TARGETED BY TASK FORCE 20
For more than three months, his whereabouts, and those of his brother and father, were the objects of an intense manhunt by the U.S. military, and in particular a secretive group known as Task Force 20. At the heart of Task Force 20 is the blandly named Combat Applications Group, otherwise known as Operational Detachment Delta, and the Navy’s Special Warfare Development Group, more popularly known as SEAL Team Six.
For months, they chased tantalizing but false leads, then on the morning of July 22, around 10 o’clock, about a score of Task Force 20 soldiers showed up outside the door of the gaudy mansion in Mosul, up near the northern border of Iraq. They knocked on the door, and the owner, Nawaf al-Zaidan, 46, opened up.
If the owner showed surprise, it was an act. An inveterate opportunist, Nawaf was about to make his biggest score. Nawaf was known to be in the import-export business. During the reign of Saddam, according to his neighbors, Nawaf obtained contracts from the ruling family to trade oil and agricultural products under the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program, allegedly kicking back cash to his patrons in the government. Nawaf was proud of his connections. He posed his family for portraits with Saddam and his clan and had them hang about his house, according to a neighbor, Mukhlis Dhahir al-Jibouri.
As a U.S. invasion loomed, however, Nawaf’s loyalty began to waver. At first, he denounced Saddam and his sons as butchers and tyrants. Then he swung back into line, declaring that Saddam would triumph over the Americans. When the regime fell, down came the pictures, and Nawaf quickly found the flag of the opposition Kurdish Peshmerga Party and hung it from his house. Nawaf began wearing Kurdish dress, at least until the looting died down and the Kurds pulled back from Mosul in May.
Life seemed to return to normal. But one day, about a month ago, as he smoked cigarettes and drank Pepsi in his garden, he asked his friend Mukhlis what he would do if Saddam or his family went to his house. Mukhlis replied, “I would do the customary thing. I would accept them for one, or two, or three days, then tell them, ‘I can’t help you anymore’.” According to Mukhlis, Nawaf declared, “I disagree. If any of the officials come, I will protect him with my life.”
UNUSUAL VISITORS
After this conversation, neighbors began noticing some unusual visitors around Nawaf’s house, and that Nawaf, who had previously complained of money problems, was driving a brand-new 5-series BMW. Then, around the first of July, Nawaf stopped entertaining guests in his garden. He seemed a little nervous and distracted. He told his neighbors that he and his wife had female relatives visiting, which meant that male visitors were not allowed. His friend Mukhlis observed him carrying around a box of expensive cigars. Funny, Mukhlis thought; Nawaf doesn’t smoke cigars, only cigarettes.
At 6:30 on the morning of July 22, Nawaf took his family to a restaurant. At about 7:30, he returned home with only his son. At 10, the American Special Forces team rang the bell on his gate. Nawaf and his son were quickly hustled away. A soldier called out on a bullhorn for Qusay and Uday to surrender. Then the shooting started.
As they mounted the stairs, the commandos were greeted with a hail of AK-47 fire. With three soldiers wounded indoors and one down outside, the Americans retreated. At this point, the control of the operation passed to Col. Joe Anderson of the 101st Airborne’s Second Combat Brigade Team, otherwise known as Strike Brigade. Anderson decided to “prep” the building. From three sides, a couple of hundred U.S. soldiers poured .50-caliber machine-gun fire and grenades into the house. Kiowa helicopter gunships circled overhead, firing missiles.
Around noon, the American soldiers tried to enter the house again. More AK-47 rounds splattered about them as they beat a retreat. Anderson decided more prepping was in order, and a fusillade of bullets and rockets tore into Nawaf’s now smoking and battered house. Finally, at 1:20 p.m., U.S. troops slipped into the building. Qusay and Uday Hussein and a bodyguard were found dead, riddled with bullets and shrapnel, in the bathroom. The last holdout, Qusay’s teenage son Mustafa, lay under a bed, where he had been shooting with his AK-47. Initial stories of elaborate defenses, like bulletproof windows, were bogus. Uday and Qusay had stuffed some mattresses and bed frames against the walls and doors. Likewise, rumors that Uday had killed himself were unfounded, according to military doctors.
‘WHY IS YOUR HOUSE BEING BOMBED?’
After the battle, Nawaf’s shaken neighbor, Mukhlis al-Jibouri, emerged from his house to survey the carnage. He was surprised to find Nawaf sitting nonchalantly in an American Humvee with his son, Shalan. “Why is your house being bombed?” Mukhlis asked. “Uday and Qusay have been in my house for 23 days!” Nawaf responded. “They surprised me. They came and knocked on my door.” Nawaf was later observed lounging about the lobby of Mosul’s best hotel, requisitioned by the Americans.
It did not take long for the neighbors to finger Nawaf for selling out Uday and Qusay, a hunch confirmed by U.S. military and intelligence sources. Nawaf will probably receive the entire $30 million reward ($15 million for each son). The raid actually more than paid for itself: Qusay and Uday had with them roughly $100 million in Iraqi dinars and U.S. dollars.
Some critics, like a British commando leader interviewed by NEWSWEEK, wondered why the Americans didn’t wait to smoke out Uday and Qusay, so they could be taken alive, interrogated and put on trial for their crimes. American commanders doubted that the two sons could have been taken alive, or that they would have given up much intelligence about their father. A trial would have quickly turned into a circus and stirred up more resistance, suggested American officials. The pace of guerrilla attacks picked up slightly after Qusay and Uday were killed last week. But American authorities reported that more informants were coming forward, and that a half dozen of Saddam’s bodyguards, along with 45,000 sticks of dynamite, were captured in a raid on Friday. Surely, the Americans figured, someone will want to claim the $25 million bounty on Saddam’s head.
SADDAM: ALSO IN MOSUL?
The big prize remained at large, though Americans forces are said to be in hot pursuit and believe that Saddam is somewhere in the Mosul area. He was last spotted in Baghdad on April 8, just as American troops were rolling in. A videotape shows him standing on the hood of a car (Qusay can be seen nearby), rallying supporters near the Al Adham Mosque as battle smoke rises over the city.
U.S. troops were shelling the mosque on April 9 when a passerby, later interviewed by NEWSWEEK, saw Saddam and a few of his entourage make a hurried getaway in two cars, a black and a white Mercedes. Sheik Nassir Abdul Razak Muhammad Saleh saw the cars pull off the street into an alleyway and Saddam step out. “I could see him changing out of his uniform into civilian clothes,” said Sheik Nassir. The men scrambled back into the cars and drove north on 20th Street, which heads out of Baghdad and becomes a highway, dividing into two roads—one to Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown, one to Mosul, the site of his sons’ last stand.
As the cars swept away, the rear window of the white one rolled down and Saddam threw his boots into the street. Sheik Nassir, whose brother was one of countless thousands ordered executed by Saddam, picked them up as a souvenir of a brutal age gone, he hopes, forever.
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With Colin Soloway in Mosul, Scott Johnson in Baghdad and Mark Hosenball in Washington
© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.
