Iraqi tips lead troops to important finds

Countless tips from Iraqis about everything from POWs to weapons caches are providing essential information to British and American forces seeking to stabilise the country and unravel its mysteries.

The trail of tip-offs has so far led to the return of eight US prisoners of war and the seizure of many weapons caches. Tips have also led to the suspected hideouts of Iraqi leaders.

US Gen Tommy Franks, the man running the war, said the clues helped catalogue a “huge” list of places to inspect. Military officials credit the wave of tips to relieved Iraqis eager to divulge the secrets of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

There have been tips about missing US soldiers, weapons of mass destruction, even the location of Saddam himself. But Franks acknowledged their sheer number presents its own problems.

“The difficulty we have is that these average Iraqis come up just in huge numbers, and say, come here, we want to show you something, and let me tell you where something is,” Franks said. “And in many cases, (their motives) are pure, but they don’t know themselves.”

The seven US prisoners of war welcomed back yesterday were handed over by a group of Iraqis who, according to Capt Neil Murphy of the US Marines, had been abandoned by their officers and realised “it was the right thing to do.”

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said a group of Iraqis told US troops where they would find the POWs.

Another tip by an Iraqi lawyer led to the rescue on April 1 of American POW Jessica Lynch.

But results have been mixed in some cases.

Acting on a tip last week, British soldiers in the southern city of Basra recovered explosives and detonators at several locations. But they also searched in vain for Iraqi and Kuwaiti prisoners they were told were being held in underground dungeons.

A man claiming to be Saddam’s personal plastic surgeon reportedly approached coalition troops last week saying he knew Saddam’s whereabouts, and was taken in for questioning. Officials at US Central Command were unable to confirm the case but say Saddam’s location is still unknown.

At least one tip took a tragic turn last week when US Marines battled Iraqi fighters in and around a mosque in northern Baghdad after receiving information that Baath Party leaders and perhaps Saddam himself were inside.

One American was killed and 22 others wounded in the seven-hour battle – but no leaders were found when US Marines finally stormed the building.

US and British forces are hoping tips from captured Iraqi leaders will yield the best information.

The biggest catch so far is Saddam’s top science adviser, Lt Gen Amer al-Saadi, who was the point man for Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons.

But al-Saadi insists he does not know what happened to Saddam and swears that Iraq has no such weapons.

US forces yesterday captured Saddam’s half brother and personal adviser, Watban Ibrahim al-Tikriti. He was the five of spades in the deck of cards the US military released depicting the 52 most wanted Iraqis.

Franks said yesterday that the United States was holding several high-ranking Iraqi prisoners in western Iraq. But neither he nor Pentagon officials would say how many have been captured.

It appears that number is not large, making tips from regular Iraqis all the more crucial.

Part of the problem has been a US strategy of killing top leaders rather than talking to them, a policy that dates back to the war’s opening salvo when a US air strike levelled a building where Saddam and other leaders were believed to be. That information was generated by a CIA tip.

Franks said it’s important to probe locals for knowledge. But he also suggested it would not hurt to press the detained Iraqi leaders harder.

In response to a question about whether scientific adviser al-Saadi was really coming clean with all he knew, Franks said: “We will do the interrogations of the people that we need to do until we satisfy ourselves that we have everything that they have the ability to tell us.”