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★阿修羅♪
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［粗い要約］
・レバノンのBerri報道官がロシア大使館にフセインが保護されているのではないかと述べるが、ロシア外務省は否定。
・トルコのシンクタンクは、ロシア大使館内の保護は戦後のロシア権益確保のためのアメリカとの交渉材料にするためではないかという見解。
・アルジャズィーラは、停戦交渉が進行中で、フセインのバグダッド脱出はイラクの抗戦停止との交換条件と報道。
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http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/04/10/015.html
http://www.themoscowtimes.com
Thursday, Apr. 10, 2003. Page 2
Where Is Hussein? In The Russian Embassy?
By Meg Richards
The Associated Press
NEW YORK -- As U.S. troops take over Baghdad and jubilant Iraqis dance and cheer in the streets, the question lingers: Where is Saddam Hussein?
There are rumors the Iraqi president escaped a massive airstrike and is hiding in the Russian Embassy as part of a deal between Washington and Moscow. Some whisper that he and his sons, Qusai and Odai, stole away to his hometown of Tikrit; others say they were wounded and one of the sons is dead.
The building where U.S. intelligence officials thought Hussein might be meeting with his sons and top advisers is just a hole in the ground now, smashed to rubble by U.S. bombs.
It's not clear who was killed, and U.S. officials have yet to examine the site because Hussein loyalists still control it.
Baghdad's rapid slide into lawlessness has convinced many that the regime has fallen and its leader is dead. But Britain's Guardian newspaper quoted an unidentified intelligence source Wednesday as saying Hussein "was probably not in the building when it was bombed." The Times of London also quoted an unidentified source, who said: "We think he left the same way he arrived in the area, either by a tunnel system or by car, we're not sure." When asked about the reports, Britain's Foreign Office conceded, "It is possible that he escaped."
American officials said U.S. intelligence had solid information from multiple sources that Hussein went inside the building and didn't leave before it was struck.
Lebanese parliament Speaker Nabih Berri hinted Wednesday that Hussein might have taken shelter at the Russian Embassy in Baghdad as part of a U.S.-Russian deal. "Why did the Russian ambassador return to Baghdad? What did [U.S. National Security Adviser] Condoleezza Rice do in Moscow?" Berri asked reporters. "Is Saddam Hussein in the Russian Embassy in Baghdad?"
Russian Ambassador Vladimir Titorenko left Iraq on Sunday, but his convoy came under fire on the way to Syria. He returned Tuesday to fetch a wounded embassy driver who had been treated in an Iraqi-controlled hospital.
Officials in Washington and at the Russian Foreign Ministry denied Hussein had taken refuge at the embassy.
"Such statements absolutely do not and cannot correspond with reality," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said on Channel One television. "This is an attempt yet another time to place the Russian Embassy in Baghdad under threat."
The Kremlin press service also denied the reports.
Russian reports about the ambassador's movements did not say he had returned to Baghdad itself, where Russians say a skeleton crew remains.
Speaking to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov stressed the need for the preservation of the Russian Embassy in Baghdad and the protection of the security of its remaining staff, the Foreign Ministry said.
SESAR, a Turkish think tank that specializes in strategic analysis, said in a statement that "credible sources" in Baghdad reported that Hussein was hiding in the Russian Embassy.
The think tank suggested that Moscow and Washington were apparently bargaining over the fate of Hussein and Russian interests in postwar Iraq.
The report could not be verified independently. Turkish government officials would not comment.
The Moscow correspondent of Arab news channel Al-Jazeera quoted a Russian source as saying a U.S.-Iraqi deal for a cease-fire was in the works, and that Hussein's safe exit from Baghdad had been assured in return for a halt to Iraqi resistance. The source, a ranking military intelligence officer, said CIA elements who were in Baghdad before the start of the war were trying to arrange the deal, Al-Jazeera reported.
But even without a secret deal, Hussein has survival skills honed by decades of concern over assassination attempts by enemies at home and abroad.
Some say he and his sons were evacuated 145 kilometers north to Tikrit, the Sunni stronghold where Hussein's clan is from. The dusty desert town holds some of Hussein's largest and most elaborate presidential compounds. If he went into hiding there, he could easily vanish in the labyrinth of underground tunnels believed to be linking those sites to the eastern banks of the nearby Tigris River.
Other said Republican Guards had escorted Hussein to Syria.
A White House source dismissed the idea that Hussein had sought refuge in Syria. "No. He had his opportunity to leave the country," the source said Wednesday. "He did not take it."
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