Quotes of the Day

While he ruled Iraq, Saddam Hussein remained in near constant motion, shifting from one palace to the next to prevent potential enemies from fixing his location. Over the last 8 months, he stayed on the move for the same reason. But U.S. military officials in Tikrit believe his accommodations on the lam more closely resembled the hovel on the property on which he was caught last Saturday night than the massive, ornate structures he had built around the country as monuments to himself. Lt. Col. Steven Russell commands the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry of the Fourth Infantry Division. In numerous raids his unit conducted, in conjunction with Special Operations Forces, that targeted Saddam Hussein, he says they found mostly, "Mud huts, dilapidated houses, and filth." According to Col. Todd Megill, the 4th I.D.'s senior intelligence officer, "he was probably living like that for a while."

In addition, says Megill, "We received a lot of reporting that he was living with a very small signature." If he hoped to elude the U.S. forces, "he had to strip away all the trappings of a dictator and live lower to the ground," because, says Megill, "the fewer people who knew where he was, the safer he was... He's a very crafty man in that respect.

The same family and tribal ties he apparently counted on for safety led to his downfall. The Americans may not have known his precise location at any given time, but "What we knew was who he might be with, and if we could find those guys, then we could find him," says Russell.

With that approach to the hunt, says Megill, "it was basic investigative work."  During the last week of June and early July, reports Russell, the military became aware of a family of brothers believed to possess information about Saddam's whereabouts and to be helping protect him. They were identified by other Iraqis who were shown pictures — many of them seized in previous raids — of Saddam surrounded by cronies.

The last of the brothers wasn't detained until last Friday, when he gave interrogators the tip that led member of the 4th I.D.'s First Brigade to the village of Al-Dawr and a house owned by a man named Kais Namiq.

But Russell, like the rest of the Americans serving in Iraq, didn't have long to enjoy the accomplishment. The day after the arrest was announced, he sent his men to break up pro-Saddam demonstrations in Tikrit. The next morning, three Division soldiers were wounded when their truck was hit by an improvised explosive device. That afternoon, when more protests were taking shape, he sent out tanks, troops, and trucks, to make certain they didn't last long. Russell termed it "a clampdown." Pro-Saddam protesters, he said, "will not get a chance to disrupt this city. We will not allow this to become a lawless land of Saddam-loving thugs."

The dictator left his palaces for a series of hovels, from which he was removed and taken into a detention cell. His days and nights of perpetual motion have ceased. But in Tikrit-as well as Samarra, Baghdad, Fallujah, and other cities that experienced violence and unrest in the wake of Saddam's apprehension-the tension remains.

• Phil Zabriskie
• The dictator who spent his life on the move is now securely held in one spot