U.S. Marines enter Saddam's hometown

By Tony Perry and Paul Watson
Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Backed by warplanes and helicopters, U.S. Marines fought the few defenders of Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit early today in a bid to crush the last major stronghold of Iraqi fighters.

Dressed in pajamas and sandals, from left, Chief Warrant Officer David Williams, Sgt. James Riley and Chief Warrant Officer Ronald Young Jr., were escorted to freedom yesterday by U.S. Marines. They were captured three weeks ago. Associated Press

Also, the military yesterday recovered seven American prisoners of war just south of the city. Three of the POWs had gunshot wounds, but all were reportedly in good shape.

U.S. officials also disclosed yesterday that one top Saddam associate had been captured trying to flee to Syria. Watban Ibrahim Hasan, a half brother of Saddam, was in U.S. custody, the officials said. His apparent flight toward Syria served to escalate U.S. complaints about the government in Damascus.

In Baghdad, U.S. forces sent forensics teams to analyze remains where warplanes targeted the Iraqi president and his sons Odai and Qusai, said Army Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the Central Command. He said the analysts could test the remains against DNA samples from all three.

Throughout the capital, five days of looting seemed to ease, and Marine patrols fanned out into residential neighborhoods to ask residents what they needed most. Their main concerns, even ahead of obtaining food, the Marines said, were ending the looting altogether and restoring electricity.

Those problems were tempered, however, by the U.S. assault on Tikrit, which U.S. commanders expected to succeed, and by recovery of the prisoners of war. While military officials were reluctant to declare that Iraqi opposition was over, they were convinced that Saddam's regime no longer had the ability to regroup or to threaten other nations.

In Tikrit, Marine Task Force Tripoli, described as a beefed-up reconnaissance patrol, encountered light to moderate sniper fire from paramilitary fighters yesterday as it entered the city from the south, said Lt. Col. Clark Lethin, operations officer for the 1st Marine Division.

"We like it when they do that," Lethin said. "It gives Marines a chance to go in, kill them and break the back of the opposition."

Most of Saddam's Republican Guard fled northward, leaving hard-line street fighters to defend the city itself. One Marine commander said some 2,500 Saddam loyalists had been left behind and might mount fiercer resistance.

The Guard also abandoned a large swath of territory north of the city, including military bases they had occupied along with remaining members of the regular Iraqi Army. For 150 miles from an abandoned Guard base at Hawa, north of Tikrit, to Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, there was no sign of uniformed soldiers.

Instead, abandoned military trucks and armored vehicles littered the sandy plains. A low, sandbagged bunker next to a road into the base at Hawa clearly had been abandoned in a hurry. A soldier's boots lay discarded on the roof, and a green uniform was abandoned on the floor, next to a chair toppled in the doorway.

Saddam's dark statue still stood on the front lawn of the base, its arm raised in salute. A sign declared in Arabic: "The Republican Guard is the Guardian of the People."

Near Hawa, as in virtually every place abandoned by Saddam's forces, looting broke out almost immediately.

Hundreds of Iraqis, mainly teenagers and young men, scrambled over a high wall around a large armory, where allied bombing had damaged rows of warehouses with guns and ammunition inside. The weapons of choice among the looters appeared to be small machine guns, easily concealed under jackets or inside knapsacks.

Watban Ibrahim Hasan, a half brother of Saddam, was in U.S. custody yesterday. Associated Press

An Iraqi Army bus at the side of a highway about 90 miles south of Mosul was engulfed in flames, apparently from an airstrike at the front of the vehicle that blasted out the windows and flattened the tires.

In Washington, Franks said in an interview with CNN: "I wouldn't say it's over, but I will say we have American forces in Tikrit right now. There was not any resistance."

When asked if this meant that all of Saddam's military had crumbled, Franks replied: "One would like to think that, but I think we would be premature to say, 'Well, gosh, it's all done — it's all finished.' "

Franks said he would go to Baghdad, probably within a week, with top U.S. military commanders. "I'm not looking to have a victory parade in downtown Baghdad," he said. But he wanted "to have the best appreciation of what's going on in the country that I can have."

The seven American POWs were discovered near the city of Samarrah, 30 miles south of Tikrit, when Marines were hailed by Iraqis who had been guarding them, Lethin said.

"The Marines were pretty damn happy to get them back," he said.

One of the former POWs wore blue prison pajamas, and another yellow. Two looked unshaven.

The former POWs were flown by U.S. military helicopter to an airfield near the city of Numeriyah, south of Baghdad, and then by military cargo plane to Kuwait for medical care, according to a statement from Central Command headquarters in Doha, Qatar.

Five of the seven were soldiers from the Army's 507th Maintenance Company, based at Fort Bliss, Texas, the Pentagon said, and the other two were an Apache helicopter crew, assigned to the 1st Battalion of the Army's 227th Aviation Regiment from Fort Hood, Texas.

The Pentagon identified them as Spc. Edgar Hernandez, 21, of Mission, Texas; Spc. Joseph Hudson, 23, of Alamogordo, N.M.; Spc. Shoshana Johnson, 30, of El Paso, Texas; Pfc. Patrick Miller, 23, of Walter, Kan.; Sgt. James Riley, 31, of Pennsauken, N.J.; Chief Warrant Officer David Williams, 30, of Orlando, Fla., and Chief Warrant Officer Ronald Young Jr., 26, of Lithia Springs, Ga. All were captured on March 23.

Nine members of the 507th were killed.

Johnson was shot with a single bullet that passed through both of her feet, Hernandez was hit in the bicep of his right arm, and Hudson was shot three times, twice in the ribs and once in the upper left buttocks.

All seven of the POWs were displayed on Iraqi television after their capture. Images of the five from the 507th were especially detailed. Each captive, bruised or bleeding, was shown being interviewed by the Iraqis and nervously answering questions about who they were and why they were in Iraq.

The family of Pfc. Jessica Lynch, another member of the combat support unit who was captured, expressed joy that her fellow soldiers were free. Lynch was rescued April 1 by U.S. commandos in a daring raid on an Iraqi hospital. She is listed in satisfactory condition at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.