Americans capture Saddam's presidential secretary

1.00pm - By RUPERT CORNWELL in Washington

UPDATE - American forces in Iraq have captured Saddam Hussein's Presidential secretary and the No 4 ranking figure on the Pentagon's most wanted list, who may help resolve the mysteries of the fate of the Iraqi leader and his alleged arsenal of illegal arms.

According to US Central Command, Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti was taken into custody on Monday, at an undisclosed location in Iraq.

A distant cousin of Saddam, he is said by officials here to have been one of the very few people absolutely trusted by the former President. Not only did he control access to Saddam, he is also believed to have broad and recent knowledge of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons programmes.

As the ace of diamonds in the Pentagon's now-celebrated deck of cards, Abid Hamid ranks behind only Saddam himself and his two sons, Uday and Qusay. He is said to have handled key security assignments for the regime, while US officials say he is among the most senior group of Iraqi figures they want to put on trial for war crimes.

Trained as a lawyer and known for his interest in fencing, he was one of the few members of the Iraqi leadership who could give an order, as being from Saddam Hussein, without showing a written instruction.

If he is willing to speak he should also be a mine of information since he attended all meetings with the Iraqi leader. If Iraq had any weapons of mass destruction during the war, he is likely to know about them.

Much remains mysterious about what on the face of it is a major success for the US occupation force.

His capture may have been related to the raids yesterday near Saddam's old stronghold of Tikrit, part of the ongoing 'Operation Desert Scorpion.'

Nor is it known whether he was seized on a tip-off, or whether he turned himself in - perhaps after a deal with American forces.

In the latest raids, soldiers of the 4th Infantry division troops went through two farmhouses near Tikrit, in which they found $8.5m in US dollars, up to 400m Iraqi dinars, an undisclosed amount of British pounds and Euros, as well as $1m worth of jewellery.

They also captured one of Saddam's bodyguards and up to 50 other people believed to be tied to the security or intelligence forces or paramilitary groups operating under the former regime, according to Major General Ray Odierno, commander of the Army's 4th Infantry Division, in a video news conference from his headquarters in Tikrit.

"I believe over the next three to four days, you will hear much more about the number of senior Iraqi individuals we have detained here over the last couple of days," General Odierno said - a hint that US forces believe they are making significant inroads into what they claim is organised resistance by diehards from the former Baathist regime.

His soldiers also uncovered a stock of Russian-made night-vision goggles and other equipment alongside the cash.

The money, it was being speculated, might have been earmarked for bounties to any Iraqis who attacked or killed US soldiers - a practice alleged by Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon-backed leader of the Iraqi National Congress exile group, during a visit to Washington last week.

The capture of Abid Hamid, and the possibility of fresh clues in the hunt for Iraq's unconventional weapons, came as Congress began probes into whether intelligence about these alleged programmes had been deliberately slanted or oversold by the Bush administration in the run-up to the war.

The House Intelligence Committee held its first closed-door hearings yesterday, while its Senate counterpart met to settle a timetable for its own hearings which could start early next month.

Thus far, however, Republicans, who control both chambers, are resisting calls from Democrats for fully public hearings.

President Bush is dismissing doubters of the Iraqi arms threat as "revisionist historians."

- INDEPENDENT

Herald Feature: Iraq