Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Interrogation of Saddam Hussein" in English language version.
Bin Laden's ideology 'was no different than the many zealots that came before him,' Saddam told Piro, according to the summary, which said the two 'did not have the same vision or philosophy.'
Piro says it was all a show for Hussein, and that he established at the very beginning that he was going to be in charge of the dictator. What did Piro tell Saddam? 'I basically said that I was gonna be responsible for every aspect of his life, and that if he needed anything I was gonna be the person that he needed to talk to,' he recalls.
The Central Intelligence Agency will oversee the interrogations of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Pentagon reporters today. 'I have asked (CIA Director) George Tenet to be responsible for the handling of the interrogation of Saddam Hussein and his people,' Rumsfeld said.
Piro was so successful at befriending Saddam that the former dictator was visibly moved when they said goodbye. 'I saw him tear up,' Piro said during the television interview. Joe Persichini, Assistant Director in Charge of our Washington office and Piro's boss, told 60 Minutes that Piro's expert work in revealing Saddam's secrets was 'probably one of the top accomplishments of the agency in the last 100 years.'
CIA interrogators taking on Saddam Hussein must contend with the likelihood that some of their questioning could become public during his eventual trial. That means decisions now on how to conduct the questioning and record the conversations, U.S. officials say.
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein stayed in Baghdad until he saw 'the city was about to fall.' Months later, he was caught hiding at the same farm where he had fled in 1959 after taking part in an attempt to kill the country's prime minister.
Bin Laden's ideology 'was no different than the many zealots that came before him,' Saddam told Piro, according to the summary, which said the two 'did not have the same vision or philosophy.'
FBI special agents carried out 20 formal interviews and at least 5 'casual conversations' with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein after his capture by U.S. troops in December 2003, according to secret FBI reports released as the result of Freedom of Information Act requests by the National Security Archive and posted today on the Web at www.nsarchive.org.
The FBI has just been forced to release records detailing the ex-Iraqi President's interrogations. David Connett sifts them for the key comments.
The documents suggest that an extraordinary rapport developed over time between Saddam and his interrogator, George L Piro, one of the very few FBI agents who spoke Arabic.
The anti-Iranian theme is constant throughout, and no doubt Saddam believed it as well as saying it out of political calculation. Of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, he says: 'Khomeini and Iran would have occupied all of the Arab world if it had not been for Iraq.'
The first FBI interrogation of Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti — in a program codenamed 'Desert Spider' - took place Feb. 7, 2004, in a dingy cell at Baghdad International Airport.
The records show Saddam happily boasted of duping the world about stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. And he consistently denied cooperating with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda.
He was questioned first by a team of interrogators led by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to Charles A. Duelfer, a veteran intelligence official who led the hunt for unconventional weapons in Iraq in 2004. Later, starting in February 2004, F.B.I. agents took their turn with the former Iraqi leader, exploiting his desire to shape his historical image in order to keep him talking, Mr. Duelfer said in an interview.
The decision to entrust the C.I.A. with Mr. Hussein's interrogation was an easy one, Mr. Rumsfeld said. 'It was a three-minute decision,' he said, 'and the first two were for coffee.... They have the competence in that area, they have professionals in that area, they know the means that we have in terms of counter-terrorism, they know the threads that have to come up through the needlehead,' he said.
The Defense Department said Friday that it had designated Saddam Hussein a prisoner of war, a legal status that sets standards for how he is treated and allows the International Committee of the Red Cross to see him.
Though President Bush has promised Saddam Hussein will be subjected to a public trial, the U.S. wants to interrogate him first.... Army interrogators started the job before the lead role was turned over to the CIA.
The CIA operations officers, polygraphers and psychiatrists who will interrogate Saddam Hussein have put together a loose plan that will help guide them in the months ahead, government sources said. CIA interrogators will be joined by debriefers from the Defense Intelligence Agency and FBI agents who recently went to Iraq, mainly to help with investigations into bombings and other crimes.
[Sad]dam Hussein was captured on Sunday without a fight. But since then, according to a U.S. intelligence official in Iraq, the fallen dictator has been defiant. 'He's not been very cooperative,' said the official, who read the transcript of the initial interrogation report taken during the first questioning session.
Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he was worried about appearing weak to Iran, according to declassified accounts of the interviews released yesterday. The former Iraqi president also denounced Osama bin Laden as 'a zealot' and said he had no dealings with al-Qaeda.
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein stayed in Baghdad until he saw 'the city was about to fall.' Months later, he was caught hiding at the same farm where he had fled in 1959 after taking part in an attempt to kill the country's prime minister.
[Sad]dam Hussein was captured on Sunday without a fight. But since then, according to a U.S. intelligence official in Iraq, the fallen dictator has been defiant. 'He's not been very cooperative,' said the official, who read the transcript of the initial interrogation report taken during the first questioning session.
Though President Bush has promised Saddam Hussein will be subjected to a public trial, the U.S. wants to interrogate him first.... Army interrogators started the job before the lead role was turned over to the CIA.
The decision to entrust the C.I.A. with Mr. Hussein's interrogation was an easy one, Mr. Rumsfeld said. 'It was a three-minute decision,' he said, 'and the first two were for coffee.... They have the competence in that area, they have professionals in that area, they know the means that we have in terms of counter-terrorism, they know the threads that have to come up through the needlehead,' he said.
