More On Real Details Of Saddam Capture

I'm in a hurry so I'll just have to give you the links:

Saddam was captured by Kurds, not US

We got him: Kurds say they caught Saddam

US Saddam claims being challenged

They've got a good reason for not telling the truth (right on schedule!) -- they feared an Arab-Kurd conflict...

There are also more details about his ex-wife turning him in, and how he was captured (his cook spiked his food).

Enjoy!

Happy Holidays everyone!

http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13341763

Saddam was captured by Kurds, not US
Sunday, 21 December , 2003, 19:23

Saddam: Caught Napping
. Rebuilding Iraq: Full Coverage
. Capture of Saddam: In Pics
. Timeline: Saddam's Iraq
. Discuss: New beginning?
In Pictures:
. The lost world
. In various disguises
. His daughters
. Saddam: A life
London: Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was captured by Kurdish forces, then drugged and handed over to the American forces as a revenge against the rape of a tribal chief's daughter by the tyrant's psychopathic eldest son Uday, a media report said today.

The full story of the fallen dictator's capture last Saturday in a "spider hole" near his birthplace of Tikrit exposes the version peddled by Americans as incomplete.

According to the report in The Sunday Express, Saddam had already been handed over to Kurdish forces, who then brokered a deal with US commanders.

He was drugged and abandoned, ready for the American troops to recover him.

Saddam was betrayed to the Kurds by a member of the al-Jabour tribe whose daughter was "defiled" by Uday, the report quoting a senior British military intelligence officer said.

The tribe threatened to take revenge. As soon as he heard the news, Saddam visited the family of the dead man and paid them 7 million pounds in blood money with the chilling warning: "If you try to take revenge you will force me to wipe out the al-Jabour tribe."

The news that Saddam was a prisoner and not in hiding would explain his dishevelled state when he was found by Kurdish special forces from the patriotic front and US soldiers.

He was unable to climb out of the hole on his own because the lid that covered it was also sealed down with a carpet and some rubble. A former Iraqi intelligence officer now living in Qatar said he believed Saddam was betrayed shortly after his last audio message was released to the world via Arab television on November 16.

"He was dumped in that hole in Ad Dawr after being handed over to the patriotic front by his own tribesmen and held prisoner until Jalal Talabani made his own negotiations," said the Iraqi.

Talabani is a leader of the Patriotic Front, one of two main Kurdish parties in northern Iraq who fought alongside US forces during the war.

One report said Saddam's cook spiked his food before he was delivered to the front.

According to the report, a western intelligence source stationed in the Middle East said: "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."

"There was no question of the tribe claiming the 16 million pounds reward from the US. Apparently it was a question of honour."

"The Kurdish Patriotic Front held him while they thrashed out their own deal. It didn't just involve the reward but it involved gaining some sort of political advantage in the region."

There had been bad blood between the dictator and the al-Jabour tribe since the raped woman's husband tried to take revenge and was shot by Uday's bodyguard.

"The net really began to close when his family fled to Jordan and Uday and Qusay were killed in Mosul. A 20-million pounds reward went to the informant who gave information on their hiding place. However, I doubt if the reward for Saddam will be paid to those directly responsible for his capture."

"They will consider the family honour has been avenged... in Iraqi tribal society it would be frowned upon to accept money."

Immediately after the raid in which Saddam was captured, jubilant Kurdish officials leaked the news to an Iranian news agency hours before the US had a chance to make an official announcement to the assembled media in Baghdad.1

The report also said secret talks are under way to fix a deal in which Saddam will be detained for life in a Qatari prison after his showcase trial.

Intense behind-the-scene negotiations, brokered by Britain, will see the former dictator jailed in the tiny Gulf state, which is host to several US military bases, if the Iraqi court does not push for his execution.

*****
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/21/1071941612613.html

We got him: Kurds say they caught Saddam

By Paul McGeough, Herald Correspondent in Baghdad
December 22, 2003

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

The first media account of the December 13 arrest was aired by a Tehran-based news agency.

American forces took Saddam into custody around 8.30pm local time, but sat on the news until 3pm the next day.

However, in the early hours of 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. Further details of the capture will emerge during the day; but the global Kurdish party is about to begin!"

The head of the PUK, Jalal Talabani, was in the Iranian capital en route to Europe.

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

US officials said that they had extracted the vital piece of information on Saddam's whereabouts from one of the 20 suspects around 5.30pm on December 13 and had immediately assembled a 600-strong force to surround the farm on which he was captured at al-Dwar, south of Tikrit.

Little attention was paid to a line in Pentagon briefings that some of the Kurdish militia might have been in on what was described as a "joint operation"; or to a statement by Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraq National Congress, which said that Qusrat and his PUK forces had provided vital information and more.

A Scottish newspaper, the Sunday Herald, quoted from an interview aired on the PUK's al-Hurriyah radio station last Wednesday, in which Adil Murad, a member of the PUK's political bureau,

said that the day before Saddam's capture he was tipped off by a PUK general - Thamir al-Sultan - that Saddam would be arrested within the next 72 hours.

An unnamed Western intelligence source in the Middle East was quoted in the British Sunday Express yesterday: "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."

There has been no American response to the Kurdish claims.

An intriguing question is why Kurdish forces were allowed to join what the US desperately needed to present as an American intelligence success - unless the Kurds had something vital to contribute to the operation so far south of their usual area of activity.

A report from the PUK's northern stronghold, Suliymaniah, early last week claimed a vital intelligence breakthrough after a telephone conversation between Qusrat and Saddam's second wife, Samirah.

***

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/21/1071941609659.html

US Saddam claims being challenged

By Paul McGeough
Baghdad
December 22, 2003

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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 yesterday.

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.

- with agencies

Posted by Lisa at December 24, 2003 08:01 AM | TrackBack