In the last hours of the gulf war, the United States tried to kill Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein by bombing a fortified bunker with specially designed 5,000-pound bombs, U.S. News and World Report said Saturday.
The magazine said that hours before hostilities ended last Feb. 27, two Air Force F-111F aircraft dropped the special precision bombs on a hardened bunker at the al-Taji air base about 15 miles northwest of Baghdad."Knowledgeable officials said the target chosen on the evening of Feb. 27 represented their best guess at where the Iraqi leader might be," it said.
The Bush administration has repeatedly denied having specifically targeted Saddam. Under a 16-year-old executive order, the U.S. government and its agents are banned from any attempt to assassinate a foreign leader.
But the magazine said two GBU-28 bombs, the first of their kind to be manufactured, were intended to give the United States "one final shot" at Saddam.
Asked about the report, the Defense Department stood by that policy. "It has never been our policy to target individuals," said a spokeswoman, Air Force Capt. Susan Strednansky. "We don't do that."
But the Pentagon confirmed that two GBU-28 bombs, designed to attack hardened shelters, were used in the last night of the war against a hardened shelter in Iraq.
The assassination of foreign leaders is prohibited under a provision of Executive Order 12333, signed by President Gerald Ford on Feb. 18, 1976.
The findings will be published next month in a book about the war, titled "Triumph Without Victory: The Unreported History of the Persian Gulf War," which has been produced by a team of 26 reporters from the magazine.