BAGHDAD, 5 June 2003 — US troops have begun sifting the debris of four Baghdad homes devastated in an April bid to kill Saddam Hussein amid growing doubts about Washington’s vaunted wartime efforts to “decapitate” his regime.
A mechanical digger, two earthmovers and a fleet of more than a dozen trucks were at work yesterday shifting the tons of rubble which are all that remains of the building after four satellite-guided bombs with Saddam’s name on them struck on April 7.
The operation began late Tuesday and was expected to last at least two weeks, even with the digging teams working round the clock.
“We’re going 24 hours at it right now but we are limited by the number of trucks we have,” the US military’s site supervisor, Capt. Tim Payment, told AFP.
“So far they have removed probably over 100 truckloads and, as you can see, we have barely scratched the surface.
“What we have done is brought in some experts — engineers and also Explosive Ordnance Detachment. There is always the concern about unexploded ordnance.
“It’s a group from the Department of Defense who are actually sifting through the rubble.” At least 14 residents were reported killed in the bombing, which came with US troops already at the gates of Baghdad and poised for victory. But Payment said he had seen no more bodies and that he had no idea whether any were likely to be found. “I would only be making speculation if I said there was,” he said.
It was not immediately clear why the massive excavation had suddenly been launched a full eight weeks after US troops first entered the capital. But it followed the admission last week that an alleged secret bunker targeted in the other raid to take out the Iraqi strongman did not even exist.
Intensive searches of the Dora Farms complex in south Baghdad, hit with a massive bombing and cruise missile raid on the opening night of the war, failed even to find a body, let alone any underground facilities.
Payment said he first heard of the new search operation when he received an order to secure the perimeter of the site on Monday.
Before that, he said, no extra measures had been taken to keep the public out beyond the regular patrols around the upmarket residential neighborhood of Al-Mansur which his troops had carried out in the previous three weeks.
The bomb site was originally an eight meter deep crater but neighbors said they had filled it in as best they could out of fear for the safety of their children, leaving a much smaller hole in the ground.
The new search came amid mounting criticism of the quality and handling of the US-led coalition’s intelligence on Iraq and growing embarrassment at the failure to find either Saddam or his alleged weapons of mass destruction.
The bombing raid came just two days after the Iraqi strongman made a last defiant walkabout in a nearby commercial thoroughfare, visiting a fast-food outlet just around the corner.
