US vows to track down Saddam

Bremer said attacks on the coalition were likely to continue

The chief US administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer has said the chances of catching Saddam Hussein are "very high".

In a BBC interview, Mr Bremer said the failure to capture or kill the deposed Iraqi president was hampering coalition efforts to control the country.

Mr Bremer said the attacks on coalition forces which have killed at least 30 troops since the end of the war were likely to continue for some time.

On Sunday, US forces launched an operation across a vast area of central Iraq to try to stem the now almost daily attacks, the Associated Press reported.

The operation, called Desert Sidewinder, aims to capture senior figures from the former regime and suppress insurgents.

Casualties to continue

"I think the chances of catching Saddam are very high," Mr Bremer said.

"The fact that we have not been able to show his fate allows these remnants of the Baathist regime to go around... and say Saddam will come back, and we will come back, so don't co-operate with the coalition," he said.

Mr Bremer accused these "remnants" of the attacks on coalition troops.

We are going to impose our will on them

Paul Bremer

"Unfortunately it is the case that we will continue to take casualties... but there's no strategic threat to the coalition," he said.

"We are going to fight them and impose our will on them and we will capture or, if necessary, kill them until we have imposed law and order on this country," he said.

'Recruiter' held

Operation Desert Sidewinder began in the early hours of Sunday and is expected to last several days, said military officials quoted by the Associated Press.

"We go in with such overwhelming combat power that they won't even think about shooting us," said Lieutenant Colonel Mark Young before the start of the operation.

Officials said a man was arrested in Khalis, north of Baghdad, on suspicion of recruiting young men to launch attacks on Americans, AP said.

Two US troops were injured and an Iraqi killed in an attack on a US convoy in Baghdad on Sunday.

Infrastructure repairs

Mr Bremer, who was appearing on the BBC's Sunday morning news programme Breakfast With Frost, rejected criticism that the US lacked a strategy for reconstructing Iraq.

Paul Bremer: Good news gets lost

He said the first priority for establishing an Iraqi government was to rewrite the Iraqi constitution to allow democratic elections to take place.

He said a constitutional council would meet in July.

And he said that progress was being made on rebuilding infrastructure.

He listed achievements in restoring electricity to pre-war levels, getting all the country's hospitals and 95% of its health clinics operational, improving the water supply in Basra, starting a vaccination programme and distributing food.

"There's a lot of good news that tends to get lost in the noise here," he said.