![]() ![]() On March 20, 2003, the Iraq War commenced with a surge of U.S.-led troops and the explicit goal to take down Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and find his supposed weapons of mass destruction. While there were some valuable targets near the bottom of the list-men like the “Fat Man” who would prove central to the post-invasion insurgency-they were mixed in with people who were misidentified, completely innocent, or both.On December 13, 2003, the United States military captured Saddam Hussein. An extended catalog of hundreds more targets, known as the Black List, had similar inadequacies. Their power vanished the moment the regime collapsed and Iraq was once again governed by tribal networks. While it was reasonable for these men, as government officials and members of the Baath party, to be on a wanted list, capturing them was neither going to cripple the budding insurgency or lead the American-led coalition to their former boss. Many of the men on the lower-numbered cards were essentially middle managers, like the deputy head of the tribal affairs office (Nine of Clubs) and the trade minister (Six of Hearts). Virtually every single person in the deck, which was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, was a member of Saddam’s regime. ![]() The deck of cards didn’t help in the hunt of Saddam, very simply, because the cards had many of the wrong people on them. In searching for Saddam, the military was targeting the wrong people. If the military was going to locate him, it would have to start from scratch. Second, Saddam appeared not to be seeking protection from the men on the deck of cards. First, if Abid was to be believed, Saddam Hussein was alive. This was bad news for the war effort for two reasons. The trusted aide, who some called “Saddam’s Shadow,” told interrogators he and Saddam’s two sons had parted ways with the dictator a while back, after Saddam became convinced they could survive longer if they separated. But hopes that Abid could lead the United States to Saddam were quickly dashed. “Captured Iraqi May Know Fate of Saddam,” the Associated Press declared. Newspapers trumpeted his mid-June capture as the war’s biggest feat. Abid, a ubiquitous presence behind the dictator in pre-war photos, had controlled access to Saddam during his years in power. ![]() ![]() He wasn’t anyone on the deck of playing cards depicting the regime’s 55 most-wanted members, and the coalition troops had much bigger priorities than hunting down bodyguards.Ĭonsider the case of Abid Hamid Mahmoud al-Khatab, Saddam’s trusted personal secretary and the Ace of Diamonds. Nobody was particularly worried about the guy next to the dictator, a heavyset man in a brown striped shirt and sunglasses. When grainy footage of the Butcher of Baghdad’s last promenade surfaced 10 days later, most analysts were preoccupied with determining whether it was authentic. At the time, American intelligence officers didn’t know whether Saddam had survived a hailstorm of 2,000-pound bombs and Tomahawk missiles fired at the beginning of the war. Marines in Baghdad tore down a 40-foot-tall bronze statue of the Iraqi dictator. Not long after-possibly that same day, just a few miles away from where Saddam went on his celebratory walk-U.S. When he reached a white sedan, Saddam climbed onto the hood to survey the sea of loyalists. Someone handed Saddam a bewildered baby, which he hoisted up in the air a few times and handed back. It was April 2003, and Saddam Hussein cheerily greeted his subjects as a few bodyguards tried to keep the crowd at bay. #COLONEL SADDAM HUSSEIN CAPTURE DRIVERS#Traffic had slowed to a crawl in Baghdad’s Azamiyah district as drivers stopped to ogle the president. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |