208 replies to this topic

[Joyce Carrington]

Just watched the press conference on CNN... 'We got him'. Apparently the man was hiding in a cellar in Tikrit. DNA material confirmed it was Saddam.

A lot of happy people around. They were cheering in the press conference room.

[brendan007]

Never thought they would actually get him

[Joyce Carrington]

TIKRIT, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. forces have captured Saddam HusseIn in a late night raid in his hometown, according to the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.  

"Ladies and gentleman, we got him," L. Paul Bremer announced Sunday. The announcement was greeted with cheers from the audience.  

In Washington, a military official told CNN there's "a high degree of confidence" that the prisoner -- wearing a fake beard when captured, according to Iraqi officials -- is in fact Saddam.  

In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said without qualification that Saddam has been captured, and the president of the Iraqi Governing Council said in Madrid that a positive identification was made through DNA tests.  

A U.S. military official in Washington said he was unaware of DNA results, but said that scars on the man's body matched wounds that the U.S. believes Saddam would have suffered in past coup attempts.  

The official said the man is being shown to former Iraqi leaders in custody at Baghdad's airport to complete the identification process.  

He was captured, the official said, with little or no resistance along with a small group of aides.  

A senior U.S. official told CNN's Dana Bash in Washington that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told President Bush Saturday afternoon (EST) of the likely capture.  

Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, president of the Iraqi Governing Council, said Sunday at a joint news conference with Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio, that the man was in a basement and wearing a fake beard when he was captured.  

Hours after the word leaked out on the possible capture, there were volleys of celebratory gunfire and people honking their car horns in Baghdad.  

The raid was based on intelligence that Saddam was at a particular location in the area, the officials said.  

Video following that raid -- exclusively shot by CNN's Alphonso Van Marsh -- showed a group of U.S.-led coalition soldiers patting each other on the back -- apparently in celebration -- and taking group photos in front of a military vehicle.  

The 66-year-old longtime Iraqi leader was number one on the coalition's 55 most wanted list, and his evasion has been a political sore spot for the U.S. administration.  
 
U.S. troops celebrate in Tikrit, after a raid that captured a man believed to be Saddam Hussein.  
The Iraq war began on March 19 when U.S. forces launched a "decapitation attack" aimed at the Iraqi president and other top members of the country's leadership.  

Hours later, a defiant Saddam wearing a military uniform appeared on Iraqi television to denounce the U.S.-led military campaign as "criminal" and to say his countrymen would be victorious.  

At least a dozen audiotapes believed to have been recorded by Saddam, 66, have been released since he was forced out of power by the coalition forces during the Iraq war. The most recent was broadcast in November.  

His sons Uday and Qusay -- also on the coalition's most wanted list -- were killed in July, after U.S. forces stormed their hideout in Mosul.  

Initial hopes that their father would soon be found faded in the months following that raid.  

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, has been dogged by reporters wanting to know the status of the search for Saddam.  

"It is difficult to find him," Sanchez said, at a press briefing earlier this month. "Given that I haven't found him killed him or captured him, and I need the Iraqi people's help, and together we will find him, we will capture him, we will kill him."  

The announcement comes on the same day that 20 people were killed and 32 wounded by a car bomb outside an Iraqi police station west of Baghdad, an Iraqi police officer told CNN.  

Sixteen policemen were among those killed in Sunday's explosion at Khaldiyah, 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the Iraqi capital, the officer added.

-- CNN Senior Military Affairs Correspondent Jamie McIntyre and CNN Baghdad Bureau Chief Jane Arraf contributed to this report

[Brix Bond]

This is excellent news! Let us hope he is brought to trial and receives an appropriate punishment. However, let us cross our fingers that he does come to trial and doesn't put it off because he's 'unwell' like past dictators have done.

But well done to Coalition forces!

[Robinson]

Originally posted by Brix_Bond_007
This is excellent news! Let us hope he is brought to trial and receives an appropriate punishment. However, let us cross our fingers that he does come to trial and doesn't put it off because he's 'unwell' like past dictators have done.

But well done to Coalition forces!

Word is he's to stand trial in Iraq. There's an issue as to how to keep him safe until then. My first thought is to get him out of the country and hold him in a US military base(one of the more remote ones) until a trial date is set. I'd brace for more resistance attacks in Iraq until he's tried and convicted.

The big issue is will he reveal the status of the WMDs. If he's destroyed them, then why didn't he say so to the world prior to military action? In any event, I figured he would've escaped Iraq or been killed. To capture this geezer alive is a major coup.

[Righty007]

This is great news!

[Johnboy007]

Yes!

[Bondian]

Hi,

Sir Damn Insane caught at last...He is now a 'has been', let's get the other 'has been', Bin Laden.

All the best,

Cheers,


Ian

[MrDraco]

Yes, Yes,
Its about time...this graintees his re-election the only thing that pissess me off are downing it...thats cheerful, lets all just sit around watch as another one bites the dust.

Afganistain-day
Bin laden sits in an easy chair, suddenly a rat crawls by from behind him.
he darts his eyes back and forth and runs knocking over the camera to get away.

[Jimbo007]

Oh God this is great! I am so happy that this damned ******* has been found. Now the Iraqi people have their fears eliminated, hopefully. My dad called from his cellular phone some forty minutes ago and told me the news to which I went speechless. The funny thing is that I was watching the end of "The Fugitive."

[MrDraco]

rumsfeld hasn't said anything i love that guy i keep expecting the following phrases, these were pulled from when the war began...

There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know we don't know.


Puffs of dust
End up crawling
Up your leg
And hitting your knee
Because it's,
There might be
As much as an inch
Or two or three.

[Qwerty]

Excellent news indeed! A CBn member alerted me of this early this morning, I then turned on CNN and the story was unfolding. Many people can now breathe a sigh of relief...

[Johnboy007]

Osama...you're next

[booyeah_]

This should help the brave men & women fighting there in their mission to help the fair people in Iraq. Great news!

[ChandlerBing]

Saddam talked. He confessed to where Bin Laden is. He's in Japan. In a hollowed out volcano. Apparently, Britain's man is there working on it right now.

[Blue Eyes]

For some reason I find this unsatisfying.

[The Admiral]

I'm extremely surprised they found him - alive is even more surprising.

Not a shot fired...?

[Brix Bond]

It won't signal the end of the war. As was mentioned, there will be retribution galore and this could mean the Coalition's struggle is about to get a whole lot tougher.

However, it could be the beginning of the end but as I said, getting there will be difficult. A major step forward none-the-less but there is a lot more to be done.

[MrDraco]

my fav part is the photo they had on whitehouse.gov of bush talking on the phone with blair, that was priceless...
and his posture walking to the podum and out again...it was like he was trying to keep from going "Yaahha booohyaaa got that arab ***."
and blair, i loved his speech...he's such a smooth talker, i'll tell you what the most dangerous administration would be in the world, i'd call it the end times my friend but this awesome force would have to be Tony Blair as president and Bill Clinton as Vice President, imagine that...Even though i despise clinton..

but anways has anyone heard anything from Rumsfeld? i'm anxious to hear what he has to say.

[Athena007]

Saddam was 'caught like a rat' in a hole


A Snippit From The CNN News Story 'here':
Saddam Hussein shuttered himself at the bottom of a narrow, dark hole beneath a two-room mud shack on a sheep farm. "He was in the bottom of a hole with no way to fight back," said Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno. "He was caught like a rat."

Troops converged on a two-room mud hut squatting between two farmhouses with sheep penned nearby. Inside that shack, a Styrofoam plug closed Saddam's subterranean hideaway. Dirt and a rug covered the entryway to the hole. Saddam was armed with a pistol, but showed no resistance during his capture.

[BondNumber7]

If it is the real guy and not a double, it is a good but not great thing. Saddam being captured isn't going to make a huge difference since the United States was never planning to end its military occupation after the 66 year old dictator was caught. There is still going to be resistence and conflict coming from the Iraqi people and future generations, as a result of what's happened today, may commit terror against the U.S. as a result of the Bush administrations policies; but Bush believes this will help his compaign and that is probably true. The people in Iraq still live under misreable conditions and I doubt the U.S. will improve their lives.

[ChandlerBing]

Saddam was apparently caught in the act of sodomy with a goat by US troops.

[Brix Bond]

And who said dictators don't know how to have fun?

[MrDraco]

"Wheres rummy!" i want some rants...him and dennis miller need a show..

[Bondian]

Let's hope it's not a 'David Copperfield's' stunt gone wrong!. LOL.

As Daniel say's, "unsatisfying". Dave say's "and with no shot's fired". It does sound a little suspicious to me, but then again we do not know all the fact's yet.


Cheers,

Ian

[trs007]

All that's left to do is string him up and put him out of the world's misery.

[Xenobia]

I'm with Daniel. OK, we got him. Now what?

Does it stop the insurgents in Iraq? No.

Does it stop Al Queda? No.

Does it make things worse for Americans around the world? Possibly.

So...now what?

-- Xenobia

[Bondian]

I think I must be very sad, but I actually feel sorry for him. I know that 'justice' should be done, but I do not believe in 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'. You can call me stupid, but I feel that he SHOULD have a fair trial, and although he has ended many peoples lives it would more useful to us if we could get enough information out of him. Surely he could go under a lie detector to get information but knowing NATO that would be considered wrong.

Cheers,


Ian

[rafterman]

yep, an altogether unsatisfying capture...a surprise to be sure, but let's hope the guy gets a fair trail, sure he's a horrible dictator, but he deserves his day in court...

[Tarl_Cabot]

Woohoo! 3 words for Howard Dean: Four more years!