistance; instead, the guerrilla campaign escalated.

In the latest attack ? before Saddam's capture was announced ? a suspected suicide bomber detonated explosives in a car outside a police station Sunday morning west of Baghdad, killing at least 17 and wounding 33, the U.S. military said. Also Sunday, a U.S. soldier died while trying to disarm a roadside bomb south of the capital ? the 452nd soldier to die in Iraq.

Soldiers from the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division, who all but missed the invasion of Iraq but have been at the front line of postwar hostilities, spent Sunday afternoon smoking cigars after scoring the allies' biggest triumph since the fall of Baghdad.

"It almost seems too easy," Sgt. Ebony Jones of Kansas City, Mo., said after his comrades captured Saddam. "This is the best thing that ever happened to us here."

In the division's headquarters in Tikrit, two dozen soldiers gathered in front of a television, cheering as their unit's accomplishment began to ripple across the airwaves, quickly dominating the news.

But no one on the base said anything about their mission winding down after such a big catch. Tikrit and the rest of the Sunni Muslim areas north of Baghdad ? the area under the 4th Infantry's control ? remain one of the toughest patches of Iraq, with or without Saddam, they said.

"His capture will show others that they cannot run and hide," said Sgt. Don Williams of Houston. "Attacks will not stop, but this will have significant impact."

After sunset Sunday, the streets of Tikrit plunged into darkness and an eery silence. Soldiers on patrol in the city, recalling the increased insurgency after Odai and Qusai were killed said they were being extra cautious.

"We must remain vigilant. We had an increase of attacks after we nailed Saddam's sons, it could happen again," said Sgt. Cesar Castro.

Updated 4 a.m. EST 12-15-03



U.S. military photos via The Associated Press
Captured former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is given a medical exam in this photo taken from a TV image and released by the U.S. military.


For a graphic detailing Saddam Hussein's capture. (Macromedia Flash format)
http://www.stripes.com/saddam/capture.html

For a graphic showing the status of the Iraqi leaders in the "deck of cards." (Macromedia Flash format, 551 KB)
http://www.stripes.com/saddam/wanted.html


http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?...&article=19268



Sempers,

Roger

continued........