Inside the Hunt For Saddam

YURI KOZYREV FOR TIME
NIGHT PATROL: Soldiers from the 22nd Infantry Regiment on watch at all hours in Tikrit

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The most prominent ghosts come from Owja, Saddam's home village just south of Tikrit. Khalil Ibrahim Omar al-Mouslit and his brothers Mohammad and Radman were, respectively, Saddam's favorite bodyguard, personal chauffeur and close escort. Mohammad was seen by the butler driving Saddam's white Mercedes out of the Baghdad neighborhood of Adhamiyah after the President made a public appearance there on April 9, as the Americans were trying to take control of Baghdad. And the same day, says the former secretary, Radman personally told the other close associates of Saddam that they were no longer needed.

Russell believes that the ghosts are doing more than ushering Saddam around. He thinks they are also doling out cash and heavy weapons to those who want to attack U.S. forces. And plenty want to. In Tikrit last week, stencils reading GOD, COUNTRY, LEADER with Saddam's profile silhouetted in the middle were painted at many prominent intersections. There are pro-Saddam screeds everywhere in the city. ("He's coming back. We are waiting patiently." "Cooperate with the Americans and die"). Shopkeepers and homeowners are too frightened to remove the messages, so Russell sometimes does. Raiders hand-paint sabers through the silhouettes of Saddam's head, and snipers lie in wait to see who comes to remove them. Russell has also made his own stencil, which bears Saddam's face and the words: WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE: $25,000,000.

The Raiders' aggression has not been without cost. Russell's 22nd Infantry Regiment alone has lost two men and has been awarded 22 Purple Hearts for soldiers wounded in action since the beginning of June. Yet American commanders in the region insist that their tactics especially the capture of Mahmud are weakening the opposition. Signs of progress: the number of attacks on U.S. forces around Tikrit is down, Iraqi police officers patrol the town at night, and the city's curfew has been changed from 10 to 11 p.m. At the same time, attacks on civilians are on the rise. And shops are being shot up for selling to Americans. Last week two Iraqis working with U.S. forces died one shot in his son's auto-repair shop, the other mysteriously drowned in the Tigris.

The fact is, many Tikritis remain fiercely loyal to the old regime. In a modest, two-story home in Tikrit, Mahmoud Omar, 30, a teacher at a secondary school, says he hopes Saddam will return. The owners of the house proudly display their photos of Saddam. One, bound in leather, shows a young man from the family, in uniform, standing next to Saddam. He was a bodyguard for the former President. "We are keeping these in the house," says the owner, who doesn't want to be identified for fear of retribution from the Americans. "We will never throw them away." Some neighbors, Omar says, are burying their Saddam photos so the Americans won't confiscate them. "You have to understand," he says, "these are people who knew Saddam Hussein from the day they were born." In a Tikrit teahouse, Hakim Salih Mohammad, a former warrant officer in the Special Republican Guard, praises Saddam and contends that the ex-leader came to Saddam International Airport in early April and fired rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) from his own shoulder at the advancing Americans. "This new coalition has dismantled the military and intelligence offices. Hundreds of thousands of people are without jobs." Saddam, he says, "is our symbol, and he is our destiny."

It is because so many people in Tikrit think that way that the Raiders stay aggressive. One night last week the Cobra Company of Russell's battalion responded to reports that two men who had launched RPG attacks at a U.S. convoy had run into a nearby house. Cobra Company stormed the place and found an old Bedouin, his three sons and their wives. The soldiers apologized, and the old man offered them a glass of chilled water and a warning. "Unless you catch Saddam and show his head to the people," he said, holding his clenched hand up as if he held a fistful of hair, "they won't believe he is gone. This will not end." In Tikrit and in Washington, U.S. soldiers and politicians suspect that he is right.