UK says Saddam survived 1st raid

LONDON: British intelligence reports suggest President Saddam Hussein emerged alive from the initial US raid of the Iraq war but left the area in an ambulance, junior Foreign Office Minister Mike O'Brien said yesterday.

“We've received information that Saddam Hussein left the area in an ambulance. There was some talk that he had been injured, even some suggestion that he had been killed. It seems that is unlikely, that if he was injured it doesn't appear it was a serious injury,” O'Brien told BBC radio. He said the information came from “at least one eyewitness” to Thur-sday's strike, which came under cover of darkness. “It appears he subsequently appeared on Iraqi TV but again there are question marks over some of those TV appearances,” said O'Brien. “In essence, we don't know for sure (his fate).”

There has been intense speculation about whether Saddam escaped the opening attack on Baghdad on Thur-sday, when the United States struck before dawn at what it considered to be the top echelons of the Iraqi leadership. The commander of British forces in the Gulf said yesterday Saddam's fate was growing largely immaterial as “significant disarray” sweeps thr-ough the Iraqi leadership. “I suspect they are in significant disarray at the moment,” said Air Marshall Brian Burridge. “Once the regime recognises that its days are up, then they will crumble.” Britain has committed 45,000 tro-ops to help the United States oust Saddam and destroy his alleged programmes of mass destruction. Iraq denies it has any banned weapons.