- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S.
military struggled to restore law and order in Baghdad and other Iraqi
cities on Saturday as Saddam Hussein's scientific adviser became his first
close associate to surrender.
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- A day after the United States listed 55 Iraqi leaders
it wanted killed or captured, Gen. Amer Hammoudi al-Saadi turned himself
in to U.S. soldiers in the capital and was driven away in the front seat
of a military jeep.
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- He told Germany's ZDF television he had no idea where
Saddam was and insisted Iraq had none of the chemical or biological arms
Washington gave as its reason for waging war.
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- President Bush, in his weekly radio address to the American
people, said the war was not yet over.
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- Cautious after earlier unexpected setbacks in a campaign
that has largely gone his way, Bush warned that "hard fighting"
might lie ahead for troops putting down pockets of resistance.
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- On the west bank of the Tigris river in central Baghdad,
a firefight erupted and U.S. troops said they killed 15 to 20 fighters
they described as Arab "mujahideen" and seized one of the last
strongholds of Arab fighters in the capital.
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- To the north, planes bombed Saddam's hometown of Tikrit,
the only major urban center still holding out.
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- Bush hailed Saddam's fall, but made no mention of chaos
that has raged as mobs, freed from decades of iron control, ransacked offices,
shops and even Iraq's antiquities museum.
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- A week after the Americans punched their way into the
Iraqi capital, troops set up round-the-clock patrols in some quarters to
check the lawlessness. And some 20 tons of medical supplies arrived in
Baghdad on U.S. C-130 transport planes to help replenish supplies at looted
and overburdened hospitals.
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- Anarchy also traumatized Mosul and Kirkuk, northern cities
seized almost unopposed by Kurdish fighters.
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- "If the Americans are liberating us, let them restore
order because this has been as bad as any two days of my life with Saddam,"
said Jassem Mohammed, from Kirkuk's Turkmen minority.
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- Looking ahead, U.S. officials laid plans for a series
of meetings of Iraqi opposition leaders from inside and outside the country
to pave the way for an interim government. The first is set for Tuesday
in the southern city of Nassiriya.
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- FIGHTING OR POLICING?
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- Students marched to demand law and order in Baghdad but,
in the slum area of Saddam City, U.S. forces stepped back to let locals
hunt pro-Saddam fighters on their own.
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- Bush focused on what Washington sees as the bigger picture
-- the successful end of Saddam's three-decade grip on power.
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- "As people throughout Iraq celebrate the arrival
of freedom, America celebrates with them," he said, recalling the
moment that symbolized U.S. victory -- a giant statue of the Iraqi president
being toppled in the heart of Baghdad.
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- The U.S. Congress sent Bush a $79 billion package, in
part to finance wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and reward key allies.
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- U.S. commanders focused on wrapping up the 24-day-old
war, sending planes to pound Tikrit, 110 miles north of Baghdad, and sending
in army reinforcements from Kuwait -- but also said they would cut their
naval presence in the Gulf.
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- The military says its first job is to fight and policing
must take a back seat, but it is now moving to restore order and quell
anarchy that has even seen hospitals stripped bare.
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- The International Committee of the Red Cross said U.S.
soldiers were now guarding a main Baghdad water plant and a major hospital.
"Medical City Hospital seems for the most part secured," ICRC
spokeswoman Antonella Notari said from Geneva.
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- But mobs ransacked the National Museum, grabbing treasures
dating back to the dawn of civilization in Mesopotamia.
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- "They have looted or destroyed 170,000 items of
antiquity. ... They were worth billions of dollars," said deputy director
Nabhal Amin, weeping.
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- In well-to-do quarters, armed vigilantes kicked and punched
anyone suspected of plundering goods.
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- KURDS STILL IN KIRKUK
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- In the north, Kurdish fighters tried to impose some order
in the oil hub of Kirkuk, which they took on Thursday amid scenes of jubilation.
They checked cars entering and leaving the city in search of suspected
looters and their bounty.
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- But Arabs and Turkmens said the Kurds were guilty of
abuses -- a dangerous development in an area of ethnic tension.
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- "I'm liberated now? What's been liberated? The Kurds
came and stole anything they could get their hands on, killed, pulled people
out of their cars," said Riyadh Mustafa, an Arab.
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- Some foreign media reported violent Arab-Kurd clashes
in Iraq's third city, Mosul, which fell to the Kurds on Friday after an
entire Iraqi army corps surrendered. U.S. troops moved into the city on
Saturday in large numbers for the first time.
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- Turkey fears Kurds want Kirkuk as capital of an independent
state, which could fan separatism among its own Kurds.
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- Kurdish fighters say they will hand over control when
enough U.S. troops arrive, and withdraw.
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- Across Iraq in the west, U.S.-led forces said they had
worn down Iraqi resistance around Qaim, a town which Washington suspects
could house weapons of mass destruction.
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- A BBC correspondent said Kut, a town south of Baghdad
that Saddam had praised for brave resistance, was in U.S. hands.
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- In the second city of Basra, British troops said they
hoped to start patrolling with local police within 48 hours.
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- The top U.N. humanitarian official on Iraq said 13 foreign
staff would return to parts of northern Iraq on Monday and the U.N. presence
in southern Iraq would be expanded.
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- Meeting in Washington, the Group of Seven industrial
nations -- which unites America with staunchly anti-war France and Germany
as well as Japan, Italy, Canada and Britain -- called for multinational
involvement in rebuilding Iraq.
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- It backed a fresh U.N. resolution on the effort, but
U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said this did not mark a compromise by
the United States over the contentious issue.
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- Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara said on Saturday
U.S. accusations that Damascus had helped Saddam's government were baseless.
Senior Bush administration officials have accused Syria of providing military
assistance to Baghdad.
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- Syria, for its part, has warned that the conflict could
spread beyond Iraq's borders, sowing chaos in the region.
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- Saddam's whereabouts remained a mystery as the U.S. military
announced a reward program covering information about Saddam himself, his
associates and weapons of all kinds.
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- Some theories suggest Saddam might be hiding in Tikrit,
where loyal fighters are suspected of preparing a last stand.
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- Others suggest he died in a bombing raid in the upscale
Mansur district of Baghdad on Monday -- although local residents said they
saw his younger son Qusay alive in a Baghdad suburb after the attack.
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