Where In The World Is Saddam?
Every since a flurry of U.S. missiles and precision-guided bombs descended on a Baghdad bunker on Wednesday night, there has been a worldwide spate of speculation about the fate of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein.
Saddam went on TV hours later to condemn the U.S. attack. But U.S. officials said the uniformed man on state television may have been one of Saddam's body doubles.
Subsequently, CBS National Security Correspondent David Martin reported that the CIA had concluded it was indeed the real Saddam after conducting a voice analysis.
However, that didn't necessarily prove the Iraqi leader was alive because there was no way of telling whether the tape was made before or after the attack on his compound.
Twice since the shooting started in Iraq, the world has been shown videotape from Baghdad of a man who looks, acts, and talks like Saddam Hussein. It triggered a debate within the Bush administration over whether it is actually the man himself or just a darn good imposter.
A senior U.S. official said Saturday there was no new, credible intelligence that would indicate whether Saddam or his sons Qusai and Odai were alive, dead or wounded.
State-run Iraqi television reported that Saddam held two meetings Saturday with senior government members and Qusai Hussein, who had been regarded as his father's likely successor.
Video footage from the meetings was not shown during the initial broadcast. An evening report aired a brief clip showing Saddam chairing a meeting in a military uniform, but it was unclear whether the footage was current or taped before the war began.
The New York Times reported that attempts to get to the bottom of the matter have gone nowhere with Iraqi officials. At a press conference, an American reporter asked when Saddam might be again seen by the Iraqi people.
"Next!" said information minister, Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf.
A second reporter took a somewhat different approach by asking Sahhaf if he had seen Saddam in person during the past few days.
"Next! Next!" Sahhaf replied. "Please ask something reasonable."
In a related development, a U.S. official said one other high-level Iraqi leader was known to be alive: Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid al-Tikriti, known to his enemies as "Chemical Ali" for leading a deadly 1988 campaign in northern Iraq against rebellious Kurds that included chemical weapons attacks.
Ali Hassan was not thought to be present in the war's opening strike that was aimed at Saddam.
As for Saddam, "I have no idea where he is right now," Gen. Tommy Franks said Saturday during a press briefing in Qatar. He said he believes there is "a certain confusion" going on within the Iraqi government, and American forces do not consider their mission to be about Saddam alone.
"It is not about that one personality," Franks said. "In fact, it is about this regime. And so that's what we're going to focus on."