And Then There Was One

Uday and Qusay Hussein hated each other. When they were boys, Uday would torture his younger brother, going so far as to stab him in the thigh and break his ribs and to try to blind him with a burning cigarette stub. Over the course of four decades they would become, apart from their father Saddam, the most feared men in Iraq–responsible for untold numbers of maimings, jailings and murders and, in the case of Uday, rapes as well. The brothers never outgrew their mutual contempt. Qusay loathed Uday’s drunken rampages and reprobate lifestyle; Uday railed to friends that Qusay, Saddam’s chosen heir, conspired to marginalize him after a 1996 assassination attempt left him crippled.

Thus it was somewhat of a surprise that the antipathetic brothers were ultimately found together, holed up in a mansion on a busy thoroughfare in a suburb of the northern city of Mosul. In the end, they went down together, engaging U.S. forces in a four-hour battle before both were taken out of the house dead, provoking celebrations in Iraq and relief in Washington. The removal of two aces from the Pentagon’s deck of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis provided a much-needed boost to a White House reeling from growing public suspicions that it stretched its case for the war, which has claimed more American lives than did the first Gulf War. U.S. commanders hope the brothers’ demise will decapitate the leadership of the guerrilla resistance that has tormented U.S. forces since the beginning of the summer and thereby deliver the enemy a mortal blow. The U.S. believes the Fedayeen Saddam militia, which Uday controlled during the war, is behind many of the attacks on American troops. At the same time, U.S. officials hope ordinary Iraqis will be encouraged to cooperate with the U.S.

Now American forces are zeroing in on their main prey. With the sons disposed of, military officials last week received flurries of reports on Saddam’s whereabouts. Says Lieut. Colonel Steven Russell, commander of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, which is based in Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit: “Any time we have seen a capture or killing of deck-of-cards people, we see a very positive effect, with a lot more people coming forward with information.” On Thursday, during a raid south of Tikrit, soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division captured what the Pentagon said were “five to 10” suspected members of Saddam’s security detail. A former butler of Uday’s, visited by a group of Saddam’s relatives two days after the deaths of the brothers, says Saddam’s family is “very depressed and nervous” that the former leader may soon be captured. “They were very impatient to hear news from ‘our uncle,'” says the butler, using a nickname for Saddam. “They told me, ‘If they get hold of him, that’s it, our end.'”

The drama last week began with what the military calls a walk-in. Someone approached U.S. soldiers at a camp gate to volunteer information on the brothers’ whereabouts. U.S. forces put a discreet cordon around the Mosul house, which is owned by Sheikh Nawaf al-Zaydan Mohammed, a member of Saddam’s tribe. Shortly before 10 the next morning, a phalanx of Army humvees arrived at the house, blaring instructions in Arabic for those inside to come out. Witnesses say that moments after al-Zaydan and his son emerged, hands raised, gunfire erupted from the upper floor of the house. About 20 U.S. soldiers stormed the building. Inside, they were met with a hail of AK-47 fire, which wounded four soldiers. The Americans called for backup.

The brothers surely knew this was their last stand. Though Uday in particular was not known for his valor–“He doesn’t kill anyone with his own hand. He is a coward,” a longtime family servant recently told TIME–the shooting from the second story continued for more than an hour. At 1 p.m., American Kiowa helicopters spit rockets into the mansion while ground troops launched 40-mm grenades and 10 antitank TOW missiles. A group of soldiers entered the house again; it was quiet this time, save for a few shots from the bedroom fired by Qusay’s son Mustafa, 14, who was killed when the troops returned fire. In a small upstairs bathroom covered in blood and broken glass, the soldiers found the bodies of three others: Uday, Qusay and a bodyguard.

It is testament to the depths of the brothers’ terror that many Iraqis celebrated the reports of their violent deaths as if life had begun anew. In Baghdad people stayed out all night for the first time since the end of the war, firing celebratory rifle shots from the roofs of their houses and crowding around televisions in hotel lobbies to watch coverage of the raid. In the streets and suqs of the capital the next morning, shop owners congratulated one another with handshakes and kisses when they arrived for work. “If this street could talk, it would tell you that Uday would take a girl off the street and rape her,” says Amar Abdul Amir, 45. “But no one could say anything. Before I was afraid to talk to Baath Party members. Today I feel O.K.”

U.S. commanders felt better too. Just three days before the raid, Lieut. General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition ground troops in Iraq, had looked glum as he briefed reporters, pleading with an Iraqi journalist that he needed local intelligence about where to find fugitive regime leaders. The day after the raid, he was radiant, announcing, “Yesterday was a landmark day for the people and for the future of Iraq.”

And yet for the U.S. in Iraq, there are few clean victories. Many Iraqi skeptics refused to believe the brothers were truly dead, even after the U.S. released grisly photos of Uday’s and Qusay’s bearded corpses as they were found, and then let reporters film the bodies cleaned up, retouched and shaved. “We have to see it with our own eyes,” said Ahmed Ismail, a kabob-shop owner in Tikrit. He was among a minority who expressed hope that the brothers were still alive. Another merchant, Fadhil Awda, who had dropped by for lunch, also doubted that the sons were dead. “And if it is true,” he said, “then we will be more proud because they resisted for hours, and they were only four, while the Americans were 400.”

As American commanders had anticipated, the brothers’ deaths were followed by a step up in guerrilla attacks. Last week eight more U. S. soldiers died from hostile fire. U.S. officials hope the uptick, perhaps driven by revenge for the deaths of Uday and Qusay, will be temporary. But TIME spoke to members of a Fedayeen Saddam cell who said their support for the Husseins is not what motivates their attacks on the Americans. “We do it because they degrade us, they occupy our area,” said a tribal elder sitting at the head of the gathering. The cell members said they operate autonomously, selecting their targets and timings without orders from any kind of hierarchy. The morning after the Mosul siege, when a makeshift explosive device detonated under a military convoy as it passed through the town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, killing a U.S. soldier, the cell sent word to TIME: “We did it.”

Even among Iraqis relieved to hear of the brothers’ deaths, there was grumbling last week that U.S. forces should have endeavored to capture Uday and Qusay alive, which might have produced leads on Saddam’s whereabouts and enabled a public accounting of the brothers’ crimes. Plus, seeing them alive and in custody might have convinced more Iraqis that the brothers were truly a spent force. “I wanted them arrested so we could see them on TV,” says Hassanin Mohammed, 23, who runs a tiny store that sells fans in the Karrada district of Baghdad. “Most people around here don’t believe they’re dead.” But the ferocity of the resistance mounted inside the mansion suggested that the brothers had no interest in giving up. Sanchez said the option of pressing harder for a surrender was considered and rejected by commanders on the spot, without intervention from senior officials at Central Command or in Washington. “You could say we should have got them alive,” says Russell. “But this way it’s clean. There’s a finality to it.”

Mosul might have seemed an odd place for the brothers to take refuge, given its sizable Kurdish and Turkoman minorities, populations that are not favorably inclined toward the former regime. The area has not been a center of active resistance against occupying U.S. forces. But in other ways, Mosul was a comfortable fit for the brothers, because key elements of Saddam’s top officer corps came from there. At what point the brothers arrived in Mosul, a scenic city that is a popular family holiday destination, remains unclear. As TIME reported in the June 2 issue, in late May Uday dispatched a relative to try to negotiate the terms of a surrender to U.S. forces, according to a source familiar with the communications. The U.S., of course, never had any intention of offering Uday the amnesty he sought.

Al-Zaydan’s house, according to Uday’s former butler, was a center for Fedayeen money and rations, so it made sense for Uday and Qusay to wind up there. Qusay took his son Mustafa to the house, says the butler, “because he depended on him. He could go and switch on the generator or go shopping. His face is not very well known.” Abdul Jabar Mohammad Arif, who owns a bread shop opposite the mansion, says he noticed nothing unusual until the night before the raid, when al-Zaydan came by to pick up 60 loaves of flatbread. Normally, his wife bought just four or five each day for the immediate family. “I thought he had some party or guests,” Arif says.

In Mosul, residents believe that al-Zaydan was the informant who sold the brothers out. Early on the morning of the raid, neighbors say they saw his wife and daughter leave the building; later, when al-Zaydan and his son surrendered, U.S. soldiers did not handcuff them or cover their heads with canvas bags, as they typically do to Iraqi detainees. The U.S. did not say al-Zaydan was the informant. Whoever it is, the informant is being kept in U.S. custody out of fear of assassination. But al-Zaydan did have the incentive to cooperate: in addition to the American offer of $15 million for information leading to the arrest of either brother, there was a personal score to settle. Saddam had once jailed al-Zaydan’s brother for claiming he was a blood relative of the President’s family.

Plenty of other Iraqis have been waiting for their own moment to exact revenge for the regime’s crimes–which is why U.S. officials are cautiously optimistic that they can nab Saddam. After last week’s siege on the Mosul house, U.S. intelligence officers scoured the wreckage for any clue to Saddam’s whereabouts. A man who was in the crowd was identified to a TIME reporter as one of Saddam’s personal escorts from a small group within the feared Special Security Organization, which was run by Qusay. Another member of the family’s protection squad was pointed out later that day in a busy shopping district in Mosul. Asked by TIME’s reporter about al-Zaydan’s relationship to Saddam, the man replied, “I don’t know. I’m not from Mosul. I’m from Baghdad. I’m here as a tourist.” Then a companion whisked him away.

The willingness of Iraqis to point fingers at such people is what gives U.S. officials renewed hope of capturing Saddam. Says Timothy Yusef Youkhana, a medical technician who long served the Husseins, especially Uday: “Saddam is an old man, and both his sons have died. Who is with him? He is alone now.” U.S. forces hope to provide some company soon. –Reported by Brian Bennett and Vivienne Walt/Baghdad, Simon Robinson/Tikrit and Michael Ware/Mosul