Wanted: the iceman: the last of Saddam's inner circle still at liberty continues to taunt his would-be captors with frequent sightings and leads a ruthless band of Ba'athist insurgents.(Saddam Hussain, Izzat Ibrahim Al Douri)

THE MOST WANTED man in Iraq these days is a frail 64-year-old former schoolteacher who suffers from leukaemia and diabetes. He is often called 'the iceman' because as a young man he sold blocks of ice from a donkey cart in his hometown, Dour, north of Baghdad--a far cry from his later incarnation as Saddam Hussein's right-hand man.

Izzat Ibrahim Al Douri is the last of Saddam's inner circle still at large more than three years after the Ba'athist regime was toppled by US-led forces. He is considered by the Americans and the government of Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki to be the effective leader and chief financier of the Ba'athist insurgency. Some US and Iraqi officials believe Douri's importance has been exaggerated, citing his age and health, but in early July Maliki's national security adviser, Mouafaq Al Rubaie, issued a list of the government's most-wanted fugitives and Douri was the first of the 41 names.

In early September this year, the outlawed Ba'ath Party issued a list of political, military and judicial leaders marked for assassination. The document, widely reported in the Iraqi press, was signed by the Martyr Qusai Unit, so named after Saddam Hussein's second son killed by the Americans in July 2003, and approved by Douri, identified as the party's…