Bush may overhaul Iraq admin again

As part of the effort, the White House is considering asking several major figures, including former secretary of state James A Baker III, to take charge of specific tasks such as seeking funds from other countries or restructuring Iraq's debt, The Washington Post quoting administrative officials said on Saturday.

It said Baker's name was forwarded on Friday as a prime candidate to work alongside L Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq. But later in the day, a senior White House official said Baker was one of several prominent figures who might be asked to play a role and said that no decision had been made.

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"A lot of different things are being discussed," a senior administration official said, adding "nothing has happened yet."

The disclosure about another possible restructuring, second in three months, underscores the administration's concern about the rate of progress, despite assertions by Bush, Bremer and other senior officials this week that the effort is on track, the paper said.

In another augmentation of the postwar structure, the administration plans to name Reuben Jeffery III, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker who is now coordinating the federal aid aimed to help reconstruct Lower Manhattan, as Washington-based coordinator for the Iraq reconstruction effort, it said.

Reuters adds: US forces, acting on a tip from an informant, have arrested several men believed to be part of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's personal security detachment during a raid south of Tikrit, a senior US military commander said on Friday.

"I believe that we continue to tighten the noose," Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the US Army's 4th Infantry Division, told reporters at the Pentagon during a teleconference from Tikrit. "I believe that we continue to gain more and more information about where he might be."

US forces, also acting on information from an informant, killed Saddam's two sons during a raid on Tuesday in Mosul.

Odierno said an informant came forward to members of a US Army brigade in Tikrit, hometown of Saddam, and volunteered information that led to a raid on Thursday night on a house south of the city.

He said US forces detained 13 people, adding that "somewhere between five and 10 of those, we're still sorting through it, are believed to be Saddam Hussein's personal security detachment."

Odierno said the captives were now being interrogated. He said he could not say how recently they had been with Saddam and gave no indication that finding Saddam might be imminent.

US officials have said they believe Saddam is hiding somewhere inside Iraq, and that they are confident they will find him.

Odierno said that US forces trying to get information on the former president recently spoke to one of his wives in the area, but he did not identify her.

Odierno commands US forces in a large zone that starts just north of Baghdad, stretches to the oil fields north of Kirkuk and to the Iranian border.

He reported an increase in tips from informants since the United States on Thursday released pictures of the corpses of Uday and Qusay Hussein, the once-powerful sons of the deposed Iraqi leader.

Another tip received on Thursday, he said, led to the discovery of a large cache of firearms and explosives buried underground near a house southeast of Samarra.