Found: Saddam's last safe house in Baghdad

The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 05/25/03 | Con Coughlin

[Pokey78]

Con Coughlin discovers the last safe house in Baghdad that the former Iraqi dictator moved into - and then days later suddenly abandoned - just before American troops overran the city

From the outside the house, with its front garden filled with lofty palm trees and neatly trimmed gardenias, looks like any other family residence. It is only when you walk into the main living room that the real function of this modest-looking Baghdad villa is revealed - as Saddam Hussein's suburban hideaway.

In fact the spacious bookcase that lines an entire wall of the room is more giveaway than hideaway, especially after Baghdad's voracious looters have denuded it of all its contents. Midway along the structure there is a discernible gap which, on closer inspection, turns out to be a door that leads to a cavernous network of chambers, the perfect retreat for a tyrant on the run.

Although the looters have stripped Saddam's safe house of most of its fixtures, furniture and fittings, it is still possible to discern the style to which the Iraqi dictator would have become accustomed during his short tenure. A red-carpeted staircase - Saddam was, after all, Iraq's head of state - leads to a well-proportioned living room, with sufficient space for holding meetings with his most trusted confidantes. The back window has recently been bricked up to protect the occupants from the attentions of prying neighbours rather than from coalition bombs.

To one side there is a well-equipped kitchen and a bathroom fitted with a double-sized bath, large enough to accommodate Saddam and at least one of his wives or mistresses. A side door leads from the kitchen to the garage with sufficient space for two large cars. The presidential garage is also concealed by a false wall.

On the other side of the complex there are several bedrooms, which, according to the landlord, were occupied by Saddam and his two sons, Uday and Qusay. About the only piece of furniture that has not been looted is a collapsible hospital bed that the landlord says was brought in for Uday, Saddam's psychopathic eldest son, who is a semi-invalid after injuries received from a failed assassination attempt in 1996. It is also possible that the bed was used by Saddam himself given that it was widely held during Operation Iraqi Freedom that the former leader was injured during one of the "decapitation" strikes that were launched against his various bunkers, and required hospital treatment.

The landlord is an Iraqi businessman who, judging by the impressive dimensions and extravagance of his own residence, clearly prospered under Saddam's regime. To begin with he is quite reluctant to discuss the unorthodox living accommodation that he has for rent in Baghdad's residential district of Arasat al-Hindi (which means "the Indian camp") and is so-named after the Indian troops who were billeted there after the British conquest of Iraq during the First World War.

But after much cajoling, and after extracting a promise that he will not be named (like most Iraqis, the landlord believes Saddam survived the war and will avenge himself against anyone who attempts to betray him), he finally concedes that the Iraqi leader and his sons resided at this house during the final stages of the war. Indeed, if the landlord is to be believed, this house was in all probability the last safe house Saddam used in Baghdad before making good his escape as American troops threatened to overrun the city.

"Saddam moved into the house a few days before the end of the war," says the landlord. "He stayed there four or five days. Then he left as suddenly as he arrived."

The landlord believes that Saddam vacated the premises on April 8, the day before American marines made their daring breakthrough into the centre of Baghdad and undertook the symbolically important gesture of pulling down one of Saddam's statues in central Baghdad, an event that signified that Saddam's regime had finally been toppled.

Saddam's temporary neighbours at Arasat al-Hindi also appear to back up the landlord's version of the events that took place during the first week of April. They, too, ask not to be named. "Saddam's men are still driving around here," one confided nervously. "If they know I am talking to you we all know what will happen." He pointed an imaginary gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

One of the neighbours relates how at the start of the war a group of Saddam's special security guards arrived at the house and sealed it off. "They were very threatening. One evening I had gone up on to the roof of my house to watch the bombing. The next morning one of the guards confronted me and asked me what I was doing on the roof. I explained that I was looking for fighter aircraft. The guard told me: "F*** the fighters. In future keep inside your house - or else."

The neighbours all agree that Saddam arrived with Uday and Qusay in a gold-tinted four-wheel-drive vehicle bearing the distinctive blue licence plates of Iraq's Ministry of Education. All three men had their faces covered with black and white keffiyah scarves, but Uday in particular was recognisable by his awkward gait.

Saddam's presence in Arasat al-Hindi, assuming the accounts provided by the landlord and the neighbours are correct, is the last confirmed sighting of the Iraqi dictator since the conflict began. And the fact that both sets of witnesses concur that they believe Saddam left the safe house on April 8 also appears to refute claims made by the US and British governments that he was killed during the bombing of the al-Saa (the watch) restaurant in the city's al-Mansour district on April 7.

Certainly The Telegraph's discovery of Saddam's hideaway in Arasat al-Hindi is consistent with Western intelligence reports that, after the outbreak of hostilities in Iraq last March, Saddam had forsaken his many palaces, which were being directly targeted by Allied air strikes, for the security of a number of safe houses located on the outskirts of Baghdad. Which raises the question: if this is how Saddam was living during the war, could he be using the same subterfuge to hide out in Baghdad now that the city is under the control of coalition forces?

In Washington, of course, the official line of the Bush administration is that Saddam and his sons most probably perished during Operation Iraqi Freedom, a view that persists even after last week's Wall Street Journal report that Uday is negotiating his surrender terms with US officials. But there again, having let Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, slip through their fingers during the war in Afghanistan, it is understandable that US military chiefs do not want to be accused of letting another notorious international renegade escape their grasp.

Certainly, in the three weeks that I have been in Iraq every single Iraqi I have met - officials and civilians alike - believes that Saddam is alive and, furthermore, still in Iraq and preparing to conduct a bloody guerrilla campaign to drive the American and British occupiers out of the country.

Last week it emerged that Saddam's loyalists have formed a new party called al-O'ada, or "the return", which gives an unequivocal indication as to their current intentions. Saddam loyalists have been held responsible for a number of attacks that have been carried out against the homes of Iraqi leaders involved in the country's interim administration, and have also acted as agents provocateur to sow discord among the civilian population by orchestrating anti-American demonstrations, some of which have ended in violence.

All of which should make the capture of Saddam and his immediate family a key priority for the coalition, even if it is reluctant to admit as much in public. But even though his regime's infrastructure now lies in ruins, and with nearly 300,000 Allied troops occupying the country he ruled with an iron will for more than 30 years, Saddam will not be an easy quarry to run to ground.

Last week coalition officials discovered that during the war Saddam paid an estimated $1.3 billion in bribes to loyalists and local leaders to ensure their allegiance in the event of his defeat. As one member of the interim leadership commented last week: "That kind of protection money buys an awful lot of protection in a country like Iraq."

Nor is Saddam short of places to hide. Saddam and his family are thought to have literally thousands of safe houses, such as the one we discovered at Arasat al-Hindi last week, scattered around the country, and the combination of multi-million dollar bribes and the nationwide network of hiding places he has at his disposal could provide him with effective protection for months to come.

Another indication of the intricate preparations Saddam took in the event of defeat can be seen in the arrangements he made for his family. After last week's revelation in this newspaper that one of Saddam's nephews is currently residing in Damascus under the protection of Syrian intelligence, I was able to make contact with an Iraqi businessman, who declined to be named, who claims to have helped transfer "tens of millions of dollars" from a bank account run by Saddam's family in Jordan to the Iraqi embassy in Damascus just before hostilities commenced. "The money was mainly for Saddam's wife Sajida and the immediate family," the businessman said. "In all, more than one hundred members of Saddam's family relocated to Damascus for the duration of the war."

Many of Saddam's close family are continuing to commute between northern Iraq and Damascus by taking advantage of the intricate network of smuggling routes that were used by his regime to circumvent UN sanctions. Among the recent arrivals in Damascus are Saddam's granddaughter Mouj (Qusay's daughter), who arrived in the Syrian capital last week with her husband Ali Adnan Khairallah (the son of Adnan Khairallah, Saddam's cousin and the former Iraqi defence minister who was murdered by Saddam in 1989). In conversations with his business associates in Baghdad last week, Ali Khairallah claimed that he last spoke to Saddam on April 5 when the Iraqi leader told him: "Don't worry, everything is going to work out fine. Have faith."

The failure of the coalition forces both to take effective action against attempts by Saddam's loyalists to regroup, and to curtail the movement of his immediate family - many of whom had important roles in the deposed regime - is an increasing cause for concern for Iraqi politicians involved in trying to form a new administration in Baghdad.

"If Saddam is not captured soon it will be a disaster," says Dr Ayad Allawi, one of the five Iraqi leaders of Iraq's interim authority. "Iraq after Saddam was never going to be an easy place to govern, and so long as Saddam is still at large he will continue to pose a threat to the future stability of the country."

[RS]

To begin with he is quite reluctant to discuss the unorthodox living accommodation that he has for rent in Baghdad's residential district of Arasat al-Hindi

I can think of a few people that might be able to make him less reluctant to duiscuss his holdings.

[Defender2]

Sadam, you and Osama can run but you can't hide forever. One Day indeed, WE will get Both of You!!!! And when that Day Comes, You both will be meeting you're maker, sending you both straight to H*ll!!!!