Two of them brushed away the dirt, exposing a bit of rope. Walking a few steps across the small patio, he began to gesture toward a foot mat.ĭrawing it aside, the special operations soldiers noticed soft earth beneath the mat. Musslit did not want to be seen or heard, but the soldiers continued to pepper him with demands to show them the location. A look passed between them, each hoping the other would be the one to expose Saddam. He spotted Saddam's cook, Qais, whom we had captured moments earlier as he tried to flee the farm. 12, and the next day, he reluctantly helped lead us to the farm near Tikrit where Saddam was hiding. He had been caught in a raid in Baghdad on Dec. Mohammed al-Musslit, Saddam's closest confidante, was terrified. There was no doubt that we were close to penetrating Saddam's last shell of protection. We quickly found targets that we had been seeking since June and July. Others were a Who's Who of Saddam's distant relatives and associates. 3, we had badged 1,200 men and detained some three dozen whose names were on our wanted list. They waited as badges were churned out and, once they had their badges, were allowed to leave through the town's single remaining exit.īy Nov. Hundreds of Aujite men arrived at the police station by 9 a.m. With the town locked down, the only way out would be to register. They clearly thought I had taken leave of my senses, but I knew that without a comprehensive cordon, only honest people would voluntarily appear for registration. How much would it take?" I then told my staff that I wanted to fence the entire town and conduct a census. "How much barbed wire would it take to fence the entire village of Auja?" I first broached the subject with my majors. I remembered studying Napoleon's directives to expose insurgents in the Rhineland by means of a census. We hoped that Iraqis making clandestine appearances in Auja would still have ties to Saddam. Every defeated cell of Saddam's regime or captured planner of the insurgency seemed to have ties to this town. OCTOBERĪs Halloween approached, it was time to implement a plan in Auja that we had labored over for weeks. ![]() We would soon become thoroughly familiar with them. ![]() The network revolved around five families who had known Saddam since his youth, roughly since the 1950s. For the next hour and a half, the brothers explained Saddam's prewar security apparatus. "There are certain families," he declared flatly. Here we go, I thought-more elaborate tales that will send us on yet another wild goose chase. "You need to understand something," Ahmed whispered. They were once landowners, but Saddam had killed their father and seized their land for his cronies. The brothers were businessmen who lived in Al Auja, the village where Saddam was born. The three of us sat on battered furniture scavenged from buildings in various degrees of ruin. My name is Ahmed, and this is my brother Nahed." They asked if we could go somewhere private. Rasool," they smiled with extended hands. They don't look like the others we've had here today," said the sergeant. ![]() Them and everyone else," I answered begrudgingly, also miserable in a sweat-soaked uniform.
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