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By ALEXANDAR VASOVIC
Associated Press Writer | Tuesday, December 16, 2003 | (No comments posted.)
ADWAR, Iraq -- American forces began last July to assemble the evidence and intelligence that led to Saddam Hussein's weekend capture in a spider-hole dug into a farmyard near his hometown, the U.S. commander who led the raid said Monday.
Col. James Hickey of Hickory Hills, Ill., also said Special Forces soldiers were seconds from pitching a hand grenade into Saddam's tiny underground refuge when the fugitive dictator's hands appeared above ground in surrender.
"He was assisted out of the hole," said Hickey, commander of the 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division. Saddam was armed with a pistol, but chose to surrender, identifying himself in English and asking to negotiate.
The story of Saddam's arrest is woven of many threads, many involving Hickey and his men who had been conducting regular raids in and around Tikrit looking for Saddam since midsummer.
Beginning then, the 43-year-old's brigade rousted some of Saddam's relatives in Tikrit. Some had been financing the insurgency that was just heating up against the American occupation. Others had been active combatants in the guerrilla war.
Each captive's interrogation added a chink of evidence that ultimately led to the arrest of former Iraqi dictator. But the time crawled between the start of the hunt and Saturday's successful raid. Hickey called it the "mother of all raids," borrowing Saddam's terminology that labeled the 1991 Gulf War the mother of all battles.
Hickey said Saddam's exact whereabouts were unclear until Saturday morning despite the ever-tightening circle.
"On Saturday at 10:50 (a.m.) I received a call from a comrade who told me that they got a man in Baghdad. We brought that person to Tikrit for an interrogation and that made us clear Saddam was somewhere here," Hickey said. Saddam was captured about 8:30 p.m.
"That guy (captured in Baghdad, but not identified) was really crucial for us."
The operation to grab Saddam -- code-named Red Dawn -- was aimed at two farmhouses dubbed Wolverine 1 and Wolverine 2. The fugitive dictator was caught at a third farmstead nearby.
"The most important thing was stealth and speed to shock and overwhelm the enemy," Hickey said. "We expected a bit of fight and we were ready."
As the operation progressed, Hickey was in his command vehicle coordinating movements of the 600-strong force of infantry, cavalry, Special Forces, light artillery units, helicopters and combat engineers.
"We had intelligence that there would be an underground facility ... but we expected something better constructed, not something so humble," Hickey said.
Troops from the 4th Infantry Division sealed the area while Special Forces moved into the compound, found Saddam and pulled him out of the narrow hole after his hands signaled his presence and surrender.
Soldiers that searched the farmhouse and orange and palm groves found a white cloth that covered the entrance to the hideout. It shrouded a piece of plastic foam that served as a hatch for the underground hiding place. The foam had two wire handles and was painted to look like the soil surrounding the opening.
Next to a date tree beside the hole was an exhaust pipe that served as a ventilation shaft. Drying salamis and figs were hung on the pipe to disguise it.
"I felt a great sense of accomplishment," Hickey said on Monday as he recalled the capture.
Hickey is the son of working-class Irish immigrants and the second of six children. He was the little boy who asked for tanks and G.I. Joes for Christmas, and loved the song "Ballad of the Green Berets."
"As a boy growing up -- in the '70s, in the south suburbs -- you had dreams to play for Notre Dame football. But Jim always wanted to be a general in the U.S. military," his brother Kenneth Hickey told a Chicago newspaper. "This was his calling, and he knew that."
James Hickey played varsity soccer for St. Laurence High School in Burbank, Ill., before graduating in 1978. He went to college at the Virginia Military Institute and was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in the U.S. Army in 1982, family members said.
Hickey's wife, Maureen, said that in a phone call about a week and a half before the raid that captured Saddam, she told her husband that his 6-year-old niece had brought a picture of him to show and tell and declared to her class, "He's going to capture Saddam Hussein."
Maureen Hickey, who lives in Ft. Hood, Texas, teased her husband that he had better not make a liar out of the young girl. His response: "We're working some big things here."
"He's a pretty good poker player," Maureen Hickey said. "He never revealed his plans to me."
After news broke of Saddam's capture Sunday, an exhausted Col. Hickey was able to make a brief phone call to his wife.
"I said, 'How did it feel to get him?' He said, 'It felt good,"' Maureen Hickey said.
He laughed it off when she told him a reporter had suggested that his name now may go down in history.
"I don't think it's hit him yet, honestly," she said. "He's pretty modest, too. He's just grateful and felt a sense of relief."
Two Illinois units called up for anti-terrorism duty
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- Two units of the Illinois National Guard are being called to active duty to help guard against terrorist attacks, officials announced Monday.
The activation applies to units based in south suburban Crestwood and Sycamore in northwestern Illinois with a combined 240 members. Both units are part of the 2nd Battalion, 122nd Field Artillery.
They must report for duty next month.
The two units are being called up as part of Operation Noble Eagle, the anti-terrorism program that was launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The soldiers will get special training as military police and then guard military installations, either in Europe or the United States.
About 2,800 of Illinois' 13,500 National Guard personnel have been activated to guard against terrorism or support military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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