TIKRIT: Twenty minutes from Tikrit it becomes obvious that you are approaching no ordinary Iraqi town.

The road, congested, dusty and potholed, suddenly becomes a two-lane highway with smooth tarmac, freshly painted markings and little traffic.

The reason is that Tikrit, 100 miles north of Baghdad, is the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, and many of his most trusted ministers, officers and bodyguards.

Tikrit features prominently in the latest US military plan leaked to the press: the strategy is to avoid attacking civilians and concentrate on hurting the leadership. The Washington Post called it “the bull’s-eye”.

Rick Raftery, a retired marine corps intelligence officer who served in northern Iraq during the Gulf war in 1991, told the Post: “Tikrit is the political centre of gravity. It must be immediately eliminated.”

A sleepy town of 250,000 which Western journalists can visit only with permission and accompanied by a government minder, it has had money lavished on it. Among the many new buildings is a mosque for Saddam Hussein’s father, Hussein al-Majid Abdul Gafur, completed last month. Tombstones commemorate members of the clan.

It also has one of Iraq’s eight presidential palaces, reputed to be the most lavish, and, like the others, used to entertain guests. A closer look is not permitted: much of Tikrit is off- limits to Westerners.

It has the biggest collection of portraits, mosaics and statues of President Saddam anywhere in Iraq. Residents, interviewed in the souk, one of the few busy parts, admitted that they benefited from the association with the president. Salah al- Kader, shopping in a chemists, said: “He’s been very generous.”

But there is also a downside: Tikrit was a key target for bombing in 1991 and 1998.

Iraqi officials say that schools, grain silos and other buildings were destroyed in the previous raids. Four families were among the dead in 1991 and in 1998.

They add that the attacks were because of the symbolic importance of Tikrit to President Saddam. The US argued that it is the political powerbase of the country, with an abundance of key facilities.

Bamer al-Ameri, director of information for Tikrit, said the attacks were aimed at undermining the Iraqi spirit.

“Why did the US attack Nagasaki? Because it was the birthplace of the emperor. Tikrit is the symbol of the people. This is why Tikrit will be hit.”

He was sitting in the provincial headquarters, in a room reserved for guests, complete with a framed box attached to a wall containing an automatic pistol and four portraits of President Saddam.

Such is Tikrit’s small-town feel that everyone interviewed claimed to have known Presi-dent Saddam’s family. He was born in humble circumstances in a village outside the town which officials insisted has been swallowed by its expansion. They said his original house had been knocked down. The home of the town’s other famous son, Saladin, the Kurdish conqueror of the Crusaders, suffered the same fate.

While there is confusion about exactly where the president was born, residents were unanimous that he had left Tikrit when he was six and was brought up in Baghdad.

The provincial headquarters in Tikrit could be one of the targets of a US attack, along with the compound of the president’s Ba’ath party, military facilities, and the presidential palace.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.