WASHINGTON, 22 December 2003 — Deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein eluded US forces by secretly moving between hide-outs in his stronghold region and survived much of the time on chocolate bars and canned fruit, the New York Times reported yesterday.
Quoting American military officials, the paper said the former Iraqi strongman relied on a word-of-mouth system of couriers to carry instructions back to a cluster of Baathist cells that allowed him to direct the insurgent movement against forces of the US-led coalition. All the while, the daily reported, Saddam was sheltered by a tightly knit network of families who brought him news from across Iraq.
US military officials said that to avoid detection, Saddam traveled on foot, by small boat along the Tigris River, and along back roads in taxis and the back of pickup trucks, often at night, rarely with more than two or three loyal followers.
At times, the Times reported, he met with his fugitive sons Uday and Qusay, before they were killed in a shootout with US troops in the Iraqi city of Mosul in July.
US intelligence officials pieced together an account of Saddam’s movements based interviews with relatives, interrogations of captured Baath Party officials and other Hussein loyalists, satellite telephone intercepts, seized documents, among other sources, the Time wrote.
Saddam was captured in a hole under a farmhouse near his hometown of Tikrit on Dec. 13.
