US forces seek cold, slimmer Saddam on run

10.10am

TIKRIT, Iraq - US troops hunting Saddam Hussein believe he is still in Iraq, but if they cannot yet catch the ousted dictator they say they want to be sure he is cold, constantly on the run -- and preferably losing weight.

"My guess is he probably has a plan to keep himself nice and cosy during winter, while the rest of his people suffer," Major General Raymond Odierno said on Wednesday.

"But we're going to try to keep him running so he can't be comfortable and doesn't have enough kerosene...to keep warm. And I hope he's lost lots of weight," added the head of the US 4th Infantry Division based in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.

Odierno said there were no signs Saddam was playing a key role in guerrilla attacks. But the US Army said on Wednesday it had captured one of Saddam's former bodyguards in a raid on a house near Ramadi where guerrillas had been operating.

In a separate raid near Samarra, troops seised a wife and daughter of Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, who Washington accuses of playing a direct role in guerrilla attacks.

Odierno said he hoped the detention of the two relatives of Ibrahim, the second most wanted man in Iraq, would generate information on the whereabouts of top fugitives.

Saddam has a $25 million price on his head while a $10 million bounty has been offered for Ibrahim.

Odierno said Ibrahim could be playing a financing role in deadly guerrilla attacks against US troops.

"We don't have specific proof that he is in fact in charge of running these operations but we do have some reports that he could be," he said.

Odierno said the quality of a recent audio tape purportedly from Saddam showed he was not hiding in comfort.

"Any one of my soldiers could produce a better quality tape than he's producing," he said.

"He's worried about being caught. I know he's moving a lot, he's not staying in one place."

Odierno said he had seen no indication Saddam was playing any central role in the insurgency, adding he believed it was still mainly locally controlled with few links between the different hotbeds of anti-American sentiment.

But he said insurgents were trying to bring leaders to Tikrit from other parts of the country because they saw Saddam's hometown as a key battleground in fighting US forces.

The United States blames Saddam loyalists and foreign Islamic fighters entering Iraq for attacks on US troops which have killed 184 American soldiers since May 1.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq