A team of US military engineers began an intensive effort on Tuesday to excavate the site of a bombing on April 7 that military officials still believe may have killed former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
The operation, involving a backhoe, two bulldozers, two cranes and 17 dump trucks, appeared to be by far the largest American effort to prove that Saddam may have been killed. Seven weeks after US forces gained control of Baghdad, Saddam and his closest relatives remain missing.
The surprise search for Saddam's remains comes as the number of American soldiers killed in a spate of attacks in Iraq climbed again on Tuesday. Military officials announced that an American soldier wounded in an attack on a checkpoint in the town of Balad north of Baghdad died Monday evening.
The soldier's death brought to seven the number of American troops killed in Iraq in the last week.
The frequency of the killings could lead American officials to reconsider an initial assessment that the attacks were sporadic and did not reflect a reconstitution of the regime or its paramilitary forces, or a growing anti-American backlash.
Many Iraqis still believe that the deposed dictator is alive and in hiding. Dozens of Iraqis reported seeing him in Baghdad two days after the bombing, but US officials have questioned the reliability of that sighting.
US Vice President Dick Cheney said in a speech last month that the administration still believed Saddam was killed in the raid.
"I think we did get Saddam Hussein," Cheney said. "He was seen being dug out of the rubble and wasn't able to breathe."
US military officials said their goal was to search the rubble for human remains and to conduct DNA tests on any that are found. They said teams of military forensic experts would employ some of the same techniques -- like sorting debris with rakes -- used to cull human remains from the rubble of the World Trade Center.
"They have some specialized equipment," Captain D.J. Gibb, a military engineer, said. "It will take a long time."
Some Western officials here have said Saddam's fate is of growing importance. In an interview with The Times of London published on Tuesday, John Sawers, Prime Minister Tony Blair's special envoy to Iraq, said Saddam's fate was creating political uncertainty in Iraq.
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