‘92 Plan to Kill Hussein Reported

An elite Israeli commando force hatched an elaborate plan to assassinate Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 1992 but scrapped the secret scheme after five soldiers were killed during a training accident, Israeli newspapers reported Tuesday.

The assassination plan, reportedly code-named “Bramble Bush,” was designed to avenge the Scud missile attacks that Hussein’s forces unleashed on Israel during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, according to accounts in two daily newspapers, Maariv and Yediot Aharonot. During that conflict, Iraqi forces lobbed 39 missiles onto Israeli soil, terrifying residents but causing few casualties.

Maariv reported that Israeli military censors allowed publication of the account now that Hussein is in U.S. hands. The former president was caught Saturday hiding in a hole at a farm near the Iraqi city of Tikrit.

The capture occurred not far from the spot where, under one scenario, Israeli commandos hoped to kill Hussein if he attended the funeral of an uncle, who was seriously ill at the time of the planning, according to the reports.

Under the plan, the commandos were to be dropped by helicopter into the area and then get close enough to launch a lethal missile attack against the Iraqi leader, the newspapers said.

The Israeli military declined Tuesday to comment on the reports. But the army chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, said it was “irresponsible” to publish details of the plan.

“I believe there are things which should, for security reasons, be kept inside and should not be irresponsibly publicized all over the world,” he said.

Uri Saguy, who headed Israeli military intelligence at the time and reportedly was involved in preparations for the assassination attempt, also criticized the disclosure.

“I feel like a person, perhaps not the only one, who is trying to stop the water in this virtual dam with his finger,” he said on Israeli radio.

Nadav Zeevi, who served as intelligence officer for the elite secret commando unit called Sayeret Matkal, said Israeli intelligence officers studiously tracked Hussein’s movements and those of his doubles as part of the planning. Zeevi said that although he favored using hidden bombs to kill the Iraqi leader so as to reduce the potential risk to soldiers, military commanders wanted a more daring operation.

“The generals pushed more for something with missiles, et cetera, and forces and helicopters and something which was more like the Entebbe operation,” he said on Army Radio. He was referring to an Israeli commando operation in 1976 that rescued hostages from a hijacked French airliner in Uganda.

The idea of assassinating Hussein was initially seen as farfetched -- and potentially damaging to Israel if the killing of an Arab leader were to mobilize the Arab world in anger. But the planning gained momentum in 1992 after Yitzhak Rabin was elected prime minister.

Preparations for the high-risk operation included practice strikes that used mannequins as the targets for guided missiles, the newspapers said.

Yet the operation was never carried out. A training exercise at a large base in the Negev desert, called Tzeelim, ended in disaster Nov. 5, 1992, when a live missile was fired by mistake at a group of soldiers who were playing the role of Hussein and his bodyguards.

Five soldiers were killed and six others wounded. The accident was widely publicized, and rumors swirled that the commandos were training for a highly sensitive mission, but Israelis would wait 11 years to learn details.