PARIS: As far as the French secret services are concerned, the death this week of the two sons of Saddam Hussein does not in any way lessen the importance of the resistance that Saddam is capable of putting up against the American force of occupation in Iraq. According to French specialists on Iraq quoted in Thursday’s issue of ‘Le Figaro’, Saddam Hussein is well alive and given his “formidable instinct for survival,” he is as powerful as he’s ever been.

The death of his two sons, according to French experts, lessen the force Saddam is able to unleash on behalf of a resistance movement considered as more powerful than US analysts want to admit, and may actually prove to be a blessing in disguise, as Uday and Qusay were viewed largely as political liabilities.

As for Saddam himself, he is described as moving from village to village, along the Tigris River, between Tikrit, his fief, Samarra, as well as the neighbouring regions north of Baghdad. In that part of the country, say the French specialists, “he can count on the support of certain tribes which over the years he covered with gifts and who have remained loyal.”

Citing “specialists in the problems of security,” Le Figaro also revealed that Saddam has never made use of a portable or satellite telephone to make it difficult for his whereabouts to be traced.

His communications are largely done by the way of personal messengers, who often do not know they are working on his behalf, but who have often proven extremely helpful not only in allowing him to send off messages to the military who have remained faithful to him out in the field where they’ve been organizing the resistance to the US occupying force.