U.S. Forces Step Up Search for Hussein

The killings of Uday and Qusai Hussein have led to a surge in tips to occupying authorities, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said here Sunday, amid reports that an early-morning raid by U.S. troops in Tikrit missed seizing Saddam Hussein’s security chief, and perhaps even the former Iraqi leader, by a day.

In an additional raid believed to have been aimed at catching the elusive Hussein, American soldiers searched a tribal leader’s home in Baghdad on Sunday night but came away empty-handed.

Iraqi witnesses said at least two civilians were killed when troops fired on two cars speeding through the neighborhood.

Recent progress, including Tuesday’s raid in Mosul that killed the two Hussein brothers, the No. 2 and No. 3 most-wanted figures of the former regime, has prompted a spate of tips from informants, said Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The Tikrit raid followed Friday’s capture of at least five of the Iraqi leader’s bodyguards.

Pentagon officials were eager to show signs of progress after 16 American soldiers were killed in the last nine days. The successful tracking of Hussein’s sons, after a tip from what U.S. authorities have said was a “walk-in” informant, has buoyed officials’ confidence that the critical piece of intelligence on the father is not far behind. There is a $25-million bounty on Saddam Hussein.

“There’s been a big spike in the numbers coming forward, providing evidence of weapons caches and of where people are,” Myers told reporters during a daylong visit to Iraq.

“I do talk to the folks that are involved in those operations, and it’s my opinion, if he’s alive, it’s just a matter of time. It’s a big country, but we’ll find him.”

Military strategists are banking on the capture or killing of Hussein to demoralize armed resistance and wipe away the fear that has kept Iraqis from fully cooperating with the American-led administration in Iraq.

Pervasive fear of the toppled regime has left Iraqis wary and slow to trust Americans with information, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said Sunday.

“But they’re giving us more and more,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I think what happened last week with the deaths of those two miserable creatures is encouraging more people to come forward.... Getting rid of Saddam Hussein will have more effect than any single thing we can do.”

The raid in Tikrit, by hundreds of soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division, targeted the man believed to have taken over security for Hussein after the June 17 arrest of Abid Hamid Mahmud Tikriti, the fourth-most-wanted figure in the regime and Hussein’s private secretary.

Intelligence had suggested that Hussein himself might be in the area, U.S. officials said.

Troops searched three farms only to learn that the new security chief had fled the area. “We missed him by 24 hours,” Lt. Col. Steve Russell, who led the operation, told Associated Press.

On Sunday night, U.S. troops presumably acting on a tip stormed the Baghdad home of Prince Rabia Mohammed Habib, 72, the leader of the Rabia tribe, which has influence throughout Iraq. The tribal leader later said that the soldiers believed Hussein might be hiding in the house.

About 6:30 p.m., heavily armed soldiers sealed off the area around the villa in the Mansour neighborhood, a place frequented in the past by Hussein and his family. In April, the U.S. tried to kill Hussein just across the street, where he was believed to have had a safe house. In that incident, two homes were crushed and more than a dozen civilians were killed by bombs, but Hussein and his sons escaped.

On Sunday, U.S. soldiers apparently were unnerved by two cars that were speeding by on a nearby street and fired into the vehicles, killing the drivers and wounding others, said Jaffa Ameer, who said he saw the shootings.

Two other cars parked nearby burst into flames when stray gunfire punctured their gas tanks, witnesses said.

The Reuters news service reported that five people were killed in the shootings, but the witnesses said they could confirm only that the drivers were dead.

A military spokesman in Baghdad refused to comment on the incident. “There are ongoing operations in the area. This is the time to go get them,” said Staff Sgt. J.J. Johnson, referring to leaders of the former regime.

Some relatives of the prince were irate about the raid, in which windows were broken and shot through, locks ripped off, the contents of drawers spilled onto the floor.

“They blew open our doors, shot our windows. It was an unnecessary attack,” said Ahmed Ameer, a nephew. “If they had come and knocked on the door, we could have opened it, and they could have searched everything.”

But the prince, who arrived at the home half an hour after the raid, seemed resigned. “Anything can happen because Saddam Hussein is very much wanted by the coalition,” he said. “When they got false information, they acted on it.”

Meanwhile, Wolfowitz, one of the chief architects of the war, appeared on three Sunday television talk shows, citing progress in Iraq and seeking to rebut claims that the Bush administration exaggerated the extent of Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

The killings of Uday and Qusai Hussein will “build the confidence of the Iraqi people to give us information,” he said on “Meet the Press.” “In the last week alone, we’ve picked up 660 surface-to-air missiles. That’s a product of the increased intelligence the Iraqi people are providing us.”

He was asked to comment on a new report by Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, which concluded that “the evidence does not point to the existence of large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons.”

“I don’t know how he knows,” Wolfowitz responded. “I flew over Baghdad. It’s a city ... as large as Los Angeles. You look at all those houses and realize that every basement might contain a huge, lethal quantity of anthrax.”

On “Fox News Sunday” and in his other appearances, Wolfowitz linked the invasion of Iraq with President Bush’s war on terrorism, calling the conflict in Iraq “the central battle in the war on terrorism.”

He also repeatedly emphasized that intelligence related to terrorism was intrinsically “murky.”

But on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, disputed Wolfowitz’s characterization.

“Boy, it sure didn’t sound murky before the war,” Levin said. “There were clear connections, we were told, between Al Qaeda and Iraq. There was no murkiness, no nuance, no uncertainty about it at all.... That’s the way it was presented to the American people.”