I think the story now is,.....
who was the original source for this well embellished (with detail) story....
and what were they trying to do...
Well, this is the original story I saw yesterday.
http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/
Even "our" Arabs have a 'Baghdad Bob' problem of saying what they hope and not sticking to verified truth ...
There's some fire under the smoke, but we dont know what it is ...
It looks like at least this much is true:
1) They got a tip Izzat was at this clinic.
"We had received information that he was admitted to a hospital near Tikrit, or let us say a clinic to have blood transfusion," Sarhan told the U.S.-funded, Arabic-language television station Alhurra.
2) They set up a raid there.
"As soon as we received this information, the forces were able to plan a major operation to arrest him," he said.
3) They captured and killed a number of people in
the action.
Ahmed Hadi, a spokesman for the minister of state for provincial affairs, said the approximately 150 gunmen with al-Douri clashed with the Iraqi forces. He did not say if there were any casualties. Hadi said the raid was carried out by Iraqi National Guard suppported by U.S. troops, helicopters and tanks.
4) They maybe got someone who looks like Izzat, or who they thought was him:
We are sure he is Izzat Ibrahim," information official Ibrahim Janabi said. "He was arrested in a clinic in Makhoul near Tikrit and Adwar (his hometown in northern Iraq) and 60 percent of the DNA test has finished."
Iraqi Minister of State Qassim Dawoud confirmed al-Douri's arrest. At a press conference in Kuwait, Qassim said some 150 others who were defending him were also arrested.
5) He's our #1 target now - if we get him, it's a big win:
Al-Douri, who had a U.S. bounty of $10 million on his head, was the highest-ranking member of Saddam's government who was still at large. Once the vice chairman of the Baath Party's Revolutionary Command Council, he was a longtime confidant of Saddam.
"A curse upon your mustache" Izzat.
just getting home now, trying to follow this story with scant media reports today.
not sure what to make of this - but one thing, perhaps his capture cannot be acknowledged. if he has information to give, and he wants to enter the "witness protection program", we certainly can't say that we nabbed him, only to release him later. we've got to deny his capture right away, so he can just fade away.
if, within the next 2-3 weeks, suddenly we see some new bunker located with WMD - we'll know we got him, and what information he turned over to secure his new identity.