Baghdad bunker never existed (CBS)

Reuters/Yahoo

No Bunker where U.S. Bombs Targeted Saddam-CBS

"...The Baghdad bunker which the United States said it bombed on the opening night of the Iraq war in a bid to kill Saddam Hussein never existed, CBS Evening News reported Wednesday. The network quoted a U.S. Army colonel in charge of inspecting key sites in Baghdad as saying no trace of a bunker or of bodies had been found at the site on the southern outskirts of the Iraqi capital, known as Dora Farms..."

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=4c8b95795b56eb46fd81460fb1c3a58a

Why Baghdad Fell Without a Fight -- Does Saddam's General Have the Answer?

Pacific News Service, May 28, 2003

"...Making headlines around the world -- but not in U.S. media -- are reports that a notorious Republican Guard commander mysteriously left off the U.S. card deck of 55 most-wanted Iraqis was bribed by the United States to ensure the quick fall of Baghdad.

One of Saddam Hussein's top generals was not included in the U.S. card deck of 55 most-wanted Iraqis. Now stories are circulating in European, Middle Eastern and other foreign press that he was paid off to ensure the quick fall of Baghdad.

On May 25, the French paper Le Journal du Dimanche, citing an unnamed Iraqi source, claimed that General Maher Sufian al-Tikriti, Saddam's cousin and a Republican Guard commander, made a deal with U.S. troops before leaving Iraq on a U.S. military aircraft. Allegedly the deal had been secured in advance by the CIA, but by prearrangement was implemented only after U.S. troops reached Baghdad's airport on April 4. Sufian was said to have left Iraq, along with a 20-man entourage, on April 8 -- the day before U.S. forces captured Baghdad without resistance.

An Arab diplomat told Le Journal that the CIA had hatched the plot more than a year before. "Many suitcases filled with dollars were floating around," the diplomat said.

This story has been picked up by newspapers around the world, including the London Times and the Sydney Morning Herald. But the only recent reference to Gen. Sufian in the U.S. press was in early May, when it was reported that his home was now a base where survivors searched for records on the fate of missing loved ones.

Other Arab sources have added details. Reportedly Sufian ordered the Republican Guard out of the city to fight in the countryside, where they were easily picked off. Gen. Sufian may also have betrayed the location of the house where Saddam Hussein met with his family on April 7, and where Saddam may or may not have been killed. A further report from Agence France Presse alleges that Saddam was betrayed by not one but three of his cousins, as well as other senior military officers, and a former Cabinet minister..."

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