DUBAI, 9 April 2003 — Amid the bombs and ruins of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein is leading his would-be killers a macabre dance as another US bid to “decapitate” him leaves the United States groping in the dark as to his whereabouts.
They may have trashed his finest palaces, scattered the much-vaunted Republican Guard and blasted their way right through his airport and capital, but Saddam Hussein is still a moving target, at least for now.
With tanks rampaging around Baghdad, US warplanes dropped four satellite-guided bombs with Saddam’s name on them onto a building in central Baghdad on Monday, reportedly leaving a pile of bodies under the rubble.
An intelligence tip suggested that Iraqi leaders including the “great leader” and his sons Qussay and Uday were inside. But once again President George Bush had to admit he knew not if his Iraqi opposite number was dead or alive. “I don’t know whether he survived.” Bush said in Belfast. “The only thing I know is that he is losing power.”
US officials stuck to that line yesterday, ensuring plenty of press speculation.
“We confirm that a target of the (Iraqi) regime was hit very hard,” a US Central Command spokesman said in Qatar, leaving an anonymous official in Washington to push out the detail. “Obviously we hope that some part of the leadership was taken out of action, but we don’t know at this point who might have been there at the time the ordnance arrived,” the official said.
On the ground, witnesses said at least 14 unnamed civilians were killed when a bomb crashed into the Al-Mansur residential neighborhood in the Iraqi capital. The explosion left a crater eight meters deep and 15 meters wide and destroyed four houses at about 3 p.m. local time (1100 GMT).
Shattered glass and concrete were strewn over the pavement, notably in front of the Al-Saah restaurant.
It was there that Saddam made a spectacularly defiant public appearance Friday as his days looked increasingly numbered.
Not only has the Iraqi strongman lived up to his hard-to-get reputation, he has managed to strike a few counter-punches against the “all-seeing, all-powerful” US intelligence and military.
The dramatic walkabout — his first in many years of not unfounded paranoia over security — was the most remarkable stunt so far in the propaganda war the regime is waging to show Saddam is still at the reins he first seized in 1979.
Kissing a baby, acclaimed by the crowd, despite the evident dangers on the streets of the city in broad daylight, Saddam looked a happy, if doomed man.
That has been followed by a series of fleeting images of him surrounded by aides, or speeches read out in his name to keep up morale for the troops who are blown away wherever they dare make a stand.
Monday’s strike was the second time US forces had targeted Saddam directly, even though the White House last week declared he had become irrelevant.
The opening blows of the war on March 20 saw US F-117 stealth fighters hit a Baghdad compound where Saddam and several of his inner-circle were believed to be gathered.
CIA Director George Tenet got it wrong but days of furious speculation that Saddam was dead or at least wounded followed.
Washington clearly wants Saddam dead.
Alive, he and his companions could prove even more embarrassing than Osama Bin Laden, the world’s most wanted terrorist, who has repeatedly taunted Bush in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings.
As the end of the regime approaches in Baghdad, Saddam’s every move is obviously being closely monitored. Will he flee or fight to the finish? As the fighting drags on, all the signs are that if he is still alive, the Iraqi leader, known to have a bevy of underground bunkers at his disposal, is preparing to go out in a final blaze of defiance.
