Regime change starts in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The retired U.S. general appointed as Iraq's postwar administrator arrived in Baghdad today, while two more top members of Saddam Hussein's regime — including his son-in-law — were reported captured.

In another development, The New York Times reported today that a scientist who claims to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program told a U.S. military team that Iraq destroyed and buried chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began March 20.

Members of Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha said the scientist led Americans to material that proved to be the building blocks of illegal weapons, the Times said.

Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, said: "Though much work must still be done to validate the information MET Alpha has uncovered, if it proves out it will clearly be one of the major discoveries of this operation, and it may be the major discovery."

The White House had no immediate comment.

Landing at the Baghdad airport from Kuwait, retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner said his priority was to restore basic services such as water and electricity as soon as possible — a task he said would take intense work.

"What better day in your life can you have than to be able to help somebody else, to help other people — and that is what we intend to do," the 65-year-old Garner said in his first postwar visit to the capital.

In London, the leader of a U.S.-backed Iraqi opposition group said today that Saddam remains in Iraq and is moving around the country.

Ahmad Chalabi, who heads the Iraqi National Congress, told British Broadcasting Corp. radio that his group was tracking Saddam around Iraq, but with a delay of at least half a day on his latest position.

"We have received information about his movements and the movements of his sons," he told the BBC. "We cannot locate Saddam so that we have a coincidence of time and position simultaneously to locate him.

"But we are aware of his movements, and we are aware of the areas that he has been to, and we learn of this within 12 to 24 hours."

With Baghdad slowly returning to normal after days of looting and arson, Marines pulled back Sunday and left the U.S. Army in control of the capital, where coalition-run radio announced an 11 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew.