'Saddam survived April 7 attack'
BAGHDAD: Saddam Hussein's entourage hid out in the home of a former family bodyguard for much of the US-led air war, fleeing only when a bunker-busting bomb meant for the Iraqi leader struck a block away, residents told The Associated Press on Sunday.
The accounts heightened the possibility that Saddam survived the April 7 attack. Neighbours said they believed Saddam himself had stayed in the house in the well-off western Baghdad block, though none of those interviewed claimed to have seen the Iraqi leader himself.
However, Saddam's top bodyguard, Ali Nassir, and the leader's cousin Gen Ali Suleyman Abdullah al-Majid were among those seen coming and going for about 10 days. Nassir and others guarded the house until all inside fled in the hours after the US bombing on the afternoon of April 7.
"They came out in civilian clothes, in groups, and you could see the fear on their faces," said Osama al-Bidely, next-door neighbour to the high-walled compound. "They left their guns, they left their uniforms, and they left like civilians."
The home's owner, a woman who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Baath Party officials barred her from the house during the time they were there and told her to destroy a discarded two-star general's uniform she found when she moved back in. |
