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thedrifter
04-29-03, 07:57 AM
April 28, 2003

Search for Saddam’s aides continues

By Vivienne Walt and Paul Wiseman



BAGHDAD, Iraq — The hunt for Saddam Hussein and his top aides is a bizarre mix of chance encounters and intense searches fed by hundreds of tips. It’s also a hunt marked by increasing pressure on families of the “most-wanted” Iraqi leaders.
The psychological pressure that Iraqi allies of the U.S. effort are putting on those families is so great that some relatives of the leaders who are still missing say they desperately want their brothers or husbands to give themselves up.

The pressure includes searches of the relatives’ homes by some of the estimated 1,000 Iraqi “freedom fighters” trained by the United States. Family members say such visits send a clear message, though one not explicitly stated: They could be harmed if they don’t persuade their family member to surrender.

Khadija Yasin Ramadan, sister of the man who was vice president in Saddam’s government, choked back tears Saturday as she talked about what has happened to her family since her brother disappeared. During a search of her home, members of the U.S.-allied Free Iraqi Forces poked rifle butts into her daughters’ backs, she said.

“I wish sincerely my brother would surrender,” Khadija Ramadan said. The brother, Taha Yasin Ramadan, 65, is No. 38 on the U.S. Central Command’s list of the 55 most-wanted former regime leaders. She said she does not know where her brother is.

Last Wednesday’s capture of former trade minister Muhammad Mahdi — No. 48 on the list — provided another example of how intimidating the Free Iraqi Forces can be to relatives of the 55 officials. Acting on a tip, about 30 armed men surrounded a house in western Baghdad.

“Neighbors told us (Mahdi) was there,” said Hussein Ali Aboud, 34, a militia member guarding the now-abandoned home Saturday. When fighters arrived, Aboud said, Mahdi’s cousins pleaded: “Please don’t shoot, don’t shoot. He will surrender.” The Free Iraqi Forces radioed U.S. troops, who arrived to arrest Mahdi.

By Sunday night, 13 of the 55 former leaders had been taken into custody. At least one other was believed to be dead. The circumstances surrounding all the captures weren’t clear, but several had been surrenders arranged by intermediaries — mostly tribal or religious leaders.

U.S. commanders and troops say American soldiers on patrol or out making repairs to power stations and other facilities get dozens, sometime hundreds, of tips each day from Baghdad’s citizens about where the most-wanted leaders or other officials of Saddam’s government may be.

Some of the informants are only after reward money. But “when someone really knows where someone is, they just say, ‘Follow me.’ They don’t ask anything about rewards,” said Army Pfc. Michael Alexander, 32, of Marietta, Ga.

Some tips are also being collected by the Iraqi National Congress, an anti-Saddam coalition. At the INC’s temporary headquarters inside the Iraq Hunting Club, Mudhar Shawkat receives visitors throughout the day. Second-in-command at the INC to former exile Ahmad Chalabi, Shawkat sends militia fighters to investigate the tips he deems most plausible.

On Saturday, six tribal leaders sat in the Hunting Club’s large hall. They wanted to tell Shawkat where they thought he could find Mizban Khadr Hadi, Saddam’s military commander for the Central Euphrates region and No. 41 on the most-wanted list. The leaders had driven about 100 miles north to Baghdad from the Diwaniyah district to report that Hadi was in their region along with about 1,200 other fugitives of Saddam’s Baath Party. One of the tribal leaders, Sheik Ma’an Mujid Al-Sha’alan, said of the loyalists, “We want them out.”

The INC does not have enough fighters to confront a force of the size reported by the visiting leaders. That tip would have to be passed on to U.S. commanders.

Sometimes, U.S. forces uncover clues by chance. A drama that played out Friday at a home once owned by a son of Latif Nusayyif Jasim, a Baath Party military official and No. 37 on the list, offered a glimpse of how some regime leaders and their kin tried before the war to cash in assets and leave town.

On Feb. 20, as U.S. forces were building up in neighboring Kuwait, the son, Amar Latif, apparently decided that it would be a good time to leave Baghdad. Said to be in his early 20s and married with children, Amar told a neighbor that he was going to Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, to a family estate.

Amar sold the opulent, two-story house in downtown Baghdad to the neighbor, college student Yaser Esam, 21. A home that clearly belonged to a wealthy family, it boasts a small indoor swimming pool, three bedrooms and a rooftop barbecue patio. It’s not known whether Amar or his father was the true owner of the house or whether they would be reuniting at the estate in Ramadi.

Esam said they agreed on a bargain price of $75,000 — $20,000 in U.S. currency as a down payment, $55,000 later.

But at 9 a.m. Friday, four men carrying assault rifles showed up at the house. They told a guard, hired by Esam to watch the now-unoccupied home, to get out or die. He fled and alerted Esam.

When two dozen U.S. troops arrived, they easily persuaded the overmatched gunmen — members of the INC’s Free Iraqi Forces — to surrender.

The U.S. soldiers weren’t aware until later of the home’s connection to a regime leader. They hadn’t come to the house on a tip. They were involved in another routine duty in Baghdad: dealing with break-ins and property disputes. “It’s about all we do every day,” said Army Spc. Tyson Christensen, 22, of Vancouver, Wash.



Sempers,

Roger