BAGHDAD, Iraq April 8 —
With the site of an American bombing raid in Iraqi hands Tuesday,
coalition forces said it might take some time to determine whether
Saddam Hussein was killed in the attack on a restaurant where he was
believed to be meeting with his sons.
A U.S. warplane dropped four bunker-buster bombs and blasted a
smoking crater 60 feet deep at the restaurant on Monday afternoon.
At least three houses were destroyed and 20 others damaged, some
badly, in the attempt to kill Saddam.
"At this point in time, I'm not aware of anyone from coalition
forces that have walked the site," said Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks at
U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar.
"When that's possible, we'll have more information about what
exactly happened there," Brooks said at a news briefing Tuesday.
"Until then, we can only go with things we can gain information on.
And we believe the strike was effective in hitting the target,
creating the desired effect, but we don't know all the circumstances
of what happened to those who were contained inside."
Brooks said it will take some time and perhaps detailed forensic
work to establish who was killed.
"There's lots of digging and DNA tests involved," said a U.S.
official familiar with the latest military intelligence, speaking on
condition of anonymity.
The airstrike in the well-to-do al-Mansour section of western
Baghdad broke windows and doors up to 300 yards away, ripped orange
trees out by the roots, hurled steel beams 100 yards and left a heap
of broken concrete, mangled iron rods and shredded furniture and
clothes.
Iraqi rescue workers using a bulldozer to search the rubble said
that three bodies had been recovered those of a small boy, a young
woman and an elderly man and that the death toll could be as high as
14. The woman's head had been severed from her torso.
"I don't know whether he survived," President Bush said in
Northern Ireland, where he was meeting with British Prime Minister
Tony Blair. "The only thing I know is he's losing power."
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, speaking to
reporters Tuesday, made no mention of Saddam's fate, and rejected
any suggestion that Iraq would surrender to the American forces
drawing a noose around the regime.
"They will be burnt. We are going to tackle them," he said.
Despite suspicions at the Pentagon that Saddam may have been
killed, there were no signs of any unusual security measures at the
site, and a reporter had no problem examining it, watching the
rescue operation or speaking to neighbors for about 90 minutes
Tuesday.
The attack was carried out by a single B-1B bomber, which dropped
four precision-guided, 2,000-pound, bunker-penetrating bombs on a
restaurant after U.S. intelligence was tipped that the Iraqi
president, sons Odai and Qusai and other top leaders might be
meeting there, officials said.
The U.S. official said the Pentagon was confident that Saddam and
his sons were in the building before it was bombed. "Our
intelligence was solid," the official said. He did not elaborate on
the source of the intelligence.
He said Saddam was known to frequent the restaurant, apparently
because he thought coalition forces would not target him so close to
a civilian center.
Those close to Saddam have said the Iraqi leader is so obsessed
with security that very few people would know about his movements.
He maintains dozens of residences and uses doubles to keep people
guessing.
An exiled dissident told The Associated Press that only two
people are kept posted about Saddam's whereabouts Qusai, who
commands the Republican Guard and heads the president's security,
and his private secretary, Abed Hameed Hmoud, a member of Saddam's
Tikriti clan. Even Odai is thought to be out of the loop because he
is considered too reckless.
The strike came on a day when U.S. forces also occupied two of
Saddam's palaces southwest of the target zone and knocked down a
statue of the Iraqi leader as they tried to wrest control of Baghdad
from his regime.
Seif Hatef, 21, said some of his friends were among the victims
of the attack on the three buildings. "Such attacks will make Iraqis
more determined to resist. Iraq will remain and this war will never
finish," he said.
Workers at a nearby mall swept the glass and other debris from
the sidewalk.
"When this war will end? It depends on that scum Bush," said Amer
Hamad Abdullah al-Jabouri, who works at the complex.
Coalition strikes have aimed at top Iraqi leaders from the very
start of the war.
On March 19, the opening night of the war, President Bush
authorized a strike on a suburban Baghdad compound where Saddam and
his sons were thought to be staying. But U.S. intelligence officials
suspect he survived.
Earlier Monday, U.S. and British officials said they believed
Saddam's top commander in southern Iraq, his first cousin Ali Hassan
al-Majid, had been killed in a U.S. airstrike at a house in Basra.
Al-Majid, considered one of the most brutal and loyal members of
Saddam's inner circle, was known as "Chemical Ali" for his role a
1988 poison gas attack that killed tens of thousands of Iraqi
Kurds.
A video clip of the U.S. attack on the Basra house was shown at
the Pentagon on Monday.
"We believe that the reign of terror of Chemical Ali has come to
an end. To Iraqis who have suffered at his hand, particularly in the
last few weeks in that southern part of the country, he will never
again terrorize you or your families," Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld said.
Associated Press writers Nicole Winfield in Doha, Qatar, Ron
Fournier in Washington and Matt Kelley in Washington contributed to
this report.
photo credit
and caption:
Buildings in the al-Mansour
neighborhood of Baghdad lie in ruins Monday afternoon, April
7, 2003 after a U.S. warplane dropped four bunker-busting
bombs on the site where Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was
believed to be meeting with his sons. (AP Photo/Jerome
Delay)
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