In an ABC news exclusive, former CIA officer Bob Baer, who now works with ABC, says Saddam’s intelligence chief tried to arrange Saddam’s surrender last week. He contacted Baer, with whom he had secretly worked in the past. “They told me the chief of Iraqi intelligence was seeking to get in touch with the United States and could I do anything about that,” says Baer. On April 11, Saddam’s top intelligence officer, Gen. Taher Haboush, came to the home of the Dulaym Tribe’s chief near the town of Ar-Ramadi on behalf of Saddam, to arrange a meeting. But shortly after he arrived, U.S. forces bombed the home, killing the chief, along with 17 members of his family. Haboush managed to escape.
Baer thinks the military tracked Haboush through his satellite phone, which gives off precise location coordinates. “There must have been somebody in the house using a (satellite phone),” says Baer. According to Fahad Kaharbit, a nephew of the dead tribal chief, they all use that kind of phone. “The problem is they mentioned a name on the list,” says Baer.
Baer thinks Saddam was nearby when he sent Haboush to try to make a deal. The tribe says they have no idea where Saddam is now. Kaharbit says, “We tried to get them and us a big favor by surrendering the president himself.”
“We don’t know who to trust,” says Dulaym tribal leader Abdullah Hamid. “We don’t trust (the U.S.) anymore.”
Can we believe that the U.S. wants to capture Saddam alive if we were so quick to bomb the place where he was ready to surrender? It makes us wonder who’s really running things.
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