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'It's important to kill Saddam'
17/11/2003 07:00 - (SA)
Washington - Ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein may have changed his physical appearance and has lots of hiding places in Iraq but will eventually be found, Jalal Talabani, the current head of the US-backed Iraqi governing council, said on Sunday.
Talabani, in an interview with CNN television, also said he did not believe Saddam was personally directing the escalating attacks on US troops and their allies in Iraq.
"I don't think he is so brave or so strong to arrange all these things," he said. "I don't think Saddam is going to have any chance or any future for Iraq. He is finished."
Asked whether Saddam may have changed his physical appearance, his face, Talabani said: "Yes. That's true.
"We have some friends who got information from three people close to Saddam Hussein and they saw that," the senior Kurdish leader said.
'He was afraid of the people'
"When he was president, he was leading in disguise. He was always planning to have different places to hide himself, from the people. He was afraid of the people... he has lots of places for hiding himself.
"You have many places that some person can hide themselves for awhile," Talabani said, "but I don't think he will be able to hide himself forever."
Interviewed on the same programme, Paul Bremer, the chief US administrator in Iraq, said Saddam is believed to be alive and in Iraq.
He also said there was no evidence that Saddam was personally planning attacks against US forces.
"There's no evidence to suggest that he is (planning the attacks)," Bremer said. "We believe he's still alive, we believe he's in Iraq. And we will sooner or later capture and kill him, and that will be a very good day for Iraq and for America."
In an interview with Fox News, Bremer, who heads the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, said there were indications Saddam may have laid the groundwork for the insurgency before he was ousted.
"There are some indications that he had prepared for a low-intensity conflict, terrorist war, the kind we're seeing now, beforehand," he said.
'It is important to kill him'
Bremer said it was important for the United States to kill Saddam but stressed "he's finished here, he's not coming back".
"The fact that he's still alive and on the loose gives the ability of people around him to hold open the idea that the Baathists will come back," he said. "So it is important to kill him."
In an audiotape broadcast on Dubai's Al-Arabiya television a voice purported to be that of Saddam said US-led occupation forces have reached "a dead end" and called for the resistance to fight the Iraqi governing council.
- AFP
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