The Postwar War

The houseguest was told to make his bed under the stars because the power had gone out and it was too hot inside without air conditioning. From the rooftop balcony of the two-story house in northern Tikrit where he sought refuge early last week, Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, the fourth-most-wanted man in Iraq, had a panorama on a life come undone. To the south he could make out the sprawling family farmlands where he used to spend weekends with his boss and cousin, Saddam Hussein. A few miles up the road stood the ex-regime's garish presidential palaces, now occupied by soldiers of the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division. And to the north Mahmud could survey the open desert plains just beyond the city and ponder how to make a great escape.

But he never got the chance. Just before 1 a.m. last Tuesday, three U.S. attack helicopters swooped toward the house, where Mahmud had been staying for two days; the owner of the home, Kaffia Awad, told TIME that she had taken in Mahmud as a favor to a family friend, who initially did not reveal the guest's true identity. According to Awad, Mahmud's brother, father and son visited him at the house on Monday afternoon. Hours later, the Americans, who had been receiving intelligence on Mahmud's movements for weeks, moved in with a force of 30 soldiers, including special-ops troops. They shot out the locks of a side door and stormed inside. According to residents of the house, the soldiers quickly moved into the living room and forced six men who were sleeping there to the ground, tying their hands behind their backs and covering their heads with nylon bags. "Where's Saddam?" several soldiers yelled, apparently optimistic about whom they might find as they raced upstairs, tossing 15 stun grenades ahead of them. Perhaps sensing that capture was inevitable, Mahmud came in from the balcony. After an Iraqi interpreter for the soldiers recognized Mahmud's countenance--now gaunt and covered by a white beard--as that of the ace of diamonds in the Pentagon's deck of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis, a soldier seized Mahmud and led him out of the house. At a location just south of the target house, Army First Lieut. Christopher Morris, who was conducting reconnaissance for the raid, received word on his radio that the mission was complete. "We got the guy," a commander told him.