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Saddam spotting gets serious
01/09/2003 07:54 - (SA)
Mosul, Iraq - The Saddam Hussein rumour mill runs swiftly through the northern city of Mosul, through its groves of trees along the Tigris River, through its tea houses, through its tight-knit clans.
Sightings of the ousted dictator, Washington's most-wanted man, have him dressed in an Arab robe, bearded and in sunglasses moving from hideout to hideout using three cars. Others, equally dubious, have him sitting on the floor of a humble Bedouin home eating a meagre meal with the family. He's even said to have visited a Mosul doctor.
"This guy's Elvis," said General David Patraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne division, in Northern Iraq.
The search for Saddam is taken particularly seriously in Mosul, 380km north of Baghdad, because his sons were run to ground and killed here. Saddam's vice-president was also caught in the city by Kurdish forces, and the ex-dictator enjoys profound support among the largely Sunni population.
Claims of Saddam spottings, most of them absurd, flood a hotline the US Army has set up for tips on Saddam's whereabouts and weapons caches. The enthusiasm is no surprise, as someone eventually will earn the $25-million bounty offered for his capture.
"We get people that walk up all the time and say 'Hey, give me $25-million right now and I'll tell you where Saddam is,"' said Patraeus.
"We generally don't laugh people off. We try to listen... their story breaks down (after) about 30 seconds. Usually it's a friend of a friend of a friend. He might have seen him behind the curtains," Patraeus said.
An increased US presence and new checkpoints in Mosul in recent days have fed the rumour mill.
Many former regime officials on the US most-wanted list have been captured in Mosul - including Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay, who were second and third on the most-wanted list. Taha Yassin Ramadan, Saddam's vice president, who was number 20 on the list, was grabbed here by Kurdish fighters on August 19 and turned over to the Americans.
So the forces are in place. But is Saddam really around?
"Could be. We've gone after him a couple of times up here. He just hasn't been there when we got there. Now, you never know though," Patraeus said, refusing to speculate on how close US forces are to capturing the prize.
"Predictions like that are very, very hazardous," he said, adding that on his tour in Bosnia, he spent a year chasing Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic - a top United Nations war criminal who is still at large. "You have to be very careful with your predictions about when you are going to get somebody."
It's no easy task looking for Saddam in a part of Iraq where his fellow Sunni Muslims are the majority and support for the ousted dictator is strong.
A quarter-million of Saddam's soldiers came from the province surrounding Mosul; about 24 000 of that number were officers. Saddam's Baath Party leadership also drew heavily from the city.
Arab tradition also plays against an easy capture of Saddam in a region where Islam dictates against betraying fugitives.
"But there are cracks in that tradition and there are people that will come forward," Patraeus said.
When Uday and Qusay were caught last month, there were no rumours beforehand of their presence in Mosul.
Nawaf al-Zidani - owner of the house where the brothers were staying and presumed recipient of a $30-million reward for their capture - went to the Americans, and a young sergeant took him seriously. He "actually sat down and talked with him and realized that potentially it was a real deal and subsequently set up meetings."
The US Army's Kurdish allies, helping with the hunt for fugitives, have been unrelenting in their search for Saddam, who caused the Kurds great suffering during his 34-year rule.
"He's (Saddam) been seen a few times in Mosul," said Sandra Harki, an official with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a pro-US group that captured Ramadan earlier this month.
"The information reached us a little late. By the time we went to the location, he had left the place," said Harki.
"He has stayed at different locations, homes of former agents," said Harki, adding that the PUK sometimes received tips 24 hours or two or three days after spotting Saddam.
One rumour has it that about a month ago, Saddam was in Mosul and was treated by a doctor - Imad Hashim, a well-known neurosurgeon.
"I have never met Saddam, and have only seen him on television," said a frustrated Hashim, head of neurology at the Ibn Sina Teaching Hospital in Mosul. "I am not a member of the Baath Party, have never had a government position. I'm only a neurosurgeon."
Many people interviewed in Mosul said if they spotted Saddam they would not spread it around. "If I see him, I will not talk because it will put him in danger," said Waad Ahmed, 40, an unemployed man in a poor neighborhood of Mosul.
Another resident said the rumours of Saddam spotting were "soothing to the soul".
"They give me assurances that he may be alive and well," said Saad, who would not give his last name.
Some of the rumours stoke the mythic ideal of Saddam - a cult of personality created by his regime and still thriving in this northern city.
According to one, a hungry and ragged Saddam knocked on the door of a poor Bedouin family in the ancient village of Hadhar and asked for food.
The hosts, unaware who their guest was, ranted about how bad things had become since the US occupation. "Do you wish Saddam were back?" the guest asks the woman. When she said she did, he told her:
"I am Saddam. When I leave this house, tell people that Saddam was in my house."
- AP
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