US Saddam Claims Being Challenged

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Published on Sunday, December 21, 2003 by The Age (Australia)

US Saddam Claims Being Challenged

by Paul McGeough

Claims that US troops captured Saddam Hussein have been challenged by reports that he was discovered only after Kurdish forces had taken him prisoner.

The deposed president was drugged and abandoned ready for the American soldiers to recover him, a British tabloid newspaper reported Sunday.

Saddam came into the hands of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) after being betrayed by a member of the al-Jabour tribe, whose daughter had been raped by Saddam's son Uday, leading to a blood feud, reported the Sunday Express, quoting an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer.

Washington's claims that brilliant US intelligence work led to the capture of Saddam are also being challenged by reports sourced in Iraq's Kurdish language media that say its militia set up the circumstances in which the US merely had to go to a farm identified by the Kurds to bag the fugitive former president.

American forces took Saddam into custody about 8:30pm local time on the Saturday, but sat on the dramatic news until 3pm the next day. But early on Sunday, a Kurdish language wire service reported explicitly: "Saddam Hussein was captured by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. A special intelligence unit led by Qusrat Rasul Ali, a high-ranking member of the PUK, found Saddam Hussein in the city of Tikrit, his birthplace. Qusrat's team was accompanied by a group of US soldiers. Details of the capture will emerge but the global Kurdish party is about to begin."

The Western media in Baghdad were electrified by the revelation, but as reports of the arrest built, they relied almost exclusively on accounts from within US military and intelligence organisations, starting with the words of the US-appointed administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer: "Ladies and gentlemen, we got 'im."

A report from the PUK's northern stronghold, Suliymaniah, last week claimed a vital intelligence breakthrough after a telephone conversation between Qusrat Rasul Ali and Saddam's second wife, Samira, which had prompted the Kurds to move units of their Peshmerga fighters to where Saddam was hiding.

The report, from the MENA agency, as monitored by the BBC, said the Americans had insisted that it be an American arrest because they worried that such a coup for the Kurds might provoke an Arab-Kurd civil war.

A Kurdish member of the Iraq Governing Council, Mahmud Othman, also suggested a critical role for Kurds in the arrest when he said on the Sunday: "Before 4am (more than 12 hours ahead of the US announcement) today, Qusrat Rasul Ali called me to inform me that his men, with the Americans, had managed to capture Saddam Hussein."

US intelligence officers have concluded that Saddam was directing the postwar insurgency inside Iraq, playing a far more active role than thought.

Despite his bewildered appearance when he was hauled from his hiding hole last weekend, he is believed to have been issuing regular instructions on targets and tactics through five trusted lieutenants.

Documents found in Saddam's briefcase indicated that he had been kept informed of the progress of the insurgency, but did not suggest he had overall control of operations by former Baath Party loyalists. But since the arrest and interrogation of guerilla leaders named in the paperwork, US investigators now believe Saddam headed an elaborate network of rebel cells.

The investigators have put together a picture of Saddam's support structure, enabling him to issue commands without using satellite phones, which monitoring devices can hear.

© 2003. The Age Company Ltd

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Saddam: Betrayed, drugged and traded

Sunday 21 December 2003, 17:56 Makka Time, 14:56 GMT

Ousted president was first held captive by Kurds, says UK paper

Saddam Hussein was betrayed and handed over to Kurdish forces, who negotiated for political gain before leaving him for the Americans to find, a British newspaper has reported.

The former Iraqi president fell into the hands of fighters from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) after he was betrayed by a man belonging to the al-Jabur tribe, according to reports on Sunday.

The betrayal arose because the man's daughter was once raped by Saddam's son Uday, the Sunday Express tabloid says, quoting an unnamed British military intelligence officer.

The story of the blood feud and the role of Kurdish forces in Saddam's capture on 13 December "exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete" the paper says.

Quoting an unnamed senior British intelligence officer, the report says Saddam – on whose head the US had placed a $25 million bounty - was then held captive by the PUK, which bargained with the US before arranging to hand the drugged dictator over.

The paper quotes an Iraqi intelligence source confirming that series of events.

The paper also quotes a senior UK intelligence source as saying Saddam will eventually "be held in a prison in Qatar for the rest of his life". The Gulf state is home to the US military command centre for the Middle East.

Kurdish role

The PUK, led by Jalal Talabani, has long campaigned for Kurdish autonomy and fought as a US ally in the war to topple Saddam.

The deal over the ousted Iraqi president apparently rewards the PUK with some political gain in the Kurdish-dominated north.

The PUK reportedly used Saddam

to gain political benefits

News of Saddam's capture broke late on Saturday 14 December when Talabani told the Iranian news agency IRNA the former Iraqi president had been detained near Tikrit.

Kurds in the north of the country were openly celebrating early on Sunday - hours before the US military in Baghdad announced it had Saddam in custody.

A PUK spokesman, Nazim Dabag, told Reuters news agency the night of Saddam's capture PUK special forces accompanied by American troops arrested Saddam Hussein, the Sunday Express says.

The following day, Kurdish media sources echoed that line. KurdishMedia.com said an intelligence unit led by a senior PUK official and accompanied by a group of US soldiers found the former Iraqi leader in his birthplace of Tikrit.

Sedated

The capture of a defeated Saddam, and his later appearance on television looking compliant and bewildered, prompted many to claim the ousted leader had been sedated.

"Everyone who knew him closely knows that he who was shown on television screens was a drugged Saddam Hussein," his eldest daughter Raghad told Dubai-based al-Arabiya television.

Later, she told CNN: "One of the people he relied on must have put something in his food... because I know my father would never surrender."

"Saddam appeared to be asleep when the US soldiers first found him, which has also given rise to speculation that he was drugged," the Sunday Express says.

Intelligence sources

The UK paper's version of events stressing the Kurdish involvement was written by a former Aljazeera.net journalist who is known to have extensive contacts in the Middle East and among British intelligence sources.

A US soldier enters the hole where

Saddam was found near Tikrit

An unnamed Western intelligence official was quoted as saying Saddam "was not captured as a result of any American or British intelligence".

"We knew that someone would eventually take their revenge, it was just a matter of time," the source said.

Aljazeera.net telephoned US Central Command in Florida and Baghdad on Sunday, but no one was immediately available for comment.

But according to the US military's official account of Saddam's capture, a top aide of the ousted Iraqi leader, who had helped Saddam evade the US-led occupation forces, gave the Americans crucial information about the fugitive's movements when he was caught and interrogated last month.

Troops from the US 4th Infantry Division then narrowed their search to two locations near Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, before discovering Saddam in a small underground hideout by the village of al-Dawr on 13 December.

Aljazeera