TIKRIT, Iraq, 16 December 2003 — The groundwork for Saddam Hussein’s capture was laid several weeks ago, when frustrated US intelligence analysts decided on a fresh approach.

Setting aside the most-wanted lists and the playing cards with mug shots of regime higher-ups, analysts from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the military looked more closely at the lower ranks of Saddam’s network of supporters.

They went back through the roster of his security forces, recharted his family and clan connections, and re-examined the rolls of property owners in and around Saddam’s ancestral home of Tikrit.

They compiled fresh lists of Iraqis with the inclination and wherewithal to help the former dictator stay underground.

Then the military started rounding people up. It was “an effort to redouble and go back and approach it from a different direction. Not top-down. Not by going back at the top 55, but to see what we could learn about lower-level folks, people who would be in position to help him stay hidden,’’ said a US official familiar with the operation. “Some people were impossible to find, but we’d find their relatives. One interrogation led to another raid, which led to another interrogation.’’

The combined effort pried loose the tip that led US soldiers to a remote Iraqi farmhouse where they found the elusive dictator hiding in a hole. The break in the nine-month pursuit of Saddam came Friday, when US forces raided a safe house in Baghdad. Under interrogation, a captured Iraqi revealed what a US military commander called “the ultimate information’’ —a rock-solid tip on Saddam’s whereabouts.

The information pointed to two adobe farmhouses in the village of Ad Dawr, about 10 miles south of Tikrit along the Tigris River. At 10:50 a.m. Saturday, US military commanders in Iraq began mapping out what they called Operation Red Dawn, though it was launched after dusk.

The farmhouses were dubbed Wolverine I and Wolverine II. About 600 soldiers from the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division, led by Col. Jim Hickey, were assigned to carry out the mission.

Known as the Raider Brigade for their experience in such operations, they included special forces, aviation units, cavalry, reconnaissance and artillery. They were told they were going after a “high-value target.’’

“My guess is they probably did not know who it was until we were finished,’’ said Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, which ran the operation. The raiders moved into position about 6 p.m. Saturday; the operation began at 8. They failed to find their target in either of the farmhouses. So the troops improvised. They cordoned off a nearly two-square-mile area and launched a more intensive search, said Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of allied forces in Iraq.

Upriver, they found a metal lean-to and a mud hut. Inside the hut were two rooms, one with a bed, chair and clothes strewn about, including new T-shirts. The other room was a crude kitchen with running water. The dwelling seemed to have been abandoned.

Suspicious, the soldiers moved a rug, uncovering what Sanchez called a “spider hole. Its entrance was camouflaged with bricks and dirt. Underneath was a Styrofoam plug, light enough to be easily pushed aside from below. The soldiers lifted that plug and uncovered a six-to-eight-foot-deep hole. At the bottom was a bleary-eyed man. His hair was long and tangled and he had a thick beard. He had a pistol but did not shoot. Saddam surrendered without resistance.

Saddam had no security detail. A search of the hole and the surrounding area turned up $750,000 in packs of $100 bills, Sanchez said. Two AK-47s also were confiscated, along with Saddam’s pistol and a white-and-orange taxi. Two men who had tried to flee when the troops first moved in were also taken into custody.

Saddam was flown by helicopter to Baghdad. Despite his attempt at disguise, there was little question about his identity. Authorities took a DNA sample. Previously captured members of his inner circle, including former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, were brought in to verify his identity.

Odierno said troops had previously searched in the area where Saddam was captured. He said Saddam probably had ducked into that hole every time trouble loomed. Odierno said the fugitive dictator probably had been in the dank, barely ventilated vault for an hour or two before his capture.

US forces found boats nearby on the river, perhaps used by visitors to meet him, or to ferry in supplies or for a quick escape.

The capture represents a rare victory for the intelligence community at a time when it is under fire for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the coalition’s inability to penetrate the Iraqi insurgency, and the failure to capture Osama Bin Laden.