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by
John McWethy, Brian Ross, Pierre Thomas and Martha Raddatz
ABC News
March 21, 2003
U.S. intelligence
sources say Saddam Hussein was seen being wheeled out of a Baghdad
residential complex on a stretcher after the complex was struck in
"decapitation attacks" by the United States.
Eyewitnesses saw
the Iraqi leader being taken from the complex on a "gurney, with an
oxygen mask over his face" Thursday morning (Wednesday night U.S. time),
the officials told ABCNEWS. Sources said there was clearly a U.S.
observer nearby, watching the complex.
When asked today
whether Saddam may have been injured in the attack, White House
spokesman Ari Fleischer said he wouldn't address rumors, but added
ambiguously, "I don't know how Saddam Hussein is feeling today."
Three Critical
Iraqi Leaders Believed Dead
Intelligence
sources also said there has been a significant lack of communications
between Saddam and his military structure since the airstrike
They are optimistic
that the attack injured Saddam, though they are cautious about the
extent.
The U.S. officials
believe that one or both of Saddam's sons were also in the complex when
it was struck. The attack was "massive, catastrophic," the Washington
Post's Bob Woodward told ABCNEWS.
Still, there are
unconfirmed reports that Iraqi Sunni and other armed groups loyal to
Saddam have been told that the Iraqi dictator is alive but communication
with his son Odai has been lost and it is suspected that he died in the
attacks. Intelligence officials told ABCNEWS they have no hard evidence
that one of Saddam's sons was killed.
In addition, Iraq
TV showed Saddam, his other son Qusai and Defense Minister Saddam Hashem
Ahmed in a meeting. The person who read the news on air said they met
today, but the claim is not independently confirmed. Later, a TV
newscaster read new decrees by Saddam offering rewards to soldiers who
shoot down coalition planes and missiles or kill or capture or coalition
troops.
U.S. intelligence
officials are confident other high-ranking leaders in Saddam's regime
were killed. ABCNEWS' Brian Ross reported that U.S. intelligence
believes three Iraqi officials — Taha Yasin Ramadan, Izatt Ibrahaim al
Douri, and Ali Hassan Majid (also known as "Chemical Ali") — were killed
in the attack. A CIA spokesman said officials had no information to
confirm the report.
Complex Reportedly
Housed Bunker
The strikes
targeted a large residential complex in a Baghdad suburb, not a military
installation or one of Saddam's palaces. Saddam and his advisers were
believed to be sleeping inside a "hardened bunker" beneath the ground
floor, intelligence sources said.
Yet within hours of
the predawn bombardment, Saddam appeared on Iraqi television, condemning
the U.S. attacks and calling on his people to defend the country in a
jihad, or holy war, against its enemies.
A debate soon
began: was it really Saddam making the speech, or one of the body
doubles he is reputed to use as a security measure?
Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing today that he had no doubt
that the bunker was destroyed. But, he added, "The question is what was
in there." Rumsfeld said officials had no definitive evidence that
Saddam was dead or still alive.
Was Puffy-Faced Man
Really the Iraqi Leader?
Saddam is believed
to have at least three body doubles, and many who saw his speech thought
they were looking at one of them.
The photograph on
the left is an image taken from a speech broadcast on Iraqi TV hours
after the first strikes began. The image on the right shows the
Iraqi leader during a television appearance three days before the
strikes. (Iraqi TV via APTN/AP Photo and AP Photo)
The man at the
podium wore glasses, and looked puffy, old and tired, unlike the Iraqi
leader's robust appearance three days earlier.
The White House
said today it does appear to be Saddam in the videotape, but press
secretary Fleischer said there's no way to know when it was really
recorded.
U.S. officials
concluded it was Saddam after conducting voice analysis of the speech
and using computer algorithms to compare the speaker's face with known
images of Saddam. They also studied a second video purporting to show
the Iraqi leader meeting with members of his Cabinet in the hours after
the attack.
CIA officials
said the man who gave the speech was the real Saddam, without his
contacts, without his make-up, and without a good night's sleep.
Dieter Buhmann,
a German pathologist who has meticulously studied hundreds of
photographs of the Iraqi leader's public appearances, said he agreed
with the CIA's conclusion. He said he was almost certain that the man
who appeared on Iraqi TV was Saddam.
Buhmann, of Homberg
University, had earlier measured and mapped Saddam's mustache and
eyebrows, and concluded that he uses at least three different doubles.
Ex-Mistress Says It
Was a Double
But there was a
different assessment from a woman who claims to have known the Iraqi
leader intimately. Parisoula Lampsos, who says she was Saddam's mistress
over a period of nearly 30 years, told U.S. officials and ABCNEWS that
the man who appeared on TV was not Saddam.
Lampsos had
previously distinguished Saddam from his doubles in more than a dozen
cases and she said that Saddam would never come out of the bunker during
battle to deliver a statement.
Last year Lampsos
explained to ABCNEWS' Claire Shipman how she could spot Saddam's
doubles.
For starters, she
said, the real Saddam has an unusual tattoo: two dots on his left hand
that he received in prison years ago. But his eyes are the real
giveaway, she said.
"Look everywhere —
it might change," Lampsos told ABCNEWS. "You can change your teeth,
everywhere. But the eyes, no."
ABCNEWS' John
McWethy, Brian Ross, Pierre Thomas and Martha Raddatz contributed to
this report.
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