BAGHDAD, 13 April 2003 — Saddam Hussein’s top scientific adviser became the first of his close associates to turn himself in yesterday, German public TV station ZDF reported.
One day after the United States listed 55 Iraqi leaders it wanted killed or captured, Gen. Amir Hammoudi Al-Saadi surrendered in Baghdad and was driven away in the front seat of a military jeep.
Saadi, who liaised with UN weapons inspectors before war broke out, told ZDF he had no idea where the deposed president was and insisted Iraq had none of the chemical or biological weapons that Washington gave as its reason for going to war.
The station said one of its camera crews had accompanied Saadi at his request.
Its brief footage showed Saadi, in an open-collared beige shirt, bidding farewell to a Western woman before being led by two American soldiers into the front seat of a military jeep. Saadi has a German wife, but it was not clear if she was the woman shown.
ZDF’s correspondent said he took Saadi to a meeting point agreed with a US warrant officer in central Baghdad after Saadi learned on television that he was a wanted man.
His surrender appears to be the first from the group of 55 the United States wants pursued, killed or captured.
Saadi told ZDF he did not know where Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was. He also insisted Iraq did not possess chemical or biological weapons, the station said in a statement.
Saadi, a former head of Iraq’s Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization, had frequently denounced weapons inspections.
He told ZDF he had stayed at home even after US forces arrived in Baghdad. He said he felt in no way guilty and had therefore voluntarily surrendered to US forces. He denied being a member of Saddam’s Baath Party.
The United States is planning to issue decks of playing cards to its troops depicting the 55 most wanted leadership figures. Saadi, number 55, appears on the seven of diamonds card.
Saddam is represented by the ace of spades, the most valuable card in the pack.
The United States is offering cash rewards for information that leads to the capture of Saddam Hussein, leaders of his regime and weapons of mass destruction, the US Central Command said in Qatar yesterday.
“Consistent with work we do in other parts of the world, Afghanistan for example, a rewards program has been established for information leading to the capture of key leaders” of the Baghdad regime, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks told a press briefing at the Central Command headquarters.
“But not only personalities, also information regarding weapons of mass destruction programs” will be rewarded, Brooks added. “There may be information regarding locations of weapons caches, any number of things may be considered.”
Asked how much cash was on offer, Broooks replied that “the price tags vary, we think it’s appropriate prices.”
Hoping Iraqis will help track down regime leaders, US troops are also to put the wanted list published Friday on posters and handbills.
And to make sure US-led forces in Iraq will recognize them, the faces of the 52 most-wanted Iraqis appear on decks of cards that also have a brief description of their occupations.
US media reported yesterday that American intelligence has intercepted communications between Iraqi leaders indicating that Saddam Hussein was killed during an airstrike on a Baghdad building.
But, absent hard proof, intelligence officials cited by The Washington Post and The New York Times refused to confirm Saddam’s death.
Those participating in the intercepted communications were not members of Saddam’s inner circle, they said.
“They were telling each other they think he’s dead,” an official told the Post, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We don’t know if they really know or not, or if they are trying to fool us.”
A senior intelligence official told The New York Times that in light of the new information, US authorities were “leaning more toward the idea that he is dead.”
In response to the media reports, a US official said: “No conclusions have been reached.”
“We have no hard evidence. We have no solid information that he is dead, but it cannot be ruled out,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A B-1 bomber dropped four 2,000-pound bunker-buster bombs Monday on a building in Baghdad where Saddam and his sons were thought to have been meeting with senior aides.
Both President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday they lacked sufficient information to come to any conclusion about Saddam’s fate. “I don’t know the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. I do know he’s no longer in power,” Bush said.
On Friday, the US military said Iraqi leaders were trying to escape to other countries, including Syria to the west.
Earlier this week US special operatives found five light aircraft hidden north of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home city, that Brooks said could have been used by fleeing Iraqi leaders.
“We know that the regime is not in some of the places where they previously were,” he said yesterday. “We’ve destroyed their locations for meeting, their locations for commanding and controlling and people tell us they are not present any more.”
