SADDAM HUSSEIN is alive and living in Iraq, and the country has entered a “critical phase”, the American civil administrator for the region said yesterday.

Paul Bremer, summoned to Washington for talks with the Bush Administration about deteriorating security in Iraq, said that there was evidence that forces loyal to Saddam knew that they would lose the war and always planned post-conflict guerrilla resistance.

Mr Bremer, who is in Washington for a week of meetings with President Bush and his War Cabinet, also said that he believed that the United States would find only “evidence of programmes” of chemical and biological weapons. Asked if actual weapons would be found, he said: “I don’t know.”

His pessimism increased pressure on the White House over its prewar claims about Iraq’s illegal weapons. Critics say that the claims were exaggerated and the issue threatens to become a political crisis for Mr Bush.

Mr Bremer said that he believed that Saddam was hiding in the “Sunni Triangle”, the area north of Baghdad and south of Tikrit where 85 per cent of attacks against US troops have been launched. Mr Bremer said that there were “tens of thousands” of Republican Guard and Fedayin Saddam fighters in the area.

“Saddam Hussein, I think, is alive,” Mr Bremer said on ABC television’s Meet The Press programme. “I think he is in Iraq and the sooner we can either kill him or capture him the better, because the fact that his fate is unknown certainly gives his supporters the chance to go around and rally support for him.”

Since Mr Bush declared significant combat to be over on May 1, 37 US troops have been killed, bringing to 151 the number who have died since the beginning of the war — more than the 147 US fatalities in the 1991 Gulf War.

Last week General John Abizaid, the new coalition commander, conceded that the United States was still at war and facing “classic” guerrilla resistance, remarks that contradicted recent statements by Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary. Mr Bremer said that he did not believe that Saddam was co- ordinating the attacks, but he added: “There has been some evidence of planning for the possibility of losing the war militarily and going into some kind of insurgency or organised resistance.”

He said that US troops were facing squad-level organised resistance by “professional killers”. He added: “These are guys who are trained soldiers. This is not a massive uprising by disgruntled factory workers. These are professional killers, members of the Fedayin Saddam, Baathists, former members of the Republican Guard.”

But, Mr Bremer said, “these attacks are in a very small area of the country . . . and they pose no strategic threat to us. We will overpower them”.

Last week a report commissioned by the Pentagon concluded that the “window of opportunity” for the United States to stabilise Iraq was rapidly closing and that the next three months were crucial before chaos engulfed Iraq.

Mr Bremer said: “We’re certainly in a critical phase now. There is no question about that.”

He announced the creation of an Iraqi civil defence corps, made up of Iraqis under American command, to help US forces. General Abizaid told The Washington Post that “the Iraqis want to be in the fight”. He said initial plans are for about ten Iraqi civil defence battalions. Each would consist of 350 men.

Mr Bremer also issued a warning to Iran, which he said was trying to “pick apart” US efforts in Iraq.

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