Hunting Hussein grows more urgent for US

Earlier this month Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld hedged on whether Hussein was a "catalyst" for the current insurgency, but he added that the regime's former leader remained a symbol, if nothing else. "I don't doubt for a minute that his being alive gives encouragement to the Baathists and the regime murderers..." said Secretary Rumsfeld in an appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press."

In that context the release of a new audiotape said to be made by Hussein came as no real surprise in Washington.

The tape, first broadcast by an Arab television station on Sunday, urged Iraqis to step up resistance to the US and predicted that Hussein would eventually emerge from hiding in triumph and retake his position as head of the Iraqi nation.

US forces would never be able to truly control Iraq because of the country's intrinsic nation, warned the tape.

"The thwarted ones know that great Iraq, which God blessed with Jihad [holy war] and resistance after faith, that its fires will swallow hundreds of troops and they will not find what they planned or hoped for," said Hussein, according to a translation by Reuters.

US officials said that they had no reason to doubt that the voice on the tape really was that of Hussein. Internal evidence, including some references to recent events, indicated that the tape had in fact been made only a few days or weeks ago.

The fact that it is surfacing now is not necessarily proof that there is an organized insurgency that has reached a turning point, and will now redouble efforts to attack Americans, say experts.

Even loyalists of Hussein who believe him to be still alive may in their hearts know that the US would never allow him to live above ground again, so to speak.

"I don't think there's a thought in [insurgents'] minds so much of the future, as of destroying the present and letting chaos reign," says Ms. Yaphe of the National Defense University.

But it is something of a setback that after seven months of occupation the US should have to worry about continuing to convince ordinary Iraqis that the old regime is gone for good, say some White House critics.

That makes it all the more important to capture him, Democratic presidential candidate retired Gen. Wesley Clark said on Sunday.

Any new Iraqi government would find it hard to establish authority while Hussein remains at large, ghostlike, General Clark said in an interview with USA Today.

"Getting him remains a high priority," said Clark.

Perhaps with this in mind US forces made a strong show of force against suspected insurgent positions in Hussein's hometown of Tikrit on Sunday and Monday. US forces carried out 38 attacks in that period, according to a US military spokesman, destroying 15 suspected safehouses, three training camps, and 14 mortar sites. "Clearly, we're sending the message that we do have the ability to run operations across a wide area," said Lt. Col. William MacDonald, spokesman for the 4th Division.

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