And Then There Was One

AP
A Dictator and His Boys: Saddam with Uday and Qusay

Uday and Qusay Hussein hated each other. When they were boys, Uday would torture his younger brother, going so far as to stab him in the thigh and break his ribs and to try to blind him with a burning cigarette stub. Over the course of four decades they would become, apart from their father Saddam, the most feared men in Iraq responsible for untold numbers of maimings, jailings and murders and, in the case of Uday, rapes as well. The brothers never outgrew their mutual contempt. Qusay loathed Uday's drunken rampages and reprobate lifestyle; Uday railed to friends that Qusay, Saddam's chosen heir, conspired to marginalize him after a 1996 assassination attempt left him crippled.

Thus it was somewhat of a surprise that the antipathetic brothers were ultimately found together, holed up in a mansion on a busy thoroughfare in a suburb of the northern city of Mosul. In the end, they went down together, engaging U.S. forces in a four-hour battle before both were taken out of the house dead, provoking celebrations in Iraq and relief in Washington. The removal of two aces from the Pentagon's deck of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis provided a much-needed boost to a White House reeling from growing public suspicions that it stretched its case for the war, which has claimed more American lives than did the first Gulf War. U.S. commanders hope the brothers' demise will decapitate the leadership of the guerrilla resistance that has tormented U.S. forces since the beginning of the summer and thereby deliver the enemy a mortal blow. The U.S. believes the Fedayeen Saddam militia, which Uday controlled during the war, is behind many of the attacks on American troops. At the same time, U.S. officials hope ordinary Iraqis will be encouraged to cooperate with the U.S.

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Now American forces are zeroing in on their main prey. With the sons disposed of, military officials last week received flurries of reports on Saddam's whereabouts. Says Lieut. Colonel Steven Russell, commander of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, which is based in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit: "Any time we have seen a capture or killing of deck-of-cards people, we see a very positive effect, with a lot more people coming forward with information." On Thursday, during a raid south of Tikrit, soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division captured what the Pentagon said were "five to 10" suspected members of Saddam's security detail. A former butler of Uday's, visited by a group of Saddam's relatives two days after the deaths of the brothers, says Saddam's family is "very depressed and nervous" that the former leader may soon be captured. "They were very impatient to hear news from 'our uncle,'" says the butler, using a nickname for Saddam. "They told me, 'If they get hold of him, that's it, our end.'"

The drama last week began with what the military calls a walk-in. Someone approached U.S. soldiers at a camp gate to volunteer information on the brothers' whereabouts. U.S. forces put a discreet cordon around the Mosul house, which is owned by Sheikh Nawaf al-Zaydan Mohammed, a member of Saddam's tribe. Shortly before 10 the next morning, a phalanx of Army humvees arrived at the house, blaring instructions in Arabic for those inside to come out. Witnesses say that moments after al-Zaydan and his son emerged, hands raised, gunfire erupted from the upper floor of the house. About 20 U.S. soldiers stormed the building. Inside, they were met with a hail of AK-47 fire, which wounded four soldiers. The Americans called for backup.

The brothers surely knew this was their last stand. Though Uday in particular was not known for his valor--"He doesn't kill anyone with his own hand. He is a coward," a longtime family servant recently told TIME the shooting from the second story continued for more than an hour. At 1 p.m., American Kiowa helicopters spit rockets into the mansion while ground troops launched 40-mm grenades and 10 antitank TOW missiles. A group of soldiers entered the house again; it was quiet this time, save for a few shots from the bedroom fired by Qusay's son Mustafa, 14, who was killed when the troops returned fire. In a small upstairs bathroom covered in blood and broken glass, the soldiers found the bodies of three others: Uday, Qusay and a bodyguard.

It is testament to the depths of the brothers' terror that many Iraqis celebrated the reports of their violent deaths as if life had begun anew. In Baghdad people stayed out all night for the first time since the end of the war, firing celebratory rifle shots from the roofs of their houses and crowding around televisions in hotel lobbies to watch coverage of the raid. In the streets and suqs of the capital the next morning, shop owners congratulated one another with handshakes and kisses when they arrived for work. "If this street could talk, it would tell you that Uday would take a girl off the street and rape her," says Amar Abdul Amir, 45. "But no one could say anything. Before I was afraid to talk to Baath Party members. Today I feel O.K."