شيخة
22-03-2003, 09:10 PM
ABCNEWS' Brian Ross reported that the three critical Iraqi officials — Taha Yasin Ramadan, Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, and Ali Hassan Majid, known as Chemical Ali — are believed to have died in Wednesday night's "decapitation attack," the opening salvo of the war.
"Chemical Ali," Saddam's cousin and a key general and governor of southern Iraq, earned his chilling nickname by using chemical weapons to suppress a Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq in the late 1980s, killing thousands.
A CIA spokesman denied the report, but American intelligence sources said they reached this conclusion from analysis of radio traffic and after watching who went where, and who didn't arrive where they were expected.
Both Ramadan and Ibrahim were longtime advisers to Saddam. Along with Saddam himself, the two men were the only surviving plotters who carried out the coup that brought the Baath Party to power in 1968.
The three men did not appear in a videotape of Saddam meeting with advisers released today. Also absent was Saddam's eldest son, Odai. There are suspicions he also may have been killed, but this could not be confirmed.
There were other positive developments for Washington today when U.S. military sources said the commander of Iraq's 51st Division and his top deputy surrendered to U.S. Marines. The 51st was the division charged with defending the Iraq border near Basra, a strategic city south of Baghdad. It was the first time that the commander of an Iraqi division has surrendered to allied forces.
And the U.S. campaign against Iraq struck its hardest blow yet with the start of the intense air war. The United States and Britain flew a combined 2,000 sorties across the country, and a total of 1,000 cruise missiles were launched, pummeling the capital Baghdad, as well as the key northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Kirkuk and Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.
شيخة الصباح
"Chemical Ali," Saddam's cousin and a key general and governor of southern Iraq, earned his chilling nickname by using chemical weapons to suppress a Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq in the late 1980s, killing thousands.
A CIA spokesman denied the report, but American intelligence sources said they reached this conclusion from analysis of radio traffic and after watching who went where, and who didn't arrive where they were expected.
Both Ramadan and Ibrahim were longtime advisers to Saddam. Along with Saddam himself, the two men were the only surviving plotters who carried out the coup that brought the Baath Party to power in 1968.
The three men did not appear in a videotape of Saddam meeting with advisers released today. Also absent was Saddam's eldest son, Odai. There are suspicions he also may have been killed, but this could not be confirmed.
There were other positive developments for Washington today when U.S. military sources said the commander of Iraq's 51st Division and his top deputy surrendered to U.S. Marines. The 51st was the division charged with defending the Iraq border near Basra, a strategic city south of Baghdad. It was the first time that the commander of an Iraqi division has surrendered to allied forces.
And the U.S. campaign against Iraq struck its hardest blow yet with the start of the intense air war. The United States and Britain flew a combined 2,000 sorties across the country, and a total of 1,000 cruise missiles were launched, pummeling the capital Baghdad, as well as the key northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Kirkuk and Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.
شيخة الصباح