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Lawmakers hopeful getting saddam { June 22 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=2967962http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=2967962
U.S. Lawmakers Hopeful of Getting Saddam
Sun June 22, 2003 11:15 AM ET
By Lori Santos
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaders of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday they were hopeful American forces hunting ousted President Saddam Hussein may have "scored," but reported no confirmation yet.
Appearing on the "Fox News Sunday" program, Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, the Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence panel, said he expected an intensive search now under way in Iraq would be fruitful.
"I will not be surprised at any military action that would lead to the possibility that we have now finally killed Saddam Hussein," Roberts said.
He said neither he nor the vice chairman of the panel, Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, had been informed of Saddam's fate. "I don't think the Pentagon has confirmed it. But with this very aggressive effort that we have been mounting, I would not be surprised," he said.
Rockefeller added: "Pat and I both hope that we've scored but we don't know that."
The lawmakers spoke amid a flurry of reports on Saddam's fate or whereabouts, including information from a captured top aide who said Saddam and his sons, Uday and Qusay, were alive after fleeing to Syria after the fall of Baghdad and later returning to Iraq.
Britain's Observer newspaper, citing military sources, said that American specialists were carrying out DNA tests on human remains believed to be Saddam and one of his sons.
The remains were retrieved from a convoy of vehicles struck last week by U.S. forces following information that he and members of his family were traveling in the Western Desert near Syria, the Observer said. The report could not immediately be confirmed in Washington.
INTENSIVE SEARCH FOR SADDAM
U.S. officials confirmed Saturday that U.S. Special Operations troops and paramilitary intelligence agents in Iraq were conducting an intense search armed with information provided by Saddam's personal secretary, Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, the ace of diamonds in the U.S. military's deck of cards of 55 most wanted Iraqis, who was captured last week.
The officials cautioned, however, that the information might be suspect.
Jordan's King Abdullah told ABC's "This Week" program on Sunday that he was assuming Saddam was alive "until there was critical proof that he was dead."
He said Jordanian officials had heard various reports of Saddam moving about the country, Jordan's neighbor to the east, but said, "It's like Elvis, there's a lot of sightings."
Roberts said U.S. forces had arrested some 600 members of a loose coalition of Baath Party loyalists and members of the ousted Iraqi president's security agencies, who, joined by "a lot of people coming in from outside the country," have been threatening American soldiers.
Since President Bush declared on May 1 that major combat operations were over, at least 52 U.S. troops have died in Iraq.
"If we can prove that he (Saddam) is dead a lot of the steam certainly will go out of that," Roberts said.
The two U.S. lawmakers are overseeing a closed inquiry into whether the Bush administration exaggerated the threat from Iraq's alleged biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs in making a case for war against Baghdad. No such weapons have been found.
Rockefeller said there were "thousands and thousands" of documents provided the committee by the CIA and to just read through the information would take a "couple of months."
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