CIA confident of some big kills in first missile attack

One of the sources said a clandestine US team eyeballed the compound after the strike and concluded ‘‘no one came out of the rubble’’ alive. An administration official familiar with the CIA’s reporting on the episode said Thursday that the agency was still analysing who may have been killed in the attack, and that Qusay ‘‘could have been there with other members of the leadership.’’ But until the US can confirm who was in the compound, he said, ‘‘we just don’t know who was killed.’’

He said the CIA, after reviewing a videotape of Saddam broadcast hours after the attack, was confident Saddam is alive. The source who said everyone was killed in the compound agreed the CIA has no confirmation on who was killed. He agreed Qusay was ‘‘a candidate’’ and another apparent victim was Ibrahim, deputy head of the ruling Revolutionary Command Council since Saddam seized power in 1979. ‘‘He was one of the people believed to be in the … compound,’’ he said.

Ibrahim is one of the few members of the inner council to have survived Saddam’s frequent purges and also survived an assassination attempt in 1998. The source said CIA director George Tenet is confident ‘‘real damage’’ was done to Saddam’s inner circle in the missile strike in part because US military forces are not picking up ‘‘command and control traffic’’ from Baghdad.

The sources said the decision to attack the compound was made several hours before the strike when a CIA team inside Baghdad intercepted Iraqi communications indicating high officials, perhaps including Saddam, were planning to stay there overnight. There have been several tactical teams run by the CIA inside Iraq for a number of months.

While more than three dozen cruise missiles were launched at dawn Thursday, the compound was the only target believed to have sheltered members of Iraq’s ruling elite. The death of Qusay and Ibrahim would be major blows to Saddam.

Qusay, 35, is believed to be his favourite son and supervises the Republican Guards, Iraq’s best-trained and equipped troops. Observers have said Saddam has been grooming Qusay to succeed him. Ibrahim’s daughter is married to Saddam’s eldest son, Uday, who is known to be less stable and has been given less responsibility. (LATWP)