Julian Borger in Washington and Rory McCarthy in Camp as-Sayliya, Qatar
Tuesday April 8, 2003
The Guardian
A US bomber struck and demolished a building in Baghdad where the Americans believed Saddam Hussein and his sons were meeting to discuss an escape route out of the city, it was reported last night.
Acting on what they called three credible sources, including a listening device planted in the building, a single B-1 bomber dropped four bunker busting satellite guided bombs on the target.
According to the reports, a voice sounding like President Saddam's had been overheard discussing routes out of the city. The building was in the al-Mansour neighbourhood and the strike happened at 2pm Baghdad time.
A senior US official was quoted in US television news reports last night as declaring himself "confident" that the Iraqi leader and his sons Qusay and Uday had been in the building as it was struck.
US intelligence had also been confident that a cruise missile and stealth bomber strike that opened the war on March 20 had also hit a building where President Saddam had been holding a meeting and there were subsequent reports that the Iraqi leader had been injured in that attack.
The bombing came as US troops had established a foothold in central Baghdad, after a foray by an armoured column met only light resistance and took control of a presidential palace on the banks of the river Tigris.
After a series of quick raids to test the city defences in recent days, US military officials said three battalions of US mechanised infantry which drove into town yesterday morning would remain there "for the time being".
As dawn broke in the Iraqi capital machine gun fire and several explosions were heard at the palace compound, indications that Iraqi forces, scattered by the US advance, could be mounting a counter attack.
"It seems as if Iraqi forces are bombarding the compound. I saw flashes as whatever it was they were firing landed," said Reuters correspondent Khaled Yacoub Oweis from a hotel across the Tigris river from the presidential palace compound.
The US forces appeared to reply by firing about a dozen rockets in quick succession from the compound towards the north west of the city. A small fire could also be seen in the compound.
Earlier, General Richard Myers, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, claimed the Iraqi Republican Guard had been smashed. "Of 800 tanks they began with, all but a couple of dozen have been destroyed or abandoned."
The aim of the incursion by 65 tanks and 40 armoured vehicles was both military and psychological, military analysts said. The tanks rolled across Baghdad's main military parade ground, near the al-Rashid hotel, but the greatest prize was the presidential palace.