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Indications Saddam Was Not in Hiding But a Captive
(DEBKAfile Special Report, December 14, 2003)
[COMMENT: A Web review site has this to say about DEBKAfile, "This Jerusalem-based site has achieved recent notoriety for its tip-sheet-like reports from the war zone. Run by two self-described "experienced" foreign correspondents, the site offers commentary and analysis of global events, especially from the Middle East. Caution: Most of the information is attributed to unidentified sources. But Debkafile has been ahead of the pack often enough to suggest that the reporting is good. Some of it is frightening, like a recent report that bin Laden has 100 or so "lone wolves" operating under deep cover inside the U.S. and abroad waiting to carry out preprogrammed missions." ... So you may want to take the following article with a grain of salt ... or not.]

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: [followed by the enumeration of seven particulars] . . . 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.

posted by LoZo 8:18 PM