The US/Iraq: Leaders of the US Senate Intelligence Committee said yesterday they were hopeful American forces hunting ousted President Saddam Hussein may have "scored", but reported no confirmation yet.
Appearing on the Fox News Sunday programme, Sen Pat Roberts of Kansas, the Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence panel, said he expected an intensive search now under way in Iraq would be fruitful.
"I will not be surprised at any military action that would lead to the possibility that we have now finally killed Saddam Hussein," Sen Roberts said.
He said neither he nor the vice chairman of the panel, Democratic Sen Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, had been informed of Saddam's fate. "I don't think the Pentagon has confirmed it. But with this very aggressive effort that we have been mounting, I would not be surprised," he said.
Sen Rockefeller added: "Pat and I both hope that we've scored but we don't know that." The lawmakers spoke amid a flurry of reports on Saddam's fate or whereabouts, including information from a captured top aide who said Saddam and his sons, Uday and Qusay, were alive after fleeing to Syria following the fall of Baghdad and later returning to Iraq.
Britain's Observer newspaper, citing military sources, said that American specialists were carrying out DNA tests on human remains believed to be Saddam and one of his sons.
The remains were retrieved from a convoy of vehicles struck last week by US forces following information that he and members of his family were travelling in the Western Desert near Syria, the Observer said. The report could not immediately be confirmed in Washington.
US officials confirmed at the weekend that US Special Operations troops and paramilitary intelligence agents in Iraq were conducting an intense search armed with information provided by Saddam's personal secretary, Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, the ace of diamonds in the US military's deck of cards of 55 most wanted Iraqis, who was captured last week. The officials cautioned, however, that the information might be suspect.
Jordan's King Abdullah said yesterday that he was assuming Saddam was alive "until there was critical proof that he was dead".