SOS FOR SADDAM SURGEON?

SADDAM Hussein’s henchmen last night pleaded with Russia to find them a top surgeon to save the tyrant’s life.

They sent an SOS to Moscow as their leader lay badly wounded at a secret hideaway in Baghdad.

Saddam is believed to have suffered abdominal injuries when cruise missiles scored a direct hit on his bunker on Day One of the war last Thursday.

British intelligence chiefs say that he was hauled from the rubble and whisked away in an ambulance hours after the sudden strike that launched Operation Iraqi Freedom.

They are convinced he underwent a major operation and a blood transfusion. And at one stage thought he may be dead.

But last night experts at GCHQ listening station in Cheltenham intercepted a message which suggests he is still alive — but in need of treatment the Iraqis cannot provide.

A senior government source told The Sun: “They requested urgent medical assistance for a senior government official who was injured.

“Saddam’s name was not mentioned during the conversation — but there is little doubt it was him they were talking about.

“They said he was not critically injured but demanded urgent treatment because he had lost blood and could get worse. This regime wouldn’t go to that trouble for anybody else — including members of his family.”