[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great

[usarmyranger]

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Saddam Hussein (search), the former Iraqi dictator and most-wanted figure by the U.S.-led coalition, has been captured in Iraq, senior U.S. and Iraqi officials said Sunday.

In Baghdad, the U.S.-led occupation notified reporters that a "very important" announcement will be made at a news conference scheduled for 7 a.m. EST.

Multiple high-level sources told Fox News they were certain that the former Iraqi leader was captured in a raid designed to net him in his hometown of Tikrit. He was said to be much thinner than his last known appearance and he had a long, white beard, sources said.

The officials said the former leader, who during his rule slept in lush palaces while many ordinary Iraqis lived in poverty, was found "cowering" in a basement in a home raided by coalition soldiers. The sources said Saddam had millions of U.S. dollars in his possession.

"It certainly looks good," one senior U.S. official in Washington said, cautioning more scientific testing, possibly DNA, was being done early Sunday morning to try to confirm the identity. Other sources said Saddam was positively identified from scars on his body.

Prime Minister Tony Blair (search) seemed to confirm the capture by welcoming the news, his spokesman said Sunday, adding that it "removes the shadow" of the former dictator's possible return from Iraq.

News of the potential capture made its way around Iraq like wildfire, with Iraqis in Tikrit and the capital city, Baghdad, celebrating the news by firing guns into the air.

Earlier, a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council (search) said Saddam had been captured alive in Tikrit.

Council member Dara Noor al-Din told The Associated Press that the council was informed of the former dictator's capture in a telephone call from L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq.

"Bremer has confirmed to the Governing Council that Saddam was captured in Tikrit," Noor al-Din said. "He spoke on the phone to several members, including Ahmad Chalabi."

Chalabi is a leading member of the council who has close links to the Bush administration.

A council spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Bremer had relayed news of Saddam's capture to the council. A council delegation planned to visit Saddam in captivity later Sunday, the spokesman said.

Another Governing Council member, Jalal Talabani, was earlier quoted by Iran's official news agency, IRNA, as saying Saddam had been captured in Tikrit.

Talabani told IRNA that Saddam's detention will bring stability to Iraq.

"With the arrest of Saddam, the source financing terrorists has been destroyed and terrorist attacks will come to an end. Now we can establish a durable stability and security in Iraq," Talabani was quoted as saying.

In Baghdad, residents fired small arms in the air in celebration, and gunfire echoed in neighborhoods across the city. Earlier in the day, rumors of the capture sent people streaming into the streets of Kirkuk, a northern Iraqi city, firing guns in the air in celebration.

"We are celebrating like it's a wedding," said Kirkuk resident Mustapha Sheriff. "We are finally rid of that criminal."

"This is the joy of a lifetime," said Ali Al-Bashiri, another resident. "I am speaking on behalf of all the people that suffered under his rule."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[stefania]

Saddam Hussein Captured, Officials Say

Sunday, December 14, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Saddam Hussein (search), the former Iraqi dictator and most-wanted figure by the U.S.-led coalition, has been captured in Iraq, senior U.S. and Iraqi officials said Sunday.

In Baghdad, the U.S.-led occupation notified reporters that a "very important" announcement will be made at a news conference scheduled for 7 a.m. EST.

Multiple high-level sources told Fox News they were certain that the former Iraqi leader was captured in a raid designed to net him in his hometown of Tikrit. He was said to be much thinner than his last known appearance and he had a long, white beard, sources said.

The officials said the former leader, who during his rule slept in lush palaces while many ordinary Iraqis lived in poverty, was found "cowering" in a basement in a home raided by coalition soldiers. The sources said Saddam had millions of U.S. dollars in his possession.

"It certainly looks good," one senior U.S. official in Washington said, cautioning more scientific testing, possibly DNA, was being done early Sunday morning to try to confirm the identity. Other sources said Saddam was positively identified from scars on his body.

Prime Minister Tony Blair (search) seemed to confirm the capture by welcoming the news, his spokesman said Sunday, adding that it "removes the shadow" of the former dictator's possible return from Iraq.

News of the potential capture made its way around Iraq like wildfire, with Iraqis in Tikrit and the capital city, Baghdad, celebrating the news by firing guns into the air.

Earlier, a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council (search) said Saddam had been captured alive in Tikrit.

Council member Dara Noor al-Din told The Associated Press that the council was informed of the former dictator's capture in a telephone call from L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq.

"Bremer has confirmed to the Governing Council that Saddam was captured in Tikrit," Noor al-Din said. "He spoke on the phone to several members, including Ahmad Chalabi."

Chalabi is a leading member of the council who has close links to the Bush administration.

A council spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Bremer had relayed news of Saddam's capture to the council. A council delegation planned to visit Saddam in captivity later Sunday, the spokesman said.

Another Governing Council member, Jalal Talabani, was earlier quoted by Iran's official news agency, IRNA, as saying Saddam had been captured in Tikrit.

Talabani told IRNA that Saddam's detention will bring stability to Iraq.

"With the arrest of Saddam, the source financing terrorists has been destroyed and terrorist attacks will come to an end. Now we can establish a durable stability and security in Iraq," Talabani was quoted as saying.

In Baghdad, residents fired small arms in the air in celebration, and gunfire echoed in neighborhoods across the city. Earlier in the day, rumors of the capture sent people streaming into the streets of Kirkuk, a northern Iraqi city, firing guns in the air in celebration.

"We are celebrating like it's a wedding," said Kirkuk resident Mustapha Sheriff. "We are finally rid of that criminal."

"This is the joy of a lifetime," said Ali Al-Bashiri, another resident. "I am speaking on behalf of all the people that suffered under his rule."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


god Bless the US Freedom Forces and the Iraqis which contributed to capture this Devil..

Now we wait to see it in TV as a defeated man and he will answer of his crimes in front of his people and all the victims of his reign of terror..

Go Bush!! At this point, i think that he will be re-elected..


_________________
Referendum AFTER Regime Change

"I'm ready to die for you to be able to say your own opinions, even if i strongly disagree with you" (Voltaire)

[stefania]

Saddam photo NOW


_________________
Referendum AFTER Regime Change

"I'm ready to die for you to be able to say your own opinions, even if i strongly disagree with you" (Voltaire)

[stefania]

_________________
Referendum AFTER Regime Change

"I'm ready to die for you to be able to say your own opinions, even if i strongly disagree with you" (Voltaire)

[guestgirl18]

Saddam is captured!!!!! Now he must be goven a big, public trial and it must be broadcast alll over the world. He must be paraded in front of the world in humiliation. If he is just killed, terrorists will claim him to be a "martyr." He deserves to be treated like the murderer he is. Put in on trial for all to see. He's defeated now.

[salinescape]

[cyrus]

Suspicious Hole Leads Soldiers to Saddam
38 minutes ago
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=2&u=/ap/20031214/ap_on_re_mi_ea/saddam_the_raid

By MARIAM FAM and ALEKSANDAR VASOVIC, Associated Press Writers

ADWAR, Iraq - When darkness fell, the Americans moved into position, 600 of them, from infantrymen to elite special forces. Their target: two houses in this rural village of orange, lemon and palm groves. Someone big was inside, they were told. But when they struck, they found nothing.


AP Photo


Then they spotted two men running away from a small walled compound in the trees. Inside, in front of a mud-brick hut, the troops pulled back a carpet on the ground, cleared away the dirt and revealed a Styrofoam panel. Underneath, a hole led to a tiny chamber, just big enough for a single person to squeeze into.

At first they didn't recognize the man hiding inside, with his ratty hair, wild beard and a pistol cradled in his lap. But when they asked who he was, the bewildered-looking man gave a shocking answer.

He said he was Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).


"He was just caught like a rat," said Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of 4th Infantry Division, which led the hunt in the area for one of the world's most wanted men and conducted the raid that caught him. "When you're in the bottom of a hole, you can't fight back."


The farm is near the town of Adwar, nestled among palm trees along the Tigris River just a few miles from Saddam's birthplace of Uja. One of the many palaces built by the dictator is just across the Tigris, and Saddam used to come here to swim.


Adwar is the hometown of one of his most trusted aides, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.


People in the area are fierce in their support for Saddam. "Saddam Hussein raised us. He's our father," neighbor Sohayb Abdul-Rahman said Sunday.


So U.S. forces had been watching the area for months. Odierno said forces had patrolled the dirt road running alongside the shack, and searched the area repeatedly.


Over the past few weeks, as U.S. intelligence agencies began to focus in on Saddam's extended family, prisoners captured in raids and intelligence tips began to lead to increasingly precise information, said a U.S. official said in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity.


Gradually, CIA (news - web sites) and military analysts narrowed their list of potential sites where Saddam could be hiding, the official said. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq (news - web sites), said U.S. forces questioned "five to 10 members" of a branch of the extended family.


On Saturday, "we got the ultimate information from one of these individuals," Odierno said.


The soldiers waited for darkness Saturday, and at about 6 p.m., the forces launched what they called Operation Red Dawn, Sanchez said.


Commanders knew their target — "We thought it was Saddam," Odierno said — but the soldiers didn't.


"We were told that we would be looking for some really big fish — nothing more," said one soldier who participated in the raid and spoke only on condition of anonymity.


At 8 p.m., the soldiers attacked their two objectives but came up empty. Troops spotted two men fleeing from another house nearby, the soldier said, about 200 yards from the original target. The men were arrested.


The troops cordoned off an area of 1.5 square miles around the house and began a careful search, Odierno said.


What they found was a small walled compound with a metal lean-to and a mud hut, Sanchez said. Pulling back a rug, they dug down, finding a Styrofoam panel that covered a tiny tunnel, Odierno said. Sanchez called it a "spider-hole."

"The spider-hole is about 6 to 8 feet deep and allows enough space for a person to lie down inside of it," Sanchez said. He showed video images of an air duct and a ventilation fan.

Inside lay Saddam, wearing a long, salt-and-pepper beard and disheveled hair. He had a pistol on his lap, Odierno said, but didn't move to use it. When asked about his identity, the former dictator confirmed he was Saddam, Odierno said.

Soldiers searched the hut, made up of two rooms — a bedroom and a kitchen. The soldier who participated in the raid described it as "just two rooms and a sink, there was one bed and one chair and some clothes and that's about it." Soldiers seized two rifles, a pistol, a taxi and $750,000 in U.S. currency in a suitcase.

"We didn't stay there long. It smelled really bad," the soldier said. "It looked more like a garage than a proper house."

Within an hour — at about 9:15 p.m. — a helicopter whisked Saddam away, heading south toward Baghdad, Odierno said. Officials didn't say where he was being held.

Sanchez, who saw Saddam in detention, described him as talkative and cooperative, but also as "a tired man, and also I think a man resigned to his fate."

Members of the Iraqi Governing Council visited as well, finding Saddam sitting on a bed in a white gown and dark jacket.

"He was subservient and broken," council member Mouwafak al-Rabii said. "He was speaking as if he did not know what was going on around him."

The council members peppered Saddam with questions about assassinations and massacres, asking him why he killed so many people. But al-Rabii said Saddam was unrepentant.

"Saddam appeared in his true face, using bad language and insults," he said. "Saddam looked like a thug or the leader of a mafia."
___

Aleksandar Vasovic reported from Tikrit. Niko Price, the AP's correspondent-at-large, contributed to this report from Baghdad. AP correspondent Scheherezade Faramarzi in Adwar also contributed to this story.

[cyrus]

Saddam Captured Hiding in Hole Near Tikrit
Sun December 14, 2003 12:01 PM ET
URL:

By Joseph Logan
AD-DAWR, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. troops captured Saddam Hussein hiding in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit in a major coup for Washington's beleaguered occupying force in Iraq.

Grubby, bearded and "very disorientated," the 66-year-old fallen dictator was dug out by troops from a cramped hiding pit during a raid on a farm in Ad-Dawr village late Saturday, U.S. Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno told a news conference in Tikrit.

"He was just caught like a rat," he said Sunday in one of Saddam's grandiose former palaces nearby on the Tigris river.

Not a shot was fired, though Saddam, who once seemed almost to believe his own claims of invincibility and urged his men to go down fighting the invaders, was armed with a pistol.

Gunfire crackled in celebration across the country as Iraqis greeted a U.S. military video showing their once feared leader, disheveled and sporting a bushy black and gray beard, undergoing a medical examination after eight months on the run.

"Most of my family are either dead or were forced into the army because of Saddam. Every Iraqi should have the right to reclaim justice from him," said Hamid, a baker in Baghdad.

The arrest is a boon for President Bush after a run of increasingly bloody attacks on U.S. troops that imperil his campaign for re-election next year. The White House, though, warned that violence was likely to go on for some time.

The U.S. commander in Iraq, Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, described Saddam as "talkative." That could give U.S. officials intelligence on his alleged banned weapons.

"We got him," the U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, told a Baghdad news conference. "The tyrant is a prisoner."

Cheering Iraqi journalists shouted "Death to Saddam!" One, who had been tortured in Saddam's jails, broke down in tears.

Iraqi and U.S. officials said some $750,000 in $100 bills was found near the rat-infested warren of hideouts close to the Tigris riverbank. Saddam had not been there long, Odierno said.

Leading members of the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council said they would put Saddam on trial in Baghdad under a tribunal agreed with Washington only last week. He may face the death penalty as he answers for a three-decade reign of terror and for leading his oil-rich nation into three disastrous wars.

"We want Saddam to get what he deserves. I believe he will be sentenced to hundreds of death sentences at a fair trial because he's responsible for all the massacres and crimes in Iraq," said Amar al-Hakim, a leader of the powerful Shi'ite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Bush was due to address the nation at 12:15 p.m. EST. Aides said he called it an "enchanting day" and would tell Iraqis it showed there was now no threat of Saddam coming back.

Violence continued, however, within hours of his capture.

A suspected suicide car bombing killed at least 17 people at a police station in Khalidiyah, west of Baghdad, and a U.S. bomb disposal expert was killed as he tried to defuse a device.

U.S. officials say anti-American Muslim militants affiliated to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network have become active in Iraq amid the chaos following Saddam's ousting on April 9.

Bin Laden himself, blamed for the September 11 attacks on the United States that triggered Bush's "war on terror" two years ago, is still in hiding, possibly in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials will hope to extract intelligence on alleged nuclear, chemical and biological weapons which Bush used to justify waging war on Iraq in defiance of many U.N. allies.

HOLE IN THE GROUND

Little evidence of banned weapons has been found, helping fuel continuing international wrangling over instability in Iraq, American motives in the war and the cost of rebuilding a country that holds the world's second biggest oil reserves.

However, there was broad consensus among opponents of the U.S. invasion that getting Saddam behind bars was a good thing. French President Jacques Chirac, as well as German and Russian leaders, all fierce critics of Bush's war, hailed the arrest.

"This has lifted a shadow from the people of Iraq," said British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush's main military ally.
In the Arab world, there were mixed feelings, with many ordinary people welcoming the final humiliation of a man who had invaded two of his neighbors, Iran and Kuwait, oppressed Iraq's Shi'ite majority and ordered gas attacks on Kurdish villages.

In Kurdish areas, there was wild celebration. But there was virtual silence in his old Sunni Muslim power base of Tikrit.

Some Arabs elsewhere regretted the role the U.S. occupiers played and lamented the passing of a defender of Arab interests. Some Palestinians recalled Saddam's missile strikes on Israel during the 1991 Gulf War as one of his greatest achievements.

The capture of Saddam, the "ace of spades" and number one on the U.S. wanted list, was in stark contrast to the bloody end of his sons Uday and Qusay, who died with guns blazing in July.

Their father kept up a series of taped appeals to his followers after that. But a huge manhunt and a $25 million price on his head must have cramped any role in the guerrilla war. It was unclear if any bounty would be paid for his capture -- U.S. forces paid out $30 million to a man who informed on his sons.

A U.S. official said an Iraqi prisoner provided the initial tip on Saddam. Iraqi officials said Kurdish forces were involved in running him to ground though not involved in the arrest.

It was a humiliating end to a lifelong adventure that began not far away in a poor village on the Tigris just outside Tikrit. Clan connections in the Sunni-dominated military and a taste for ruthless street violence took Saddam to the top of the Arab nationalist Ba'ath party which seized power in a 1968 coup.

He crushed all opposition and lavished huge amounts of Iraq's oil wealth on marble-lined palaces and massive monuments to himself. Many of the former are now barracks for U.S. troops.

The statues were pulled down by joyful Iraqis months ago.

[cyrus]

How We Got Saddam

http://msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3711360&p1=0

'Don't shoot,' .
the bearded, submissive man said to the
soldiers. He was Saddam Hussein, hiding in a hole, the
man the Pentagon called 'High Value Target Number
One.' The story of his capture--and what's next
By Evan Thomas and Rod Nordland
NewsweekDec. 22 Issue - In a part of the world where pride and dignity mean everything, the images were clearly intended to shame. A nameless doctor or medical technician, wearing rubber gloves, was seen closely examining the man's hair, perhaps looking for vermin. Prodded with a tongue depressor, the man opened his mouth; the doctor peered at the pink flesh of his throat and scraped off a few cells for DNA identification. Then the world saw the man's face. Haggard, defeated, slightly disgusted and unquestionably Saddam Hussein, tyrant and terrorist, sadist and murderer, object of one of the greatest manhunts in history.

The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, told reporters that Saddam had been found hiding in a mudhole. Gone were the fleets of Mercedeses, the battalions of secret police, the gold-encrusted palaces. Saddam did not put up a fight; he did not try to take his own life (though he had a pistol). He was "talkative" and "cooperative," resigned, cowering, meek and weak. The Glorious Leader, Direct Descendant of the Prophet, the Lion of Babylon, the Father of the Two Lion Cubs, the Anointed One, the Successor of Nebuchadnezzar, the Modern Saladin of Islam had been brought low, forced to bow down, whisked away to an "undisclosed location" to contemplate his fate while waiting to stand trial for his vast crimes against humanity.


Efrem Lukatsky / AP
When they captured Saddam outside Tikrit, 4th Infantry soldiers also found $750,000 of the Iraqi leader's stashed cash
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him!" declared a beaming, triumphant Paul Bremer, the American proconsul in Baghdad. In the Iraqi capital, a hush had fallen over the city. Rumors of Saddam's capture had been flying through the streets. Almost everyone, it seemed, had gathered around a TV set or radio to await the formal word. When Bremer spoke, at about 3:15 Sunday afternoon Baghdad time (7:15 a.m. in Washington), the city erupted in celebratory gunfire. Shop owners began closing up, fearing that the revelers might get carried away. (When Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay, were captured and killed last summer, at least a half dozen people were killed by the rain of falling bullets.) Cameras caught American soldiers puffing on cigars.

The insurrection will go on, and more American soldiers and Iraqis will die. But the capture of Saddam was undoubtedly an enormous breakthrough in the liberation of Iraq. Many Iraqis could never quite believe that Saddam was gone, that he would not reappear like some bad dream. By showing the images of Saddam in captivity and not just captured but poked, prodded and shorn, the Americans were sending a clear message to the Iraqi people that their tormentor of decades was gone forever.

Now comes the Mother of All War Crimes Trials. The mountain of evidence of Saddam's grotesqueries--the gassing of whole villages, the torture of political prisoners, the wholesale slaughter of his enemies--will be presented and dissected. The trial could be a security nightmare, of course, a target for terrorists. Some U.S. intelligence officials on Sunday morning speculated to NEWSWEEK that the capture of Saddam might actually bring an increase in attacks on American troops and their Iraqi allies--a last real spasm of violence. But Saddam's arrest may also be a chance for reconciliation, a step toward bringing together a nation divided by sect and tribe and, for too long, by fear.

The hunt for Saddam had been a vexing preoccupation of the military and the Bush administration. His capture was a happy ending to a maddening and sometimes embarrassingly fruitless hunt for a marked man with a $25 million bounty on his head. When Saddam vanished as Baghdad fell, American intelligence officials were reasonably confident that he had not fled the country and guessed that he was holed up somewhere near his old hometown of Tikrit, north of the Iraqi capital. But where? Saddam was said to have a number of body doubles and to have undergone plastic surgery to radically alter his features. The rumor mill ground away. In June, a Baghdad newspaper reported that the former president had been sighted driving a Pajero taxi around Baghdad, while wearing a beard, glasses and an ankle-length traditional Arab robe. latest video reports

• Hussein captured
The U.S. military released this silent video of Saddam Hussein being examined and the hole where he was located.


• Bush comment on Saddam capture
President George Bush states the capture of Saddam Hussein is "crucial to the rise of a free Iraq."


• Bremer: 'We got him'
Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq announces the capture of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussen.


• Lt. Gen. Sanchez on the capture
Lt. Gen. Richardo Sanchez described Saddam Hussein's capture and hideout.


• Capture an intelligence coup
Saddam Hussein's capture illustrates that the intelligence information coming to the U.S. forces was accurate. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports on Hussein's capture.


• Blair hails Saddam's capture
Prime Minister Tony Blair hailed the capture of Saddam Hussein Sunday, saying that the Muslims who suffered under his power would benefit most from his capture and the rebirth of Iraq.


Special Forces (Delta, Navy SEALs, CIA paramilitary) scoured the countryside. A supersecret military team known as Grey Fox sleuthed about, listening for telltale radio or telephone transmissions. But Saddam was not likely to use the phone, and the greatest hope was always that he would be betrayed by his countrymen. One by one, the Americans picked up the top Baathist leaders, ranked in order of importance and identified on playing cards by U.S. intelligence. After 249 days, 41 of the 55 were in custody, but there was no Ace of Spades.

The Americans received numerous tips from Iraqis interested in the $25 million reward, but none of them panned out. So the military began to squeeze. About six weeks ago, soldiers of the Fourth Infantry Division strung barbed wire around the small farm village of Awja, where Saddam had lived as a boy, about 5 to 10 kilometers south of Tikrit--and, as it turned out, some 5 kilometers from the farm where he was finally captured. The town was a Saddamite fishbowl. About 60 percent of the village's thousand or so men were arrested and questioned. "We had number 6's father, Saddam's first cousin, quite a cast of characters that are town elders," Lt. Col. Steve Russell of the Fourth I.D. told NEWSWEEK.

By the time Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Baghdad in early December, top CENTCOM officials were beginning to feel that they were finally closing in. A top aide to Rumsfeld told NEWSWEEK that intelligence was working up the food chain toward Saddam, arresting and interrogating sources who were getting close to the fugitive himself. One top official told Rumsfeld that U.S. forces were "on the heels" of Saddam. British sources told NEWSWEEK that Saddam had been driving around in a battered old cab, a clue for aerial surveillance. The pace of raids seemed to quicken last week: a series of quick hits on hideouts that revealed what one commander called a "Fedayeen candy shop," Pepsi cans rigged with explosives and bombs rigged with doorbell ringers. And more traces of Saddam.

At about 10:50 a.m. Baghdad time on Saturday, Dec. 13, military intelligence got the tip it was looking for. Saddam was hiding at one of two farms in the little town of Ad Dawr, according to the tipster. (The choice of Ad Dawr showed a certain lack of imagination, or perhaps desperation, by Saddam. In 1959, when Saddam tried unsuccessfully to assassinate the prime minister of Iraq, Abdul Karim Qassim, Saddam had fled to the same village and hid on a family friend's farm, later swimming across the Tigris River to exile in Syria, one of the only times he ever left his country.)

Quickly, the Fourth I.D. mounted Operation Red Dawn: about 600 troopers--cavalry, engineers, artillery, Special Forces--to descend on the two farms, code-named Wolverine 1 and Wolverine 2. As evening fell, the soldiers surrounded the farms, cutting off all roads for about four or five kilometers around. Special Forces slipped in--and found nothing.

According to U.S. officials, the Americans had an informant working with them, a family member "close to Saddam." The tipster said, in effect, "He's there. Trust me. Keep looking." A more thorough search of every building and field commenced, and at 8:26 p.m., a soldier noticed a crack in the earth under a lean-to adjoining a mud hut on a small sheep farm. The last hiding spot of the Lion of Babylon, the Butcher of Baghdad and what the Pentagon referred to as "High Value Target Number One" was unprepossessing in the extreme. A single beat-up orange and white Iraqi taxi was parked next to the sheep pen. The crack revealed a hidden door. The soldiers carefully shoved aside some bricks and dirt and opened up a Styrofoam hatch covered with a rug.


Mauricio Lima / AFP-Getty Images
Christmas comes early: Members of the 4th Infantry in Tikrit watch a press conference announcing Saddam's capture
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inside a six-foot-deep hole was a dirty, disheveled man with a matted beard. He was lying flat, in a crawl space six feet by eight feet. It was not clear how long he had been hiding there. The "spider hole," as General Sanchez later described, was equipped with a ventilation device to allow him to breathe. Protruding from the wall was a tube, a crude urinal.

"Don't shoot," the man said, according to a military source. "I am Saddam Hussein, the president of the Republic of Iraq." Saddam "said very little," according to Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the Fourth I.D. "He did not make any statement while he was there."

Saddam was later described as resigned and submissive, bewildered and disoriented. He apparently bumped his head as he was pulled out of the hole. "Tired, he was a tired man, and also a man resigned to his fate," said General Sanchez. The capture was easy. Not a shot was fired; no one was hurt. American forces found a couple of AK-47s, a pistol--and $750,000 in hundred-dollar bills. Two men were arrested as they ran away--presumably the final remnants of Saddam's once ferocious corps of bodyguards. Saddam had been staying in a crude two-room adobe house, probably only one of 30 or so hideouts he used, constantly on the run, moving probably every three or four hours, according to American commanders. Soldiers found new clothes still in their wrappings.

The captive was hurried off by helicopter to "an undisclosed location"--actually, the detention center at the Baghdad Airport, where top detainees are held for interrogation. American commanders tried to temper their elation. Gen. John Abizaid, the CENTCOM commander of all forces in the region, called Rumsfeld with the good news.

It was Saturday afternoon in Washington. Rumsfeld called the president at Camp David at about 3:15 p.m.

"Mr. President, first reports are not always accurate … ," he began.

"This sounds like it's going to be good news," the president interrupted.

Rumsfeld told George W. Bush that Abizaid had called, "very confident" that Saddam had been captured.

"Well, that is good news," said Bush.

Back in Baghdad, Saddam was stripped and examined, probably with a most thorough and invasive body search. He has a telltale tattoo on his hand and scars of old wounds. His beard was shaved off. His captors paraded him before some of his former aides now in detention. including his longtime aide Tariq Aziz. The old courtiers confirmed their former boss's identity.

Saddam's successors, the Iraqi Governing Council, were allowed to see and question Saddam. The former ruler was haggard but defiant. When one of the Governing Council members demanded to know why had killed so many people, Saddam spat back that his victims were all "thieves and Iranian spies." (The Shiite members of the delegation were particularly incensed by Saddam's mocking tone when the Iraqi ruler was asked if he had played a role in assassinating Shiite Ayatollahs Muhammad Sadeq al-Sadr, in 1999, and Mohamad Baqir al Hakim, killed by a truck bomb this year. "Sadr" means "chest" in Arabic, and Saddam made a pun about getting him off his chest.) Adnan Pachachi, a leading member of the Governing Council, was engaged in a shouting match with Saddam when Pachachi was interrupted for a congratulatory phone call from President Bush on Sunday morning in Iraq.

The president had been awakened at 5 a.m. by his national-security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. The conversation was matter-of-fact, say White House aides. Rice was simply informing the president that Saddam's identity had been confirmed. Bush quickly decided that he would address the nation around noontime. But he and his advisers agreed that the crowing should be kept to a minimum and that the main show should go on in Baghdad.

Bremer had meant to begin the 3 p.m. (7 a.m. ET) briefing in Baghdad with some dutifully dignified remarks, but when he heard the excited buzz among the Iraqi journalists assembled for a press conference in the Baghdad Convention Center, he couldn't resist, and happily blurted, "We got him!" White House aides say that Bush, watching TV back in the White House residence, was moved and delighted by the emotional, cheering reaction of the Iraqi journalists.

It is hard to know the impact of Saddam's capture on the insurgency. Saddam was probably not the real field commander. He was too busy running and hiding. Army intelligence sources tell NEWSWEEK that many of the diehards in the insurgency hate Saddam and will go on fighting until they are killed or captured. The military must still capture Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, Saddam's redheaded No. 2 (he is said to resemble Krusty the Clown), who probably directs a significant portion of the Iraqi resistance. It is unclear if Saddam's capture will dry up the financing of the insurrection. Al Qaeda operatives are filtering into Iraq from Afghanistan and Europe. If the domestic Iraqi insurgency fades, acts of terror committed by foreign Islamists, many coming from Iran, could keep up the fight. A knowledgeable Arab specialist at the Pentagon suggested to NEWSWEEK that Saddam's capture might inspire Osama bin Laden and what's left of Al Qaeda to stage another 9/11-style attack, perhaps in the United States.

That is the bad news. For President Bush, of course, capturing Saddam was a tremendous political boon, a signal victory in a war that had not been going very well. The greatest beneficiary of Saddam's capture is the anti-Saddam Iraqis in the fledgling Iraq government. They have been given a huge morale boost, the equivalent, for the Iraqi people, of capturing Hitler. The cathartic purge will be immense, since Iraq's reign of terror was embodied by the man. Fence-straddlers may now throw in their lot with the new government. They will no longer be afraid to let down their guard and embrace the new order. That does not mean, of course, that they will stop quarreling and fighting with each other. American officials still very much fear a civil war between Sunni, Shiites and Kurds.

And the violence will go on. On Sunday, just hours before Saddam's capture was announced, a suicide bomber drove into a police station in Khaldiya, 50 miles west of Baghdad, killing 10 Iraqi policemen and wounding 20 other Iraqis. Three days earlier, another Iraqi suicide bomber north of Baghdad killed an American soldier on guard duty outside a base. Certainly, the region will not suddenly go calm. Unnoticed in the hubbub over Saddam's capture, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was the target of a serious assassination attempt on the road near Islamabad. A bomb went off near the general's motorcade. Early speculation was that the man behind the attack was Osama bin Laden--who remains at large.

Before Saddam goes on trial, he will be interrogated. If willing, Saddam could answer endless questions: Where is the rest of his vast fortune? Where are his remaining holdout lieutenants? Where are the weapons of mass destruction, if they do in fact exist? If Saddam is hiding vials of germs somewhere--if he has flushed them out of the country, to be used by future terrorists--his secrets would be vital beyond reckoning. But Saddam's captors have very little leverage to make him talk. Saddam knows that his fate is sealed. It would be highly improbable for him to be able to cut some kind of plea bargain.

More likely, Saddam will stand trial in his homeland. Last Wednesday, the Iraqi Governing Council established a tribunal to prosecute Saddam and his senior henchmen. The tribunal will sit in a huge central Baghdad museum dedicated to Saddam memorabilia. IGC members said they would reinstate Iraq's death penalty, suspended during the American occupation. The scene could be a circus, and a dangerous one. Emotions will run high; whatever diehards remain might try to stage a "spectacular." It will be hard for the prosecutors to know where to begin. Saddam's victims over the decades number in the hundreds of thousands, if not the millions. But the trial could serve to provide some kind of closure on Iraq's long nightmare of oppression, as long as it does not merely become a forum for revenge.

The political value for George Bush will be measured by the minutes on the evening news. The details of torture and oppression will be nightly reminders of why Bush felt justified in invading Iraq. Saddam's capture sent the Democrats scrambling, warning that the celebrations were wonderful but could be short-lived.

Bush took to the airwaves shortly after noon to congratulate U.S. troops and to declare that "American forces will not relent until this war is won." He told the Iraqis that they could have the "dignity" they deserve--while cautioning that the violence was not over.

In the Green Zone in Baghdad, where American soldiers and diplomats stay behind barbed wire and guard posts, a group of GIs watched as night fell and tracers arced into the sky in jubilation over Saddam's capture. One soldier, Sgt. Jose Chavarin of the 130th Medical Company, was hit in the head by a falling bullet. It bounced off his helmet harmlessly. His commander, First Sgt. Michelle Fournier, told Chavarin that he now had a great war story to tell. "I am going to have the bullet cut and drilled so we can have good-luck necklaces made," she said.

A giddy moment. But then, as midnight approached, explosions were heard in downtown Baghdad. Witnesses reported a car bomb. Or was it just fuel canisters on a truck? In any event, the insurrection is not dead yet. The war goes on.
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With Tamara Lipper, Daniel Klaidman, Babak Dehghanpisheh, Christian Caryl, Steve Tuttle, Holly Bailey, Michael Hirsh, Christopher Dickey, Mark Hosenball, Michael Isikoff, Howard Fineman, Richard Wolffe and John Barry

[Eala]

What is the feeling about this in Iran?

[socom]