US troops hold most wanted Iraqi cards

By DONALD MACINTYRE at Central Command, Qatar

US commanders took the remarkable step yesterday of displaying a pack of cards showing the photographs of the 55 "most wanted" Iraqis.

They said the cards had been given to troops in the continuing hunt for top members of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Brigadier General Vincent Brooks showed the cards to the world's television cameras in Qatar. He said they contained details and images of "55 individuals who may be killed, pursued and brought to justice". The image on the top card - the "ace of clubs" - appeared to be that of President Saddam's son Qusay. President Saddam was said to be the "ace of spades".

The demonstration was somewhat flamboyant for the normally cautious Brig Gen Brooks. It came after US forces used aerial bombing to obliterate a house that belonged President Saddam's half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, the former head of the secret police. They also destroyed five hidden aircraft north of Baghdad which they feared could be used by regime members to flee the country.

As propaganda, the cards gesture ran into trouble after US Central Command refused immediately to give the cards to reporters, or even reveal the names of those featured. This refusal prompted scepticism that the so-called "investigative tools" were merely a public relations gimmick. British military sources made no secret of their irritation that US media handlers had not followed up the display by giving details of what the cards contained.

Five hours after the briefing, a US spokesman said: "We are hoping to have the names out by the end of the night."

It is just conceivable that the idea was suggested by the old US military song "The Deck of Cards" in which a combat soldier reprimanded for spreading out a symbolic pack of cards in church explains their symbolic value to him - with the jack as the devil and the ace as God.

In any case, Brig Gen Brooks said yesterday that "the deck of cards is one example of what we provide to soldiers and marines out in the field with faces of individuals and their names". The list was also being distributed in "posters and handbills", he said. Brig Gen Brooks added that the task of dismantling the regime included removing "military forces ... security forces ... police sources that might support it and anything else that props the regime up".

He added: "There clearly has to be some involvement on individuals to haul those pieces away. There will also be attacks against individuals, who are key decision makers, to kill or capture them. We consider them all to be legitimate military targets."

Brig Gen Brooks also disclosed that special operations forces had accepted the surrender of an unnamed Iraqi colonel who was responsible for the border control points at Route 11 on the Syrian border. He said the colonel handed over the keys to the control point, cutting off another possible route for flight to Syria.

Meanwhile there was fierce fighting to the north-west at Qaim, which is close to the Syrian border. A surface-to-surface missile site used to launch Scuds at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War is believed to be located there. Special forces operating on Route One, which links the Baathist stronghold of Tikrit to Baiji in the north, discovered five light aircraft hidden under camouflage netting.

Following a short firefight, the aircraft - which Brig Gen Brooks described as a possible means of escape by leadership figures - were then destroyed. He said it was also possible that the aircraft could have been used to deliver weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile, US military sources said they still could not say for certain whether President Saddam was killed in an aerial bomb attack on a restaurant in the Baghdad suburb of Mansur four days ago. They said the site had not been secured for forensic experts who might be able to determine whether the Iraqi leader was dead. Senior military officials said they expected to have troops at the site within days. The only regime figure believed to have been killed is Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali". But that fact depends on informal identification by local residents who live near a house destroyed by Allied forces in Basra.

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Herald Feature: Iraq war