Pentagon offers rewards for information on regime leaders’ whereabouts

THE Pentagon is offering rewards of up to 198,000 for information on the whereabouts of leaders from Saddam Hussein’s toppled regime and its hidden weapons

In addition to cash payments, US forces in Iraq also can give food, basic necessities and other incentives to encourage Iraqi citizens to “provide information and other assistance ... including the delivery of dangerous personnel and weapons,” said Defence Department spokeswoman Lieutenant Commander Barbara Burfeind.

Hundreds of US troops have been taken off combat duty in Iraq and sent to search for weapons of mass destruction across Iraq, military chiefs said today. An entire 600-strong brigade has been divided up into small teams and was scouring sites across the country with mobile testing units.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 potential sites have already been identified and samples are being taken from between 10 and 15 sites a day.

US forces are also using radar equipment to search for chemical and biological weapons hidden underground.

Brigadier General Vince Brooks, speaking at Central Command in Qatar, said planes had been found buried underground and weapons of mass destruction may have been too.

“We are certain they are there and we have some equipment that will help us to locate them,” he said.

General Brooks also revealed three former members of one of Saddam Hussein’s feared death squads had been captured in western Iraq.

US forces were tipped off and taken to where the death squad was by Iraqi civilians. During the war, death squads were said to have held guns to the heads of children to make their fathers fight and to have cut out the tongues of Iraqis not loyal to Saddam.

A military source said: “these death squads were brutal and have carried out atrocities against the Iraqi people and now we are getting help from the Iraqi people in finding them.”

General Brooks also said that some Iraqi soldiers could still serve in a future military force. He said none of those on the list of Saddam’s 55 most wanted henchmen would have any future role. But he said: “there are a number of Iraqis who chose not to fight. I anticipate there will be some former military members who will have a role in the future of Iraq, although it is too early to say in detail what those roles would be.”

General Brooks said military action was not over. “It’s not time to say that the last military action has happened. Our military work is not complete but these are not large pockets of resistance.”