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Tracking saddam Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-01-19-hunt-for-saddam-usat_x.htmhttp://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-01-19-hunt-for-saddam-usat_x.htm
Posted 1/19/2003 8:09 PM Updated 1/19/2003 8:50 PM
Saddam an expert at playing hide-and-seek
By Jack Kelley, USA TODAY
JORDAN/IRAQ BORDER — Even with sophisticated satellites, getting to Saddam Hussein will be difficult. While U.S. officials appear to be encouraging the Iraqi leader to go into exile, the United States also is preparing an effort to track, and possibly kill, Saddam if he refuses to step down.
The United States is relying on electronic surveillance, called "sigint," to track him. The equipment includes a converted Boeing 707, called an RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft, which flies daily over southern Iraq, where it intercepts communications and pinpoints the locations of the calls to within 1 mile.
Two satellites also are being used to track Saddam.
The Micron spy satellite is stationed 22,300 miles above the Middle East. The satellite picks up telephone calls and downloads data to a receiving station in Menwith Hill, England. If the call is encrypted, or scrambled, another satellite transfers it to the National Security Agency at Fort Meade in Maryland for decoding.
The Trumpet satellite, which flies an elliptical orbit, picks up most cell phone calls. It downloads data to Buckley Air National Guard Base in Aurora, Colo., and also to Fort Meade for decoding.
The download and decryption process can take up to 10 minutes, which could give Saddam or members of his regime time to escape. During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, spy satellites were not able to track and computers were not able to decrypt information fast enough to allow the United States to locate — and possibly capture or kill — a single member of Saddam's Revolutionary Command Council, Iraq's ruling body.
Iraq is taking measures to prevent calls from being intercepted. With China's help, it installed fiber-optic communications that can't be penetrated by National Security Agency eavesdropping specialists. Last year, Secretary of State Colin Powell said China had ordered its companies to stop selling and installing fiber-optics in Iraq after the United States protested. China has denied any wrongdoing.
Saddam also is a master of disguise and deception.
He has three surgically enhanced body doubles, rarely meets outsiders unless they are strip-searched and seldom sleeps in the same bed two nights in a row, former associates say. U.S. officials can't confirm the existence of the doubles. "His security measures are extreme and often involve trickery or anything to throw off would-be assassins. He trusts no one," says Abbas al-Janabi, former secretary to Saddam's son Uday. Al-Janabi defected in 1998.
Saddam has nearly 30,000 security troops supervised by his son Qusai, 36. They report on everyone from Saddam's tailors to his family members. Those believed to be disloyal are executed.
Saddam rarely talks on the telephone for fear his calls will be intercepted. Instead, he writes his orders on papers that are delivered to his ministers and generals. His "live" broadcasts on Iraqi TV are staged hours before they are aired.
On his rare trips outside, Saddam travels with a security force of about 100 guards, anti-aircraft guns and a field hospital. He sends out three convoys of up to eight identical Mercedes-Benzes. They often carry his body doubles. Saddam has been known to travel in taxis, RVs and ambulances.
"For the secular-minded Saddam, security consciousness is the equivalent of religious fervor," CIA official Regis Matlak wrote in a profile of Saddam.
Each day, Saddam has three meals prepared for him at many of his 78 palaces, even though he dines at only one. Security guards X-ray and sample the food for poison. They sit in the dining room chairs to check for booby traps.
Saddam spends most of his days at his palace in the town of Auja, near his hometown of Tikrit, or at another near Tharthar Lake in central Iraq. His palaces have bunkers that can accommodate up to 1,000 people. They contain command posts, sick bays, decontamination rooms, armories and kitchens. Most are covered by concrete slabs that are 2 feet thick and reinforced with steel. Some can withstand a 500-pound bomb blast.
One of the largest bunkers is beneath the Al-Rasheed Hotel in downtown Baghdad, where the government houses foreign journalists. It contains television and radio studios.
Large tunnels have been dug under the streets of Baghdad and Tikrit to allow the Iraqi leader to travel between the cities. "He is never where you expect him to be," says Iraqi analyst Amatzia Baram, an expert on Saddam at the University of Haifa in Israel.
Each night, Saddam's guards choose at least six houses, mostly in Tikrit or Baghdad, in which the Iraqi leader can sleep. The owners are told to vacate, and their homes are searched. Saddam chooses one only minutes before leaving his palace. He also has been known to sleep in vans and in public buses parked along roads.
Finding Saddam will take more than special operations forces, CIA operatives and high-tech gadgetry, Baram says. "It will involve a little luck and surprise, too," he says. "Saddam knows we know where he might be. He's not going to make it easy."
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