Ousted Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein

WASHINGTON, July 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – As the fate of his two sons’ bodies have not yet been decided, deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein should be killed without hesitation if capturing him alive means risking the lives of U.S. soldiers, a top U.S. official suggested late Monday, July 29.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage’s comments appeared to signal that only clean surrender could guarantee survival to the former Iraqi dictator.

"If Saddam Hussein could be captured safely, without any harm to U.S. service persons, that would be great,” Armitage told CNN television.

"If there is a question of harm being done to U.S. servicemen, then he should be killed."

The deputy secretary of state became the second high-ranking U.S. official in less than a week to indicate that while the United States was interested in getting Saddam out of the picture, it had no particular concern whether he ended up alive or dead.

Speaking in Congress last Wednesday, July 23, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said top Pentagon officials had left it to commanders in the field to decide whether to take former senior Iraqi leaders dead or alive, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

"If a person is determined to fight to the death, then they may very well have that opportunity," Rumsfeld warned.

The remarks by Armitage came a week after U.S. forces killed Saddam Hussein's two sons, Uday and Qusay, following a pitched battle in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, a breakthrough that led to an intensified the search for the deposed strongman.

But slaying the two brothers raised controversy over the legality of such a step under the Geneva Conventions.

British new envoy to Iraq Jeremy Greenstock said that the former Iraqi President should not meet the same fate of his two sons, but be rather brought to trial for his crimes.

Reflecting on the causes of intensified guerrilla attacks against U.S. forces, Armitage expressed regret that not enough Iraqi soldiers had been killed by U.S. and British forces during initial offensive operations in the wake of the March 20 invasion of Iraq.

"We thought they would fight more of a set-piece battle and that we would, frankly, kill a lot more of them and, therefore, have a slightly better security situation," he said.

Noose Is ‘Tightening’

With the hunt for Saddam gathering steam, Armitage insisted that U.S. troops in Iraq were now hot on his trail and stood a good chance of catching up with him.

"I think most people feel that the noose is tightening pretty regularly around the neck of Saddam Hussein," he said.

Early on Tuesday, U.S. forces netted a Saddam Hussein bodyguard and two associates of the deposed Iraqi leader in a fresh raid on Tikrit.

"The primary target was achieved," according to Lt. Col. Steve Russell of the 4^th Infantry division told CNN.

U.S. military officials said the bodyguard did not give up without a struggle and received blows to the head in a scuffle. Blood could be seen seeping through a head covering.

Tikrit is the former Iraqi president's ancestral hometown and has been the site of consistent American raids since the weekend, following the deaths last week of Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay in a raid in the northern city of Mosul.

U.S. troops killed late Sunday, July 27, five Iraqi civilians in a raid on a house in the wealthy Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour, where they believed the ousted Iraqi president was holing up.

But U.S. Army Captain Jeff Fitzgibbons, a spokesman for U.S.-led forces in Baghdad, said the military had no evidence that capture of the former Iraqi leader was imminent.

"I don't have any hard facts in my possession that would indicate that was the case," Fitzgibbons said in a telephone interview.

"I do know that they talked to some locals that felt he had just been through, but there is nothing really confirmable as far as facts that would lead us conclude irrefutably that that was the case."

Saddam’s loyalists are blamed on a total of 74 U.S. deaths since U.S. President George W. Bush declared an end to major hostilities, 29 of whom were killed in combat operations.

But observers say the attacks could be rather attributed to steadily growing anti-American sentiments among local inhabitants with lack of basic services and continued occupation. 

‘Complex’

"If there is a question of harm being done to U.S. servicemen, then he should be killed," Armitage

In the meanwhile, corpses of Uday and Qusay has still not been settled one week after their slaying.

"It's very complex. Cultural and religious issues need to be resolved," a senior U.S. military official said Tuesday on condition of anonymity.

The occupation forces had said Sunday it would announce the burial plans within 24 hours, but later backtracked.

The U.S. civil administration has consulted Iraq's 25-member Governing Council as well as religious figures, as it seeks to handle the bodies with dignity, while also avoiding inspiring a cult of personality around Saddam's sons.

Samir Shaker Mahmud al-Sumaydi, a member of the Governing Council, said Sunday the executive body had recommended the corpses be given to the family for burial.

He said he expected the administration would follow the Iraqi body's recommendation.

 A member of Saddam's family, Sheikh Mahmud al-Nada, head of the Bu Nasser tribe, told the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera that he asked the administration for the body but had been turned down.

"I asked for family and religious reasons and not for political ones," the sheikh said.

Despite the distribution of photos and film footage, many Iraqis, expressing a deep mistrust of the United States, believed the shoot-out last Tuesday was a staged affair, while many Sunni Muslims, from Saddam's religious community, believe the brothers should receive a proper burial.

Uday, the sadistic playboy, and Qusay, Saddam's heir to the throne, were known for their fondness for torture and came to symbolize the excesses of the old regime.