http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=460259By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
04 November 2003
A senior Iraqi official said yesterday there was no truth in claims by the Pentagon that Saddam Hussein and Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one of his aides, were orchestrating anti-US resistance in Iraq.
In an interview with The Independent, the official - a veteran opposition leader to the former Iraqi regime now working for the Governing Council, who did not want his name published - believed the organisers of the resistance came from "the middle levels of the Baath party". He said: "Saddam Hussein is not able to communicate effectively because he is in hiding, so he could not organise a guerrilla campaign."
In response to criticism that the US military has no idea who had carried out the attack on al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad last week and other assaults on US troops, high-level US officials said Saddam was playing a role in the resistance.
US officials also claimed that Izzat Ibrahim, former chairman of the Revolution Command Council, was co-ord- inating links between the resistance and al-Qa'ida. However, the Iraqi official said: "Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri is old and sick, and not capable of co-ordinating anything. He was almost captured twice in Mosul because he needs to have dialysis regularly. In any case, he was never that important under Saddam Hussein."
Izzat Ibrahim is known to be suffering from leukaemia.