WASHINGTON -- Most Iraqis believe that ousted leader Saddam Hussein is still alive and therefore US troops must step up their efforts to find him or his remains, the top U.S. military commander said late Saturday.

"Probably the majority opinion is that he is alive, and that is something that has to be dealt with," Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Richard Myers told Fox News Channel.

He made clear that perceptions were sometimes as important as hard facts, and that the rumors circulating about Saddam had to be addressed.

"If anybody else inside Iraq, particularly the former Baathists, think he is alive then that can be a problem," the general pointed out.

Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi said last Wednesday that the ousted Iraqi president had been sighted about three weeks ago, AFPreported.

"Saddam has organized a network of his supporters whom he can amply pay to make operations against United States forces, and they are doing it," Chalabi said on U.S. PBS television.

Chalabi said Saddam was likely hiding in a vast area northwest of Baghdad and around his old fiefdom of Tikrit, guarded by members of his elite Special Republican Guard.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top US officials have repeatedly said that they do not know whether Saddam is alive or dead.

Myers said that despite the fall of Saddam's regime, the US military still had a tough job to do in Iraq. "The folks that are over there understand that it's is a difficult task," he said. "The folks back home understand this is a very difficult task, one we must finish and we will."