He also suggested that such efforts might be a reason the Iraqi leadership has not ordered the use of chemical weapons. "They are holding out hope with their people that there might be a deal cut -- the use of chemical weapons would certainly end that prospect," he said
U.S. officials always viewed as a long shot the pre-war CIA campaign to foment a coup or destabilize the Hussein government, but the Bush administration invested more than $200 million in it. The operation became second only to the effort to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and other key al Qaeda figures.
This night-scope video shows a U.S. Special Operations attack on a presidential palace near Baghdad that targeted Iraqi leaders.
(U.s. Central Command)
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The CIA made progress in recruiting anti-Hussein informants and fighters in the Kurdish north and Shiite south of the country, U.S. government officials said. Paramilitary teams from the CIA's Special Activities Division and from the military's covert Special Operations units have made daring raids attempting to capture or kill key leaders in Baghdad and other urban areas.
The agency and the Defense Department, which was also heavily involved in trying to recruit top military and government officials, went so far as to designate safe houses for potential defectors to use. The CIA set up clandestine radio stations and the military dropped millions of leaflets urging Iraqis to abandon Hussein.
The air war strategy in particular has been aimed at blowing up the command centers, office buildings and private residences of top leadership officials -- and then publicizing the effects for extra shock effect. In fact, the various headquarters of the Special Republican Guard have all been hit "hard," officials said, particularly the one in the Republican Palace. The Fifth Battalion, which is based in the palace and headed by Hussein's close friends and relatives, provides protection within the residence and travels with the president at all times.
Brooks said the military "has some indications of where regime leaders move at a given time, and we have a variety of methods that we use to try to attack those regime leaders wherever possible."
The latest example, shown in a highly unusual video released by the Central Command yesterday, was a Special Operations raid Wednesday night on the Tharthar Palace, a palace used by Hussein and his sons that is 56 miles outside the capital. No government leaders were killed or captured, Brooks said.
To corner potential members of the leadership, Brooks said Special Operation forces have blocked the roads from Baghdad to Tikrit, Hussein's home and largest command center.
