July 29 — American troops captured one of Saddam Hussein’s bodyguards and at least two other suspected associates in early morning raids on Tuesday, the U.S. military said. The reported coalition success comes amid what the United States says has been an increased flow of information on the whereabouts of Saddam and his inner-circle in recent days. Earlier, a U.S. soldier was killed when a grenade was dropped from a bridge on top of a military Humvee in downtown Baghdad, military officials said.
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ON TUESDAY, soldiers fired two shots before storming the Tikrit home of the suspect, who was identified only as one of Saddam’s longtime bodyguards. He was escorted from the house minutes later.
Reporters traveling with the U.S. troops saw blood on the right side of his head, seeping through a hat.
The man resisted inside the home and soldiers had to wrestle him down, Lt. Col. Steve Russell said. A medic attended to him as he sat in the back of a Humvee under close guard.
“We got our prime target,” said Russell, standing in front of the house. “This man was a close associate of Saddam Hussein.”
At least two others were seen by an Associated Press reporter being taken into custody in near simultaneous raids on other houses in the heart of Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown.
The Army had targeted three men in the raids and captured all of them, Russell said.
ATTACK IN BAGHDAD
In the Monday attack on U.S. forces, one soldier was killed and three others wounded when a grenade was dropped from an overpass onto their vehicle in Baghdad’s al-Rashid district shortly before noon (4 a.m. ET), military officials told NBC News. The attackers escaped.
The soldier’s name was withheld until his family could be notified. Two of the wounded soldiers returned to duty.
Other soldiers surrounded the Humvee after the attack with rifles ready, witnesses said. One soldier was slumped motionless in the back seat of the vehicle, and another lay in the road. Neither received immediate medical attention, and they were later driven away in the back of a truck, one of them covered in blood.
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In a second attack Monday, insurgents north of Baghdad floated a bomb down a river on a palm log and detonated it under a bridge the military had been repairing. No injuries were reported.
The bridge was a major link over the Diala River, a tributary of the Tigris that carries traffic between Baquoba and Tikrit, both of which are hotbeds of resistance in the so-called “Sunni Triangle.” The region, stretching north and west from Baghdad is a major center of support for Saddam.
Since May 1, when Washington declared major combat over in Iraq, 50 U.S. soldiers have been confirmed killed in guerrilla attacks. In the past 10 days, the U.S. military has confirmed the deaths of 16 soldiers in hostile action, making it the bloodiest period for U.S. forces since Saddam was toppled in April.
At least 60 other U.S. personnel have died since then in accidents, according to figures provided by the Pentagon. The latest such death occurred in a traffic accident Monday night; the military gave no other details.
AMERICANS ‘HAVE BUILT A WALL’
The attacks highlighted continuing resistance to the U.S. occupation. In addition to guerrilla attacks, unhappiness is growing among the civilian population to the conduct of U.S. forces.
Residents complained to reporters that Task Force 20, the special unit hunting Saddam and his inner circle, botched a raid Sunday night on a house in another part of Baghdad. The troops came away empty-handed, but they left five civilians dead in the shattered wrecks of cars.
Several residents said the Americans erected a single roadblock leading to the house but failed to prevent motorists from straying into the fire zone by quiet side streets. They accused the troops of machine-gunning two cars, killing the occupants.
“The cars came down the road. They didn’t know the Americans were here. They were normal civilians and wanted to go home,” a witness said. “They [U.S. soldiers] opened fire right away.”
Another resident, who gave his name only as Mohammed, said that “all these things are making people hate the Americans.
“In the beginning,” he added, “all the Iraqi people welcomed the Americans. But now the Americans have built a wall between themselves and the Iraqis.”
Another witness said: “They need to have barbed wire up so that people know there is an operation. This is a residential area. They need to take care of the civilians. There are kids here.”
In minutes, the shooting was over and the soldiers withdrew. “They just left,” a resident said. “Then the Iraqi firemen came to put out the fires.”
The home’s owner is Prince Rabiah Muhammed al-Habib, one of Iraq’s most influential tribal leaders. “I found the house was searched in a very rough way,” said al-Habib, who was not at home at the time of the raid. “It seems the Americans came thinking Saddam Hussein was inside my house.”
SEARCH FOR SADDAM
While the raid did not turn up Saddam, U.S. officials were sounding optimistic that he would be found.
“We’re close to catching Saddam. A lot of people are stepping forward with information. He’s running out of places to hide,” Sgt. Amy Abbott, a military spokeswoman, said Monday.
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At least twice in the past week, U.S. soldiers have raided houses where they believed they may have missed Saddam by less than 24 hours.
“The noose is tightening around these guys,” Col. James C. Hickey, a brigade commander, said Sunday. “They’re running out of places to hide, and it’s becoming difficult for them to move because we’re everywhere. Any day now, we’re going to knock on their door or kick in their door, and they know it.”
After the firefight Tuesday in which Saddam’s sons Odai and Qusai were killed, intelligence sources reported that Saddam was at a different location in the same city. Elements of the 101st Airborne Division mounted another raid, a military official familiar with the operation told the AP.
“We missed him by a matter of hours,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
July 27 — Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz tells NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert that the deaths of Saddam’s sons have yielded increased intelligence from the Iraqi people.
INCREASED INTELLIGENCE
There had been hope the killings of Odai and Qusai Hussein might demoralize the resistance. Instead, their deaths appeared to have inspired a wave of revenge attacks.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Sunday that U.S. officials thought there would be a spike in violence after the sons’ deaths, but he said there had also been a beneficial increase in information coming in from Iraqi informants.
“In the last week alone, we’ve picked up 660 surface-to-air missiles. That’s a product of the increased intelligence the Iraqi people are providing,” Wolfowitz said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Wolfowitz said that with time, Iraqis may give Americans more sensitive information, which could lead to Saddam.
“It takes time for them to trust us to give us the information,” Wolfowitz said. “But they’re giving us more and more. I think what happened last week with the deaths of those two miserable creatures is encouraging more people to come forward.”
Eliminating Saddam could tamp down anti-U.S. violence, too, he said. “Getting rid of Saddam Hussein will have more effect than any single thing we can do.”
Newsweek: Odai's, Qusai's final days
TOP GENERAL VISITS
July 27 — David Kay, head of the search for weapons of mass destruction, gives NBC’s Tom Brokaw an exclusive look at his complicated operation.
Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited commanders of the 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit on Sunday and told reporters in Baghdad that Saddam was too busy “trying to save his own skin” to lead an insurgency.
“It’s a big country, but we’ll find him,” Myers said.
With or without Saddam, however, the insurgency appeared well armed. U.S. soldiers discovered 40 anti-tank mines, dozens of mortar rounds and hundreds of pounds of gunpowder Monday buried a quarter-mile from the gates of the division’s headquarters.
The freshly buried weapons were sufficient for a month of guerrilla attacks on U.S. troops, said Maj. Bryan Luke, whose patrol found the weapons cache.
Finding “this cache saved a few lives out there,” Luke said. “Forty mines could have caused a lot of problems for U.S. forces here in Tikrit.” |
