How We Got Saddam~~~~'Don't shoot,' the bearded, submissive man said to the
soldiers. He was Saddam Hussein, hiding in a hole, the
man the Pentagon called 'High Value Target Number
One.' The story of his capture--and what's next.
Gary Knight / VII for Newsweek
msnbc.msn.com
'We got him': Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez (at podium), the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and coalition administrator L. Paul Bremer (far right) made the official announcement of Saddam's capture
By Evan Thomas and Rod Nordland
NewsweekDec. 22 Issue - In a part of the world where pride and dignity mean everything, the images were clearly intended to shame. A nameless doctor or medical technician, wearing rubber gloves, was seen closely examining the man's hair, perhaps looking for vermin. Prodded with a tongue depressor, the man opened his mouth; the doctor peered at the pink flesh of his throat and scraped off a few cells for DNA identification. Then the world saw the man's face. Haggard, defeated, slightly disgusted and unquestionably Saddam Hussein, tyrant and terrorist, sadist and murderer, object of one of the greatest manhunts in history.
The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, told reporters that Saddam had been found hiding in a mudhole. Gone were the fleets of Mercedeses, the battalions of secret police, the gold-encrusted palaces. Saddam did not put up a fight; he did not try to take his own life (though he had a pistol). He was "talkative" and "cooperative," resigned, cowering, meek and weak. The Glorious Leader, Direct Descendant of the Prophet, the Lion of Babylon, the Father of the Two Lion Cubs, the Anointed One, the Successor of Nebuchadnezzar, the Modern Saladin of Islam had been brought low, forced to bow down, whisked away to an "undisclosed location" to contemplate his fate while waiting to stand trial for his vast crimes against humanity.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him!" declared a beaming, triumphant Paul Bremer, the American proconsul in Baghdad. In the Iraqi capital, a hush had fallen over the city. Rumors of Saddam's capture had been flying through the streets. Almost everyone, it seemed, had gathered around a TV set or radio to await the formal word. When Bremer spoke, at about 3:15 Sunday afternoon Baghdad time (7:15 a.m. in Washington), the city erupted in celebratory gunfire. Shop owners began closing up, fearing that the revelers might get carried away. (When Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay, were captured and killed last summer, at least a half dozen people were killed by the rain of falling bullets.) Cameras caught American soldiers puffing on cigars.
Efrem Lukatsky / AP
When they captured Saddam outside Tikrit, 4th Infantry soldiers also found $750,000 of the Iraqi leader's stashed cash
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The insurrection will go on, and more American soldiers and Iraqis will die. But the capture of Saddam was undoubtedly an enormous breakthrough in the liberation of Iraq. Many Iraqis could never quite believe that Saddam was gone, that he would not reappear like some bad dream. By showing the images of Saddam in captivity and not just captured but poked, prodded and shorn, the Americans were sending a clear message to the Iraqi people that their tormentor of decades was gone forever.
Now comes the Mother of All War Crimes Trials. The mountain of evidence of Saddam's grotesqueries--the gassing of whole villages, the torture of political prisoners, the wholesale slaughter of his enemies--will be presented and dissected. The trial could be a security nightmare, of course, a target for terrorists. Some U.S. intelligence officials on Sunday morning speculated to NEWSWEEK that the capture of Saddam might actually bring an increase in attacks on American troops and their Iraqi allies--a last real spasm of violence. But Saddam's arrest may also be a chance for reconciliation, a step toward bringing together a nation divided by sect and tribe and, for too long, by fear.
The hunt for Saddam had been a vexing preoccupation of the military and the Bush administration. His capture was a happy ending to a maddening and sometimes embarrassingly fruitless hunt for a marked man with a $25 million bounty on his head. When Saddam vanished as Baghdad fell, American intelligence officials were reasonably confident that he had not fled the country and guessed that he was holed up somewhere near his old hometown of Tikrit, north of the Iraqi capital. But where? Saddam was said to have a number of body doubles and to have undergone plastic surgery to radically alter his features. The rumor mill ground away. In June, a Baghdad newspaper reported that the former president had been sighted driving a Pajero taxi around Baghdad, while wearing a beard, glasses and an ankle-length traditional Arab robe.
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• Hussein captured
The U.S. military released this silent video of Saddam Hussein being examined and the hole where he was located.
• Inside Saddam's spider hole
NBC's Carl Rochelle shows a blueprint of Saddam Hussein's hideout.
• Bush comment on Saddam capture
President George Bush states the capture of Saddam Hussein is "crucial to the rise of a free Iraq."
• Bremer: 'We got him'
Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq announces the capture of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussen.
• Lt. Gen. Sanchez on the capture
Lt. Gen. Richardo Sanchez described Saddam Hussein's capture and hideout.
• Capture an intelligence coup
Saddam Hussein's capture illustrates that the intelligence information coming to the U.S. forces was accurate. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports on Hussein's capture.
• Blair hails Saddam's capture
Prime Minister Tony Blair hailed the capture of Saddam Hussein Sunday,?saying that the Muslims who suffered under?his power?would benefit most from his capture and the rebirth of Iraq. |
