Iraqis Want Proof That Saddam Sons Are Dead
Wed Jul 23, 2:16 AM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Andrew Marshall
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The search for Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) gained fresh impetus Wednesday after U.S. soldiers killed his two sons Uday and Qusay in a fierce six-hour gunbattle in northern Iraq (news - web sites).
Celebratory shots rang out over Baghdad Tuesday night, but skeptical Iraqis are still demanding cast-iron proof of the deaths.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of ground forces in Iraq, said he would provide evidence to show beyond doubt that the two men had been killed when 200 soldiers attacked the villa Tuesday with machine guns and rockets.
He told a news conference late Tuesday that the deaths of Uday and Qusay -- tracked down after a tip-off from a walk-in informant who stands to gain at least some of the two $15- million rewards for information on their whereabouts -- would give fresh impetus to the search for Saddam himself.
"It confirms that we will succeed in our hunt for former regime members, and in particular Saddam Hussein, wherever they are and however long it takes," he said.
Sanchez said the killings of Uday, 39, and Qusay, two years younger, would also deal a blow to guerrillas who have staged a wave of attacks and ambushes on U.S. forces in Iraq, claiming the lives of 39 U.S. soldiers since President Bush (news - web sites) declared major combat over on May 1.
Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, said there was a risk of revenge attacks by Saddam loyalists.
"We could see attacks in the next few days as revenge. But you have to remember that a lot of the attacks that are taking place are being based on the idea that somehow the Saddams are coming back, that he and his sons are coming back," he said.
"Well, they're not coming back. But now two of them are dead. It won't be long before we get the father."
$25 MILLION OFFER FOR SADDAM
The United States has offered $25 million for information leading to the capture or killing of Saddam.
"I think we now have a possibility of somebody coming with the big one, somebody who really wants to get the $25 million reward," said Bremer, on a visit to Washington. "It will move the day a bit closer when we get our hands on the father."
Celebratory gunfire crackled above the rooftops in Baghdad late Tuesday after news of the killing of Saddam's sons, but many Iraqis said they were skeptical.
"I don't believe they are dead because Saddam would never let his sons travel together," said Nasheet Chalabi, who owns a grocery shop in Mosul.
Sanchez said he had "multiple" sources for the identification of Uday and Qusay and would give more details on Wednesday afternoon. He said the bodies of the four people killed in the Mosul raid had been flown to the U.S. base at Baghdad international airport.
U.S. officials have blamed die-hard Saddam loyalists for the guerrilla insurgency against American forces.
But other groups have also claimed responsibility for the attacks, distancing themselves from Saddam's secular Iraqi nationalism and embracing the Islamist, anti-American slogans of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda network.
Uday and Qusay were not noticeably close in life, but they went down fighting side by side in the violent tradition of their clan. Barricading themselves into the villa, they resisted some 200 U.S. soldiers backed by helicopters and firing rockets and machine guns for several sweltering hours.
GRANDSON OF SADDAM ALSO KILLED
Two other bodies removed from the villa were a grandson of Saddam and an aide of Uday, a U.S. official said.
Uday lost his father's trust after years of high living and brutal behavior, beating to death one of Saddam's aides in 1988, abusing women and narrowly surviving an assassination attempt in 1996. But he still led Saddam's Fedayeen militia, remnants of which some U.S. officials blame for recent attacks.
Qusay, noticeably more sober and favoring a clipped mustache to Uday's designer stubble, commanded the elite Republican Guard. He was one of his father's most trusted lieutenants and widely seen as his heir apparent.
A leading pro-U.S. Iraqi politician said Qusay was behind many of the attacks on U.S. troops. "He was in charge of the network that was causing a great deal of the trouble," Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, told reporters.
"This is very important. This will contribute considerably to reducing attacks on coalition soldiers," he said in New York. "Both of those characters are hated figures in Iraq."
Their deaths will be a boost to Bush. He has been under pressure over mounting U.S. casualties and the failure to find any of the chemical, biological or nuclear weapons he used to justify war despite widespread international opposition.
Bush himself welcomed their deaths as "positive news."
His closest Iraq war ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) who is also under heavy fire over the conflict, said the deaths marked a "great day for the new Iraq."
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