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24-7-2003 Scotsman The moment the US attacked Uday and Qusay By Gethin Chamberlain Diplomatic Correspondent THE US army yesterday released this dramatic image which captures the siege on a villa in Mosul, Iraq, which led to the deaths of Saddam Hussein's two sons, Uday and Qusay. The United States government was hoping the victory would mark a turning point for its post-war fortunes in Iraq and convince opponents of the old regime that Saddam's family will never regain power. With no sign of an end to the attacks on coalition forces, George Bush, the US president, yesterday vowed America would "keep its promise" to destroy every remnant of the toppled dictatorship. "Saddam Hussein's sons were responsible for the torture, maiming and murder of countless Iraqis," he said. "Now, more than ever, all Iraqis can know that the former regime is gone and will not be coming back." But despite the positive noises emerging from the White House, many Iraqis remained reluctant to accept the old regime was finished and, faced with demands for proof that Uday and Qusay were really dead, the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, said Washington was last night considering releasing pictures of the bodies. "We are going to make sure the Iraqi people believe us at the end of the day," he said. As Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, greeted confirmation of the deaths as a "very important move forward", more details began to emerge about their last stand. People living near to the house where the men were hiding said US troops used loudspeakers to demand they give themselves up. "Surrender yourselves or face harsh military action," were the words one witness recalled. The demands were met with a hail of gunfire from the upper floors. "It began as gunfire and then it became a battle," said Nasser Hazim. More troops arrived, until there were more than 200 surrounding the house and throughout the area. Then the Kiowa helicopters came. "They mowed everything down," the witness added. The soldiers pounded the house with grenades and heavy .50 calibre machine guns, but it was a barrage of ten anti-tank missiles which was believed to have done most of the damage. The last man standing may have been Saddam's teenage grandson, Mustapha. With three adults dead around him, he opened fire as soldiers swarmed into the ruins of the house, but it was an unequal battle. "They killed the remaining individual," said Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, of the US military. There were mixed fortunes for the man credited with tipping off US troops about the brothers. Sheik Nawaf al- Zaydan Muhhamad, who owned the house, stands to pick up the GBP 20 million bounty on the heads of Saddam's sons, but he was taken into US custody to protect him from his angry neighbours. After initial caution about the identity of the men killed, the US yesterday said dental records and independent identifications by four former regime officials showed that the two bodies were those of the brothers. Lt-Gen Sanchez said dental records were a 100 per cent match for Qusay and a 90 percent match for Uday, with injuries to his teeth making a perfect match impossible. He added that the injuries on one of the bodies matched those on X-rays of Uday after an earlier attempt on his life. US officials in Iraq now hope the death of the second and third most powerful men in the old regime will tempt others to come forward with information about the whereabouts of Saddam. Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, said: "I think we now have a possibility of somebody coming with the big one, somebody who really wants to get the dollars 25 million (GBP 15 million) reward."
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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