BAGHDAD, Iraq — Cornered alone in a cramped hole near one of his sumptuous palaces, a weary, disheveled Saddam Hussein was seized by U.S. troops and displayed on television screens worldwide Sunday, a humiliating fate for one of history's most brutal dictators.
The man who waged and lost two wars against the United States and its allies was armed with a pistol when captured in a Styrofoam-covered underground hideout but did not resist, the U.S. military said. In the broadcast images, he resembled a desperate fugitive, not an all-powerful president who had ordered his army to fight to the death.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we got him," U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer told a news conference. "The tyrant is a prisoner."
A U.S. official said late Sunday that Saddam had been moved to a secure location. The Dubai-based Arab TV station Al-Arabiya said he was taken to Qatar.
"He was just caught like a rat," said Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, whose 4th Infantry Division troops staged the raid. "When you're in the bottom of a hole you can't fight back."
During the arrest of Saddam, U.S. troops discovered "descriptive written material of significant value," another U.S. commander told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. He declined to say whether the material related to the anti-coalition resistance.
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