- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein, possibly with one or both of his sons, was inside
a Baghdad compound when it was struck by a barrage of bombs and cruise
missiles at the outset of the U.S. military assault, the Washington Post
reported on Thursday.
-
- In an article quoting unnamed senior Bush administration
officials, the Post reported that intelligence analysts were not certain
whether the Iraqi leader was killed or injured, or whether he escaped the
attack that came shortly after a U.S. deadline for him and his sons to
leave the country lapsed.
-
- "The preponderance of the evidence is he was there
when the building blew up," the newspaper quoted one senior U.S. official
with access to sensitive intelligence material as saying.
-
- The article, due to appear in the newspaper's Friday
editions, was published late on Thursday on its Web site at wwww.washingtonpost.com.
-
- Another official said there was some evidence that Saddam
was injured, citing indications that medical attention was urgently summoned
on his behalf.
-
- The condition of Saddam's sons, or any others who might
have been at the compound, was also unknown, the article said.
-
- After the U.S. air raid on Thursday, Iraqi television
broadcast a videotape in which a grim-faced Saddam condemned a "criminal,
reckless" President Bush. U.S. officials said they could not be sure
the man on the tape was in fact Saddam.
-
- The Post said the U.S. government was consulting with
Parisoula Lampsos, a woman described as a former Saddam mistress who has
been able to distinguish the Iraqi leader from doubles in more than a dozen
cases.
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