Powell OKs $30 Million Reward for Iraqi Informant
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) on Thursday approved a $30 million reward to the person who led U.S. forces to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s sons Uday and Qusay, the State Department said.
The United States speeded up the approval process, which usually takes months, to encourage Iraqis to provide information about Saddam himself, who lost power to U.S. forces in April and remains on the run.
"It's important to show people that we do what we say we are going to do, to make clear to people that if we make an offer like this, we are going to stand behind it," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
The United States is offering up to $25 million for information on the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein.
Boucher declined to name the recipient but media reports have said he is Nawaf al-Zeidane, the businessman in whose house in the northern city of Mosul the sons took refuge. U.S. forces killed them there in a gunbattle on July 22.
"We are not giving any information that would narrow it down. We're being very careful about the individual's identity in every possible way," he said.
The reward, $15 million for each of the two men, would be the largest ever paid by the United States under its Rewards for Justice program, the spokesman added.
Under the program, people who give information to the United States are eligible for relocation to the United States and help with immigration. But the spokesman declined to say whether the recipient had left or would leave Iraq (news - web sites).
He also declined to say how the payment would be made.
"That remains to be worked out with the individual in his choice of denominations or transfers," he said.
According to the Rewards for Justice Web site, in the past nine years the United States has paid more than $9.75 million to 24 people who provided information that put "terrorists" behind bars or prevented acts of international terrorism. |
