Monday, July 28, 2003
In each raid, leaders say they have missed Saddam by less than 24 hours.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Saying that "the noose is tightening" around Saddam Hussein and his top aides, U.S. forces raided suspected safehouses in Baghdad and northern Tikrit and said the deposed dictator is unable to mount a resistance because he's too busy "trying to save his own skin."
In the center of the capital today, witnesses said at least three U.S. soldiers were injured in an attack on their convoy. Other witnesses claimed the U.S. soldiers were killed. The military confirmed an incident had occurred but had no information on casualties.
"I saw at least two injured soldiers, then I saw the third one who was thrown out of the car," witness Alim Naati said. "They [others soldiers] pulled him under the car."
Shihab Ahmed, who owns a nearby flower shop, said he was told the soldiers died.
The witnesses said three soldiers were thrown from the canvas-top Humvee when a bomb was detonated as the convoy passed along Palestine Street in central Baghdad.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Lieberman on Monday faulted President Bush for a lack of planning for a post-Saddam Iraq while he assailed his rivals for opposing the conflict, saying, "they don't know a just war when they see it."
Critical of his foes for the party nomination but reticent to name names, the Connecticut senator defended his strong support for U.S.-led military action.
In Tikrit, U.S. forces dug up freshly buried weapons, found outside an abandoned building in that once belonged to Saddam's Fedayeen militia. The munitions were sufficient for a month of guerrilla attacks on U.S. troops, said Maj. Bryan Luke, 37, of Mobile, Ala., whose patrol found the cache.
The discovery "saved a few lives out there," Luke said. "Forty mines could have caused a lot of problems for U.S. forces here in Tikrit."
Iraqi contractors hired by the 101st Airborne Division, meanwhile, began to demolish the house in northern Mosul where Saddam's sons Odai and Qusai were killed in a firefight with U.S. troops.
War on terror
In Washington, the Pentagon's second-ranking official said the United States must be prepared to act on less-than-perfect intelligence in a world where the main threat is terror, even though information about terrorism is inherently murky.
"If you wait until the terrorism picture is clear, you're going to wait until after something terrible has happened," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"And we went to war, and I believe we are still fighting terrorists and terrorist supporters in Iraq, in a battle that will make this country safer in the future from terrorism."
Making the rounds of television talk show, Wolfowitz told "Fox News Sunday" that "Iraq now is the central battle in the war on terrorism."
He similarly linked the U.S.-led invasion and its aftermath to President Bush's war on terror. At the same time, he emphasized that intelligence dealing with terrorists is intrinsically "murky."
On CBS' "Face the Nation," Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said he was struck by Wolfowitz's use of the word.
"Boy, it sure didn't sound murky before the war," Levin said. "There were clear connections, we were told, between Al-Qaida [terrorists] and Iraq. There was no murkiness, no nuance, no uncertainty about it at all. ... That's the way it was presented to the American people."
Critical accusations
Critics of the Bush policy of pre-emptive attack based on intelligence revealing a threat to U.S. security, on which the Iraq invasion was based, have contended that spying is too uncertain to support such a policy.
Wolfowitz did not say specifically that the Iraq campaign resulted from murky intelligence. But he said a congressional intelligence report released last week blamed the administration for not discerning, from bits of evidence, the terrorist threat that was borne out on Sept. 11, 2001. Critics are trying to have it both ways, he said.
At least twice in the past week, American soldiers have raided houses where they believed they may have missed Saddam by less than 24 hours -- once in the northern city of Mosul, and once at a farmhouse near Tikrit, Saddam's hometown and power base.
The U.S. military would not confirm a raid in Baghdad's upscale Mansour neighborhood Sunday evening. Witnesses said soldiers shot their way into the home of Prince Rabiah Muhammed al-Habib, one of Iraq's most influential tribal leaders.
The prince, who wasn't at home at the time of the raid, told The Associated Press that he believed the Americans were looking for Saddam.
"I found the house was searched in a very rough way. It seems the Americans came thinking Saddam Hussein was inside my house," al-Habib said. He didn't elaborate.
U.S. soldiers shot at several cars and bystanders that approached the mansion during the raid, witnesses said, and one hospital reported at least five Iraqis were killed.
Tikrit attack
That raid came hours after troops of the 4th Infantry Division moved in on three farms in the Tikrit area in search of Saddam's new security chief, and perhaps the ousted dictator himself.
"We missed him by 24 hours," said Lt. Col. Steve Russell, who led the operation that was witnessed by an Associated Press reporter.
Hundreds of soldiers, backed by Bradley fighting vehicles, surrounded the farms as Apache attack helicopters hovered above. No shots were fired as about 25 men emerged from the houses peacefully. They were detained briefly and released.
The raid was prompted by Thursday's capture in Tikrit of a group of men believed to include as many as 10 Saddam bodyguards. Soldiers learned from them that Saddam's new security chief -- and possibly the dictator himself -- were staying at one of the farms, Russell said.
"The noose is tightening around these guys," said Col. James C. Hickey, a brigade commander. "They're running out of places to hide, and it's becoming difficult for them to move because we're everywhere. Any day now we're going to knock on their door, or kick in their door, and they know it."
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited 4th Infantry commanders in Tikrit on Sunday and later told reporters in Baghdad that Saddam was too busy "trying to save his own skin" to lead an insurgency against American forces.
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