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The site remained in Iraqi hands Tuesday, a day after a U.S. warplane dropped four bombs. The blast left a smoking crater 60 feet deep, destroyed at least three houses and damaged 20 others, some badly.
U.S. officials said the bombs used are designed to destroy underground bunkers.
Earlier, one U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the target of Monday afternoon's attack was a restaurant. He did not name the restaurant. But the well-to-do neighborhood's only known restaurant, al-Sa'aa, some 100 yards away from the demolished homes, appeared intact Tuesday except for smashed windows and doors.
"We had credible information that indicated that there was a regime leadership meeting occurring yesterday," said Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks at U.S. Central Command in Qatar. "We believe that the attack was effective in causing destruction of that facility."
"As to who was inside and what their conditions are, it will take some time before we can make that full determination," Brooks said at a news briefing Tuesday. "At this point in time, I'm not aware of anyone from coalition forces that have walked the site."
Brooks said it will take some time and perhaps detailed forensic work to establish who was killed.
"There's lots of digging and DNA tests involved," said a U.S. official familiar with the latest military intelligence, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The airstrike in the al-Mansour section of western Baghdad broke windows and doors up to 300 yards away, ripped orange trees out by the roots, hurled steel beams 100 yards and left a heap of broken concrete, mangled iron rods and shredded furniture and clothes.
Iraqi rescue workers using a bulldozer to search the rubble said that three bodies had been recovered — those of a small boy, a young woman and an elderly man — and that the death toll could be as high as 14. The woman's head had been severed from her torso.
"I don't know whether he survived," President Bush (news - web sites) said in Northern Ireland, where he was meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites). "The only thing I know is he's losing power."
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, speaking to reporters Tuesday, made no mention of Saddam's fate, and rejected any suggestion that Iraq (news - web sites) would surrender to the American forces drawing a noose around the regime.
"They will be burnt. We are going to tackle them," he said.
Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri said Tuesday that although he has no communication with Baghdad, the Iraqi government is still in control of the country and he believes Saddam is alive.
"I think that the president is in Baghdad and all the people are there fighting, and it's OK," Al-Douri told Associated Press Television News.
Despite suspicions at the Pentagon (news - web sites) that Saddam may have been killed, there were no signs of any unusual security measures at the site, and a reporter had no problem examining it, watching the rescue operation or speaking to neighbors for about 90 minutes Tuesday.
The attack was carried out by a single B-1B bomber, which dropped four precision-guided, 2,000-pound, bunker-penetrating bombs on a building after U.S. intelligence was tipped that the Iraqi president, sons Odai and Qusai and other top leaders might be meeting there, officials said.
A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Pentagon was confident that Saddam and his sons were in the building before it was bombed. "Our intelligence was solid," the official said. He did not elaborate on the source of the intelligence.
Those close to Saddam have said the Iraqi leader is so obsessed with security that very few people would know about his movements. He maintains dozens of residences and uses doubles to keep people guessing.
An exiled dissident told The Associated Press that only two people are kept posted about Saddam's whereabouts — Qusai, who commands the Republican Guard and heads the president's security, and his private secretary, Abed Hameed Hmoud, a member of Saddam's Tikriti clan. Even Odai is thought to be out of the loop because he is considered too reckless.
Seif Hatef, 21, said some of his friends were among the victims of the attack on the three buildings. "Such attacks will make Iraqis more determined to resist. Iraq will remain and this war will never finish," he said.
Workers at a nearby mall swept the glass and other debris from the sidewalk.
"When this war will end? It depends on that scum Bush," said Amer Hamad Abdullah al-Jabouri, who works at the complex.
Coalition strikes have aimed at top Iraqi leaders from the very start of the war.
On March 19, the opening night of the war, President Bush authorized a strike on a suburban Baghdad compound where Saddam and his sons were thought to be staying. But U.S. intelligence officials suspect he survived.
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Associated Press writers Nicole Winfield in Doha, Qatar, Ron Fournier in Washington and Matt Kelley in Washington contributed to this report.