The Hindu : Saddam is dead, says Iraqi envoy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 19, 2003

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Saddam is dead, says Iraqi envoy

BELGRADE (Serbia-Montenegro) April 18. An Iraqi envoy loyal to Saddam Hussein said today he was confident that the leader of Iraq was killed in the coalition bombing of Baghdad.

``I know his character,'' Iraq's ambassador to Belgrade, Sami Sadoun, said in an interview with The Associated Press. ``The defence of Baghdad would not have collapsed so quickly if he was not dead.''

Mr. Sadoun, who headed the Cabinet of the Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, for 25 years, said he lost all contact with his superiors in Baghdad early this month after a U.S. warplane dropped four bunker-busting bombs at a restaurant where Mr. Hussein was believed to be meeting his sons.

``Immediately after the bombing, I did not get any instructions. Not even a single fax,'' Mr. Sadoun told AP.

He said that since the April 7 bombing in the al-Mansour neighbourhood of western Baghdad, ``suddenly, there is no more Republican Guard, no more police or defence of Baghdad. Saddam held all those things in his hands,'' Mr. Sadoun said.

``He must have been killed, or everything would not have collapsed so quickly.''

Mr. Sadoun, who claimed he met Mr. Hussein several times, most recently in December, said the Iraqi leader might have not been killed in the restaurant bombing but in another coalition attack in Baghdad soon thereafter.

Footage shown

Meanwhile in Doha, Qatar, the Abu Dhabi television aired pictures on Friday of what it said was Mr. Hussein in the streets of Baghdad last week being greeted by a cheering crowd of Iraqis.

A speech by the Iraqi leader apparently made the same day was also broadcast.

Abu Dhabi TV said the film was shot April 9, the same day the U.S. forces moved into Baghdad and a 40-foot statue of Mr. Hussein was pulled down by Iraqis and Marines in a square of the capital.

The footage, if authentic, would mean an April 7 American bombing aimed at killing the Iraqi president was unsuccessful.

The United States said it was studying the tape.

The tape showed Mr. Husein, clad in a black beret and an olive military uniform, moving through the crowd as people cheered: ``With our bloods and souls we redeem you, oh Saddam.'' — AP

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