Hussein Captured

American troops tracked a scruffy and haggard Saddam Hussein to a dirt hole at a farmhouse near his hometown here, capturing the elusive dictator without firing a shot and unleashing euphoria Sunday among Iraqis and the U.S.-led forces who have hunted him for more than eight months.

The seizure of the man who bent this country to his will for three decades set off cascades of celebratory gunfire throughout Baghdad, the capital, and delivered the U.S.-led coalition its most significant victory at a time when the fruitless hunt for weapons of mass destruction and an ever more tenacious insurgency had eroded the American public’s support for the mission.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we got him,” a tired but jubilant U.S. civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer III proclaimed.

He made the announcement almost 19 hours after a special operations team of 600 soldiers from the Army’s 4th Infantry Division captured Hussein.

In Washington, President Bush hailed the end of what he called a “dark and painful era” in Iraq and pledged to the nation’s people, “You will not have to fear the rule of Saddam Hussein ever again.”

The sweep, named Operation Red Dawn, culminated with the discovery of Hussein in what the coalition’s U.S. commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, described as a “spider hole.” Two unidentified guards, small arms and $750,000 were found in a nearby hut. Hussein was captured at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, then examined and interrogated before being held at an undisclosed coalition location.

Although he had a pistol, Hussein put up no resistance and was “talkative and being cooperative,” Sanchez said, declining to give details of what the former dictator had told them. He described Hussein as “a tired man, a man resigned to his fate.”

Coalition officials acknowledged that Hussein’s capture was unlikely to immediately end the ambushes and assassinations waged by the regime loyalists and foreign infiltrators who have brought their proclaimed holy war against the United States to Iraq.

Early today, two police stations near Baghdad were targeted with bombs probably planted by insurgents. In Husseiniya, 18 miles north of the capital, a car bomb exploded, killing at least nine Iraqis, news agencies reported. In Amiriyah, west of the capital, two bombers tried to attack in separate vehicles. One car exploded, injuring eight people; the other failed to explode and the driver fled.

Those bombings followed a car bombing Sunday at a police station in the tense town of Khaldiyah that killed at least 17 Iraqis and wounded dozens of others.

Nevertheless, Hussein’s detention was certain to alleviate Iraqi fears that the holdouts, whom Bremer has dismissed as “bitter-enders,” could return the dictator to power.

“A significant blow has been dealt to former regime elements,” Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, whose 4th Infantry Division conducted the massive sweep, said at a news conference at division headquarters here in Tikrit. But it appeared unlikely that Hussein was directing insurgent actions from his hide-out, the general said, because no communications devices were found at the primitive site near several farmhouses and a sheep barn.

“I think he was more there for moral support,” Odierno said.

As he was led out of his hiding place, officials said, Hussein appeared disoriented. “He was very much bewildered,” Odierno said. “He didn’t say hardly anything at all.”

Hussein was found in a crawl space a few steps from his sleeping area that featured a gray metal ventilation pipe to provide fresh air. It is likely that Hussein descended into the hole whenever troops came near, officials said.

The general said it was ironic that Hussein was found in a crude dirt cell so close to the lavish palaces he built just across the Tigris River. U.S. and other intelligence operatives had speculated that Hussein had sophisticated underground compounds in which he could survive for years.

Iraqi government figures vowed to prosecute the deposed leader for war crimes, and citizens who held emotional demonstrations demanded his execution.

In one of numerous spontaneous processions that clogged the streets of Baghdad after word of Hussein’s capture spread, ethnic Turkmens and Kurds celebrated their emancipation from the threat of a return to officially orchestrated strife.

“I can’t express my happiness, because the old regime killed many innocents and destroyed homes and villages and threw us out of our jobs,” effused 27-year-old Said Ahmed, a Turkmen.

“Saddam is a criminal. He killed thousands of Kurdish people and attacked my family,” said Soma Ali, a 24-year-old student. “I can’t put in words my feeling of celebration.”

U.S. troops on the ground also exulted in the capture, voicing hope that attacks on them would diminish.

“It feels good,” said Staff Sgt. Michael Merzke, 27, of Ohio, a military police officer at the U.S. compound in Tikrit. “It’s about time we found him.”

At a Baghdad news conference mobbed by coalition employees, troops and Iraqi and foreign journalists, Sanchez showed a videotape of a bearded Hussein being examined by a medic. Visible only from the shoulders up, the former president passively allowed the doctor to peer into his mouth using a light and tongue depressor and pick through his matted hair and beard as if searching for lice.

Iraqi journalists, many overcome with emotion at the sight of the man who once repressed them, shouted praise to God and “Death to Saddam!”

Fatigue was visible in Hussein’s face. His eyes were hung with puffy bags, and he made no effort to avoid looking at the military camera that filmed his examination.

The video clip also showed the hole in which Hussein, 66, was found, in the village of Ad Dawr, about 10 miles south of Tikrit. From an opening about 2 feet square, a few dirt steps could be seen descending one story to a ventilated cell just long enough for a man to lie down in.

Asked what Hussein was doing when he was found, Sanchez replied, “Hiding.”

Coalition officials, who warned that the insurgents were still dangerous, expressed hope that Hussein’s capture would eventually demoralize Baath Party loyalists. Bremer said it was a “great day in Iraq’s history,” adding, “The tyrant is a prisoner.”

Although the determination of foreign jihadis in the country is unlikely to lessen with Hussein’s capture, his arrest marked a huge victory for the United States. As U.S.-led authorities struggle to build up an Iraqi government and security force to which the coalition would hand over power by July 1, the failure to apprehend Hussein had served as evidence to many Iraqis that Bush’s May 1 declaration of victory after the springtime offensive was at best premature.

Hussein’s capture “brings closure to the Iraqi people,” Sanchez said. “Saddam Hussein will never return to a position of power from which he can punish, terrorize, intimidate and exploit the Iraqi people as he did for more than 35 years.”

The three-star general, who commands troops from 30 nations in Iraq, said Hussein was cooperating with the interrogation. Sanchez declined to say, however, whether the coalition had asked Hussein to address loyalists with an appeal to end their offensives.

Whereas Sanchez cast Hussein as resigned but unemotional, one of four Iraqi government officials brought to view the former dictator, apparently in Baghdad, described him as “unrepentant and sarcastic.” Mouwafak Rabii, a Shiite Muslim and prominent businessman on the Iraqi Governing Council, said the interim leadership delegation spent about half an hour with Hussein. Shiites, who make up the majority of Iraq’s population, were ruthlessly suppressed during Hussein’s rule.

“He is an unbelievable psychopath,” said Rabii, who said Hussein was found tucked into a small recess of the hide-out “with rats and mice.”

Adel Abdul Mehdi, another senior Shiite Muslim political official, said he told Hussein that Iraqis were celebrating in the streets at the news of his capture. “Those are mobs,” Mehdi quoted an indifferent Hussein as saying. The operation and its dramatic conclusion were kept secret for 19 hours so coalition forces could conduct health and identity checks, including DNA analysis, members of the Governing Council said.

Having weathered numerous false alarms about Hussein’s capture since the April 9 fall of Baghdad, many Iraqis remained skeptical until they saw his weary image in the military video, which was shown repeatedly on TV. The coalition also presented a photograph of Hussein after his beard was shaved and ran it alongside a photo from Hussein’s days in office to show it had the right man.

“I assure you he is arrested. There is no doubt,” said Adnan Pachachi, another Governing Council member who visited Hussein in detention. He said the capture was a joyous breakthrough that would “allow us to continue our march to build Iraq and to regain its independence and sovereignty.”

Another council member, Ahmad Chalabi, told journalists that Hussein would be put on trial for war crimes once a newly created special tribunal began its work, probably after the planned July 1 dissolution of the occupation administration.

On Wednesday, when Iraqi officials announced the formation of the tribunal, they made it clear that the death penalty would be restored as a sentencing option once Iraq recovered its sovereignty. Coalition officials suspended capital punishment shortly after the fall of Baghdad to reassess the country’s judicial system.

“A heavy nightmare has been lifted from the Iraqis,” Chalabi said. “The situation will now improve in Iraq. The Iraqi people will sigh deeply.”

In New York, human rights group Amnesty International welcomed Hussein’s capture but urged his jailers to grant him prisoner-of-war status and allow a visit by the International Committee of the Red Cross, spokesman Alistair Hodgett said.

Said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch: “Saddam Hussein’s capture is a welcome development and it’s important that the Iraqi people feel ownership of his trial.

“But it is equally important that the trial not be perceived as vengeful justice,” he said. “For that reason, international jurists must be involved in the process.”

The coalition’s Baghdad news conference was carried live on the occupation administration’s Iraqi Media Network. The widely viewed Arabic-language networks Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya also carried live feeds of the event, which was attended by Bremer, Sanchez and Pachachi.

Rumors had begun circulating in Baghdad early Sunday that Hussein, the U.S. government’s most-wanted man after Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, had been captured or killed. Among the rumors, which Sanchez dismissed as merely that, was a report that Hussein’s wife had tipped coalition forces to his whereabouts. Odierno, however, said the operation was aided by someone from a family “close to him.”

Hussein had a $25-million bounty on his head, but Sanchez declined to say whether the information leading to his capture came from an Iraqi’s tip. He would say only that “human intelligence” received at 10:50 a.m. Saturday spurred the 4th Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team to scramble a special operations team to close in on two sites in the village of Ad Dawr. A U.S. official in Washington said a reward would not be forthcoming.

Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusai were killed in a raid in the northern city of Mosul on July 22. Thirty-nine other top Baathists from the coalition’s 55-most-wanted list have been captured, including former Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz and Ali Hassan Majid, the military zealot known as “Chemical Ali” for his gassing of ethnic Kurds in 1988.

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Williams reported from Baghdad and McDonnell from Tikrit.