Print This Page Email This Page See Most Sent

• Power Play: A Deck of Iraq's Most Wanted • Are Iraqis' Guerrilla Tactics Understandable? • Rabbi Admits Affair, Denies Killing Wife

Saddam Hussein's top science adviser has surrendered to U.S. authorities, who hope he will help resolve the lingering questions over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi, Saddam's point man on chemical and biological weapons, arranged his surrender Saturday with the help of Germany's ZDF television network.

"He's a really big fish," said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the U.N. weapons inspection team. "But who knows whether he will tell them anything or just stick to his guns."

Before leaving his Baghdad villa with his German wife, Helga, and presenting himself to an American warrant officer, al-Saadi said he had no information on Saddam's whereabouts and insisted that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction.

The elegant, British-educated scientist was the seven of diamonds in the deck of cards issued by the U.S. military depicting 55 regime figures sought by the coalition.

He is believe to be the first of the top Iraqi officials to be taken into custody.

A U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, characterized the surrender as extremely important. The official said al-Saadi is expected to know where weapons are hidden, how many were produced and possibly the whereabouts of other weapons scientists.

The Bush administration has said it went to war to disarm Iraq of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. But much of the world believes the United States failed to provide enough evidence that such weapons exist.

So far, U.S. forces haven't found any weapons of mass destruction, though the search was expected to get easier as coalition troops gain more control of the country.

Al-Saadi is one of a number of weapons scientists sought by U.S. authorities. His official title was Saddam's science adviser and he negotiated with inspectors on behalf of the regime.

In February, Secretary of State Colin Powell vilified al-Saadi in a speech to the U.N. Security Council, accusing him of being on a committee set up by Saddam to spy on inspectors.

"Saadi's job is not to cooperate, it is to deceive; not to disarm, but to undermine the inspectors; not to support them, but to frustrate them and to make sure they learn nothing," Powell said.

Al-Saadi denied the charges then and suggested that evidence Powell presented to the council was fabricated.

Former and current inspectors describe al-Saadi as extremely intelligent, professional and mild-mannered.

Educated in Britain and Germany, his excellent command of the English language made him an ideal spokesman, and he often led news conferences about the inspections when they resumed in November.

Al-Saadi's main areas of expertise are in the fields of chemical and biological weapons, but U.N. inspectors have long believed that he had a deep understanding of the country's missile and nuclear programs as well.

Iraq claimed after the 1991 Persian Gulf War that it had ceased its chemical and missile programs and denied it had nuclear or biological programs.

Al-Saadi came to U.N, headquarters in New York last year to restart talks with inspectors, who were banned from working in Iraq at the end of 1998. He also met with inspectors in Vienna in July and October of last year and was the most senior Iraqi official to meet with chief inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei during their three visits to Baghdad this past winter.

Despite the close dealings however, "we never really got to know him or what he was really thinking," Buchanan said.

On Saturday, al-Saadi told ZDF that he had spent the war in his cellar and emerged after he saw a British TV report that he was being sought.

"I know the programs for weapons of mass destruction and have always told the truth about these old programs, and only the truth. You will see, the future will show it, and nothing else will come out after the end of the war," he said in an interview with ZDF.

Al-Saadi is a member of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority. He was dismissed from the army when the Baath Party came to power in 1968 because he was married to a German woman and was not a party member.

His chemical weapons expertise, however, later led the army to take him back. He became a Cabinet minister in the 1990s and was a member of a select group thought to be instrumental in the development of Iraq's weapons programs in the 1980s.

At the height of the Iraq-Iran war, al-Saadi pooled together Iraqi missiles experts in an undertaking that in 1987 gave Iraq a modified Scud-B, ground-to-ground missile with a range of 400 miles, enough to hit Iran's capital Tehran.

Al-Saadi has been Iraq's top armament official since Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, defected to Jordan in 1995, then was killed shortly after being lured back to Iraq. Al-Saadi had worked as Kamel's deputy in the military industries sector.

Saddam's confidence in him continued to grow and al-Saadi's loyalty to the president remained unquestioned, though he hardly ever mentioned the Iraqi leader in public and showed visible signs of discomfort when asked a political question.

Associated Press writer Dafna Linzer reported from New York.

photo credit and caption:

In this image from video courtesy of ZDF TV, Amer al-Saadi, science adviser to Iraq's President Saddam Hussein, left, is shown surrendering to U.S. military forces in Baghdad, Saturday, April 12, 2003. Al-Saadi allowed a German televison crew from ZDF to record his surrender. (AP Photo/ZDF TV via APTN) ** GERMANY OUT *

Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.