- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
U.S. military on Monday bombed a building in Baghdad after intelligence
reports that President Saddam Hussein and his two sons may have been inside,
but it was unclear if they were killed or injured, U.S. officials said.
-
- The building was destroyed, which might make it difficult
to prove who was killed inside, sources said.
-
- "We are confirming that a leadership target was
hit very hard," Maj. Brad Bartlett, a spokesman at U.S. Central Command
war headquarters in Qatar, told reporters. "Battle damage assessment
is ongoing."
-
- He said a U.S. B-1 bomber using four 2,000-pound bombs
hit the target in the Baghdad district of Mansur on Monday afternoon Iraqi
time.
-
- "There was intelligence that came in this morning
which suggested that there was a gathering of Iraqi intelligence officials
and possibly including Saddam and both of his sons in a residential district
of Baghdad," a U.S. official told Reuters.
-
- The information was passed to Central Command, which
authorized aircraft in the area to bomb the site. There was no confirmation
yet that Saddam or his sons were killed in the strike, but anyone inside
was not likely to have survived, the official said.
-
- "It's a hole in the ground," the official said.
"It might be difficult to prove (who was killed), but a lot of effort
will go into determining it."
-
- The Mansur neighborhood is a stronghold of Saddam's Baath
Party, and security and military intelligence headquarters are located
in the area, and the district is also home to many military officers.
-
- Two houses were flattened and four other buildings were
badly damaged in the air raid on Monday that witnesses said killed nine
Iraqis and wounded four others.
-
- A security guard said people were buried under the rubble
and he said one missile gouged a crater 30 feet deep and 50 feet wide in
the road.
-
- During what Iraqi television said was a recent tour of
bombed areas of Baghdad, Saddam, who rarely appears in public, was seen
passing through several districts of the capital, including Mansur, where
he was greeted by cheering crowds.
-
- INTENSE SPECULATION
-
- The fate of Saddam and his sons, Qusay and Uday, has
been the subject of intense speculation since they were targeted in an
initial U.S. strike on March 20 (March 19 U.S. time) on a residential compound
on the outskirts of Baghdad.
-
- U.S. officials say proving Saddam is dead might prompt
Iraqi resistance to U.S. forces to fade more quickly.
-
- "It might mean that what is left of the regime will
become unglued more quickly, which will stop the war in a timelier fashion,"
a U.S. official said.
-
- Since the initial bombing last month that started the
U.S.-led war against Iraq, a man believed to be Saddam has been seen on
videotapes aired on Iraqi television, but it has been unclear when those
tapes were made, shedding little light on whether the Iraqi president survived
that first strike.
-
- CIA analysts have been reviewing the Saddam broadcasts
and believe it was "more likely than not that the tapes are genuine
of Saddam," but it was still unclear when they were recorded and a
final determination on the tapes had not been reached, a third U.S. official
said.
-
- Earlier, the British military said it believed a previous
strike killed Saddam's cousin "Chemical Ali" in southern Iraq.
-
- "We believe we have found the body of Chemical Ali,
however, we need to get that confirmed," said a British spokesman
at Central Command headquarters.
-
- (Additional reporting by Jeff Franks in Doha)
|
