BAGHDAD, Iraq April 12 —
Saddam Hussein's science adviser surrendered to U.S. military
authorities Saturday, insisting that Iraq had no weapons of mass
destruction and the U.S.-led invasion was unjustified.
Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi arranged his surrender with the help of
Germany's ZDF television network, which filmed him leaving his
Baghdad villa with his German wife, Helga, and presenting himself to
an American warrant officer, who escorted him away.
Al-Saadi told ZDF that he had no information on what happened to
Saddam and repeated his assertion, made often in news conferences
before the U.S.-led invasion, that Iraq was free of weapons of mass
destruction.
In Doha, Qatar, the U.S. Central Command said it had no
information on al-Saadi's surrender.
The elegant, British-educated al-Saadi is believed to be the
first of 55 regime figures sought by the coalition to be taken into
custody. He had been wanted because he was a special weapons adviser
to Saddam and oversaw Iraq's chemical program in the past. He is
believed to have in-depth knowledge of other weapons program as
well.
He was among the key figures who worked with U.N. weapons
inspectors and often spoke for the Iraqi government in news
conferences between the resumption of inspections in November and
their end last month.
After Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N.
Security Council in February, al-Saadi suggested that monitored
Iraqi conversations Powell played were fabricated, that defector
informants were unreliable, and that satellite photographs "proved
nothing."
Al-Saadi had also defended the regime's longtime practice of
insisting that Iraqi officials be present during meetings between
U.N. weapons inspectors and Iraqi scientists, saying that otherwise
the scientists' remarks might be distorted.
photo credit
and caption:
Amir al-Saadi, the special
advisor for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, speaks to the
media in Baghdad, Iraq, in this Sunday, Feb. 9, 2003 file
photo. According to German television, al-Saadi is reported
Saturday April 12, 2003, to have surrendered to U.S. forces in
Iraq. (AP Photo/Samir
Mezbane)
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