- (DPA) -- Well-informed Lebanese sources said today that
former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's second wife supplied the US with
"some information" about where her husband was hiding in Iraq.
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- Samira Shahbandar, who lives with the ousted Iraqi leader's
only surviving son Ali, "is believed to have given the Americans and
their allies some information about the area where Saddam was hiding in,"
the sources said.
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- Saddam was captured based on information from a member
of a family "close to him", Major General Raymond Odierno said.
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- Odierno, the commander of the 4th Infantry Division that
captured Saddam, said that over the last 10 days soldiers had questioned
"five to 10 members" of families "close to Saddam".
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- "Finally we got the ultimate information from one
of these individuals," he said.
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- Lebanese security sources failed to confirm whether Samira
was living in Beirut under an assumed name with her son, as was reported
by the Sunday Times in London.
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- The Times report claimed that Samira spoke to her husband
on the phone weekly and received letters from him regularly.
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- According to the paper, Saddam's wife told them that
her husband gave her $US5 million ($A6.78 million) in cash plus gold and
jewellery before sending her with his son Ali to the Syrian border after
the US-led invasion of Iraq in March.
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- The paper said a representative of the Sunday Times met
Samira in La Cottage, a restaurant in the ancient city of Baalbeck in eastern
Lebanon. However, sources in Baalbeck told Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA)
there was no La Cottage restaurant in the city.
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- During a press conference in Baghdad today, the US forces
commander in Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez, ignored a question as to whether
the US had received information from Saddam's second wife, saying only,
"We had intelligence information".
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- Copyright © 2003 The Sydney Morning Herald.
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- http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/15/1071336830886.html
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