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U.S. Troops Find Bones at Saddam Bomb Site

Wednesday, June 04, 2003 12:46 p.m. ET

By Andrew Marshall

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops dug bones from a Baghdad bomb site Wednesday after launching a fresh search to see whether Saddam Hussein and his sons survived a bid to kill them in April with bunker-busting bombs.

Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said a more thorough search of the site in the upscale Mansur neighborhood of Baghdad had begun after intelligence reports suggested human remains were buried under the rubble.

"You can imagine that if we have an intel lead that possibly there was somebody like Saddam Hussein in that location, we exploit it," he told a news conference in Baghdad. "That's what we're doing."

Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded the war against Iraq, said in April that U.S.-led forces had DNA of the former Iraqi leader and it would be used to check whether attempts to kill him had succeeded. He gave no details about how it was obtained or authenticated.

Dust hung in the air at the bomb site as troops used bulldozers and cranes to haul debris onto trucks, which took it away for forensic examination.

"We are meticulously searching the rubble and we have found some skeletal remains," said a U.S. private at the site.

Locals in Mansur say several civilians died in the bombing, and some bodies have not yet been recovered.

Exactly eight weeks after U.S. forces seized Baghdad, the fate of Saddam and his sons Qusay and Uday remains a mystery.

Several houses in Mansur were destroyed on April 7 when U.S. planes dropped four 2,000-pound "bunker-buster" bombs after receiving reports that Saddam and his sons were meeting in a building in the area.

But a number of sightings of Saddam were reported after the air strike on Mansur. In particular, many Iraqis said they saw him near a mosque in the Adhamiya district of northern Baghdad on April 9, the day Baghdad fell to the Americans.

Video footage of Saddam, said to have been shot near the mosque on April 9, has also circulated.

McKiernan said more effort was needed to search the site for evidence on whether Saddam had been killed.

"We did this initially, but perhaps I did not do it in great enough detail, and so we are sending some additional assets into that area to look at it," he said.

McKiernan said he blamed "regime-connected or Baath party remnants" for a series of attacks that have killed and injured several U.S. soldiers in Baghdad and the surrounding provinces in the last few weeks. But he said there was no sign that the attacks were being coordinated by former Iraqi leaders.

"I do not see any pattern of any centralised command and control in these attacks," he said. "I believe these are localized, decentralized attacks by those who were part of the old regime and will not be part of the new regime."

He said removing the rubble from the bomb site could take two weeks, and the forensic tests even longer.

"It's a big hole," he said. "There's a lot of rubble to go through."

"We are meticulously searching the rubble and we have found some skeletal remains," said a U.S. private at the site.

didn't know it was okeydokey to post the whole article... anyone know what the "sensitive" news sites are?

"...somebody like Saddam Hussein in that location, we explo...uh...exploit it."

Can Muttly have dibs on any "extra" Royal Family bones ?

It's O.K. if you're a different species, y'know. As long as they're not typing-dog bones...

...then on the other paw...

They found Chandra!

Col. Hunt on FNC said this AM that his intelligence sources say that SH and his sons may well be dead in that rubble. I'm not sure what to think.

I've been dead for years, Jim!

Thanks for posting that excerpt. Here's the rest:

Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded the war against Iraq, said in April that U.S.-led forces had Saddam's DNA and it would be used to check whether attempts to kill him had succeeded.
MOUNTING ANGER
McKiernan said reinforcements were being sent to areas north and west of Baghdad where U.S. forces have come under attack in a series of ambushes that have killed and injured several in the last few weeks.
He blamed "regime-connected or Baath party remnants" for the attacks, and said they would be rooted out.
"To address this threat we are applying additional military resources and forces to help us identify and decisively defeat these anti-coalition, and I might add anti-Iraqi, regime elements," he said.
Many of the reinforcements are being sent to Falluja, where at least 15 people were killed in two clashes with troops in late April, fueling calls for revenge among the population of 400,000 who belong to the largely pro-Saddam Dulaimi tribe.
Many residents say they preferred Saddam's rule to the U.S.-led occupation.
"We want our President Saddam back," reads one slogan daubed on a wall in the town, 45 miles west of Baghdad.
Many residents said they were angered by the behavior of U.S. troops. Local complaints about intrusive searches of houses sparked the initial clashes in the town in April.
"My son is a doctor. He was driving his car to hospital when they stopped him and forced him to lie on the street face down with his hands tied behind his back for two hours in the heat," said local schoolteacher Rajab Hassan Hamadani.
"They searched his car and found his pistol which he has for protection. They confiscated it and then let him go. Didn't they say pistols would not be confiscated?"
The U.S. launched a two-week gun amnesty on June 1, urging Iraqis to turn in heavy weapons, although they may keep assault rifles at home and carry licensed handguns.
But McKiernan said the amnesty had yielded only around 300 weapons across Iraq so far -- a tiny number in a country bristling with guns. Many Iraqis say they need to hold on to their firearms to protect themselves from the looters and criminals who have flourished in post-Saddam Iraq.
Copyright © 2003 Reuters Limited.