Iraq

'We got him'

Pulled from a hole, Hussein surrenders without a shot.

	[Photo: AP/U.S. Military via APTN]
	Photo taken from video showed a tired, disheveled Saddam Hussein.
	[AP photo]
	When Hussein was pulled from the hole, he looked bewildered and disoriented, and had weapons and a suitcase containing $750,000 in $100 bills, military officials said. Nearby was a small hut, where T-shirts and other items of clothing, some of them still in packages, were found.

It was a sequence that U.S. soldiers in Iraq had replayed hundreds of times in the bloody, grinding months since Baghdad fell: a dark night, an uncertain tip, and anxious troops around some dusty compound, hopeful for a hit.

This time, in a cramped hole in the ground at a farm near Tikrit, American troops rousted a bedraggled old man with wild hair and tired eyes who answered quietly when soldiers asked his name:

Saddam Hussein.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we got him," U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer told a news conference in Baghdad. "The tyrant is a prisoner."

U.S. officials said Hussein, who was carrying a pistol, was disoriented upon being discovered, but offered no resistance. No shots were fired.

Officials said that he was being protected by two guards and that troops confiscated $750,000 in cash, and weapons.

A DNA test and identifying marks on his body quickly confirmed that their captive was Saddam Hussein, U.S. officials said.

Hussein, 66, was being held at an undisclosed location Sunday.

The capture of the former Iraqi dictator near his hometown gave the United States and its allies their biggest victory since the fall of Baghdad eight months ago, providing much-needed good news for a president facing criticism that his vision for postwar Iraq lacked planning and direction.

Hussein's maddening ability to escape - and even to taunt - the world's most powerful military had become a metaphor for the elusiveness of peace in Iraq, where most citizens seem to welcome liberation from his brutal, 24-year reign, but where violent insurgents have continued to foment chaos.

But even as jubilant Iraqis mobbed the streets of Baghdad and battle-hardened American troops cheered, U.S. officials warned that Hussein's capture alone won't quell the violence in Iraq.

In a four-minute speech from the White House on Sunday, President Bush was terse and understated. He never smiled.

"We've come to this moment through patience and resolve and focused action, and that is our strategy moving forward," Bush said. "The war on terror is a different kind of war, waged capture by capture, cell by cell, and victory by victory."

Bush said Hussein's capture "does not mean the end of violence in Iraq," but he did offer hope to the Iraqi people.

"The goals of our coalition are the same as your goals: sovereignty for your country, dignity for your great culture, and for every Iraqi citizen, the opportunity for a better life.

"In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over. A hopeful day has arrived. All Iraqis can now come together and reject violence and build a new Iraq."

The U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council quickly announced that Hussein will be tried in public by a newly created Iraqi war tribunal. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, America's strongest ally in the war, agreed that was best, but it wasn't clear late Sunday whether the Bush administration would acquiesce.

Meanwhile, Bush's strongest critics at home and abroad offered their congratulations. They included the leaders of France and Germany, who opposed the war and have refused to help with Iraq's reconstruction.

"It's a major event that should strongly contribute to democracy and stability in Iraq and allow the Iraqis to master their destiny," French President Jacques Chirac said.

Howard Dean, who has ridden his criticism of the war to the front of the pack of Democratic presidential candidates, said the president deserves "a day of celebration."

"We have our policy differences, but we won't be discussing those today," Dean said while campaigning in West Palm Beach.

The mission was dubbed Operation Red Dawn, one of countless raids the 4th Infantry Division has undertaken in its hunt for Saddam Hussein near his hometown, Tikrit. But Saturday's success was much more than happenstance.

The raid began at 6 p.m. Iraqi time, as 600 soldiers with the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry and special operations forces surrounded a farm compound in Dawr, a few miles from Uja, the village where Hussein was born.

U.S. forces had been watching the area for months, according to the Associated Press, citing a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity.

Gradually, CIA and military analysts narrowed their list of potential sites where Hussein could be hiding, the official said.

At a news briefing in Baghdad, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said U.S. forces recently questioned "five to 10 members" of a branch of Hussein's extended family. Saturday morning, one of them suggested Hussein may be at the farm in Dawr.

Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, said his men attacked just after dark, about 8 p.m.

Eventually, they invaded a small walled compound where Hussein was hiding near a mud hut, in a tiny chamber 6 to 8 feet underground. At first, they didn't recognize the wild-looking bearded man inside. When they asked who he was, he said he was Saddam Hussein.

By 9:15 p.m., Hussein was in a helicopter, bound toward Baghdad. Officials would not say where he was being held.

The United States has been hunting Hussein at least since March 20, when it lobbed missiles at a bunker where he and his sons were believed to be hiding.

The sons, Uday and Qusay, would later be killed by U.S. troops near Mosul. But in the long, hot months since Bush declared major combat operations over on May 1, Hussein proved as elusive as his alleged chemical and biological weapons programs.

Gen. Odierno, of the 4th Infantry Division, said Hussein apparently scurried among as many as 30 safe houses, primarily around his home-base of Tikrit. Occasionally, he released taped missives vowing to return and urging the Iraqi people to kill the occupying troops.

On Sunday, Sanchez said Hussein was talkative and cooperative and resigned to his capture, in marked contrast to his brutal style before the war. From the day he took power during a murderous purge of Baath Party rivals, Iraq under Hussein was an orgy of torture and execution. The skeletons of thousands have been found in mass graves since the American-led invasion began in March.

As news of the capture reached the Iraqis and TV images of Hussein's haggard face was beamed across the country, Baghdad residents streamed into the streets, hugging one another and firing their guns into the air with all the glee of a daughter's wedding.

Some wept openly, brandishing photographs of relatives they said were executed in Hussein's waves of political repression.

"I'm very happy for the Iraqi people. Life is going to be safer now," said Yehya Hassan, 35, a resident of Baghdad. "Now we can start a new beginning."

"Compare if families of the victims of Ted Bundy saw him being captured," said Dr. Sam Hakki, an Iraqi-born surgeon who now lives near St. Petersburg. "The killer is caught."

Sam Hakki's brother, Said Hakky, is on unpaid leave from the Bay Pines VA Medical Center, serving in Iraq as a senior adviser in both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

American officials and troops in Iraq hope his capture weakens the resolve of the former Iraqi Army soldiers and Baath Party leaders who have launched daily attacks on U.S. forces and Iraqis helping them.

They also hope it eases fears, common among many Iraqis, that Hussein could return to power after the United States leaves the country. Fear of reprisal from Hussein has hampered the military's ability to gather intelligence and catch insurgents.

In recent months, as America has won the trust of more Iraqi people and moved to establish Iraqi-led government and police agencies, the insurgents increasingly have targeted police and other municipal officials. On Sunday, before Hussein's capture was announced, a bomb exploded outside an Iraqi police station 50 miles west of Baghdad. At least 20 Iraqis died, and 33 were injured.

- Times staff writer Michael Sandler contributed to this report, which also includes information from the Associated Press, Knight Ridder Newspapers and the New York Times.

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