U.S. Cracks Down On Iraq Rebels

79 Insurgents Arrested Near Site Of Ambush Where GIs Killed 11

(CBS/AP)  U.S. troops arrested an Iraqi rebel leader and 78 others in a raid Tuesday near a town north of Baghdad where hours earlier guerrillas ambushed a U.S. patrol and sparked a gunbattle that killed 11 of the attackers.

Also Tuesday, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Iraq and said U.S. troops might stay in Iraq for one or two years.

"About as far as we are looking is through the next couple of years," Myers said at Baghdad's airport, where he addressed troops.

But he would not set a firm timeframe, saying "it's going to depend on events over the next couple of years" — particularly the efforts to create an Iraqi government.

"As far as you can look out is a year, maybe two years. There is going to be a sovereign Iraqi government standing up soon. We're going to have to have negotiations with them," he said, adding: "I'm not saying we're staying for two years. Nobody can say right now."

In other developments:

Pro-Saddam Hussein demonstrations have been held in several Iraqi towns. A protest in the northern city of Mosul ended in violence, leaving one policeman dead. In Ramadi, soldiers killed three protesters and wounded two more on Monday, after as many as 750 people rallied in support for Saddam, the military said. The statement said U.S. troops were fired at repeatedly and one soldier was wounded.

A roadside bomb wounded three soldiers in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit. Also Tuesday, the military said a U.S. soldier died after falling out of a moving vehicle north of Baghdad.

U.S. intelligence agencies are turning their efforts toward rounding up remaining principals of Saddam's regime who may be playing a more direct role than the now-captured former president did in running guerrilla operations in Iraq, officials say.

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq, said attacks on U.S. troops remain at around 18 per day. In November, one of the bloodiest months for U.S. forces, attacks reached the low 40s per day — but they dropped after a large offensive launched late in the month.

Israeli special forces soldiers trained in 1992 to assassinate Saddam, say media reports. The plan ordered by Prime Minister Yitzhak to kill Saddam while he attended a funeral was scrapped after a training accident killed five soldiers, Haaretz reports.

U.S. special envoy James A. Baker III won German and French agreement Tuesday to work for Iraqi debt relief, overcoming serious misgivings in Berlin about the U.S. exclusion of German firms from Iraqi reconstruction.

Intelligence and weapons experts were skeptical Tuesday that the interrogation of Saddam would yield much useful information about guerrilla fighters or Iraq's alleged illegal arsenal.

So far, Saddam has denied to his interrogators that his regime had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda, U.S. officials said Monday. He has also denied knowledge of the fate of Scott Speicher, the Navy fighter pilot who disappeared over Iraq during the first Gulf War.

He has greeted his initial interrogation with a mix of sarcasm and defiance, the officials said. Former CIA director James Woolsey was not optimistic that the deposed leader would become more forthcoming.

"I think we'll be lucky to get anything useful out of him," Woolsey told the CBS News Early Show, noting that Saddam could not be tortured or even subjected to some of the interrogation tricks used on al Qaeda suspects. "But even liars sometimes can point you in a useful direction by what they lie about and the way they lie, so we may learn some useful thing."

Tuesday's raid captured rebel leader Qais Hattam, No. 5 on the 4th Infantry Division's list of "high value targets," said Capt. Gaven Gregory. The division has been on the front line in fighting the anti-U.S. insurgency in the Sunni Triangle and troops from the division led Saturday's capture of Saddam.

It was not clear if information from interrogations of Saddam led to the arrest of Hattam, who was not on the United States' main list of 55 most wanted regime figures.

The U.S. troops arrested 78 other people along with Hattam in the raid in the village of Abu Safa, near Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, Gregory said.

U.S. officials say Saddam's capture may hurt morale in the guerrilla insurgency that has killed some 200 Americans and has plagued efforts at stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq. But they also caution it won't bring an immediate reduction to attacks — and in fact could increase them on the short term.

"We expect it will take some time before we see any possible effects from what we've accomplished," Myers said.

Still, he added, "when you take this leader, who is at one time a very popular leader in this region, and you find him in a hole in the ground, that's a pretty powerful statement that you're on the wrong team."

On Monday, guerrilla scouts in Samarra released a flock of pigeons as a U.S. patrol approached, apparently as a signal for an ambush, a military statement said. Two gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on American vehicles, and then took cover among children leaving school.

The attackers used a roadside bomb, automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades in the attack but inflicted no casualties on the patrol, the military said. U.S. snipers suppressed enemy fire and hit no civilians, the statement said. A company commander on the scene said 11 insurgents were killed in the ensuing firefight.

©MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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