Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and not a body double, had probably delivered the speech carried by Iraqi television after the first US air strike, US officials said on Thursday.

The voice, speech inflections and the movements of his mouth did not suggest a double, they said.

The speech might have been taped before the strike, so there was no way to know if Saddam was alive, the sources said.

Asked about it earlier, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "There's debate about that."

The Iraqi president and several members of his inner circle were believed to be in a residential compound in Baghdad that was struck by F-117A stealth fighters and Tomahawk cruise missiles in the initial phase of the war.