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Franks not sure Saddam alive
27/04/2003 22:06 - (SA)
Abu Dhabi - General Tommy Franks, the commander of US forces in Iraq, said on Sunday he has seen no evidence recently to convince him that deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was still alive.
"I don't know," he said when asked here about the fate of the Iraqi leader. "I've seen nothing recently that convinced me that he was alive," he told US television reporters after meeting here visiting US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Franks also said Tareq Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister who surrendered to US forces last week, was being "co-operative and talkative" under interrogation.
"What we don't know is the veracity of it. It will take time. But he is cooperating right now," he said.
Aziz is the best known of a string of former Iraqi officials taken into US custody.
Asked whether Aziz had provided information on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, Franks would not say.
"I won't even get into the specifics of what he is revealing to us right now because we still have to decide how much we believe, how much not," he said.
"And you know the process of interrogation is going to go on for a considerable period of time," he said.
Franks said the round-up of former top Iraqi officials was going "very well" in part because Iraqis were coming forward with information.
US-led forces said on Sunday they were holding General Hossam Mohammad Amin, former head of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate (NMD), the 13th of 55 wanted Iraqi officials to fall in US hands.
- AFX
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