Saddam's Secret Papers

December 16, 2003

The U.S. military found a treasure trove of documents on Saddam Hussein when he was captured -- some of which could prove that he had been commanding and financing guerrilla attacks against the coalition, Fox News has learned.

There are also unconfirmed reports that Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, No. 6 on the U.S. military's 55 Most Wanted list, has turned himself in. Al-Douri is believed to be in command of some of the resistance against the coalition.

The documents found with Saddam are described as minutes of meetings with Iraqi government officials who are believed to be financing cells of enemy fighters.

U.S. commanders say it's clear Saddam had communication with Iraqi officers who were financing attacks and that communication occurred via courier. He didn't have command and control but he was kept aware, they said.

"We took one document that had obvious and immediate applicability to Baghdad and we acted on it," Gen. Martin Dempsey of the 1st Armored Division told Fox News. "There are many, many, many more documents."

U.S. commanders told Fox News there were five or six specific names listed in that document, which led to raids Sunday and Monday night in which two enemy fighters were nabbed.

U.S. troops in recent weeks have broken up six to 14 cells operating in Baghdad, each cell made up of anywhere from a handful of people to 25.

"There are cells of a network overlaid above them, providing mostly financial support," Dempsey said. "We've been working on the cells; now we're working on the networks with this new information."

And while the world is anxious to see how Saddam will be tried, U.S. officials warned that Iraqis may have to exercise patience.

"You have an entire country that's a crime scene," a U.S. official told Fox News.

The official, who is working with a special war crimes tribunal established in Iraq last week, said "mountains of evidence" culled from human rights organizations, U.S. intelligence and the Iraqi people would contribute to a lengthy information-gathering phase.

In addition to charges that Saddam committed genocide against the Kurds, brutally crushed an attempted Shiite uprising and ordered the systematic torture, rape and killings of political enemies, grievances from outside the country are expected to pile up.

President Bush on Monday said the legal community should decide whether charges against Saddam will include the 1990 invasion of Kuwait or the assassination plot against Bush's father.

Iran also is preparing to file a complaint against Saddam for "war crimes" committed when Iraqi forces invaded in 1980. More than 1 million Iranians were killed or wounded in the 8-year-long war.

The official working with the tribunal told Fox News there was a "framework" in place, and "within that process, there are lots of decisions to be made." The U.S. is working with Iraqis on framework issues. But, the official added, the end goal for the tribunal was a "fair, credible, transparent process."

'Justice Needs to be Delivered'

The president on Monday stressed that the Iraqi people would decide the fate of the former dictator in a public trial, saying, "justice needs to be delivered."

"Iraqis need to be very much involved -- they were the people who were brutalized by this man. ... We'll work with the Iraqis to develop a process," Bush said. "Of course we want it to be fair and of course we want the world to say, 'He got a fair trial.'"

One Iraqi Governing Council  member said Monday that Saddam could be tried "in the next few weeks" and could be executed if convicted, but not until after an interim Iraqi government takes power on June 30, 2004.

"I can confirm ... that he is still in Iraq and he will stay in Iraq and he will be tried in Iraq" by an Iraqi court in a live, televised hearing, Iraqi Governing Council member Mowaffaq Al-Roubaie told Fox News. "And we will follow all the international standards, all the international legal and court standards in our tribunal."

Saddam Denies WMD

A defiant Saddam has shown no remorse and is denying his Iraqi regime had weapons of mass destruction, Fox News has learned.

U.S. officials said the questioning, which began after Saddam was captured Saturday, kicked into high gear Monday. Officials said they have moved beyond early lines of interrogation about the attacks against U.S.-led coalition forces and on to the question of what types of weapons Saddam had.

Saddam said his regime did not have dangerous weapons capable of killing scores of people, officials said, but his answers haven't been very convincing.

"He's been fairly defiant," one official said. "While he's talkative, he's provided nothing substantial. His comments are self-serving, lengthy rationalizations of his behavior, and he punctuates a lot of it with wise-ass and deflective remarks."

U.S. officials also told Fox News that Saddam was mounting "filibusters" when questions about weapons come up. Saddam was offering "long soliloquies" and lengthy explanations to justify himself and his regime.

Additionally, Saddam claimed to have no knowledge of the whereabouts of long-missing Navy pilot Michael Scott Speicher, and denied any links to Al Qaeda. Speicher was shot down during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and is still missing.

Rounding Up the Regime

After Saddam's capture, U.S. Army teams captured one high-ranking former regime figure, who in turn gave up a few others, said Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling of the Army's 1st Armored Division. All detainees were being interrogated and more raids were expected.

"We've already gleaned intelligence value from [Saddam's] capture," Hertling said. "It's putting the pieces together and it's connecting the dots. It has already helped us significantly in Baghdad … I'm sure he was giving some guidance to some key figures in this insurgency."

The intelligence that led the military to the men came from the first transcript of Saddam's initial interrogation, and a briefcase of documents Saddam carried with him at the time of his arrest, Hertling said.

American troops who came under attack Monday killed 11 assailants in a town north of Baghdad, the military said Tuesday. Gunmen ambushed a U.S. patrol in the town of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad; 11 insurgents were killed in the ensuing firefight.

And in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, a roadside bomb injured three soldiers on Tuesday. Two were said to have sustained serious injuries.

Fox News' Bret Baier, Ian McCaleb, Teri Schultz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,105854,00.html