Did Saddam escape again?

LONDON, April 9 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - As the American forces pushed deeper into Baghdad Wednesday, April 9, U.S. and British intelligence agencies disagreed on the question of whether Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was still alive.

British intelligence told the CIA it believed Saddam left a building in Baghdad’s al-Mansour district just before four one-ton U.S. Air Force bunker-buster bombs reduced it to rubble on Monday, April 7, The Times reported.

However, U.S. officials argued that the strike killed Saddam, who escaped a similar attack on the war’s opening night.

“We think he (Saddam) left the same way he arrived in the area, either by a tunnel system or by car, we’re not sure,” one British Intelligence source told the British newspaper, though he conceded that the judgment was not conclusive.

The raid was ordered after an intelligence tip that the Iraqi leader, his sons, and up to 40 other leadership associates were inside the building.

“If he has survived, Saddam will have had the fear of God put into him because he will know that we are getting very good intelligence of his movements,” said one source.

President George Bush said at the end of his trip to Belfast for a war summit with British Prime Minister Tony Blair: "I don’t know whether he survived. The only thing I know is he’s losing power.”

U.S. and British officials are convinced that Saddam was in the building, although he is known for staying as short a time as possible in any one place, The Times reported.

The complex included al-Saa restaurant and flats. Intelligence chiefs had suspected the Iraqi leadership of using al-Saa, or a bunker underneath it, as a command centre.

At least 14 people were killed in the strike, including nine members of a family and two children, according to residents.

"No Doubt"

U.S. Central Command spokesman Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks said “as to who was inside and what their conditions are, it will take time to determine. We may never be able to determine who was present.”

But multiple U.S. intelligence sources saw Saddam enter a building in Baghdad on Monday and not emerge before the bombs destroyed it, government officials said.

One official was quoted by The Washington Times as saying some analysts believe the multiple eyewitness accounts suggest the Iraqi dictator is dead.

The official described the CIA as being "in a state of euphoria."

"They say there is no doubt he is dead," said a U.S. military official on the condition of anonymity.

But an intelligence official cautioned that Washington has not made a final determination on whether Saddam was killed in the strike.

This official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said there is no doubt senior Ba'ath Party and Iraqi intelligence officials were killed, but "in terms of knowing who was killed, we just don't know."

A Pentagon official said determining Saddam's fate might rest on DNA tests - based on samples the U.S. is rumored to have obtained from his relatives or perhaps even the Iraqi leader himself, The Guardian reported.

Lieutenant Colonel Fred Swan, the bomber's weapons officer, said the crew had sensed it "might be the big one".

But Major General Stanley McChrystal, at the Pentagon, said, "We do not have hard battle-damage assessment on what individuals were or were not there."

The U.S. sought to play down the matter. "I don't think it matters that much. I'm not losing sleep trying to figure out if he was in there," the defense department spokeswoman, Torie Clarke, said.

The hunt for Saddam intensified after his regime broadcast Friday on state-run television a videotape of him suddenly emerging in the Mansur neighborhood, greeting a crowd of well-wishers.

He may have felt relatively safe there on Monday. He also had taken a walk there and not been harmed.

The area is a stronghold of his Baath party.

The CIA determined the videotape was that of Saddam, not a double, and was fairly recent.

The assessment meant Saddam had survived a March 19 bombing similar to the strike Monday.

The Air Force put four "bunker buster" bombs on his underground safe house in south Baghdad, and there were reports later that he may have been killed.