After Saddam Hussein’s capture, he was taken to a holding cell at the Baghdad airport and was interrogated, appearing less than coherent at times as he commented on subjects such as a missing American pilot and weapons of mass destruction, according to an article Sunday on Time magazine’s Web site.
Time.com said its source was a U.S. intelligence official who had seen a transcript.
“He’s not been very cooperative,” said the official, calling it “Saddam rhetoric type stuff.”
The intelligence official provided the Web site with paraphrases of some of Hussein’s answers. Among them:
When Hussein was asked “How are you?” he said, “I am sad because my people are in bondage.” After his captors offered him water, he said, “If I drink water I will have to go to the bathroom, and how can I use the bathroom when my people are in bondage?”
He was asked whether he knew the whereabouts of Capt. Scott Speicher, a U.S. pilot whose plane crashed in the 1991 Persian Gulf war but who reportedly was spotted in an Iraqi prison afterward. Hussein said, “No, we have never kept any prisoners. I have never known what happened.”
When interrogators asked whether his nation possessed weapons of mass destruction, he responded, “No, of course not. The U.S. dreamed them up itself to have a reason to go to war with us.” Later he was asked, “If you had no weapons of mass destruction, then why not let the UN inspectors into your facilities?” His answer: “We didn’t want them to go into the presidential areas and intrude on our privacy.”
The intelligence official said he doubts the U.S. will learn much from the questioning.
“I would be surprised if he gave any info,” he said.
The official told Time.com that Hussein’s capture may clarify whether the deposed dictator is exercising much control over the insurgents in Iraq.
“We can now determine if he is the mastermind of everything or not,” he said. “Have we actually cut the head of the snake or is he just an idiot hiding in a hole?”
