Mama San
Administrator
"Found hiding in a hole just like any coward"!!!!!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Saddam Captured in Tikrit, Disguised and Dusty
By Robin Pomeroy, Reuters
TIKRIT, Iraq (Dec. 14) - U.S. troops captured Saddam Hussein near his home town of Tikrit in a major coup for Washington's beleaguered occupation force in Iraq.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we got him," the U.S. administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer said on Sunday in his first, pithy comments to a Baghdad news conference. Cheers greeted the announcement.
"The tyrant is a prisoner," he said, adding the capture was made in a town near Tikrit on Saturday.
"There were no injuries. Not a single shot was fired," Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. general in Iraq, told the news conference in the Iraqi capital.
He then showed a videotape of a bearded Saddam in detention and undergoing medical checks.
Soldiers tore off a false beard and took samples from the ousted dictator for DNA identity tests after digging down into a cellar during an overnight raid on a house following a tip-off, members of Iraq's U.S.-backed Governing Council said on Sunday.
After seven months of increasingly bloody attacks on U.S. forces and their allies following Saddam's ousting on April 9, the arrest is a major boon for U.S. President George W. Bush. His campaign for re-election next year has been overshadowed by mounting casualties and wrangling with key allies over Iraq.
It may break the spirit of some of his diehard supporters and ease anxieties of many Iraqis who lived in fear for three decades under a man who led them into three disastrous wars.
U.S. officials will also hope to extract key intelligence on the alleged weapons programs which formed the public grounds for Bush to go to war in defiance of many U.N. allies. Little evidence of banned weapons has been found.
Saddam, 66, had kept up a stream of belligerent rhetoric from hiding, even after his sons Uday and Qusay were killed by U.S. troops in July.
Already vexed by its failure to find al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, Washington blamed Saddam for promoting some of the violence against its forces.
But analysts warned that other groups could go on fighting.
"This has lifted a shadow from the people of Iraq. Saddam will not be returning," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a statement.
Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay were identified after comparisons with DNA samples. The sons went down, guns blazing, against overwhelming force, including missiles and aircraft.
Their father was taken alive.
Washington has made Saddam number one -- the "ace of spades" -- on its list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis, and placed a $25 million reward on his head.
An informer was paid $30 million and given refuge in the United States for turning in Uday and Qusay in Mosul.
Saddam would be put on trial, Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi told Reuters. A tribunal system for Iraqis to try Saddam and fellow Baathist leaders was set up only last week.
"This is good for Iraq. He will be put on trial. Let him face justice," Chalabi, who returned after the invasion from years in U.S. exile, said in Baghdad.
The word came just hours after the latest major attack on Washington's Iraqi allies, with a suspected suicide car bomber killing at least 17 people and wounding 33 at an Iraqi police station in the restive town of Khalidiyah, west of Baghdad.
GUNFIRE
In early afternoon, gunfire broke out across the capital as news filtered through that Saddam was in U.S. custody.
U.S. officials had said Saddam had eluded American troops by moving every few hours, probably in disguise and aided by members of his clan in the Sunni Muslim areas around Tikrit, north of Baghdad.
The capture of Saddam is a morale boost for U.S. troops in Iraq, who have been under daily attack from shadowy guerrillas, some of whom they believe may have been directed by the former president from hiding.
U.S. forces, backed by Britain and Australia, toppled Saddam in April.
"His arrest will put an end to military and terrorist attacks and the Iraqi nation will achieve stability," said Amar al-Hakin, a senior member of the Shi'ite political party the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
"We want Saddam to get what he deserves. I believe he will be sentenced to hundreds of death sentences at a fair trial because he's responsible for all the massacres and crimes in Iraq."
But Mustafa Alani, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London, warned that there were other anti-American groups in Iraq ready to continue attacks.
"There will be a reduction in operations sponsored by former regime loyalists, but this is not the full story because they are not the only group involved," he said.
"For the Americans after the failure to capture Osama bin Laden after so many years, it is a propaganda coup...It's an intelligence prize because they can get information from him about cells working now. And it's a huge victory."
12/14/03 07:28 ET
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keep this jerk alive and well. Otherwise he becomes a martyr.
God bless,
Mama san
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Saddam Captured in Tikrit, Disguised and Dusty
By Robin Pomeroy, Reuters
TIKRIT, Iraq (Dec. 14) - U.S. troops captured Saddam Hussein near his home town of Tikrit in a major coup for Washington's beleaguered occupation force in Iraq.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we got him," the U.S. administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer said on Sunday in his first, pithy comments to a Baghdad news conference. Cheers greeted the announcement.
"The tyrant is a prisoner," he said, adding the capture was made in a town near Tikrit on Saturday.
"There were no injuries. Not a single shot was fired," Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. general in Iraq, told the news conference in the Iraqi capital.
He then showed a videotape of a bearded Saddam in detention and undergoing medical checks.
Soldiers tore off a false beard and took samples from the ousted dictator for DNA identity tests after digging down into a cellar during an overnight raid on a house following a tip-off, members of Iraq's U.S.-backed Governing Council said on Sunday.
After seven months of increasingly bloody attacks on U.S. forces and their allies following Saddam's ousting on April 9, the arrest is a major boon for U.S. President George W. Bush. His campaign for re-election next year has been overshadowed by mounting casualties and wrangling with key allies over Iraq.
It may break the spirit of some of his diehard supporters and ease anxieties of many Iraqis who lived in fear for three decades under a man who led them into three disastrous wars.
U.S. officials will also hope to extract key intelligence on the alleged weapons programs which formed the public grounds for Bush to go to war in defiance of many U.N. allies. Little evidence of banned weapons has been found.
Saddam, 66, had kept up a stream of belligerent rhetoric from hiding, even after his sons Uday and Qusay were killed by U.S. troops in July.
Already vexed by its failure to find al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, Washington blamed Saddam for promoting some of the violence against its forces.
But analysts warned that other groups could go on fighting.
"This has lifted a shadow from the people of Iraq. Saddam will not be returning," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a statement.
Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay were identified after comparisons with DNA samples. The sons went down, guns blazing, against overwhelming force, including missiles and aircraft.
Their father was taken alive.
Washington has made Saddam number one -- the "ace of spades" -- on its list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis, and placed a $25 million reward on his head.
An informer was paid $30 million and given refuge in the United States for turning in Uday and Qusay in Mosul.
Saddam would be put on trial, Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi told Reuters. A tribunal system for Iraqis to try Saddam and fellow Baathist leaders was set up only last week.
"This is good for Iraq. He will be put on trial. Let him face justice," Chalabi, who returned after the invasion from years in U.S. exile, said in Baghdad.
The word came just hours after the latest major attack on Washington's Iraqi allies, with a suspected suicide car bomber killing at least 17 people and wounding 33 at an Iraqi police station in the restive town of Khalidiyah, west of Baghdad.
GUNFIRE
In early afternoon, gunfire broke out across the capital as news filtered through that Saddam was in U.S. custody.
U.S. officials had said Saddam had eluded American troops by moving every few hours, probably in disguise and aided by members of his clan in the Sunni Muslim areas around Tikrit, north of Baghdad.
The capture of Saddam is a morale boost for U.S. troops in Iraq, who have been under daily attack from shadowy guerrillas, some of whom they believe may have been directed by the former president from hiding.
U.S. forces, backed by Britain and Australia, toppled Saddam in April.
"His arrest will put an end to military and terrorist attacks and the Iraqi nation will achieve stability," said Amar al-Hakin, a senior member of the Shi'ite political party the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
"We want Saddam to get what he deserves. I believe he will be sentenced to hundreds of death sentences at a fair trial because he's responsible for all the massacres and crimes in Iraq."
But Mustafa Alani, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London, warned that there were other anti-American groups in Iraq ready to continue attacks.
"There will be a reduction in operations sponsored by former regime loyalists, but this is not the full story because they are not the only group involved," he said.
"For the Americans after the failure to capture Osama bin Laden after so many years, it is a propaganda coup...It's an intelligence prize because they can get information from him about cells working now. And it's a huge victory."
12/14/03 07:28 ET
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keep this jerk alive and well. Otherwise he becomes a martyr.
God bless,
Mama san
