Man who hid Saddam's sons: 'I could not refuse'

MOSUL, Iraq — Nawaf al-Zaydan Muhhamad answered the front door of his elegant mansion 24 days ago and greeted a nightmare.

Standing there were the two sons of Saddam Hussein, Qusai and Odai, Iraq's second- and third-most wanted fugitives, asking Muhhamad to repay years of privilege and favors they had doled out to him.

"I answered the doorbell and there they were, right in front of my face," Muhhamad told his neighbor, Mukhlis Thahir Jubori. "They asked to stay in my house, and I could not refuse them. This is a disaster for me."

Muhhamad told his story while sitting in a U.S. military Humvee, about two hours after the bodies of Saddam's sons and two other men were removed Tuesday from the charred remains of Muhhamad's house.

In one of the fiercest firefights since the end of the Iraq war, nearly 200 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division blasted the house with missiles and grenades Tuesday morning until Saddam's two most ruthless enforcers were dead.

The death of the brothers caused soldiers to break out cigars and caused jubilation from the Iraqi desert to the Oval Office. But the episode posed a difficult dilemma for a 46-year-old man, suddenly in the glare of the global spotlight, who had made a career out of hanging around the brothers, according to several of Muhhamad's neighbors and longtime friends.

"Nawaf was always bragging that he was a good friend of Saddam's family, and he was a friend of theirs," said Jubori, a tribal sheik who lives in a house just around the corner from Muhhamad's.

Jubori said his friend was typical of the opportunists and midlevel hangers-on who populated the world of Saddam and his sycophantic Baath party. In a lengthy interview, Jubori and another neighbor, a Muslim cleric who asked not to be named, said Muhhamad's comfortable life, including his opulent home, were essentially slop from the brothers' trough.

They said Muhhamad was known as a businessman who specialized in import-export work. But mainly, they said, his business was loyalty to Saddam's family, whose officials kept him supplied with government contracts and goodies in return.

In Mosul, they said, that turned Muhhamad and his brother, Salah Muhhamad, like others like them across the country, into well-to-do people who could brag about their contacts with Saddam — and back up those boasts with nice cars and a beautiful house.

Jubori said he recalled being at Nawaf Muhhamad 's house about two months ago when members of Saddam's extended family arrived. He said there was talk about them giving 200 million dinars, about $140,000, to Muhhamad to oversee construction of a new mosque.

Jubori said that was strange, because Saddam's government had already been vanquished and was hardly in a position to build new mosques. He said the money was more likely payment for some service Muhhamad had provided — or perhaps, he said, it was payment for using his home as a safe house in the future.

About the only time Muhhamad's scheme to associate himself with the regime backfired, the cleric said, was when Saddam's family became fed up with Salah Muhhamad bragging that he was a cousin of Saddam, a claim that remains in dispute. In Saddam's dictatorship, such boasting was grounds for prison time, the cleric said. Salah Muhhamad was sentenced to seven years but was freed after less than a month.

"They became a little too powerful," the cleric said. "Saddam doesn't like it when people start getting too much power."

The Muhhamads could not be reached yesterday. A woman who answered the door at Salah Muhhamad's palatial home in a neighborhood across the city said neither of the brothers was there and declined further comment.

Around Nawaf Muhhamad's house, which was still surrounded by coils of razor wire and scores of soldiers, his neighbors said they were surprised, but not shocked, to hear that the brothers were found in his house.

Nobody recalled seeing anyone suspicious at the house, but they said Muhhamad had been acting different lately. Normally, they said, Muhhamad would wait until the brutal desert sun had set, then set out plastic chairs on the sidewalk in front of his house every night. Muhhamad, Jubori and other men from the neighborhood would chew over current events. Then about three weeks ago, Muhhamad stopped putting out the chairs.

"I went over to his house and asked him, is everything OK? Can I come in?" Jubori said. "And he said no. He said his wife's relatives were visiting and they were very busy."

About four days ago, Jubori said, a strange BMW showed up at the house; it still sat there yesterday, its tires and windows shot out in the U.S. assault. Jubori speculated that the car belonged to the other two men found dead in the house, who are believed to be one of Saddam's bodyguards and Qusai's 14-year-old son, Mustafa.

After Tuesday's firefight, Jubori said he looked out his window and saw Muhhamad and his 19-year-old son sitting in a Humvee parked in front of his house, which is just around the corner and out of sight of the main firefight.

He said he brought out a pitcher of water and the soldiers allowed him to give it to Muhhamad. He said Muhhamad seemed calm and in good health, and he noticed that he was not wearing any handcuffs.

"I said, 'What did you do? What happened? They took four dead bodies out of your house,' " Jubori said. "And he said, 'Really? They are dead? Odai and Qusai were with me in the house.' "

Jubori said Muhhamad told him that he and his family had gone out for breakfast early in the morning to a place called the Casino, a recreational area near the Tigris River filled with picnic tables. He said the U.S. soldiers arrived there and asked him to come back to his house, Jubori said.

At least three other neighbors said they saw Muhhamad leave early in the morning and return with his son at about 9 a.m. They said soldiers arrived shortly after that, and took Muhhamad away when he refused to let them enter the house. The firefight erupted after he was gone.

U.S. military spokesman said they were acting on a tip. They said a "walk-in" came to them Monday night with information about the brothers' location. They have not identified the informant, but they said the $30 million bounty on the brothers' heads will be paid.

Jubori and the cleric, who has known Muhhamad since he was a boy and was friends with his father, said they strongly suspect that Muhhamad was the informant. They said the $30 million temptation was probably too much to resist after the two fugitives had been hiding out in his house for more than three weeks.

Military officials said they didn't take anyone into custody in the raid. They had no comment on whether Muhhamad was the informant.

Jubori and the cleric said they weren't sure anyone would claim the brothers' bodies for a funeral. Their mother, Sajida, lives in Iraq and is not a fugitive. But they said she might be too afraid because a funeral for the two men could spark deep emotions in an already tense nation.

They said there could be revenge from Saddam loyalists. Among the hundreds of people gathered on the sidewalk in front of the still-smoking hulk of Muhhamad's house some could be heard muttering anti-American threats and vowing that Saddam would return to avenge his sons.

"You will see," one hissed.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.