- DUBAI (Reuters) - Arab television
network Abu Dhabi TV broadcast footage on Friday of what it said was Saddam
Hussein saluting a throng of chanting supporters in Baghdad on April 9,
the day the capital fell to U.S. forces.
-
- The state-run channel said the pictures were taken in
the northern Aadhamiya district, and that the tape had been obtained by
its Baghdad correspondent from undisclosed sources.
-
- A U.S. intelligence official said the United States would
be looking at the tape to determine whether Saddam, the Ace of Spades in
a pack of cards depicting most-wanted Iraqis, had indeed survived weeks
of relentless bombing of the capital.
-
- "We will be reviewing the tape to determine whether
it is authentic or not. At the moment we don't know," said a U.S.
intelligence official in Washington, adding that the United States did
not know whether Saddam was alive or dead.
-
- Several tapes of the elusive leader, who is reported
to have several "doubles," have been produced during the U.S-led
war, but there have been doubts whether the images are truly Saddam.
-
- The latest pictures, however, corroborated a report from
a man who described himself as a former Iraqi army officer. He told Reuters
earlier this week he saw Saddam at about that time outside a mosque in
the same northern Baghdad district.
-
- London-based Al-Hayat newspaper quoted witnesses on Thursday
as saying Saddam had arrived at around noon near the Azamia mosque in a
convoy of three cars, accompanied by his younger son Qusay and his bodyguard,
Al Amin Abd Hamed Hamoud.
-
- The report mirrored the images broadcast by Abu Dhabi
TV. It said he delivered a half-hour speech from atop a car, telling the
gathering: "I am fighting alongside you in the trenches," Hayat
quoted one witness as saying.
-
- Witnesses told Hayat the Iraqi leader and his entourage
departed about 12 hours before a U.S. air raid on the area which they said
destroyed part of a graveyard behind the mosque.
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- CHANTING CROWD
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- Despite the best efforts of U.S. and British intelligence
services, U.S. special forces and tens of thousands of U.S. troops, there
is still no sign of the ousted Iraqi leader.
-
- Friday's pictures showed hundreds of people chanting
and pumping their arms in the air as the man the television station said
was Saddam squeezed his way through the crowd.
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- The portly man was dressed in military fatigues and appeared
in good health.
-
- He was embraced by a man in the crowd, and then clambered
on to the bonnet of a vehicle to acknowledge the chanting throng.
-
- With a broad smile, he raised his right arm in the air
to the delight of the rapturous crowd, and placed his right hand on his
chest.
-
- At U.S. Central Command in Qatar, Major Rumi Nielson-Green
said: "The bottom line is we don't know if he's dead or alive. It's
really not so important considering he's not in political power.
-
- "We know for a fact that he has doubles and people
who look like him."
-
- Asked whether the tape, if verified, would imply that
Saddam was probably still in Baghdad and would therefore help efforts to
find him, Nielson-Green said there was a lot of "misinformation"
around.
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- "If he's alive we'll find him and bring him to justice.
If he's dead there's no issue and we'll continue to help that nation rebuild."
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