Is Saddam alive? Fate after attack unknown

WASHINGTON -- The fate of President Saddam Hussein remained murky on Tuesday after a devastating bomb attack on Monday in Baghdad guided by an informant who provided the CIA with the address of a building where Saddam was believed to be meeting with his two sons and senior aides, U.S. officials said.

Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the intelligence that led to the attack on Monday was less precise than the information that led officials to conclude that they could kill Saddam on March 19, the opening night of the war.

"When we struck a compound on the first night of the war, we had really good intelligence that led us to believe that Saddam was there," Pace said. "And I'm not sure that he wasn't there. All the intelligence that we had is that he was there, after the strike, the first strike, it no longer gave any indication that he was still alive."

Officials said that before the raid on Monday, a CIA informant in Baghdad with access to information about Saddam's movements said the Iraqi leader and his two sons, Qusay and Uday, were meeting with a number of top aides at a building in the Mansur district of Baghdad.

A B-1 bomber, already aloft in case such an opportunity arose, was instructed to attack, they said. Twelve minutes after receiving the command and just 45 minutes after the intelligence tip was received by the Central Command in Qatar, four 2,000-pound, bunker- penetrating bombs destroyed the target building, a restaurant and several surrounding structures.

Witnesses told reporters that as many as 14 civilians were killed and scores wounded, but U.S. officials could not confirm the extent of casualties. They said it might take days after U.S. troops took control of the area before a full damage assessment was available.

One senior intelligence official said on Tuesday that the response to the information was unusually quick. "From holy smokes to kaboom was fairly short," the official said.

In a telephone interview from the region, Lt. Col. Fred Swan, one of the four crewmen aboard the B-1 bomber sent to kill Saddam, said that when he was given the order to attack, he thought, "this is the big one," realizing that it was intended to hit Saddam.

The intensity of the effort to hunt down Saddam contrasts sharply with remarks by Bush administration officials, who have said publicly that it does not matter whether Saddam is alive or dead because he has lost control over Iraq.

But privately, the question of whether he is alive is the subject of an urgent investigation by U.S. intelligence agencies, which have thus far failed to conclusively establish Saddam's status.

His condition and whereabouts have been uncertain since the opening night of the war, when the CIA director, George J. Tenet, raced from CIA headquarters at Langley, Va., to the Pentagon and White House to obtain President Bush's approval for the cruise missile and bomb attack on a residential bunker compound at the edge of Baghdad.

Intelligence officials have acknowledged that killing Saddam is a high priority for officials who hope that his death will lead to the rapid collapse of the government.

On several occasions since the initial effort to kill Saddam, Iraqi television has broadcast pictures of the Iraqi leader meeting with aides, and once showed him giving a speech in which he referred to the downing of an American Apache helicopter, an event that occurred on March 24, after the start of the war.

Last Friday, Iraqi television showed a man said to be Saddam walking among cheering supporters on what was identified as a Baghdad street in the same neighborhood that was attacked on Monday. Intelligence officials acknowledged that the images appeared to be of Saddam but said it was unclear when the tapes were actually recorded.

Some officials said that an attack on Saturday aimed at Ali Hassan al-Majid, a regional commander in southern Iraq and one of Saddam's closest military associates, helped them take control of Basra. Majid's death has not been confirmed, but the officials said that it became accepted by local citizens and that when it did, resistance to British forces in Basra seemed to melt away.

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