Saddam's new duds: suicide suit

[thedrifter]

Saddam sports suicide suit?


By DAVE GOLDINER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Saddam Hussein is likely on the run inside Iraq - armed with suicide vests he obtained from his intelligence agency, an Iraqi exile leader said yesterday.
The deposed dictator was trained how to use the bomb-lined vests before the fall of Baghdad and may plan to blow himself up if U.S.-led troops corner him, said Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi.

"He has the ability ... to commit suicide or blow people up with him when they come to catch him," Chalabi told CNN.

The head of the intelligence service, the Mukhabarat, gave vests to Saddam and his closest aide April 1, said Chalabi, adding, "He has them with him now."

The opposition leader did not explain the source of his information or how he knows Saddam still has the vests.

Chalabi said Saddam survived two major U.S. efforts to kill him and is fleeing separately from his two sons, Uday and Qusay.

"We have a pretty good idea of how they are moving and where they were, and we've tried to again focus on how we can know where they will be," Chalabi told Fox News.

Chalabi's group has claimed credit for providing the tips that led American troops to former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and other leaders who have been captured.

But three weeks after Saddam's regime collapsed, U.S. officials say they are not sure he is alive.

President Bush has said he believes Hussein was killed or badly wounded in U.S. bombings, and Gen. Tommy Franks offered no new information yesterday.

"I've seen nothing recently that convinced me that he was alive," he told reporters after meeting with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Originally published on April 28, 2003

Sempers,

Roger