Somebody else thinks Saddam was already a captive when "captured"

Well, thanks to a link from Maru, here's a Debkafile report: Indications Saddam Was Not in Hiding But a Captive (Please note that Debkafile is, I believe, a very hard-line Israeli site.)

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.

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

Uh-huh. Add 'em up.

I'm trying to keep track for you.

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According to Debkafile:

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.

Maybe. It's not necessary that he was kept in that same hole for three weeks - he could have been moved around, but it's my contention that he was definitely a captive. And the who's who gets pretty complex when you throw the CIA into the mix. That $25 million may be a red herring, as well. Maybe not.

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.


I don't know. This is complex territory. Another possibility is that he has been in deals all along. Or, been powerless and psychologically "trained" for a long time. Let's keep in mind the alleged secret negotiations to have him exiled to Libya in exchange for arms before the invasion took place. And don't forget that he was once intimately connected to the CIA/US government. There are lots of people on a multi-sided coin here.

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.

It seems likely that if he had been held by negotiating kidnappers in truth who were not paid CIA dupes, there would have been more than two of them guarding the prisoner.

Definitely he was drugged, IMHO.

...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.

More reason to speed up withdrawal even sooner than summer, eh? The "capture" should give a reason for Asshat to "save face" and pull out. We'll see.

My evaluation of the "capture" as being hoaxed is different than Debkafile's, as they are using it to say that America is in complete control, did not give up, and Israel should treat Arafat the same way we've treated Hussein, essentially. But we both agree that Hussein was not "captured" so much as "given over".

The question is, who held him captive? I say, CIA undoubtedly is involved. Undoubtedly.

Stay tuned.

...but hey....do what you want...you will anyway...