- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's half brother has been captured in Iraq
near the Syrian border and is in U.S. custody, U.S. officials said on Sunday.
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- Watban Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti was captured in the last
several days by non-American elements and turned over to the U.S. military,
U.S. officials told Reuters.
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- Watban is the five of spades in the deck of playing cards
depicting the Iraqi leadership on a U.S. most-wanted list of 55 people
issued on Friday.
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- Saddam's half brother from his mother's second marriage,
he was a presidential adviser but was not close to Saddam who had suspicions
about Watban's loyalty, U.S. officials said.
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- "He and Saddam were estranged, they were not close.
Saddam was very suspicious of him, thought he was disloyal and kept him
on a very tight leash," one official said.
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- Because he was not a member of the inner circle, the
information he could provide to the United States might be more along the
lines of insights about the family, residences and where those who survived
the war might flee, U.S. officials said.
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- There was some speculation that Watban may be the source
of DNA to identify Saddam that war commander Gen. Tommy Franks referred
to on Sunday.
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- "That would be like a walking supply of DNA,"
another official said.
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- One of Saddam's three younger half brothers, Watban was
made interior minister in 1991 and hailed by state media as the man who
would stop soaring crime blamed on U.N. economic sanctions after the Gulf
War. At the time, the post was the second most powerful in the cabinet
after defense minister.
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- But he was dismissed in 1995 following repeated attacks
on the police in the newspaper Babel, which is published by Uday -- Saddam's
influential eldest son.
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- Later that year, Watban was injured in a mysterious shooting
at a party outside Baghdad, which fueled rumors of family feuding.
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- On Saturday, Saddam's top scientific adviser Amer Hammoudi
al-Saadi surrendered to U.S. troops. U.S. officials hope he will unlock
the secrets to Iraq's suspected biological, chemical and nuclear programs.
Baghdad consistently denied it had such weapons.
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- The United States launched a war on Iraq saying that
Saddam's government posed a threat due to suspected banned weapons programs.
U.S. troops have not yet uncovered any confirmed sites of such weapons.
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- A top Iraqi nuclear scientist, Ja'far al-Ja'far, also
has surrendered to U.S. authorities outside Iraq, U.S. officials said.
It could not immediately be determined in which country he surrendered,
but officials said it was not Syria where the United States suspects some
Iraqi leaders may have fled.
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- The fate of Saddam and his sons Uday and Qusay remained
a mystery after two separate U.S. bombings of sites where they were believed
to be inside.
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