Mystery unsolved
Three months after the fall of his regime the mystery of Saddam's whereabouts still haunts Iraq, writes Salah Hemeid
The US army in Iraq has stepped up the search for deposed President Saddam Hussein and his two sons after a series of assaults on American soldiers believed to have been orchestrated by Saddam loyalists. Saddam disappeared after US troops captured the Iraqi capital on 9 April and though 32 senior Iraqi officials on a wanted list of 55 have been rounded up Saddam has so far remained elusive.
The frantic hunt for Saddam, Uday and Qusay followed American intelligence reassessments that Saddam and his sons almost certainly survived the war. The debriefing of Saddam's secretary, Abid Hmoud, who was arrested last week, and intercepted communications among fugitive members of the Saddam Fedayeen and the Iraqi intelligence service, appeared to confirm the view that Saddam was at large. Hmoud, according to senior administration officials quoted in the Washington Post, had provided information about Saddam's whereabouts.
The search, said the New York Times, is being led by Task Force 20, a secret military organisation that includes members of the Delta Force and of the US navy's elite counter-terrorism squads, supported by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The Observer of London reported on Sunday that American specialists were carrying out DNA tests on human remains believed by US military sources to be those of Saddam and one of his sons. The Observer reported that the remains were retrieved from a convoy of vehicles struck last week by US forces following "firm" information that the former Iraqi leader and members of his family were travelling in the western desert near Syria. It quoted military sources as saying the strikes, involving an undisclosed number of Hellfire missiles, were launched against the convoy last Wednesday after a satellite telephone conversation involving either Saddam or his sons was intercepted. Neither the Pentagon nor the US Central Command have commented on the report though the strike appeared to underscore a growing belief among American intelligence officials that Saddam and his sons remained in Iraq following the war.
Meanwhile, Al-Ahram Weekly has learned that one of Saddam's nephews contacted his family in a neighbouring country and informed them that the former Iraqi leader was still alive. Iraqi sources told the Weekly that Namir Edham Ibrahim called his wife from somewhere inside Iraq last week by satellite telephone and told her that he and Saddam had taken refuge with some tribes in northern Baghdad. Ibrahim, whose father is Saddam's half brother, worked as a bodyguard and driver for the deposed leader. He apparently informed his wife that Saddam has been regularly changing his whereabouts since the collapse of his regime.
London-based Iraqi analyst Haroun Mohamed believes that if Saddam is still alive he would feel safest in familiar surroundings near his hometown of Tikrit and would not risk fleeing to another country where there would be a greater chance of discovery by American intelligence. Uncertainty surrounding Saddam's fate, says Mohamed, is a major factor in the civil unrest in Iraq and has encouraged his supporters to try to organise continued resistance.
"As long as Saddam is alive the Americans will have no peace or security in Iraq," he said.
Iraqi writer Ali Abdel-Amir told the Weekly that senior Iraqi politicians have complained to Paul Bremer, head of the American administration in Iraq, that the failure to track down Saddam is discouraging many Iraqis from participating in the new administration the Americans plan to install. "People are still afraid that Saddam might make a comeback and take revenge," he said in a telephone interview from Baghdad.
Although attacks against US troops have been sporadic and localised, some of the fighters appear to have been coordinated on a local level by fugitive members of the Saddam Fedayeen and remnants of the former Iraqi intelligence service.
On Saturday the Baghdad newspaper Al- Ahali quoted a Kurdish leader as saying that Saddam's Fedayeen could soon resurface, reorganised and ready to carry out attacks against American forces.
Iraq's US-led administration announced on Monday that it was finalising plans to create a new Iraqi army and pay off disgruntled members of the dissolved armed forces. Anger among unpaid soldiers boiled over into violence after Bremer dissolved the armed forces, security agencies and ministries of defence and information last month, laying off an estimated 400,000 people as part of the drive to purge Iraq of its Ba'th Party legacy.
Walter Slocomb, in charge of creating the new army, said that the American authorities will pay monthly stipends to former officers of the Iraqi army and Saddam's republican guard. The measures are aimed at easing tensions with the former officers and intended to woo them away from Saddam's loyalists.
