Saturday, September 06, 2003

On the evening of Aug. 19, Kurdish militiamen captured Col. Muhammad Rashid Dawdi, the man believed to be responsible for organizing hide-outs and getaways for a former vice president of Iraq.

Colonel Dawdi had been hiding in Mosul, in northern Iraq, not far from the spot where Mr. Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, were found, shot and killed less than a month before.

Two hours into his interrogation, Kurdish officials here said in interviews, Colonel Dawdi said he could take them to his boss, the former vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan. Two hours later he did just that, leading Kurdish fighters right through Mr. Ramadan's front door, where they found the man in his pajamas.

Mr. Ramadan was one of the biggest catches so far in the hunt for Mr. Hussein's top henchmen. But during the same interrogation, Kurdish officials said, Colonel Dawdi made an even more tantalizing offer. Each week, he told the Kurdish officials, he traveled to Baghdad to meet the man in charge of keeping Mr. Hussein safe.

Colonel Dawdi told Kurdish officials that the next meeting, in a Baghdad safe house, had already been scheduled. The Kurds jumped at the idea, insisting that the arrest of both Mr. Ramadan and Colonel Dawdi remain a closely held secret.

"He told us they met every week in Baghdad," said Kosrat Rasool, a senior leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, who guided the operation.

Then, Kurdish and American officials agree, everything went wrong. But they agree on little else.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/06/international/middleeast/06SADD.html?pagewanted=all&position=

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