thedrifter
04-19-03, 06:08 AM
Apr 19, 6:55 AM EDT
Iraq Arrests Former Finance Minister
By DAVID CRARY
Associated Press Writer
Officers from Iraq's newly revived police force arrested Saddam Hussein's former finance minister - one of the 55 ex-leaders on the U.S. most-wanted list - and turned him over to the Marines, the U.S. Central Command said Saturday.
Hikmat Mizban Ibrahim al-Azzawi, who also served as a deputy prime minister, was apprehended Friday in Baghdad, the command said.
He was captured the same day that one of Saddam's top scientists - depicted as the mastermind of Iraq's nerve agent program - turned himself in to the Americans. The apprehension of Emad Husayn Abdullah al-Ani raised hopes of a breakthrough in the as-yet-fruitless search for banned chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.
Other figures from the most-wanted list captured previously include Saddam's top science adviser, Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi; Saddam's half brothers Watban Ibrahim Hasan and Barzan Ibrahim Hasan, and Samir Abd al-Aziz al-Najim, a senior leader of Saddam's toppled Baath party.
A Central Command spokesman, Marine Capt. Stewart Upton, said al-Azzawi's arrest showed the effectiveness of the U.S. military's screening process for hiring police and getting them back on the job.
"The new police being hired are working for the people of Iraq," he said. "They are going after regime leaders."
The Central Command also said Saturday that Khala Khader al-Salahat, a member of the Abu Nidal terrorist organization, had surrendered to Marines in Baghdad. Abu Nidal, who died in Baghdad last year under murky circumstances, led a terror campaign blamed for more than 275 deaths on several continents.
In Saudi Arabia, foreign ministers from eight Middle East nations ended an emergency meeting with an appeal to U.S. and British forces to leave Iraq swiftly. The joint declaration also condemned U.S. threats against Syria for allegedly developing chemical weapons and harboring members of Saddam's toppled regime.
At the meeting were foreign ministers from all of Iraq's neighbors - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Iran. Egypt and Bahrain also participated. Their statement said the United Nations should have a central role in rebuilding Iraq but stressed that Iraqis "should administer and govern their country by themselves."
Though tens of thousands of U.S. troops are expected to remain in Iraq for months to provide security during reconstruction, seven soldiers were scheduled to fly Saturday to their home bases in Texas after surviving harrowing days as POWs. Three of them suffered gunshot wounds.
The seven, freed from a makeshift Iraqi prison six days ago, were scheduled to leave Ramstein Air Base in Germany aboard a C-17 plane. The first stop was Fort Bliss, home of five members of the 507th Maintenance Support Company; the next stop - Fort Hood, base of the two crewmen whose Apache helicopter was shot down.
For U.S. troops remaining in Iraq, one unexpected duty in recent days has been guarding bank vaults that were blasted open by robbers using rocket-propelled grenades. One group of Marines, equipped with machine guns and tanks, has been standing watch over what they estimated was $1 billion in gold.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, a patrol from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division came across an estimated $650 million in U.S. currency, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. The cash, believed to be authentic, was found in a Tigris River neighborhood where senior Baath party and Republican Guard officials lived, according to a Times reporter who accompanied the soldiers.
On Saturday, U.S. Army soldiers - who are taking over the Marines' security duties in Baghdad - practiced crowd-control tactics on hundreds of Iraqis swarming the Palestine Hotel in hopes of obtaining jobs with the transitional government. Some of the jobseekers trampled over razor wire in an effort to get inside.
U.S. troops also staged a joint raid with Iraqi police on a streetside market in Baghdad, arresting five Iraqis who were selling Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition.
The first convoy of food aid reached the capital Saturday after traveling from Jordan. The flour and other supplies, carried in 50 trucks organized by the United Nations, will be stored in warehouses until authorities arrange distribution.
"It was slow because until now there wasn't a safe place to put it because of looting," said Marine Staff Sgt. Jason Selby, who was at the U.N. compound.
Throngs of Shiite Muslims - who make up 60 percent of Iraq's 24 million people - marched through Baghdad streets in a prelude to their annual pilgrimage next week to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. Shiites by the thousands are expected to make the pilgrimage on foot this year, a practice discouraged under the rule of Saddam's mainly Sunni Muslim regime.
So far, U.S. troops have found no confirmed chemical or biological weapons in their searches across Iraq. No evidence of links between Saddam's regime and the al-Qaida terrorist group has been found, either, military officials say.
Al-Ani, if he cooperates with the Americans, may be able to provide information on both matters. U.S. officials say he was involved in Iraq's development of tons of the deadly nerve agent VX.
He also was accused by U.S. officials in 1998 of involvement with a chemical plant in Sudan linked to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Then-President Clinton alleged that the Shifa Pharmaceuticals plant was making a chemical used in manufacturing VX, a claim that was never independently substantiated.
American officials said the Shifa executives who had contact with al-Ani also had ties to bin Laden. They conceded they did not know if al-Ani or other Iraqis knew of Shifa's links to bin Laden.
The United States destroyed the Shifa plant with cruise missiles after al-Qaida bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Shifa officials and Sudan's government denied the plant was involved in chemical weapons production.
Sempers,
Roger
Iraq Arrests Former Finance Minister
By DAVID CRARY
Associated Press Writer
Officers from Iraq's newly revived police force arrested Saddam Hussein's former finance minister - one of the 55 ex-leaders on the U.S. most-wanted list - and turned him over to the Marines, the U.S. Central Command said Saturday.
Hikmat Mizban Ibrahim al-Azzawi, who also served as a deputy prime minister, was apprehended Friday in Baghdad, the command said.
He was captured the same day that one of Saddam's top scientists - depicted as the mastermind of Iraq's nerve agent program - turned himself in to the Americans. The apprehension of Emad Husayn Abdullah al-Ani raised hopes of a breakthrough in the as-yet-fruitless search for banned chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.
Other figures from the most-wanted list captured previously include Saddam's top science adviser, Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi; Saddam's half brothers Watban Ibrahim Hasan and Barzan Ibrahim Hasan, and Samir Abd al-Aziz al-Najim, a senior leader of Saddam's toppled Baath party.
A Central Command spokesman, Marine Capt. Stewart Upton, said al-Azzawi's arrest showed the effectiveness of the U.S. military's screening process for hiring police and getting them back on the job.
"The new police being hired are working for the people of Iraq," he said. "They are going after regime leaders."
The Central Command also said Saturday that Khala Khader al-Salahat, a member of the Abu Nidal terrorist organization, had surrendered to Marines in Baghdad. Abu Nidal, who died in Baghdad last year under murky circumstances, led a terror campaign blamed for more than 275 deaths on several continents.
In Saudi Arabia, foreign ministers from eight Middle East nations ended an emergency meeting with an appeal to U.S. and British forces to leave Iraq swiftly. The joint declaration also condemned U.S. threats against Syria for allegedly developing chemical weapons and harboring members of Saddam's toppled regime.
At the meeting were foreign ministers from all of Iraq's neighbors - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Iran. Egypt and Bahrain also participated. Their statement said the United Nations should have a central role in rebuilding Iraq but stressed that Iraqis "should administer and govern their country by themselves."
Though tens of thousands of U.S. troops are expected to remain in Iraq for months to provide security during reconstruction, seven soldiers were scheduled to fly Saturday to their home bases in Texas after surviving harrowing days as POWs. Three of them suffered gunshot wounds.
The seven, freed from a makeshift Iraqi prison six days ago, were scheduled to leave Ramstein Air Base in Germany aboard a C-17 plane. The first stop was Fort Bliss, home of five members of the 507th Maintenance Support Company; the next stop - Fort Hood, base of the two crewmen whose Apache helicopter was shot down.
For U.S. troops remaining in Iraq, one unexpected duty in recent days has been guarding bank vaults that were blasted open by robbers using rocket-propelled grenades. One group of Marines, equipped with machine guns and tanks, has been standing watch over what they estimated was $1 billion in gold.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, a patrol from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division came across an estimated $650 million in U.S. currency, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. The cash, believed to be authentic, was found in a Tigris River neighborhood where senior Baath party and Republican Guard officials lived, according to a Times reporter who accompanied the soldiers.
On Saturday, U.S. Army soldiers - who are taking over the Marines' security duties in Baghdad - practiced crowd-control tactics on hundreds of Iraqis swarming the Palestine Hotel in hopes of obtaining jobs with the transitional government. Some of the jobseekers trampled over razor wire in an effort to get inside.
U.S. troops also staged a joint raid with Iraqi police on a streetside market in Baghdad, arresting five Iraqis who were selling Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition.
The first convoy of food aid reached the capital Saturday after traveling from Jordan. The flour and other supplies, carried in 50 trucks organized by the United Nations, will be stored in warehouses until authorities arrange distribution.
"It was slow because until now there wasn't a safe place to put it because of looting," said Marine Staff Sgt. Jason Selby, who was at the U.N. compound.
Throngs of Shiite Muslims - who make up 60 percent of Iraq's 24 million people - marched through Baghdad streets in a prelude to their annual pilgrimage next week to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. Shiites by the thousands are expected to make the pilgrimage on foot this year, a practice discouraged under the rule of Saddam's mainly Sunni Muslim regime.
So far, U.S. troops have found no confirmed chemical or biological weapons in their searches across Iraq. No evidence of links between Saddam's regime and the al-Qaida terrorist group has been found, either, military officials say.
Al-Ani, if he cooperates with the Americans, may be able to provide information on both matters. U.S. officials say he was involved in Iraq's development of tons of the deadly nerve agent VX.
He also was accused by U.S. officials in 1998 of involvement with a chemical plant in Sudan linked to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Then-President Clinton alleged that the Shifa Pharmaceuticals plant was making a chemical used in manufacturing VX, a claim that was never independently substantiated.
American officials said the Shifa executives who had contact with al-Ani also had ties to bin Laden. They conceded they did not know if al-Ani or other Iraqis knew of Shifa's links to bin Laden.
The United States destroyed the Shifa plant with cruise missiles after al-Qaida bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Shifa officials and Sudan's government denied the plant was involved in chemical weapons production.
Sempers,
Roger