Posted on 07/22/2003 11:13:57 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
Hunt is on for Saddam after sons killed in Iraq
By Andrew Marshall
BAGHAD, July 23 ( reuters) - The search for Saddam Hussein drew fresh impetus on Wednesday after U.S. soldiers killed his two sons Uday and Qusay in a fierce six-hour gunbattle in northern Iraq.
U.S. generals also hope the killings will inspire confidence among ordinary Iraqis, who have been reluctant to cooperate as long as the feared former ruling family remained at large and possibly directing guerrilla-style attacks.
Though celebratory gunfire in Baghdad greeted news of the deaths of Uday and Qusay on Tuesday after a siege at a "safe house" villa in the northern city of Mosul, one task facing the Americans will be to convince the public they are truly gone.
Another will be to reassure Iraqis that Saddam can be caught after evading U.S.-led forces since they toppled him from power on April 9.
Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said the killing of Uday and Qusay underlined the determination of his forces to rid Iraq of the Saddam era.
"It confirms that we will succeed in our hunt for former regime members, and in particular Saddam Hussein, wherever they are and however long it takes," he said in a statement.
At a hastily called news conference in Baghdad after four bodies were flown to the Iraqi capital from the Mosul villa, Sanchez said he had "multiple" sources for the identification of Uday and Qusay.
Pressed on how he would convince hesitant Iraqis, he said he would address that issue on Wednesday. U.S forces seem unlikely to relish risking unfavourable comparison with Iraq's former dictator by publishing unsightly photographs.
But Iraqis are a sceptical public after three decades of Saddam's manipulation of the media. With the terror of his rule still fresh, many are reluctant to disown him in public.
And suspicion of American motives in invading their oil-rich country is running high as promises to restore basic services remain unfulfilled.
BOUNTY HUNT
Sanchez said Tuesday's raid in Mosul followed a tip-off from an Iraqi and he expected to pay out on $15 million rewards each for Uday, 39, and Qusay, born in 1966.
By offering huge bounties, U.S. officials made it a priority to hunt down Saddam and his lieutenants.
They say this will undermine shadowy groups that have conducted almost daily attacks on U.S. forces, killing six soldiers in as many days and 39 in all since U.S. President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1.
But that assumes the enemy are die-hard Saddam loyalists who have been motivated by the prospect of restoring him or his heir apparent, Qusay, to their palaces.
Other groups, however, have also claimed responsibility for some attacks, distancing themselves from Saddam's secular Iraqi nationalism and embracing the Islamist, anti-American slogans popular among the likes of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
Uday and Qusay were not noticeably close in life, but they went down fighting side-by-side in the violent tradition of their clan.
Barricading themselves into the villa, they resisted some 200 U.S. soldiers backed by helicopters and firing rockets and machine guns for several sweltering hours.
Two other bodies removed from the villa were a grandson of Saddam and an aide of Uday, a U.S. official said.
Uday lost his father's trust after years of high living and brutal behaviour, beating to death one of Saddam's aides in 1988, abusing women and narrowly surviving an assassination attempt in 1996.
But he still led Saddam's Fedayeen militia, remnants of which some U.S. officials see behind attacks on their troops.
Qusay, noticeably more sober and favouring a clipped moustache to Uday's designer stubble, commanded the elite Republican Guard and came to be seen as his father's successor.
Their deaths will be a boost to Bush. He has been under pressure over mounting casualties among his soldiers and their failure to find any of the chemical, biological or nuclear weapons that he used to justify war despite widespread international opposition.
Bush hailed the deaths of "brutal regime leaders" Uday and Qusay as "further assurance to the Iraqi people that the regime is gone and won't be back," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.
I don't want him to shut up; I want him to get the DemocRAT nomination in 2004 so W can rack up the kind of reelection margin at the national level that he rack up in 1998 when running for reelection as governor of Texas. I want the DemocRAT ticket to perform so badly that it drags down 8-12 incumbent DemocRAT senators to defeat. I want Republicans to gain 15-30 seats in the House.
Maybe one day before I die, I will be fortunate enough to witness an American press corp that actually roots for America.
Right now I don't see it but for a few occasions on Fox and MSNBC. Chris Mathews looked like he was reading the Obituary of a close friend when he announced that Uday & Quesay were killed in a fire fight today in Mosul Iraq. He didn't even make it his top story. In fact he opened his show with a diatribe over the already dead issue of the Uranium intel and his unrelenting attack on Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby
For the sake of our children, I'll continue to pray that we will be delivered from these leftist in the media in our lifetime,
Oh, contraire. The louder and longer the rats keep yammering about Iraq, the louder and longer Americans are reminded of how weak Democrats are on security, and Democrats' unwillingness to defend the nation. Go-Howard-Go!
Matthews showed what a clown he is by pushing the Uday/Qusay story to the bottom of the hour, a second-tier story to the GREATEST WHITE HOUSE SCANDAL IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD: THAT ONE LINE IN ONE PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH! ;-)
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