Mystery over Saddam as battle rages - (Saddam REtargeted?)

MSNBC ^ | 8 April, 2003

[Happy2BMe]

Mystery over Saddam as battle rages

Buildings in the al-Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad lie in ruins Monday after the U.S. airstrike.

It's unclear whether Saddam Hussein was killed when an American bomber dropped four bombs on a site in Baghdad. NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski reports.

		NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES
		April 8 —   As U.S. officials tried to determine whether Saddam Hussein survived a massive bombing in Baghdad, the battle for control of the Iraqi capital raged Tuesday with American forces blasting government targets and foiling an apparent Iraqi counterattack. A U.S. warplane dropped four bunker-buster bombs and blasted a smoking crater 60 feet deep at a building Monday in the capital where U.S. officials believed the Iraqi president was meeting with at least one of his sons and other members of his inner circle.

[Happy2BMe]

Tue Apr 8,11:58 AM ET

A U.S. B-1 bomber that tried to kill Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in Baghdad dropped four satellite-guided bombs only 12 minutes after receiving orders that 'this is the big one,' the plane's weapons officer said on April 8, 2003. 'We used four weapons on the target,' Air Force Lt. Col. Fred Swan, told Pentagon (news - web sites) reporters of Monday's attack in a telephone interview from the region. 'From the time we got the coordinates, it took 12 minutes to get the bombs on target.' A B-1B Lancer from the U.S. Air Force 28th Air Expeditionary Wing heads out on a combat mission in support of strikes on Afghanistan (news - web sites) in this file picture released December 7, 2001. REUTERS/Cedric H. Rudisill/USAF/Handout

[SarahW]

YAY! someone else noticed his resemblence to the walk-about bouncer. He was wearing one of the "bouncer shirts", at least.

I figured he was

A:weeping for the loss of his leader

OR

B:fake weeping to make us THINK we killed his (on his way to an escape) leader

OR

C:was perhaps a provider of some intelligence, Fake weeping so he doens't get his tongue cut out.

I pick A.

[honeygrl]

"Separately, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported that the investigation could be hampered because U.S. officials do not possess Saddam’s DNA."

Well, they have 2 or 3 of his mansions under control... that means they probably have dirty laundry, his pillow, his shoes, etc.. can't be that hard to get a bit of DNA from something in his house.

[Mo1]

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[browardchad]

LOL! "A small boy, a young woman and an elderly man" are Iraqi-speak for "we didn't find nuthin' yet."

[LouisianaJoanof Arc]

link??

[dep]

Why Rita Cosby, in her "I got me a scoop!" exuberance of yesterday, leaked this stuff is beyond me.

okay. i'll tell you why. because she is a reporter and her job is to report. i agree that there is a problem with making this material public, but the problem is with the government official who told her.

dep

[GRANGER]

THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THEY WERE ALL STANDING WITHIN 4-6 METERS OF EACH OTHER WOULD COME FROM HEARING THEIR VOICES ON THE SAME LISTENING DEVICE. That is why there is so much confidence -- they listened until the *

[HIDEK6]

Might the young woman whose body was recovered be Dr. Germ?

[Happy2BMe]

Saddam's Favorite (French) Restaurant . .

[CCCnative]

I have not seen this mentioned as a possibility , but what if that restaurant just had a concealed entrance to an underground tunnel complex leading to a distant bunker that has its own second exit?
Kinda like a gopher. Unless you're very quick, you can only be sure of where he was.

[smith288]

Dont have one...it was on Fox and the others from a Abu Dhabi feed...

[browardchad]

The Iraqis are not that stupid.

I've been thinking about the intelligence of this regime over the past few days, in light of what we've seen, and I do think they are stupid, in the western sense of the word, simply because they haven't had to be very smart.

The chem/bio weapons we're beginning to find aren't hidden in any clever fashion, because it didn't take a heck of a lot to foil 100 reluctant and sympathetic inspectors.

Our CIA has been effectively castrated since the Church commission, and so they really didn't have to worry much about internal operatives, until, perhaps, recently.

The French, Russian and German enablers have not been shy in supplying arms, intelligence and defense systems, but they neglected to tell their customer that these weapons were no match for our capabilities.

They were convinced, after 12 years of the U.S. deferring to the U.N., eight years of a US president who had no intention of actually unleashing our military, and bribing/blackmailing Security Council and other U.N. members, that they would not be invaded.

Finally, if Saddam and company were so very smart, why were they still in Baghdad?

Hubris and Arab guile, coddled and magnified by Russian/European/Liberal greed and opportunism? Yes.

Smart? No.

[rs79bm]

I don't mind this, but at the start of the war we heard the same thing...Saddam and his Sons were at a building. It would be nice if we got them, however.

[Coog]

What a beautiful site!

Air Force Link News - Lancer hits regime leadership target

[Happy2BMe]

The Look On Bob's Face. . After He Spoke With Ambassador Dorothy . .

[COBOL2Java]

My guess is

D: Scared out of his mind because he was the one who had recommended the restaurant to Saddam in the first place...

[El Gato]

I'd bet that Iraq is like Hawaii - Everybody is a cousin...

No not Iraq, but Tikrit, where Saddam and his head thugs are from, yes indeed.

[Goodman26]

1. It is hard to believe he'd be so stupid as to be seen going in somewhere in broad daylight and then staying there for over an hour. It was probably just an entrance point for a tunnel.

2. If a guy resembling Saddam was seen going in, then it almost certainly was a double and not Saddam, because he is probably going around in complete disquise. (Wouldn't you?)

3. If we picked up his voice, it was probably another Bin Laden/Tora Bora ruse, i.e. some sap was sent there to play a recording of Saddam's voice as either (a.) a decoy maneuver so he could escape the city from elsewhere, or (b.) a means of determing whether his communciation system had been compromised.

In any event, we did the right thing, bombing the crap out of it.

[The Dude Abides]

I agree....saw the same thing.