Forget The WMDs, Find This Son of a Bitch!Something doesn't add up here. It's not like Saddam is a suspect in a whodunnit. He was THE MAN there for almost 30 years. Everything needed for a successful manhunt is known about this murdering thug. From what he eats to what brand of pliars he uses to torture his friends with. Homicide detectives find their man when there is zero evidence in a random killing on the 405 Freeway in LA--in other words, when their suspect pool is about 26 million people and they don't even have a half-ass description of who they are looking for! A detective leading a squad of 4 gets demoted or hauled over the coals if he can't solve that kind of a nut-cracker case in 60 days. The several thousand Saddam hunters in Iraq get only praise from Dubya, pats on the back from Rummy and photo ops on CNN!
WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — Saddam Hussein may be playing a significant role in coordinating and directing attacks by his loyalists against American forces in Iraq, senior American officials said Thursday.
The officials cited recent intelligence reports indicating that Mr. Hussein is acting as a catalyst or even a leader in the armed opposition, probably from a base of operations near Tikrit, his hometown and stronghold. A leadership role by Mr. Hussein would go far beyond anything previously acknowledged by the Bush administration, which has sought in its public remarks to portray the former Iraqi leader as being on the run and irrelevant.
Officials acknowledged that the reports of a significant role by Mr. Hussein could not be corroborated, and one senior official cautioned that recent intelligence reports contained conflicting assessments.
Nonetheless, three senior officials described reports of a larger role by Mr. Hussein as credible, and a Defense Department official said the information had given a fresh sense of urgency to the American-led manhunt for the former Iraqi leader.
"There are some accounts that say he is somehow instigating or fomenting some of the resistance," a second American official said of the intelligence reports. ...
Mr. Hussein is believed to have met with Izzat Ibrahim, an Iraqi general who was officially the second highest ranking member of the Iraqi government at the time of the invasion, and who is described by American officials as playing a significant role in the insurgency.
General Ibrahim, who is No. 6 on the American most-wanted list, has been described by some Defense Department officials as having recently been in contact with members of Ansar al-Islam, a militant group that had been based in northern Iraq before the American-led invasion and which is linked to Al Qaeda.
Here comes the kicker--I ask you, has any one you know ever said as many stupid things that came back to bite them in the ass as Dubya? I didn't think so. Here come some real goodies...
On July 2, Mr. Bush declared that Mr. Hussein was "no longer a threat to the United States, because we removed him." In more recent remarks, including those at a fund-raising event on Oct. 8, Mr. Bush has been proclaiming that Mr. Hussein is "no more," because he is no longer in power.
In Baghdad on Oct. 8, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top American commander in Iraq, said of Mr. Hussein "that he's hiding and running away constantly from the relentless hunt that we are on to find him, capture him, kill him." But in comments little-noticed at the time, General Sanchez went on to say: "Could he be a part of the attacks? He could."
