Fugitive Saddam deputy in 'message' to Iraq insurgents

AFP, July, 2008

DUBAI (AFP) — Executed strongman Saddam Hussein's fugitive number two Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri called on Iraqi insurgents to make a final push against US troops, in an audio message attributed to him on Tuesday.

Ibrahim, the most senior member of Saddam's regime still at large, urged Iraqis to "strike the enemy everywhere... to make this year... decisive for victory," in the purported message aired by Dubai-based satellite Al-Arabiya.

He called on President George W. Bush to "come clean about the scale of US losses" and to "end an experiment that has now lasted more than five years."

Ibrahim, who was Saddam's number two in the decision-making Revolutionary Command Council, has had a 10-million-dollar US bounty on his head since November 2003.

US commanders have long accused him of being the paymaster of many of the attacks on their troops, using Saddam's ...