US gives new photos of Saddam with beard, without moustache: Pentagon

WASHINGTON (AFP) Aug 01, 2003
Retouched photographs showing Saddam Hussein without a moustache, with a beard and in other possible guises have been handed out to US troops hunting for the deposed Iraqi leader, a Pentagon spokesman said Thursday.

The photos were the latest indication of an increasingly concentrated search for Saddam less than two weeks after his two sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed by US forces in a mansion in the northern city of Mosul.

"They are in fact retouched photographs showing in various configurations," said Commander Mark Mintz. "They've already been handed out to troops in Baghdad."

Mintz said the photographs, which apparently were electronically altered, show him "as he would look with or without a beard, with or without a moustache, and in a number of different guises."

After four months on the run, US intelligence assumes that Saddam has tried to change his appearance to escape capture.

His sons both had grown beards to disguise their identity, but were betrayed by an informant who will collect a 30 million dollar reward.

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