MOSUL, Iraq – U.S.
troops with bulldozers began on Saturday to demolish the villa where
they killed Saddam Hussein's sons this week, after scouring it for
clues on the whereabouts of the deposed dictator.
The wall surrounding the fortified villa in the northern city was
knocked down and Iraqi workers clambered over the roof, pounding it
with sledgehammers. The villa was partly destroyed when U.S. troops
attacked it on Tuesday with machineguns, grenades and anti-tank
missiles.
Iraqis crowded round newspaper stalls in Baghdad to view gruesome
photographs of the bullet-scarred and blood-spattered bodies of
Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay. With no press on Fridays, it was the
first opportunity for some to see them.
Officials hope the pictures and television images of the bodies
will convince sceptical Iraqis the brothers are dead and demoralise
guerrillas who have killed 44 U.S. soldiers since President George
W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1.
But American forces still come under daily attack. Ambushes in
the last week have killed 11 U.S. soldiers, five of them in the
three days since Uday and Qusay were killed.
After the deaths of his sons, the net might be closing on Saddam
himself, U.S. forces said on Friday. Acting on a tip-off, they
rounded up several men near his home town of Tikrit suspected of
belonging to the presidential bodyguard.
"We continue to tighten the noose," 4th Infantry Division
commander Major General Ray Odierno said.
Saddam, ousted by U.S.-led forces on April 9, has a $25 million
price on his head. In his family's home town of Tikrit, between
Mosul and Baghdad, U.S. troops have been on high alert for any trace
of Saddam and are coming under frequent attack.
SOME IRAQIS VOW REVENGE
At 4th Infantry headquarters in the town, a spokesman played down
suggestions operations had been stepped up following the killings of
Saddam's sons. "We are always on a high state of alert," he said.
But local people are angry at the American presence in a town
that long enjoyed privileged status under the rule of its most
famous son since Saladin, the scourge of the Crusaders.
"All Iraqis are going to seek revenge after the deaths of Qusay
and Uday," labourer Mohammed Ali said, standing on Tikrit's dusty
main street.
Soldiers on patrol and manning checkpoints said guerrilla attacks
on them – already bolder and more frequent – had increased markedly
in the few days since the sons' killings.
"Things are worse now," said Staff Sergeant Kenneth Maxwell, from
Hartford, Connecticut, as he manned a heavy machinegun atop an
armoured vehicle, watching over a checkpoint where soldiers searched
Iraqi cars for weapons.
"They used to just attack us, mostly at night. But now they are
attacking us during the day with AK-47s and RPGs (rocket- propelled
grenades), at any American soldiers they can find," Maxwell said,
eyes alert under the baking sun, in temperatures above 40 Celsius
(105 Fahrenheit).
Blasts and gunfire rang out in Baghdad overnight, but the U.S.
military said there were no reports of any casualties.
Iraq's biggest selling newspaper, Azzaman, splashed colour
photographs of Uday and Qusay's corpses on its front page, under a
headline proclaiming the brothers were dead.
But Iraqis, raised in a culture of conspiracy theories, were
divided on the identity of the waxy-looking corpses.
Two men shovelling sand at a building site said they had heard
about the pictures but had no time or resources to read newspapers
or watch the news, reflecting the continuing poverty, insecurity and
lack of basic services Iraqis still face.
"Some people say the bodies look like Uday and Qusay and others
say they don't," said one sweat-drenched labourer at a Baghdad
building site. "If they really are dead, God will deal with them,
but who will deal with us?"
U.S. forces took the unprecedented step of inviting a small group
of journalists, including two from Reuters, to view the bodies on
Friday. The faces of the two men had been retouched, making them
more closely resemble Uday and Qusay in life.
Washington says it has proof of the identities based on dental
and medical records and visual testimony from aides.
A burning issue is what will happen to the bodies. Muslim
tradition demands they be buried quickly, but few in Iraq will want
to see them become a shrine. It is possible they could be discreetly
handed to clan elders in Tikrit, Saddam's home town.
