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Saddam spent 67th birthday in captivity
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-04-29 09:56
There were no military parades or giant cakes, no golden
carriages or schoolchildren dressed in white. Saddam Hussein's
67th birthday passed without a
whisper Wednesday in the streets of his hometown of Tikrit, where residents said
U.S. soldiers ordered schools and universities closed, and where extravagant
celebrations once marked the day.
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| International Red Cross officials visited
Saddam Hussein at his secret prison on April 27, 2004. Hussein is
seen after his capture Dec. 13. [Reuters]
| At that time, about 200 people gathered in Tikrit waving Iraqi flags on his
birthday, a celebration that was broken up when U.S. soldiers in Humvees with
mounted machine guns arrived and threatened to use force.
Shops in Tikrit, 70 miles north of Baghdad, were open Wednesday and there
were people in the streets, residents said.
U.S. forces ordered no special curfews because of the birthday, said Maj.
Neal E. O'Brien, a U.S. military spokesman.
But schools and universities were closed at the Americans' request, residents
said. O'Brien had no immediate information on such a closure.
Saddam has been in U.S. custody since his capture in December. On Tuesday, he
was visited by a team from the International Committee of the Red Cross to see
his conditions. Saddam has been held in an undisclosed location undergoing FBI
and CIA interrogation.
Tikrit is part of the Sunni triangle, an overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim part of
central Iraq that was Saddam's key power base. Fighting in the area has been
sharp -- though not of the scale seen at another stronghold of Saddam support,
the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad.
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