US must 'go after' Saddam

1.30pm

WASHINGTON - Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is probably alive and the United States has to go after him, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has told Fox News Channel.

Myers also said there are at least five groups operating against US and British forces in Iraq, that weapons of mass destruction will be found in time, and there was no attempt by the White House to falsify the existence of those weapons.

"I think, probably the majority opinion is that he (Saddam) is alive and it's something that has to be dealt with ...," Myers told Fox anchor Rita Cosby.

"You know we're gathering a lot of his senior aides and folks that he worked closely with. We've got to go after Saddam as well, and we are."

Asked about recent attacks on US soldiers. Myers replied: "... There are about five different groups in there that are fighting; they're the ones that are still loyal to the Baath party, and they think that maybe it will come back.

"There's this Ansar al-Islam group that's been in there since before we went in; they've been in there for years; other Jihadists had just come in to fight," he said.

"There was a lot of money in Iraq," Myers said when asked who was funding the fighters. "We know that there are groups inside Iraq that are sponsored by Iran. We know that some groups probably flow in from Syria, at least they have in the past. The borders on both sides are pretty porous."

Citing the assumption that Iraq had dual-use production facilities for weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological weapons, Myers said, "It's not a question of whether they had or not. Obviously they had the capability. I think we just need to be patient. And this is going to take time. We've been there 90 days."

Myers denied that there was pressure from the White House to emphasise weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- the primary cause the Bush administration cited for going to war.

"No, absolutely no pressure ever put on me and I don't know of any pressure. The intelligence community I think, called it as they saw it and I see most of it; I talk to a lot of them. I've never detected that."

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq