Richard Norton-Taylor,
Oliver Burkeman in Washington, and Rory McCarthy in Camp As Sayliya,
Qatar
Wednesday April 9, 2003
The Guardian
Saddam Hussein survived an attack on a building in Baghdad in which he
was reported to have been meeting his sons Uday and Qusay on Monday
afternoon, British intelligence sources said last night.
"He was probably not in the building when it was bombed," a
well-placed source said. The source added it was believed that President
Saddam had been in the building earlier.
The American pilot of a B-1 bomber circling nearby was told the Iraqi
president had entered the building. Twelve minutes later, the pilot
dropped four 2,000lb joint direct attack munition bombs on it.
Intelligence sources declined to say how the information about the
Iraqi leader's whereabouts was gleaned, whether from listening devices,
special forces, or Iraqi informers on the ground. Pentagon officials had
referred to three credible sources of "human intelligence"
locating President Saddam in the building, in the upmarket district of
Mansur, which is still under Iraqi control.
As fighting continued in Baghdad yesterday, American fire killed
three journalists in attacks on the al-Jazeera office and on the
Palestine Hotel on the east bank of the Tigris. At least 50 Iraqi
fighters were killed, one American officer said, during a day in which
US forces seized Rashid airport, in Baghdad, and fought back an Iraqi
counterattack as they tightened their control of the capital. Coalition
troops entered the city from the north for the first time, officials
said.
The Iraqi information ministry and the Ba'ath party headquarters were
apparently targeted by American bombs, and two US soldiers were injured
in sniper fire.
The intelligence sources de scribed their view that President Saddam
had not been killed in Monday's attack as a "preliminary
assessment", presumably from intelligence in Baghdad. But the
Pentagon said yesterday it could be days before it was known for certain
who had died.
At least 40 senior officials were understood to be meeting President
Saddam and his sons in a bunker at the back of the building, connected
to a restaurant. Iraqi officials said they found two bodies in the
rubble and were searching for another 14 they thought were still buried,
but said no members of the leadership had been killed.
A Pentagon official said determining President Saddam's fate might
rest on DNA tests - based on samples the US is rumoured to have obtained
from his relatives or perhaps even the Iraqi leader himself.
Lieutenant Colonel Fred Swan, the bomber's weapons officer, said the
crew had sensed it "might be the big one". But Major General
Stanley McChrystal, at the Pentagon, said: "We do not have hard
battle-damage assessment on what individuals were or were not
there."
The US sought to play down the matter. "I don't think it matters
that much. I'm not losing sleep trying to figure out if he was in
there," the defence department spokeswoman, Torie Clarke, said.
"I don't know whether he survived," President George Bush
said in Belfast. "The only thing I know is he's losing power."
In a counterattack which US commanders described as serious, Iraqi
T-72 tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and surface-to-air missiles
attacked coalition troops, and Iraqi soldiers drove trucks and buses
full of fighters across the Tigris in an attempt to overrun a US
position. And in a rare Iraqi strike, an American A-10 Thunderbolt tank
buster aircraft was shot down. The pilot ejected and was rescued.
