AD DAWR, Iraq, 16 December 2003 — Saddam Hussein narrowly missed being blown up by a US grenade before he peered out from his dirt hole hideout and announced in English: “I am the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate,” US army officers said yesterday.

“God Bless our Home,” reads a poster hung in a tiny yard outside the adjacent squalid ramshackle mud hut in which the deposed tyrant apparently lived his last days of freedom.

It was a “rat hole” Saddam apparently exited from in the nick of time, raising his arms out to surrender just as US soldiers were considering hurling hand grenades into it, officers said.

“He was wise not to wait too long,” said Colonel James Hickey, who heads the 4th Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade.

“We were about to clear that UGF (underground facility) in a military sort of way,” he said, adding that normally, “things like that are cleared with hand grenades, small arms, things like that.”

“We were sent here to kill or capture.”

But, “two hands appeared and the individual clearly wanted to surrender. That individual was removed from the hole.”

It was the moment that Saddam ended eight months on the run from US troops, and a tramp’s life amid garbage and rotting food strewn about his ramshackle hut, amid a jumble of old clothes.

Christian images of the Last Supper and Mary were on the walls.

Inside, beyond the makeshift kitchen in a tiny bedroom, hung a 2003 calendar showing pictures of Noah’s Ark.

In the fridge sat bars of Bounty chocolate and a can of Seven Up. Dried sausage hung just outside the door, along with cooking implements.

Saturday night’s operation in Ad Dawr, 15 km (10 miles) south of Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, was characterized by “stealth and speed”, Hickley added. “It was very, very fast.”

“He said, ‘I am Saddam Hussein, I am the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate’,” said Major Brian Reed, operations commander of the 4th ID’s 1st Brigade.

“The response was ‘President (George) Bush sends his regards’,” Reed said, adding that “that’s what a US soldier said.”

He was “a little nervous but calmed down a little later,” Hickey said about Saddam.

Six hundred troops took part in the mission, but only special forces members entered the compound where the ousted leader was hiding.

“We expected something more elaborate,” Hickley admitted. “What we found surprised us. We didn’t think it would be so humble and simple.”

Held together by wooden beams and bricks, Saddam’s pit was just big enough for a man to lie in, boasting an electric strip light and a ventilator, while a styrofoam lid was intended to cover the entrance, like a trapdoor.

The colonel said he was also surprised there was no firefight.

“We were prepared to have a fight ... and use overwhelming power,” he said, speaking outside the hovel.

As soon as Saddam was seized, two special forces members took him to an assault helicopter that landed in a field about 80 meters (yards) from the hovel and a radio message went out to officers involved in Operation Red Dawn, named after a 1984 film about teenagers thwarting a Soviet invasion of the United States.

The message was short, and to the point: “We have him.”

The chopper took off at 8:30 p.m. (1730 GMT), 25 minutes after troops had secured the area immediately around the remote farmhouse, Hickey said.

The soldiers who secured the area were stunned when they heard the message. “As soon as we heard it, one of our guys said: ‘Is that it?’” said Capt. Desmond Bailey, commander of the G 10 Cavalry.

“My gunner was a little upset he didn’t get to shoot.”

“There was zero illumination that night, moonrise wouldn’t happen for several hours. We were fortunate,” he said. “At 2000 hours there was a blackout in the city of Ad Dawr and the entire area was completely darkened.”

Beyond the fence round the mud hut a lone cow stood yesterday, stuck in mud.

Further down the river rises one of Saddam’s great palace compounds, symbol of an era past.