Ask residents of Baghdad’s Al Mansour district if they think Saddam Hussein’s remains are at the bottom of a 60-foot pit blasted out of their neighbourhood last week by US bombs, and the answer will probably be no.The US just hit the wrong house, they say. Right next to the rubble-strewn hole is a two-storey white home that has become the focus of intense speculation. Some neighbours believe Saddam was using it as a hide-out. No one knows for sure, of course. But neighbours say there is evidence to prove their suspicions. Exhibit 1: The five telephone lines hooked into the house. This isn’t gossip. Anyone can see the five black wires running off a pole on the street and into the first floor. Five lines may be extravagant even by western standards for a residence, but here, no one has five lines. ‘‘That’s not just extraordinary; it’s impossible in Iraq,’’ said Toma, who lives next door.Exhibit 2: The desk. When four 2,000-pound bombs fell in what US officials called a major strike on a ‘‘leadership target’’, residents focused their attention on the houses that were obliterated. But as days went by, people realised that a house bordering the crater was empty. So they looted it. Once people got inside, rumours started swirling that the US had hit the wrong target.The main reason was the desk. Step inside the front door, into the modest, rectangular living room, and there is only one piece of furniture left. It is a large desk at the back of the room. It’s not the kind of desk an ordinary person would put in the living room, or even in their home. It has a heavy wood top, about 6 feet long, on a rather gaudy wooden base. To the residents of Al Mansour, it looks just like the desk Saddam sat behind in televised broadcasts during the war. The evidence that he was in this particular house remains circumstantial, but to residents, it’s convincing. In addition to the phone lines and the desk, there’s the wood dining table that seems too large for the room it was in, the fancy sofa set and the pile of bread and potatoes on the floor.The bread, which appeared to be little sandwich rolls, looked like the kind served as military rations; Saddam travelled with military security. Locals say that some months ago — two by one account, seven by another — the residents of this house sold it. In the days and weeks afterward, people dressed in shabby clothing — perhaps disguises — were showing up in taxis, one neighbour said.Another neighbour, a member of Baath Party, said he had asked two men who had parked in the driveway to see their identification. He thought they might be criminals, but their documents indicated they were drivers for state general security, he said. (LAT-WP)
