WASHINGTON, April 8: The crew of the plane that bombed a Baghdad building where Washington believes President Saddam Hussein was holding a meeting, said on Tuesday that the Iraqi leader had 45 minutes to escape.

In a satellite interview with reporters at the Pentagon, the two pilots of the B-1 plane said the attack on the building was “directed by an air control station in Baghdad.”

They said the bombing was carried out 45 minutes after they received information from US intelligence sources in Baghdad that the Iraqi president, his two sons and some other senior leaders were meeting in the underground bunker of a restaurant in Baghdad’s al-Mansur residential area.

The pilots said the restaurant was identified to them as “a high priority leadership target.” They said it took them 12 minutes to reach the target from their unidentified launching station.

On reaching the target, the crew said, they first dropped two high-powered 900-kg bombs, followed by two more bombs of the same intensity with a 25-second delay fuse.

“This very unusual combination of bombs,” one of the crew said, “was used to ensure deep penetration into the target as the Iraqi leaders were said to be meeting inside a fortified bunker.”

The pilots said with this type of weapons, it would be almost impossible for anyone inside to escape the building alive.

Pentagon officials said they could not confirm whether President Saddam and his sons were inside when the building was hit or they had escaped taking advantage of the 45-minute delay in the bombing.

“It is presumed that Saddam and his sons were there when the bombs hit the building,” said a Pentagon official.