When US forces pulled out Saddam Hussein from a hole behind a two-room shepherd’s hut, they were within sight of the former Iraqi President’s lavish palaces in his home town of Tikrit. ‘‘It is rather ironic that he was in a hole in the ground across the river from these great palaces he built where he robbed all the money from the Iraqi people,’’ said Major General Ray Odierno who commands the US Army’s 4th Infantry Division. Saddam, on the run since US-led forces toppled his government in April, was carrying a pistol but put up no defence as he was pulled out of the pit which was covered with a piece of styrofoam and a rug behind the two-room farm building. ‘‘He was just very much bewildered and he was taken away,’’ Odierno told a news conference. US forces are holding Saddam in an undisclosed location. The Army cordoned off two-by-two km near Ad-Dawr, some 15 km down the Tigris river, after receiving intelligence from a mid-level Iraqi source, Odierno said. ‘‘Over the past 10 days or so we have brought in about five to 10 members of these families who were able to give us more information and finally we got the ultimate information from one of these individuals,’’ he said. The officers in charge of the operation knew they were on the trail of a big fish, but were not entirely sure they would find Saddam. ‘‘We were going after an HVT (high-value target), possibly HVT number one. We thought it was Saddam.’’ The soldiers who pulled back the cover to find the cowering ex-President may not have known that, Odierno said. The 4th Infantry Division has taken up residence in the sprawling riverside complex of palaces Saddam built in Tikrit to act as a base while hunting down senior members of the former Baathist government.
