- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As
Baghdad fell from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's control, covert CIA
and military teams and surveillance devices set up to monitor top Iraqi
officials reported that nearly all of them had disappeared, The Washington
Post reported on Thursday.
-
- CIA and Special Operations teams targeting the Iraqi
leadership discovered that Saddam's Baath Party leaders, Republican Guard
leaders, troops and high-level government officials were not at their usual
posts on Wednesday, the report said.
-
- "There was no sign of any leaders, anywhere,"
a senior U.S. administration official was quoted as saying.
-
- "All of a sudden, all communications ceased and
the regime didn't come to work," a senior administration official
told the newspaper.
-
- Even Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who
has turned up daily during the war and poured abuse on the Americans, failed
to make an appearance.
-
- U.S. military commanders said they suspected that some
Iraqi leaders had gone to Hussein's hometown of Tikrit for a final showdown
and that others had fled to Syria, The Post reported.
-
- According to the newspaper, CIA analysts reports said
the most likely explanation for the sudden drop-off in detectable communications
and activity among such a large number of key people is that an order to
disappear was given in Saddam's name, and that he is still alive.
-
- The article said intelligence sources thought another
less probable possibility was that Saddam was killed in one of two U.S.
air attacks that targeted him -- one March 19, the other April 8 -- and
that word of his death finally leaked out.
-
- If Saddam is alive, he and his loyalists may have sought
refuge in Tikrit, the newspaper said, adding that the town about 90 miles
north of Baghdad has been a special target for U.S. precision bombing.
|
