IRAQ: Former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz is believed to be in the custody of US forces, Pentagon officials in Washington said tonight. "We believe we have Tariq Aziz in our possession," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
There were no immediate details on how Mr Aziz was taken by US forces. US television said Mr Aziz, the longtime international spokesman for Saddam, had given himself up.
Aziz was number 43 on the list of 55 most wanted members of the Saddam regime issued by the United States. He was the most senior Christian member of the Iraqi administration.
US forces yesterday rounded up four other fugitive members of Saddam Hussein's scattered ruling elite.
Gen Zuhayr Talib Abd al Sattar al Naqib, Saddam's chief of military intelligence, gave himself up in Baghdad on Wednesday and US special forces captured Salim Sa'id Khalaf Al-Jumayli, former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service's American desk.
Naqib is 21 on the US list of the 55 most-wanted former members of Saddam's government and US Central Command said Jumayli is suspected of having knowledge of Iraqi spies and intelligence activities in the United States.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times before he turned himself in, Naqib said he was a military man who had simply followed orders. He denied he had done anything that could be counted as a crime against humanity.
"What is their proof that I am a war criminal," he said.
The US military also said Muzahim Sa'b Hassan al-Tikriti, Air Defence Force commander and 10 on the wanted list, "is under coalition control" but gave no details of his capture.
The former Iraqi minister of trade, Muhammad Mahdi al-Salih, 48 on the list is also in US custody, bringing to 11 the number of Iraqis on the US most-wanted list to surrender or be captured. Three others are dead.
"They're collapsing like a house of cards," said Army Lt Col Tom Kurasiewicz, a Pentagon spokesman.
Meanwhile, a United Nations watchdog warned yesterday that war damage to sanitation and electricity systems, coupled with worsening pollution, had aggravated Iraq's environmental crisis and posed a threat to health.
The report, issued here by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), called for urgent action to restore Iraq's water and sewerage system and clean up pollution "hot spots".
It also suggested scientists carry out a risk assessment of sites struck by US depleted-uranium (DU) munitions and that the Iraqi public be given advice on how to avoid potential exposure to DU.
"Many environmental problems in Iraq are so alarming that an immediate assessment and a cleanup plan are needed urgently," the chairman of the UNEP study group, Mr Pekka Haavisto, said.