July 24, 2003	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 23, 1424

BAGHDAD, July 23: The top commander in Iraq said on Wednesday he had no doubt that US forces had killed Saddam Hussein’s two sons, Uday and Qusay, in a four-hour firefight in Mosul the day before.

The following is a verbatim text of the blow-by-blow account of the raid given by Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez:

“This is a neighbourhood that constrained us to some extent in the application of combat power. The major forces that were involved were elements of the 101st Airborne Division. We had an infantry company. We deployed OH58 Delta Kiowa attack helicopters that come equipped with 2.75 inch rockets and machine guns.

“We had Humvees with TOW anti-tank systems, Humvees that were mounted with mark 19 and 50 calibre machine guns, we also had AH64 Apache helicopters on station, however we did not use this capability. And also we had the Air Force on station with A-10s (tank-busting aircraft) ready to be employed should the need arise.

“Also establishing the outer cordon... was the Iraqi police, they were also participating in coordination with our forces on the ground to complete the cordon.

(Showing the floorplans) “It’s a three-storey home and the actual target area was on the second floor which was a fortified part of the house.

“The first phase of the operation was what we call ‘setting the conditions for us to conduct the assault’.

“The previous night, on the 21st, we had had an Iraqi citizen walk in and give us information that Uday and Qusay might be located at this residence.

“Over the course of the night we planned our operation and we had all the conditions set in order for us to initiate our assault at 1000 hours (0600 GMT) yesterday (Tuesday) morning.

“The 101st Airborne Division had anti-tank platoons and weapon squads in place. They had established their cordon to ensure that we had isolated the area and we commenced the operation with an interpreter using a bullhorn in order to attempt to urge the targets — which we were confident were in there, we knew some folks were in there — in what we call a ‘cordon and knock operation.’

“What we have gone to is this cordon and knock, versus cordon and search. What we do is we will cordon an area, go up to the door, knock on the door and ask to see the personnel that we’re after, or located in that specific house.

“In this case we used the bullhorn and we did not get a response and 10 minutes later, at 1010 hours we began to enter the building.

SHOTS FIRED: “Immediately upon entering the building, shots were fired. We immediately determined that the targeted individuals were barricaded in the fortified portion of the building, which was the second floor, and they started engaging with small arms. We believe they were AK-47s (Kalashnikhov assault rifles).

“In the initial exchange of gunfire we had three coalition soldiers wounded on the stairs as we attempted to get up to the second floor and we had one coalition soldier that was wounded outside of the building. At this point our forces withdrew.

“The coalition forces requested additional assets to include a ground quick reaction force and heavy weaponry given that we knew that we had a fortified site that we were going to have to assault.

“Within five minutes we called in medevac (a medical evacuation team) to take care of our wounded soldiers and we determined at that point — the leaders on the ground determined — that it was appropriate for us to prep (prepare) the objective prior to re-entry.

“For the next couple of hours we lined up the right resources on the ground. We were taking this at a fairly measured pace, we knew that we had the area surrounded and there was no reason for us to rush to failure.

“We received sporadic gunfire for a while and at 1045 hours we began the prep with significant mark 19 grenade launchers, we fired a couple of 18/4 rockets at the house and also used Humvee-mounted 50 calibre machine gun fire to attempt to neutralise the threat.

“At 1122 hours the second brigade combat team began movement of additional ground forces that included an additional anti-tank platoon to reinforce the elements that were already on the ground.

“At 1145 — during this period the commander had decided that he wanted to bring additional assets — and we began to employ our OH58 Delta helicopters with their rocket systems, 2.75 inch rockets and 50 calibre machine guns, to once again continue to prep on the target.

“At 1150 hours we had added an anti-tank platoon, we had a psy-ops (psychological-operations) team on the ground and all were on station ready for us to continue the assault.

“At 1155 the Kiowas completed their preparatory fire. At this point the commander decided that he would make a second attempt to get inside of the house.

“At 1200 hours we attempted to re-enter the house. Once again we received fire from the second floor as we attempted to move, after we had secured the first floor, to move up to the reinforced part of the building.

“Once again we opted to withdraw. At this point we knew that we had a barricaded site at the top of the stairs and the elements, the subjects, were clearly well barricaded on that second floor. We decided to continue the preparatory fire.

“At 1300 hours we continued the preparations using our 50 calibre machine guns, our mark 19s (grenade launchers) and at this point we began to employ Humvee-mounted TOW missiles.

“We fired 10 TOW missiles into the house. During this period we considered employing our Apache helicopters and A-10s (tank-busters) to come in and finish the preparation and the neutralisation of the target. However, the decision was made not to employ the airpower because of the high risk of collateral damage given the neighbourhood density that we were faced with.

“At the end of this preparation, we believe that it was likely that the TOW missile attack was what wound up killing three of the adults.

“Twenty one minutes later at 1321 hours we entered the building for the third time. At this point we received no fire as we moved up the stairs. As we got up to the second floor the assaulting elements continued to receive fire and they killed the remaining individual that was in the second floor.

“At this point the enemy had been eliminated and the building was cleared in its entirety. We completed securing the building at about 1400 hours yesterday afternoon. Once we cleared the building, we found we had four bodies that were extracted and the bodies were evacuated and moved for positive identification.

“... We removed the bodies, we brought them to BIA (Baghdad International Airport) where we then proceeded to work on identification. We believe that we have positive identification and that we in fact have Uday and Qusay. The identification was done through multiple means.

“We had senior former regime members do a visual identification of the bodies and we had four individuals that independently verified that we had both of Saddam Hussein’s sons.

“We also compared X-rays and verified that the injuries on one of the bodies were consistent with the injuries that had been suffered by this individual during a previous assassination attempt (on Uday in 1996).

“Also, we used dental records to identify the bodies and for Uday the match was 90 percent and this was limited only because injuries to the teeth made a perfect match impossible.

“For Qusay the dental was a 100 percent certainty. Autopsies will follow but we have no doubt that we have the bodies of Uday and Qusay.” —AFP