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By Michael Georgy
Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/
Thursday, June 12, 2003

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein's feared aide Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," joked and flirted in a Baghdad hospital as the capital fell before making his escape, hospital officials said Thursday.

U.S. forces bombed Majid's home on April 5 in the southern city of Basra during the war to oust Saddam Hussein, and British and American officials expressed confidence at the time that he had been killed.

U.S. defense officials said this month Majid, a cousin of Saddam, might still be alive. Majid is listed as Number 5 on the U.S. list of 55 most wanted Iraqis.

Officials at the Nursing Home Hospital said the emergency room, busy throughout the war, looked even more crowded around midnight on April 9, the day Baghdad fell.

"I was awakened at night and told that there was someone in the emergency room. I walked there and looked up and there was Ali Hassan al-Majid sitting on a stretcher next to two bodyguards," the hospital's former director, Abdel Aziz al-Bayaa, told Reuters.

"They (the bodyguards) both had shrapnel wounds. One was slightly wounded and the other had a serious injury."

Majid, who was accompanied by Iraq's then defense minister, Sultan Hashim Ahmed, discussed the war with Bayaa, who said as little as possible to avoid annoying him in any way.

"He said there was no problem in Baghdad and that he and his men were just visiting different areas of Baghdad. He joked with his bodyguards," said Bayaa.

"We could not really ask any questions. We were too scared."

There were plenty of reasons to be afraid.

Majid, who was wearing a green military uniform and a headdress in the emergency room, earned his nickname for ordering a poison gas attack against 5,000 Kurds in the Iraqi village of Halabja in 1988. At that time, Iraq was a U.S. ally.

He has been shown in Western television documentaries taking part in the beatings of rebellious Iraqi Shi'ites and ordering their execution after the 1991 Gulf War.

SMILING AND JOKING

The woman charged with taking care of Majid and his huge entourage of about 50 at the hospital put them in a VIP area usually reserved for the health minister.

"It was if nothing was happening outside. He was smiling and joking. He told me I was beautiful. He kissed me on the cheeks," Latifa Mohammed Ali told Reuters.

"I asked him how the president was doing and he said 'the president is great'. But he looked like he was very upset and wanted to cry."

Other hospital workers declined to discuss Majid, fearing they might incur retribution from 20 Baath party members that Bayaa and Ali said still work in the medical complex.

Majid requested insulin for his diabetes but supplies had run out, said Ali.

"We gave him 50 (empty) syringes," she said.

Hospital staff prepared a simple meal -- tea, salad and eggs --for Majid before he went to sleep.

Ali said he put on an off-white robe before sleeping. He gave her two large sacks of money and told her they were for the defense minister.

The next morning, Majid was gone and Ahmed asked for the money.

Ahmed told hospital staff he needed to escape. They wrapped him in bandages and put plastercasts on his legs before he left in an ambulance. A physician who traveled with the defense minister said he went to the northern city of Mosul, Ali said.

Majid and Ahmed left their silver pistols and Kalashnikov assault rifles behind with Ali.

"I think that means they will try to come back," said Ali, who has not worked for weeks because she is afraid to go to the hospital.

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Direct Link:
--http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2919191

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