Posted on 07/28/2003 9:13:41 AM PDT by knighthawk
U.S. soldiers found a stash of cash and a briefcase of goodies in the mansion where Odai and Qusai Hussein were killed last week.
The brothers had $100 million in U.S. dollars and Iraqi dinars, according to a report published Sunday.
Based on the contents of a briefcase belonging to Odai, Saddam Hussein's elder son seemed to be preparing more for a night out than a fight. It contained pain-killers, cologne, Viagra, unopened packages of men's underwear, dress shirts, a silk tie and a condom, Newsweek reported.
They also had two women's purses.
Sunday, U.S. forces focused their hunt for Saddam around his Tigris River hometown and reported a near-miss in a raid to capture his new chief of security--and perhaps the ousted dictator himself.
Troops of the 4th Infantry Division, acting on tips from informants, hit three farms in the Tikrit region in a pre-dawn attack but learned their specific target--the security chief--had left the area the day before.
''We missed him by 24 hours,'' said Lt. Col. Steve Russell, who led the operation.
The raid was prompted by Thursday's capture in Tikrit of a group of men believed to include as many as 10 of Saddam's bodyguards. Soldiers learned from them that Saddam's new security chief--and possibly Saddam himself--were staying at one of the farms, Russell said.
Hundreds of soldiers, backed by Bradley fighting vehicles, surrounded the farms as Apache attack helicopters hovered above. No shots were fired as about 25 men emerged from the houses peacefully. They were detained briefly and released later Sunday.
''The noose is tightening around these guys,'' said Col. James C. Hickey, a brigade commander. ''They're running out of places to hide, and it's becoming difficult for them to move because we're everywhere. Any day now, we're going to knock on their door, or kick in their door, and they know it.''
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited 4th Infantry commanders in Tikrit on Sunday and later told reporters in Baghdad that Saddam ''was too busy trying to save his own skin'' to lead the insurgency against American forces.
''He is so busy surviving, he is having no impact on the security situation here,'' Myers said. ''It's a big country, but we'll find him.''
Myers met with Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, and planned to leave today.
In Tikrit, the Army would not identify the man they targeted but said he was believed to have taken over Saddam's security after the June 17 arrest of Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, Saddam's cousin and presidential secretary.
Mahmud, who was No. 4 on the U.S. list of most-wanted Iraqis, controlled all access to Saddam. He and Qusai Hussein were believed to be the only two people trusted with knowledge of Saddam's whereabouts.
The U.S. military also had mounted a mission to get Saddam on Tuesday in Mosul after killing Qusai and Odai, a military source familiar with the operation said. The second raid by elements of the 101st Airborne Division came after intelligence sources reported Saddam as being at a different location in the city.
''We missed him by a matter of hours,'' the source said.
Near Baghdad, a U.S. soldier was killed in an attack around 2:30 a.m. Sunday. The death brought to 48 the number of U.S. personnel killed in combat in Iraq since President Bush declared major combat over May 1.
In Karbala, hundreds of angry demonstrators gathered at the Imam al-Hussein Shrine, Iraq's second-holiest site for Shiite Muslims, protesting the alleged shooting by U.S. forces Saturday night of a 51-year-old restaurant worker.
An official of the American-led Coalition Provision Authority, meanwhile, said Iraq's Governing Council will meet today. The Americans hope the governing body will adopt internal rules for electing a president and establishing a committee to write a new constitution, the U.S. official said.
In typical leftist fashion, they never admit they were wrong, they just move on to the next "outrage".
Indeed.
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