THE POSTWAR WAR.

From the rooftop balcony of the two-story house in northern Tikrit where he sought refuge early last week, Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, the fourth-most-wanted man in Iraq, had a panorama on a life come undone. To the south he could make out the sprawling family farmlands where he used to spend weekends with his boss and cousin, Saddam Hussein. A few miles up the road stood the ex-regime's garish presidential palaces, occupied by soldiers of the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division. And to the north Mahmud could survey the open desert plains just beyond the city and ponder how to make a great escape. But he never got the chance. Three U.S. attack helicopters swooped toward the house, where Mahmud had been staying for two days. According to residents of the house, the soldiers quickly moved into the living room and forced six men who were sleeping there to the ground, tying their hands behind their backs and covering their heads with nylon bags. "Where's Saddam?" several soldiers yelled, apparently optimistic about whom they might find as they raced upstairs, tossing 15 stun grenades ahead of them. Perhaps sensing that capture was inevitable, Mahmud came in from the balcony. After an Iraqi interpreter for the soldiers recognized Mahmud's countenance--now gaunt and covered by a white beard--as that of the ace of diamonds in the Pentagon's deck of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis, a soldier seized Mahmud and led him out of the house. After Mahmud's arrest, say U.S. officials, he was taken to a site near Baghdad International Airport, where military and intelligence investigators began pumping him for information on the whereabouts of Saddam, his two sons Uday and Qusay, and the 23 other top henchmen still at large. As Saddam's closest adviser and consigliere, Mahmud is one of the likeliest figures to have remained in contact with Saddam after he disappeared. Even if Mahmud's interrogation sheds no light on Saddam's whereabouts, it might be useful to the U.S. in other ways.