|
Saddam hideout bursting with summer yellow dates Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3722124/Orange trees and palms, some bursting with yellow dates, dotted the yard, which is roughly 400 yards from the banks of the Tigris River.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3722124/
Inside Saddam’s Hideout
Rotten fruit, Lipton tea bags and religious tapes. The detritus of the dictator’s life on the run—and the intelligence that caught himWEB EXCLUSIVE
By Babak Dehghanpisheh
Newsweek
Dec. 15 - Captain Desmond Bailey tried not to get excited. The Fourth Infantry Division reconnaissance troops under his command had taken part in several joint raids with Special Operations Forces that had come up empty-handed. But last Saturday was different. Rumors had been swirling all day that Operation Red Dawn, named after an ’80s movie where American guerrillas fight off a Soviet invasion, would be closing in on HVT1 (High Value Target 1): Saddam Hussein.
At 8 p.m. on Dec. 13, Bailey and 22 recon soldiers under his command, tasked with providing backup for approximately two dozen Special Forces soldiers, moved in on Wolverine 2, a farm a short distance past the town of Ad Dawr, where, luckily for the soldiers, the electricity had coincidentally blacked out less than one hour before. Special Forces soldiers quickly signaled that this wasn’t the right target and moved toward a grove of palm trees slightly north, highlighting their trail with chemical lights. Bailey, 31, and his troops followed in four Humvees as the Special Forces soldiers crept down another farm path that snaked between pomegranate trees and dried sunflower plants. It was a chilly, moonless night and the infra-red sights from the Special Forces soldiers’ weapons were reflecting off tree branches, fences and the ground. "It was like a laser light show," says Bailey.
There were a few moments of confusion as the Special Forces soldiers stormed into a farmhouse. Then, Bailey’s radio crackled, "We found a hole." And a few minutes later, "We have an individual in the hole." Inside, soldiers watched as two raised hands appeared out of the hole, a signal of submission. "I am Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq," the bedraggled individual told the soldiers in English. "I’m willing to negotiate." "President Bush sends his regards," one soldier replied.
Within minutes, a helicopter landed in the field in front of the farmhouse, and the former dictator, hidden under a hood, was marched out. From a road adjacent to the farmhouse, Bailey, who had followed the action on his radio, looked through his night-vision goggles in disbelief. "We just caught the man and that’s all he had?" Bailey asks, shrugging his shoulders. It was a stunning achievement: the key portion of the operation had lasted less than 30 minutes and not a single shot was fired. Even higher-ups were surprised by the quick success of their mission. "We expected something more elaborate. Something more well-constructed," says Col. James Hickey, commander of the First Brigade of the Fourth Infantry Division. "What we found surprised us."
The Spartan surroundings must have certainly been unpleasant for a man long accustomed to living in opulent palaces. When reporters accompanied soldiers of the Fourth ID back to the hideout today, they found no fortified walls to protect Saddam in the farmhouse, only a fence made up of dried branches and palm fronds strung together with wire. Dried figs and sausages hung in neat rows from a clothesline attached to the roof of the one-room structure inside. Orange trees and palms, some bursting with yellow dates, dotted the yard, which is roughly 400 yards from the banks of the Tigris River.
The Iraqi leader chose to hide at the base of one of those palms. What may go down in history as "Saddam’s hole" was elaborately hidden. Military officials say it’s likely that soldiers were initially standing on the entrance without realizing what was underneath. The hole itself was plugged with a rectangular block of styrofoam, weighing approximately three pounds, which resembles a rock and has two white cloth handles fixed at each end for easy removal. The styrofoam block was covered with a rubber and cloth mat and a layer of dirt. The hole drops down three feet and leads into a larger chamber approximately six to eight feet across and only four feet deep. The structure forms a T-shape and was dug under the concrete entryway of the house. A neon light is placed at one end, a ventilation vent and fan at the opposite end. Used cotton swabs are scattered across the pebbly bottom of the hideout. It takes some creative wriggling to get inside, and the overall sensation is that of being inside a coffin.
Above ground, Saddam’s room and attached kitchen clearly hint at a life on the run. Broken egg shells, rotten fruit, Lipton tea bags and small bottles of medicine are scattered across the kitchen. A couple of baseball caps, including a Nike Air Jordan knockoff, have been placed on the counter. A pair of new black loafers and sandals, along with black socks, still sit in their box in the room. If Saddam had found any leisure time, he could have lain on either of the two rickety beds in the room and thumbed through the numerous bound volumes of Arabic poetry. And there are signs that he may have found religion while on the run: there are several Qu’rans and tapes of mosque sermons scattered around the bedroom, a poster of Noah’s ark with paired-up animals hangs on the wall, and the phrase "In the name of God the most merciful and kind" has been written in crude Arabic script above the doorway.
That Saddam Hussein was found in a remote hiding spot near his home village points to the quality of intelligence that U.S. forces have been able to gather in recent months. Beginning last summer, American intelligence officials began mapping out and drawing linkages between key Iraqi families who protected Saddam Hussein, including his own. A huge color-coded chart, detailing tribe, position and inter-tribal links, can be seen pasted on the wall of some military commanders at the base of the Fourth Infantry Division in Tikrit.
Col. Hickey, 43, who celebrated Saddam’s capture by smoking a Cohiba Cuban cigar, says it was the information gathered about a handful of key families linked to the former regime that led American forces to Saddam Hussein. In particular, Hickey points to one individual whom the American military has been tracking since last July. More than half a dozen raids were carried out in the first week of December in the vicinity of Tikrit and Samarra to track this individual down. One of the raids, on Dec. 5, turned up 1.9 million in U.S. dollars. Word reached Hickey on the morning of Dec. 13 that this fugitive, who isn’t among the top 55, had been nabbed in a raid in Baghdad the day before. He was quickly shifted to Tikrit and an intensive interrogation began. At approximately 5:00 p.m. on Dec. 13, the interrogation team made a breakthrough. "There was three or four hours of questioning before he blurted Saddam’s location," Hickey says.
For Bailey and other soldiers in the Fourth ID, the capture of Saddam is one more check off the list and, possibly, one step closer to home. But many of the soldiers are still sober about the task that lies ahead. "It’s a great feeling that we got Saddam," says Bailey. "I don’t think it'll change our mission, though. We still have to finish our job."
© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.
|
|
