An American predator aircraft firing hellfire missiles destroyed a convoy last week that was believed to be carrying fugitive Iraqi leaders, and experts are trying to determine whether those killed might have included Saddam Hussein or his sons, US government officials said on Sunday.
The officials said they had obtained intelligence that indicated that senior Iraqi leaders were traveling in the convoy. They suggested that the intelligence may have come from an intercepted telephone conversation or a human informant. The attack took place last Wednesday near the Syrian border in Iraq's western desert.
There was no evidence so far, the officials said, to support the idea that Saddam or his sons might have been killed in the raid, and some officials were doubtful that they were. But they said that intelligence exploitation teams, including DNA experts, were at the site to review the wreckage and assess the evidence.
The London-based Observer newspaper disclosed the attack in Sunday's editions, and said it had been an attempt to kill Saddam. The Pentagon and the US Central Command declined on Sunday to discuss that report, and American officials who agreed to discuss it on condition of anonymity said that the US had never been certain that Saddam or his sons were in the convoy.
Still, administration officials said the strike underscored a growing belief among American intelligence officials that Saddam and his sons were not killed during the war and have remained in Iraq. And the attack on the convoy showed the pressure of a stepped-up American manhunt following information provided by a Saddam confidant who was detained last week.
The aide, Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, 46, who had served as the Iraqi leader's personal secretary and bodyguard, told his American interrogators that Saddam and his sons, Odai and Qusai, survived the US-led war, and that he himself traveled to Syria after the conflict with Saddam's sons, according to Defense Department officials who have said they have not been able to corroborate those claims.
A senior administration official said on Sunday night that President Bush had been aware of the strike before it occurred, but did not have to approve it. The official said that a team was moving in to try to recover the DNA of those inside the convoy, but it was unclear if they had yet arrived at the scene.
Some American officials described the attack as having been in the same category as the March 19 and April 7 attacks on compounds where Saddam and his sons were believed to be hiding. American intelligence analysts now believe that Saddam and his sons probably survived both those attacks.
A senior administration official described the intelligence that led to Wednesday's attack as a good lead. But another administration official said, "I have no information that leads us to believe we got Saddam." And one military officer said intelligence reports that Saddam or his sons might have been in the convoy may have been based more on hope than evidence.
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