One of Saddam Hussein's most-feared lieutenants was in US hands yesterday, while hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims converged on two of Iraq's holy cities in an annual pilgrimage that had been banned for years under Saddam.
US soldiers trying to stop looting discovered more than US$600 million in US$100 bills behind a false wall in Iraq, Central Command spokesman Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said. Also, a total of more than 800 explosive suicide vests have been found in various places, he said.
Muhammad Hamza al-Zubaydi, who was captured Monday by the Iraqi opposition and turned over to American authorities for trial on war-crimes charges, is the highest-ranking figure on the US military's most-wanted list to be caught so far.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Al-Zubaydi was known as Saddam's "Shiite Thug" for his role in Iraq's bloody suppression of the Shiite Muslim uprising of 1991. Tens of thousands of people died in the revolt. Iraqi opposition groups have also accused al-Zubaydi of the 1999 assassination of a top Shiite cleric.
A former prime minister, al-Zubaydi was No. 18 -- the queen of spades -- in the US military's 55-card deck of cards of most-wanted regime figures.
Eight of the 55 most-wanted are now in custody. A ninth, Ali Hassan al-Majid -- known as "Chemical Ali" for his use of poison gas against Iraq's Kurds -- is believed to have been killed in an airstrike.
There was still no official confirmation that American or British forces had discovered the chemical or biological weapons cited by US President George W. Bush as the reason for going to war.
But US military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed they found material that could have been used to build chemical weapons. The find was made several days ago with the help of an Iraqi scientist who claimed to have worked in Saddam's chemical weapons program.
Many chemical weapons ingredients have nonmilitary purposes and officials cautioned that the findings, which are being analyzed, do not confirm the presence of chemical weapons.
The US government is sending more than 1,000 experts specializing in weapons, intelligence and computers to join the search for weapons of mass destruction. They will analyze documents, interrogate prisoners and scour suspicious sites, joining some 200 experts already on the hunt.
Also yesterday, Garner, Iraq's civilian administrator, visited the Kurdish north on his second day of a tour around the country. He arrived in Baghdad on Monday to take up his duties.
Garner landed in Sulaymaniyah, where he was met by a delegation from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the groups jockeying for power in postwar Iraq.
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