In peacetime, Saddam Hussein's whereabouts were top secret. In war, with the US military after his head, it's even harder to keep track of him.

The Iraqi president - or possibly a double - has been seen on state-owned television giving speeches, chairing meetings of top lieutenants and on one occasion greeting well-wishers on a Baghdad street. But according to the few sources in a position to know, he's likely spending most of his time underground.

Since the outset of the war, when cruise missiles hit a compound in Baghdad where Saddam was believed to be hiding, US and British officials have questioned whether he is alive.

An Iraqi dissident who for years worked very close to Saddam said the Iraqi leader was so obsessed with his security that very few people would know about his movements.

The exiled dissident said only two people were kept posted on Saddam's whereabouts - his younger son, Qusai,

who commanded the Republican Guard and was head of the president's security, and his private secretary, Abed Hameed Hmoud, a member of Saddam's Tikriti clan. Even older son Odai is thought to be out of the loop because he is considered to have a reckless nature.

During the 1991 Gulf War, the dissident said, Saddam stayed at private houses in several Baghdad neighbourhoods, dressed in a long robe and traditional checkered head dress. He would move around in old taxis or trucks, and used couriers to communicate with aides, the informant said.

Saddam reportedly uses doubles to keep people guessing about his movements. His rare trips abroad are not reported by Iraqi media until he lands at his destination.

Abbas al-Janabi, who worked as Odai's secretary until he defected in 1995, said that Saddam probably went into an underground bunker even before the US bombing started. He said that Saddam had a series of bunkers dug

in Baghdad to shelter him in emergencies.

Al-Janabi said that one bunker linked several of Saddam's palaces in Baghdad and had exits to downtown streets. Part of it was originally dug for a subway project that ran out of money, he said.

"They need sensors to find him," al-Janabi said from neighbouring Jordan.

German engineer Karl Esser said that he helped a company design a bunker under one of Saddam's Baghdad palaces near the Tigris River in the early 1980s.

The bunker Esser described is believed to have survived the 1990-91 Gulf War. Since then, the US has developed precision-guided "bunkerbusting" bombs designed to penetrate deep into such reinforced concrete shelters.

But Esser doubted whether the Americans could breach the bunker, which had a ceiling more than 6 feet thick.