The Pentagon yesterday fuelled speculation that Saddam Hussein was killed or severely injured during the war’s opening exchanges.
Sources inside the Pentagon told The Observer that there was a ‘credible circumstantial case’ for believing that Saddam had ‘disappeared in one way or other — deceased or too badly incapacitated to be an effective ruler’.
That scenario was underlined by one British military source. ‘He does not appear to be in control,’ he said.
Pentagon sources also said that there had been no communications from any of Saddam’s presidential palaces since the first wave of attacks on what was called an ‘opportunity target’ on Thursday morning.
After all previous rumoured assassination attempts and other crises in his country, Saddam has made it his business to make public appearances.
American military commanders brought forward their attack plans because they had intelligence that Saddam and his two sons, Uday and Qusay, were planning to move from one location to another. It acknowledged the lost opportunity at the start of the Afghan war to take out Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
The attack by 36 Tomahawk cruise missiles that began 45 minutes before President Bush had addressed the nation on Wednesday night targeted a villa in the southern suburbs of Baghdad and confounded many with its restraint. On Thursday morning, an intelligence report reached Washington that Saddam had been seen being carried out of a building on a stretcher, with an oxygen mask attached to his face.
Saddam later apparently appeared on Iraqi television taunting the American ‘sons of bitches and bastards’.
Although there was immediate suspicion that this was a double, CIA analysts ratified that it was Saddam but did not date the vintage of the tape, leaving open the possibility that with Saddam dead or injured, his loyal aides had put out the video to maintain the impression that he was alive and the nation remained led.
Whitehall sources said intelligence reports suggested that Saddam had recorded a number of video messages before the conflict to be broadcast on Iraqi television after the bombardment began. – Guardian Unlimited Â