Tikrit (Iraq), Dec 20: The Iraqi man who gave up
Saddam Hussein to US forces last weekend was his top aide
through eight months on the lam, a senior US military
intelligence officer told reporters.
"He was someone I would call his right arm," said
Major Stan Murphy, the head of intelligence for the 4th
Infantry Division's First Brigade in Saddam's hometown of
Tikrit.
The major ruled out the possibility the informant,
who is currently in detention, would receive any of the
25-million-dollar bounty on Saddam's head.
"He is a bad man and should rot in jail," he said.
The man, whose name the military will not reveal, was
a longtime aide of Saddam and hailed from one of five major
tribes in a 20-km stretch around Tikrit that the fallen
dictator relied on to elude the Americans after Baghdad fell
last April.
"He was in the five families. There were members of
the five families that were in the security forces, the army"
and the government, Murphy said.
Since April, Saddam's top lieutenant, along with four
or five other Iraqis from the prominent Tikrit-area tribes,
formed the inner circle that helped hide the fugitive
dictator, implement his orders to the resistance for attacks,
finance the insurgency and provide combatants with weaponry.
Bureau Report
