December 23, 2003

Sources in the Kurdish PUK told a Cairo news agency two days after Saddam Hussein's capture that the dictator's location had come to them from Hussein's second wife. This claim contradicted a report the day before, in which unnamed US officials told ABC News US forces were led to Saddam Hussein's spider hole by a low-level bodyguard.

The following story was reported on Dec. 16 by the BBC Monitoring Service:

Saddam's Second Wife Provided Tip-Off on Hideout Say Kurdish Group Source: MENA News Agency, Cairo, in English 1424 gmt 16 Dec 03

Sulaymaniah, Iraq, 16 December - Saddam Hussein's second wife tipped off the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan [PUK] chairman's office about the deposed Iraqi leader's hideout, PUK sources said on Tuesday (16 December).

Korat Rasul, PUK chairman Jalal Talabani's aide who had masterminded the capture of former Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yasin Ramadan, made a phone call with Samirah [Hussein's second wife]. He then acted on the tip-off, moving with a number of Peshmerga members to Tikrit near which Saddam was later detained.

But the US forces, who had been informed of the tip-off, refused to allow Peshmerga troops to arrest the former Iraqi leader lest it spark a civil war between Arabs and Kurds, according to sources.

Some 600 American soldiers, backed by helicopter gunships, laid seige to the designated area where the former Iraqi strongman, on the run for several months, was captured.

In contrast, the Dec. 15 ABC News story quoted "US officials" as saying the key tip-off had come to US forces from a "low-level bodyguard" captured on Friday, Dec. 12 -- about a day before Hussein's capture in the famous spider hole.

According to the ABC News report ("One of His Own: Low-Level Bodyguard Tipped Off U.S. on Saddam's Location," ABCnews.com, 12/15/03]

U.S forces have been searching for the low-level bodyguard since July when they saw his name on a list generated by the CIA's special analytic unit out of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

"As we learned more about him, literally since July 8, we were very much interested in talking to that individual," Col. Jim Hickey, who led the 1st Brigade Combat team from the 4th Infantry Division on their mission to kill or capture the Iraqi leader, told a news conference today.

The informant, a member of Saddam's tribe, was arrested Friday in Baghdad and sent to Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, to be interrogated on Saturday, U.S. officials have said.

Five subsequent raids in the Tikrit area turned up the bodyguard's relatives, who provided further information on his whereabouts. In the process of searching for him, U.S. forces found $1.9 million in cash in $100 bills, which caused them to increase the intensity of their search for the bodyguard, Hickey said.

"Some of the officers I work with here in Tikrit learned he had information about the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein," Hickey said at the news conference. "We were able to set to work the preparations to conduct the raid."

[The US had intelligence that Hussein was travelling in taxi cabs.] When the informant gave the military information about the possible location near the town of Adwar Saturday morning, aerial surveillance revealed the presence of an orange and white taxi parked next to a sheep pen.

...A force of 600 troops of the 4th Infantry Division moved in on Saturday night at 8 p.m. local time and found Saddam hiding in an underground "spider hole" at 8:26 p.m.

The same ABC News report also provided the following timeline of "Operation Red Dawn," based on the official US account:

10:50 a.m. local time, 2:50 a.m. ET: U.S. forces receive intelligence on the possible location of Saddam. Two areas are considered near the town of Adwar, which is approximately 10 miles south of Tikrit, Saddam's home town. The areas are identified as "Wolverine 1" and "Wolverine 2."

6 p.m. local time, 10 a.m. ET: Some 600 artillery, cavalry and special operations forces position in the dark and begin movement toward the two areas.

8 p.m. local time, 12 noon ET: Coalition forces assault the two areas but do not initially find the target. The 1st Brigade Combat Team then encloses the area and begins an intensive search. Troops subsequently find a suspicious location to the northwest of Wolverine 2.

8:26 p.m. local time, 12:26 p.m. ET: Soldiers find Saddam Hussein hiding in an underground crawl space, described as a "spider hole," in the town of Adwar. They capture him without incident. They also catch two other people.

9:15 p.m. local time, 1:15 p.m. ET: Saddam is moved to a secure area and soldiers search his hideout and the surrounding area. Soldiers also confiscate approximately $750,000 in $100 bills, two AK-47s and a pistol.

[Read the source...]