First interrogation of Saddam...

No WMD...
No prisoners...
Not much coherance...

BUT
A list of the bad guys in Bagdad...

www.time.com...

�Have we actually cut the head of the snake or is he just an idiot hiding in a hole?�

I think this is worth quoting in full... I am sure debka will forgive us
www.debka.com...

A number of questions are raised by the incredibly bedraggled, tired and crushed condition of this once savage, dapper and pampered ruler who was discovered in a hole in the ground on Saturday, December 13:

1. The length and state of his hair indicated he had not seen a barber or even had a shampoo for several weeks.

2. The wild state of his beard indicated he had not shaved for the same period

3. The hole dug in the floor of a cellar in a farm compound near Tikrit was primitive indeed � 6ft across and 8ft across with minimal sanitary arrangements - a far cry from his opulent palaces.

4. Saddam looked beaten and hungry.

5. Detained with him were two unidentified men, two AK-47 assault guns and a pistol, none of which were used.

6. The hole had only one opening. It was not only camouflaged with mud and bricks � it was blocked. He could not have climbed out without someone on the outside removing the covering.

7. And most important, $750,000 in 100-dollar notes were found with him � but no communications equipment of any kind, whether cell phone or even a carrier pigeon for contacting the outside world.

According to DEBKAfile analysts, these seven anomalies point to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein was not in hiding; he was a prisoner.

After his last audiotaped message was delivered and aired over al Arabiya TV on Sunday November 16, on the occasion of Ramadan, Saddam was seized, possibly with the connivance of his own men, and held in that hole in Adwar for three weeks or more, which would have accounted for his appearance and condition.

Meanwhile, his captors bargained for the $25 m prize the Americans promised for information leading to his capture alive or dead. The negotiations were mediated by Jalal Talabani�s Kurdish PUK militia.

These circumstances would explain the ex-ruler�s docility � described by Lt.Gen. Ricardo Sanchez as �resignation� � in the face of his capture by US forces. He must have regarded them as his rescuers and would have greeted them with relief.

From Gen. Sanchez�s evasive answers to questions on the $25m bounty, it may be inferred that the Americans and Kurds took advantage of the negotiations with Saddam�s abductors to move in close and capture him on their own account, for three reasons:

A. His capture had become a matter of national pride for the Americans. No kudos would have been attached to his handover by a local gang of bounty-seekers or criminals. The country would have been swept anew with rumors that the big hero Saddam was again betrayed by the people he trusted, just as in the war.

B. It was vital to catch his kidnappers unawares so as to make sure Saddam was taken alive. They might well have killed him and demanded the prize for his body. But they made sure he had no means of taking his own life and may have kept him sedated.

C. During the weeks he is presumed to have been in captivity, guerrilla activity declined markedly � especially in the Sunni Triangle towns of Falluja, Ramadi and Balad - while surging outside this flashpoint region � in Mosul in the north and Najef, Nasseriya and Hilla in the south. It was important for the coalition to lay hands on him before the epicenter of the violence turned back towards Baghdad and the center of the Sunni Triangle.

The next thing to watch now is not just where and when Saddam is brought to justice for countless crimes against his people and humanity - Sanchez said his interrogation will take �as long as it takes � but what happens to the insurgency. Will it escalate or gradually die down?

An answer to this, according to DEBKAfile�s counter-terror sources, was received in Washington nine days before Saddam reached US custody.

It came in the form of a disturbing piece of intelligence that the notorious Lebanese terrorist and hostage-taker Imad Mughniyeh, who figures on the most wanted list of 22 men published by the FBI after 9/11, had arrived in southern Iraq and was organizing a new anti-US terror campaign to be launched in March-April 2004, marking the first year of the American invasion.

For the past 21 years, Mughniyeh has waged a war of terror against Americans, whether on behalf of the Hizballah, the Iranian Shiite fundamentalists, al Qaeda or for himself. The Lebanese arch-terrorist represents for the anti-American forces in Iraq an ultimate weapon.

How about this:
With the current price tag hanging over his head...Saddam could trust no one, even those who claimed to be loyal to him....
In such, he eventually began hiding and running on his own accord...the money with him was in hopes of buying a way to freedom and a ticket out of Iraq to a safe haven...for which he never obtained because of the endless US armed forces that were steadily tightening the cor around his escape possibilites?

What this raises is the numbers of "reported" Saddam messages....if he had no communication equipment with him, someone or some group was making bogus Saddam messages....this could also fit into the "he was a prisoner" theory....


regards
seekerof

Hm, I read some of that TIME.com article, and something caught my eye:

"Saddam was also asked whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. �No, of course not,� he replied, according to the official, �the U.S. dreamed them up itself to have a reason to go to war with us."

^^ Interesting, Saddam denies that they had WMD still..

Yet, an Iraqi Colonel, who was captured, said that Iraq could have fired and used the 'WMD' against U.S. forces within 45 minutes of his order? (See: Iraqi Colonel: Could have launched WMD within 45 minutes - ATS thread)

Interesting huh? Conflicting stories, definately interesting.

I have no doubt that it was him, but how do those things you listed prove he was a prisoner, I have no idea why he would need some of the things that that site stated he would. "He didn't have a cellular phone" So that makes him a prisoner? "He hadn't shaved" That too, eh? I don't buy those theories. Good links though.

EDIT: Another thing I found interesting: ON that site, it has a picture of the Dec. 22nd issue of TIME magazine, and the cover is Saddam's capture photo and the quote "We Got Him!" Now, if they captured him only today, isn't that, someone correct me if I am wrong, a little quick to be publishing those..could they have pre-produced the issue.. (conspiracy theory)

-wD

[Edited on 14-12-2003 by WeBDeviL]

I wonder if he WAS a prisoner, then why did he have the list of the underground leaders? Or did the list come from the captors who were talking to those people as well??

Has anyone suggested that he may have been a captive of the Kurds for awhile?

Neos got a point.
I think whoever has had him, hes been held thier for a while.
I dont think hes dumb enough to hide in a 6 by 8 hole.
Deep

Having thought on this a bit and remembering this mornings coverages, etc.....
Wasn't Saddam armed when they found him?


regards
seekerof

2 ak47's and a hand gun, I think.
For a dictator he seems pretty passive on TV!
Deep

Thanks Deep....
I thought I remembered something concerning a pistol he may have had on him but I couldn't remember the other arm's...was looking at some articles when I saw that this had been bumped....
Appreciate the info.

regards
seekerof

Dont Qoute me on it.
I read it somewhere, or heard it.
I forget somewhat.
If he was going to give up so easily, whats the need for weapons?
Deep

Well...maybe this will help....
You have to be a registered member to read this but I will post it here:
"New Iraqi Leaders Confront Their Former Dictator"
Link:
www.nytimes.com...://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/international/middleeast/14CND-COUNC.html

Article:
"BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 14 � The wild gray beard was gone, and he sat on a metal Army cot, just awake from a nap, in socks and black slippers. He was not handcuffed. He did not recognize all his visitors, but they recognized him. That was the purpose of the visit: to help confirm that this was, in fact, Saddam Hussein.

What came next was, according to people in the room, an extraordinary 30 minutes, in which four members of the Governing Council, among the new leaders of Iraq, grilled the nation's deposed and now captured leader about his crimes. Mr. Hussein, they said, was defiant and unrepentant � but very much defeated.

"The world is crazy," said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, one of the council members in the room today after Mr. Hussein was captured in his hometown of Tikrit. "I was in his torture chamber in 1979 and now he was sitting there, powerless in front of me without anybody stopping me from doing anything to him. Just imagine. We were arguing, and he was using very foul language."

Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, said: "He was quite lucid. He had command of his faculties. He would not apologize to the Iraqi people. He did not deny any of the crimes he was confronted with having done. He tried to justify them."

Following Mr. Hussein's capture � in an eight-foot hole that one council member said was filled with "rats and mice" � the four council members were taken by helicopter this afternoon to a military base, at a site they would not disclose. Two other council members, in addition to Mr. Rubaie and Dr. Chalabi, were aboard: Adnan Pachachi, the foreign minister before Mr. Hussein came to power; and Adel Abdel Mahdi, who represents the Shia religious body, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Two of Iraq's other new leaders were there, too: L. Paul Bremer III, the American civilian administrator of Iraq; and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of ground forces in Iraq. The room was small, Mr. Rubaie said, and General Sanchez asked the men if they would like to see him through a window or by camera.

"We said, `No, we want to talk to him,' " Mr. Rubaie said.

Aides to the men differed slightly about what happened next: One said that Mr. Hussein, who they said had just awakened, did not recognize any of his visitors. Another said he recognized Dr. Chalabi and asked him to introduce the others.

"Saddam turned to Pachachi and said: `You were the foreign minister of Iraq. What are you doing with these people?' " one aide said.

Mr. Rubaie said he had asked the first question � which, he said, was met with a brutal and dismissive joke. He said he had asked why Mr. Hussein had killed two leading Shia clerics: Muhammad Bakr al-Sadr, killed in 1980; and Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, killed in 1999.

The word "sadr" means "chest" in Arabic, and Mr. Hussein replied, "Al Sadr or Ar Rijil?" That translates as: "The chest or the foot?"

The men then asked Mr. Hussein about three of the crimes of which he has been accused in his nearly 35 years in power:

Asked about the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja in 1988, in which an estimated 5,000 people were killed, Mr. Hussein said this was the work of Iran, at war with Iraq at the time.

Asked about the mass graves of tens of thousands of Iraqis uncovered since Mr. Hussein was toppled from power in the American-led offensive this spring, Mr. Rubaie said that Mr. Hussein answered: "Ask their relatives. They were thieves and they ran away from the battlefields with Iran and from the battlefields of Kuwait."

Asked why he invaded Kuwait in 1990, provoking the first American-led assault on Iraq the next year, he said that Kuwait was rightfully a part of Iraq.

"He was not remorseful at all," Dr. Chalabi said. "It was clear he was a complete narcissist who was incapable of showing remorse or sympathy to other human beings."

Dr. Chalabi said that Mr. Hussein also suggested that he had been behind the recent wave of attacks against American soldiers in Iraq since his defeat.

"He said, `I gave a speech and I said the Americans can come to Iraq but they can't occupy it and rule it,' " Dr. Chalabi said. "He said, `I said I would fight them with pistols and I have.'

"He didn't say it directly but he was trying to take credit for it."

At a news conference this evening, Mr. Pachachi said Mr. Hussein had tried to justify himself by saying that Iraqis needed a tough ruler.

"He tried to justify his crimes by saying that he was a just but firm ruler," he said. "Of course, our answer was he was an unjust ruler responsible for the deaths of thousands of people."

Throughout the meeting, Mr. Hussein was calm but often used foul language. Mr. Pachachi said he looked "tired and haggard." Mr. Bremer and General Sanchez, they said, did not speak, though Dr. Chalabi said that Mr. Hussein was "deferential and respectful to the Americans."

"You can conclude from that some aspect that he was reconciled to his situation," he said.

"The most important fact: Had the roles been reversed, he would have torn us apart and cut us into small pieces after torture," Dr. Chalabi said. "This contrast was paramount in my mind � how we treated him and how he would have treated us."

Mr. Rubaie said: "One thing which is very important is that this man had with him underground when they arrested him two AK-47's and did not shoot one bullet. I told him, `You keep on saying that you are a brave man and a proud Arab.' I said, `When they arrested you why didn't you shoot one bullet? You are a coward.'

"And he started to use very colorful language. Basically, he used all his French."

Mr. Rubaie added: "I was so angry because this guy has caused so much damage. He has ruined the whole country. He has ruined 25 million people.

"And I have to confess that the last word was for me: I was the last to leave the room and I said, `May God curse you. Tell me, when are you going to be accountable to God and the day of judgment? What are you going to tell Him about Halabja and the mass graves, the Iran-Iraq war, thousands and thousands executed? What are you going to tell God?' He was exercising his French language."

Your possible answer Deep is in bold above.


regards
seekerof

Thanks for that Seekerof,
I guess maybe this will help clear all "its not him" foul air in this forum.
He sounds like the dictator he makes himself out to be.
Is it Ligitimate though?
Deep

Courtesy of the New York Times.

regards
seekerof

Here is a workable Link:
"New Iraqi Leaders Confront Their Former Dictator"
Link:
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/international/middleeast/14CND-COUNC.html?ex=1072069200&en=981de44c4ec14733&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE[ /url]


or just copy the title and imput it into a search engine...for some reason the link above is putting a space between [ /url], causing the link to not be red or show active.


regards
seekerof

[Edited on 14-12-2003 by Seekerof]

I read the DEBKAfile well most of it thats why i believe they have just caught a double, Saddam would not hide himself in a small hole with hardly any food or water.

The "Saddam as Prisoner" theory sounds appealing. For one, it would explain how the US supposedly performed such a rapid DNA test. It's likely that his captors gave the US DNA samples a week ago, and we only came and got him when the tests were confirmed.

Also, if the official story was correct, the two men caught with Saddam would have had to have been forewarned of the US troops approaching, which would give them time to hide Saddam (since he couldn't have gone down into the tunnel, then camoflagued the outer entrance himself, and he would have had food or water if he had voluntarily been in the tunnel for more than a day). How the Iraqi's got this warning of the US approach would have to be explained. If the prisoner theory is correct, it would explain why Saddam was found in the hole in the condition he was in (ie, his captors didn't treat him very well!)

Sorry if i'm rambling, just my 2 cents.

Lets get this straight. Saddamn wasn't living in a hole. He was living in a house with running water. He jumped in the hole to hide when the soldiers came. That's why I gathered from the news conference earlier....

By the way, who thinks Saddam will tell them the WMDs have been moved to Syria?

Originally posted by Flinx
Lets get this straight. Saddamn wasn't living in a hole. He was living in a house with running water. He jumped in the hole to hide when the soldiers came. That's why I gathered from the news conference earlier....

By the way, who thinks Saddam will tell them the WMDs have been moved to Syria?

Saddam wont tell them where they are cos there werent any WMD in the first place.

Originally posted by drunk
Saddam wont tell them where they are cos there werent any WMD in the first place.

Heh....I don't think there were any either. But that doesn't mean US intelligence gleaned from Saddam won't say there are some in Syria....if you know what I mean. *wink wink*