Search for Saddam Intensifies

Earlier today in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home town, American forces carried out 58 raids and arrested more than 175 people suspected of being Saddam loyalists. Four men who were described as important members of Saddam’s former government were seized. The photo below is of Brig. Gen. Daher Ziana, described as Saddam’s “lifelong bodyguard.”

This is, apparently, another indication of the accelerating pace of citizen cooperation following the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein just one week ago. Yet the New York Times, even as it reports the story, refuses to give credit to the Administration for nailing the younger Husseins: “American military confidence has increased notably since the deaths of Mr. Hussein’s sons in a shootout in the northern city of Mosul. While those deaths did not prove to be the crippling blow to the Iraqi insurgency that was originally predicted by military officials…”
Wait a minute. American officials specifically and repeatedly said that killing Uday and Qusay would not bring about an immediate reduction in the Saddamite resistance; on the contrary, they said it was likely that in the short term, attacks on American soldiers would increase. The Times simply disregards these statements–which it reported just a few days ago–and claims that military officials had incorrectly predicted that the sons’ deaths would be a “crippling blow” to the resistance. And the Hussein brothers were killed exactly SEVEN DAYS AGO! A bit early, don’t you think, to be assessing the ramifications of that event? How American generals can continue to treat New York Times reporters with civility is beyond me.