Saddam's Capture

• Share

(2 of 5)

It was a team of 600 soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division and U.S. special forces that acted on the tip that Saddam was hiding in a little town called al-Dawr, 15 miles from his hometown of Tikrit. These soldiers had been scouring the area for months in the belief that he would stay close to home, where loyalty among those who most benefited from his rule still ran deep. U.S. intelligence sources tell TIME that over the past month they were getting better leads. "In the last three to four weeks, our forces have been able to capture people we've been hunting all summer," said Lieut. Colonel Steven Russell, the commander of the 4th's 122 Infantry Regiment. "This was the inner circle, and we were taking pieces out of it." Last week they could tell they were getting closer and closer. "Four days ago, an individual was captured that led to the capture of the man we believed was Saddam's right-hand man," Russell told TIME. "He was captured two days ago. Information he had led to information that led to the capture of Saddam Hussein."

But the pressure was also intense. Just the week before, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was in the region pressing the officers about why this was taking so long. Sitting in front of walls lined with maps and flat video screens, Rumsfeld marveled at the elusiveness of the quarry. "I'm dumbfounded when I think about it," he told Army Major General Raymond Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry. "The chances of us using that kind of money to find somebody--to figure out how to invest some time and develop a network and produce the information that would do it--I mean, that ought to be doable."

But it was not until 8 o'clock on Saturday night, with the launch of Operation Red Dawn, that they finally began to close in on the prize. The hunters spread out across two locations, labeled Wolverine One and Wolverine Two. Locals in al-Dawr say the house is owned by Qais al-Nameq, who was a personal attendant of Saddam who returned a few years ago. His two sons were arrested along with Saddam. These residents say al-Nameq was arrested and the second location the Americans searched was his farm. At first, the searches of a rural farmhouse, however, turned up little that was suspicious. But after all these years of deception, all these months of hunting, given Saddam's reputation for tunnels and safe rooms and secrets, the soldiers knew to scrape the paint off the walls in the event he was hiding behind them. So they cordoned off the area and took out their tweezers, searching every corner. On the premises there was a small, walled compound with a mud hut and a metal lean-to. There they found the entrance to the hole, camouflaged with dirt and bricks, with just enough space to lie down, a fan and an air vent. It appears he had been shuttled around in an orange-and-white taxi. U.S. ground-forces commander in Iraq Lieut. General Ricardo Sanchez said Saddam put up no fight, was talkative, cooperating. Says a top White House aide: "He was very forthcoming about who he was."