Start cooperating or we'll hand you over, Saddam told

[JoFerret]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/16/wirq16.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/05/16/ixnewstop.html

CIA interrogators have seized on an admission by Saddam Hussein that he fears torture at the hands of his Iraqi enemies, and are threatening him with a quick handover to the new government in a renewed effort to break his silence.

They are also trying to exploit a new-found obsession of the former dictator with hygiene and careful food preparation to persuade him to begin giving information after five frustrating months of questioning.

Lengthy daily interrogation sessions have been structured around an apparent attempt to prepare Saddam to be handed over to the interim government that takes power after June 30. The 67-year-old, who admitted that he feared torture soon after he was arrested last December, has been told that his transfer will be delayed if he begins to co-operate with his interrogators.

Saddam is due to face trial at a war crimes tribunal in Baghdad after the transfer of sovereignty, but reports last week that he might be handed over before June 30 were quickly corrected by both sides.
<more>

[rumguy]

1. I sometimes wonder if he even knows anything

His underlings were telling him what he wanted to hear.

I get the impression that for the last decade he's been a burned out paper tiger - half crazy and delusional.

[JoFerret]

5. His fantasy world was fueled

by us.

[rooboy]

7. There's no evidence to suggest that at all.

The idea that he didn't know anything is propaganda spread by the right wing to explain away the lack of WMD.

[icymist]

8. They don't care if he actually 'knows' anything.

They just want him to tell the world about those WMD's he had ready to launch in 45 minutes. It doesn't matter if it's not true, or that the WMD's are 'missing'....only that Saddam says it's so!

[justgamma]

10. Bush or Saddam? n/t

[ex_jew]

2. So if we won't torture him, our puppets will

Do we have any ideas for foreign policy that don't involve torture ? Is this what is meant by the "American Way" ?

[daleo]

3. Yes indeed, pathetic how much torture comes up these days in U.S. policy

If not torturing, then threatening to torture or hand people off to torturers. It is insane.

On edit - and still about weapons of mass destruction:

"The White House is keen to hold on to Saddam for as long as possible in the run-up to November's presidential election, in the hope that he may yet reveal the existence of an illicit programme to build weapons of mass destruction."

- given what we have learned about treatment of prisoners, his phobias may not be so irrational:

"He is also showing increasing signs of medical anxiety, fuelled by phobias he has developed over cleanliness, physical contact and food preparation. These are thought to stem from the time that he spent on the run in dilapidated safe houses, which culminated in his capture, bearded and bedraggled, in a filthy hole in the ground."

[Invalence1]

12. Nahh. It's the "New World Order".

[newyawker99]

17. Hi Invalence1!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Media_Lies_Daily]

4. What the hell is he supposed to tell them? Incredible.

[TrogL]

6. Please, oh please don't throw me in the briar patch

If they turn Saddam over, he'll be in charge in three months.

[okieinpain]

16. funny.

[Miss Authoritiva]

9. Who's been out of the loop longer: Saddam Hussein or Colin Powell?

Also, unlike Rumsfeld, I don't think Saddam was an obsessive micro-manager. I think he was more of a big picture kind of guy -- you know, like Bush. Saddam was a trophy target, not a high intelligence-value target.

[0007]

19. Old man bush has got 'em both beat!

[Invalence1]

11. Giving information? About what?

Where's that set of cufflinks with the presidential seal that Rummy gave ya on his last visit (before ya became a "brutal dictator")?

[Hobarticus]

13. Pot, kettle, black...

The US is charging Saddam with war crimes?

They'd laugh us right out of the Hauge...

[Tellurian]

14. I don't believe a word of that report.

[Tellurian]

18. If anything Hussein fears for his life at the hands

of Bush and the US Military, and with good reason.

Saddam holds the key to the Bush family future.

[DulceDecorum]

15. Brer Rabbit & the briar patch

"'Skin me, Brer Fox,' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, 'snatch out my eyeballs, t'ar out my yeras by de roots, en cut off my legs,' sezee, 'but do please, Brer Fox, don't fling me in dat brier-patch,' sezee.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/toosharp.html