Relative of Hussein Is Seized

U.S. Special Forces captured a half brother of Saddam Hussein early Thursday, raising hopes that American officials can glean valuable information about the ousted Iraqi president and his regime -- and perhaps find out whether he is alive or dead.

Barzan Ibrahim Hasan, a former intelligence chief, is one of Hussein’s three half brothers and is believed to have had extensive knowledge about the country’s weapons programs. Human rights groups allege he is responsible for the killing and disappearance of thousands of members of ethnic minorities during the 1980s.

His capture came on a day when more tentative steps were taken toward establishing order, as well as a new administration, in Iraq.

Although most combat has subsided, U.S. officials announced that allied forces had bombed the bases of an Iranian opposition group based in Iraq. And Pentagon officials said they plan to study the incidence of “friendly fire” deaths to find ways to reduce them.

Speaking at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Doha, Qatar, Army Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said Hasan’s capture was significant because of his “extensive knowledge of the regime’s workings.”

The United States also hopes he will provide information that could lead to Hussein or his remains, he said.

“We are currently asking a number of questions” of Hasan, Brooks added, “finding out whatever we can from this capture.”

The seizure is part of a strategy by U.S. and British forces to exploit the knowledge of Iraqi officials who have been captured or have surrendered.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday that teams hunting for illegal weapons in Iraq are unlikely to succeed without help from Iraqis themselves.

Hussein’s regime matched wits with U.N. weapons inspectors for so long that it developed sophisticated ways to mask its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, Rumsfeld told Defense Department employees in a town hall meeting at the Pentagon. As a result, allied forces scouring Iraq probably won’t find any taboo weapons until former Iraqi officials point them out, he said.

“It is not like a treasure hunt, where you just run around looking everywhere, hoping you find something,” Rumsfeld said. “The inspectors didn’t find anything, and I doubt that we will. What we will do is find the people who will tell us.”

The survey teams looking for illegal weapons so far have apparently found only false leads. Defense officials have reported suspected drums of chemical weapons that turned out to hold pesticides and alleged chemical munitions that turned out to be conventional weapons.

Hasan, the captured Hussein half brother, was alone when he was seized in Baghdad and was taken without incident, U.S. officials said. His home, which reportedly doubled as an intelligence operations center, was hit by a U.S. airstrike April 11, and some reports said he had been killed.

“We act on pieces of information, joining parts of the puzzle together, to be able to gain access to regime leaders like Barzan al Tikriti ... and others that are still out there,” said Brooks, using a variation on Hasan’s name that indicates he comes from Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit.

On Sunday, the Central Command had announced the capture of another Hussein half brother, Watban Ibrahim Hasan, who once served as Iraq’s interior minister.

The third half brother, Sabawi Ibrahim Hasan, reportedly has taken refuge in Damascus, the Syrian capital. The U.S. has warned Syria not to give shelter or safe passage to Iraqi regime members fleeing the country.

A U.S. intelligence official said Barzan Hasan is a significant catch for U.S. forces and could be particularly helpful in providing information about the regime’s finances.

Hasan served as Iraq’s U.N. representative in Geneva in the 1980s and much of the ‘90s, the official said. From that post, he is believed to have been involved in setting up and running front companies that Iraq used to procure weapons materials. He may also have worked to shelter a portion of the Hussein family’s vast wealth in foreign accounts.

“He certainly is believed to have been involved in handling the regime’s finances in Europe and may have been helping hide some money away,” the official said.

Hasan was recalled to Baghdad in the late 1990s for reasons that remain unclear, and there were indications that his relationship with the Iraqi dictator was significantly strained in recent years, the official said.

Hasan’s daughter is the estranged wife of Hussein’s elder son, Uday. Hasan, believed to be about 53, also served as head of Iraqi intelligence in the late 1970s and early ‘80s.

As remnants of the old regime were being pursued by allied forces, political figures eager to be part of the new government began to emerge.

Ahmad Chalabi, a leader of the Iraqi National Congress who is viewed as a favorite among some Pentagon officials, was expected to make a public appearance in Baghdad today, but several of his supporters already appeared to be claiming they have a mandate.

Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi, an ally of Chalabi who describes himself as an official in the INC, told reporters Thursday that he had been chosen to head an interim council to run Baghdad. It was unclear who had chosen him.

But after more than two decades of rule by a political strongman, Iraqis have expressed dismay at the chaos resulting from the current lack of leadership.

By late Thursday, small crowds had gathered in Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel around several men in traditional Arab clothes who declared that they were top aides to Zubaidi. And in a nearby square, crowds chanted angrily that they wanted to talk to Chalabi.

Prompting the call for leadership is distress over continuing civic disarray. At night, some Baghdad neighborhoods still crackle with gunfire and U.S. soldiers patrol the streets.

During the day Thursday, the looting -- which has badly damaged numerous government buildings as well as hospitals and banks -- continued, although at a slower pace as U.S. troops increasingly moved to guard institutions and apprehend thieves.

Basic services such as electricity and telephone services are still not widely operating.

Members of the U.S. military’s civil affairs units said Thursday that they hoped to be able to restore electricity to large swaths of Baghdad in the next 24 to 48 hours, but that telephone service could take as long as three weeks.

But one Iraqi radio station appeared ready to start broadcasting today, according to Talib Zangana, 53, a member of the U.S.-organized Free Iraqi Forces who is working with civil affairs engineers to restore the city’s phone system and get its radio stations running again.

The Free Iraqi Forces, made up primarily of Iraqi Americans, have been trained in recent weeks to work with allied troops as translators and liaisons between the U.S. military and Iraqis. But full law and order could be a long time coming. At the police academy in Baghdad, where allied forces asked traffic officers and regular police to report for duty, only about 200 former policemen, a tiny percentage of the total, milled about the yard in the glaring sun Thursday.

“We need policemen from Britain and the United States. After they destroyed everything, we want them to help,” said Zuhair Nuaimy, former high commander of the Baghdad police.

Nuaimy, who was sitting at a desk in a small, bare office, said the force once totaled 60,000. Of those, only 500 have returned to work since allied forces asked for their help. A short line of returning police officers stood at Nuaimy’s door waiting to give him their names in preparation for returning to work.

Iraqi police patrols will start again today, said several officers waiting to register their names.

Many civil servants are reluctant to return to work because they are unsure whether they will be paid, said Zangana, a Kurd who is now a U.S. citizen living in Chula Vista in San Diego County.

“When I was working on the radio station, I paid for people’s lunch and their transportation out of my own pocket,” he said.

In Tikrit, about 100 miles north of Baghdad, Marine Brig. Gen. John F. Kelly allowed local police officers to return to work directing traffic. But he appointed a Marine officer to fill in as the city’s police chief.

“We gave their police a lecture on how American police work,” Kelly said Thursday. “If they can learn how to help people and stop abusing them, they can stay as police. Otherwise, we’ll get new people.”

Kelly also said an incursion by Kurds into Tikrit has lessened because of the presence of Marine patrols in northern sectors of the city, where residents had complained bitterly that the Kurds had been looting homes.

Kelly, who commanded the Marine task force that captured Tikrit earlier this week, has established a council of tribal elders to help rebuild the city. But he has rejected their request that they be allowed to live in Hussein’s vast array of palace buildings in Tikrit on a bluff overlooking the Tigris River.

“I told them I thought those buildings would work better as a university or maybe a women’s center, to help this region learn how to treat women better,” he said.

Kelly spoke after he greeted Army Lt. Col. William Schafer, whose 4th Infantry Division will be taking over responsibility for the city from the Marines.

“You can’t believe how relieved I am to see you,” Kelly joked as the two met on the runway of the city’s main airport.

Schafer, who is the Army’s point man in Tikrit until a general arrives, said his division should be in Tikrit within three to four days, allowing the Marines to return to Baghdad, where they have responsibility for a large sector of the capital.

Kelly said he is determined to restore electrical and water service in Tikrit before the Army takes over. The two systems were knocked out by U.S. bombing early in the war.

Also Thursday, Brooks, the Central Command spokesman, confirmed reports that U.S. forces have bombed the bases of the Moujahedeen Khalq, an Iranian opposition group based in Iraq. He said the attacks on the force had been going on “for some time.”

The group, an allegedly pro-Hussein faction of Iranian guerrillas fighting just over Iraq’s border with Iran, has been considered a terrorist group by the United States since 1997.

The U.S. attacks on the group apparently have gone unopposed by the government of Iran, whose soldiers have fought deadly clashes with the guerrillas along the border.

“There’s work that’s ongoing right now to try to secure some sort of agreement that would be a cease-fire and a capitulation,” Brooks said.

At the Pentagon meeting, Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke about the problem of “friendly fire” deaths in combat, saying such mistakes are among the most important problems to be studied after the war in Iraq.

“I am positive that out of this, we’re going to end up finding ways that we can reduce ‘friendly-fire’ casualties. I am positive we can,” Rumsfeld told Pentagon employees, speaking on the first anniversary of an incident in which an American pilot dropped a bomb that killed four Canadians in a training exercise in Afghanistan. “There has to be a way to reduce that.”

Myers said the Pentagon’s normal postwar “lessons learned” review, which usually takes a year, will be completed much more quickly this time.

At least six of the 125 U.S. deaths in the current campaign were accidentally killed by their colleagues, in addition to at least five of the 31 British troops killed to date. In the worst such incident, 19 Kurds were killed while fighting alongside American forces in an April 6 bomb strike on their convoy. Three U.S. Special Forces soldiers were injured.

During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, 35 of the 148 American dead were later determined to have been killed by their own comrades.

Rubin reported from Baghdad and Miller from Washington. Times staff writers Tony Perry in Tikrit and John Hendren in Washington contributed to this report.