Possible New Saddam Audiotape

May 7, 2003

Paper says it has recording; ex-regime member held by U.S.  

Omer al-Samhouru puts the finishing touch to a picture of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, at his workshop in Amman, Jordan on Tuesday. Al-Samhouri said he sells more than ten pictures of Saddam every day.  


NBC NEWS AND NEWS SERVICES

An Australian newspaper said Wednesday it had been handed an audiotape in Baghdad of a message possibly from ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein calling on his people to wage a “secret” war against U.S. forces. The report of the new tape comes as the U.S. Central Command announced that U.S.-led forces had taken another former regime member into custody.
 
THE SYDNEY Morning Herald said it was handed the tape on Monday after the people in possession of it failed to pass it on to Arabic cable news network al-Jazeera. It said it would make the tape available to U.S. authorities on Wednesday.

“The Herald played the tape, allegedly recorded two days ago, to an Australian linguistics expert and to more than a dozen Iraqis. The overwhelming opinion was that the voice and rhetoric were very similar, or identical, to Saddam’s,” the paper said.

In a 15-minute monologue, a tired-sounding voice, interspersed with coughs, tells Iraqis how to “face the invaders and kick them out from Iraq.”


“It sounds as if we have to go back to the secret style of struggle that we began our life with,” the voice said, according to the Herald’s translation.

“Through this secret means, I am talking to you from inside great Iraq and I say to you, the main task for you, Arab and Kurd, Shia and Sunni, Muslim and Christian and the whole Iraqi people of all religions, your main task is to kick the enemy out of the country.”

 Two men gave the tape to the staff of the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday after seeing their vehicle, marked “press,” near the Palestine Hotel, where most foreign correspondents are based in Baghdad.

The Herald’s translator said the men spoke with accents from Saddam’s home region of Tikrit and said Saddam had made the speech that morning and wanted it broadcast to all Iraqis.

The voice refers several times to the occupation of Iraq by foreign forces and accuses the U.S. army of looting the Iraqi National Museum.

It calls on Iraqis to reject any new leaders “working with the foreigners” and to rise against the occupying powers by “not buying anything from them, or by shooting them with rifles and trying to destroy their cannons and tanks.”

The alleged message emerged as the hunt for members of Saddam’s former regime continued.

Wednesday, Central Command issued a statement saying that U.S.-led forces had taken Ghazi Hammud, Baath regional chairman in the Kut district, into custody. He is No. 32 on Central Command’s list of the 55 most-wanted members of Saddam’s regime.
The statement did not give details of where or when he was taken into custody or whether he surrendered or was taken by force.


Earlier in the week, U.S. defense officials said that Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, an American-educated top scientist in Iraq’s biological weapons program, had surrendered to U.S. officials in Baghdad.

U.S. intelligence officials said Monday that Ammash, 49, is believed to have played a key role in rebuilding Baghdad’s biological weapons capability since the first Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Pentagon officials tell NBC News that during negotiations of her surrender, Ammash offered her cooperation in revealing what she knows about Iraq’s program to produce weapons of mass destruction on condition that her capture be kept confidential.

But since the information is now public, they were uncertain whether it would affect her level of cooperation.

Officials believe Ammash may be privy to details from Saddam’s inner circle.

In one of several videos of Saddam released during the war, Ammash was the only woman among about a half-dozen men seated around a table. The videos were used as Iraqi propaganda as invading forces drew closer to Baghdad and it was not known when the meeting took place.

Besides being one of Saddam’s top scientists, Ammash was a Baath Party regional commander, head of Saddam’s Party Youth and Trade Bureau and dean at the University of Baghdad.

She was number 53 on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqi regime figures.

The Western media dubbed her “Mrs. Anthrax” because of her alleged role in developing the country’s anthrax program.


ELITE GROUP
Ammash was trained by Nassir al-Hindawi, described by U.N. inspectors as the father of Iraq’s biological weapons program.

Ammash and al-Hindawi are among Iraq’s top weapons scientists. Others include Amir al-Saadi, a chief chemical weapons researcher, and Dr. Rihab Taha, a woman who was dubbed “Dr. Germ” by inspectors.

Ammash’s father was a high-level party revolutionary who was believed to have been ordered killed by Saddam, officials said.

She received a master of science in microbiology from Texas Woman’s University, in Denton, Texas, and an undergraduate degree from the University of Baghdad. Ammash spent four years at the University of Missouri-Columbia in pursuit of her doctorate in microbiology, which she received in December 1983.

Also over the weekend, the coalition announced the arrest of a former Iraqi intelligence chief. The U.S. Army’s V Corps had no details on Iraq’s top spy other than his name, Adil Salfeg Al-Azarui.

The United States has captured almost a third of the regime figures it has sought, although Saddam and his two sons have remained elusive.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/897268.asp?0cv=CA01