President George Bush declared yesterday that the killing of Saddam Hussein’s heirs, Uday and Qusay, should demonstrate to Iraqis that the ousted regime had been destroyed once and for all.
In a Rose Garden speech the president said that in Tuesday’s assault on a house in Mosul where the two brothers had been hiding ”the careers of two of the regime’s chief henchmen came to an end”.
”Saddam Hussein’s sons were responsible for the torture, maiming and murder of countless Iraqis,” he said, adding that their deaths should reassure Iraqis ”that the former regime is gone and will not be coming back”.
Tony Blair also hailed confirmation of the killings as a ”very important move forward”.
”These two particular people were at the head of a regime that wasn’t just a security threat because of its weapons programme but was responsible for the torture and killing of thousands and thousands of innocent Iraqis.”
Although there has been delight in London and Washington at the discovery and death of two of the regime’s most hated figures, US officials yesterday had to defend the decision to storm the house in Mosul, rather than embark on a long siege in the hope of capturing Saddam’s sons alive.
A bodyguard and Qusay’s 14-year-old son, Mustafa, were also killed in the assault.
US officials said Mustafa, who had been in a bedroom at the back of the house, was the last to die. He appears to have continued shooting at US soldiers even after his father and uncle were dead.
General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of ground forces in Iraq, said the decision to launch the assault was ”made by the commander on the ground and that was the right decision”.
Gen Sanchez said: ”Our mission was find, kill or capture. We had an enemy that was barricaded and we had to take measures to neutralise the target.”
A debate was under way yesterday within the administration over whether to release pictures of the dead brothers to help convince Iraqis that they were really dead.
The pictures have been described as ”horrific” but Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, argued that their release could undermine guerrilla groups devoted to restoring the old regime.
”The main consideration on our minds,” he said, ”is that it is saving the lives of American men and women who are on the line.”
But US hopes that the deaths of the two would reduce the number of guerrilla attacks appeared premature. Two American soldiers were killed and eight wounded in separate incidents yesterday, although it was unclear whether the attacks were related to the Mosul assault.
The continued presence of Saddam also made itself felt, with the broadcast on a Dubai-based television channel of the latest in a series of audio-taped messages purported to be from the ousted dictator, in which he urged Iraqis to drive out the country’s occupiers.
The tape is believed to have been made two days before Tuesday’s raid in Mosul, but was another stark reminder that America’s main target still appears to be alive.
Bush said a new plan proposed by the US civil administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, would accelerate progress towards restoring ”full Iraqi democracy”.
According to early reports of Bremer’s plan, it sets a two-month target for recruiting and training the first battalion of a new Iraqi army, and the creation of eight battalions of a new civil defence force, to help protect Iraqi infrastructure from guerrilla attacks.
By the two-month deadline, a central criminal court would also be established and electrical power would be restored to prewar levels.
Bush also called for greater international support for the reconstruction effort. – Guardian Unlimited Â