Inside Saddam's Cell
Dec. 20, 2003
L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq, will appear in his first interview since the capture of Saddam Hussein, in a report by CBS News Correspondent Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes, Sunday, Dec. 21, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/ ... 9670.shtml
Bremer is among a handful of people to have visited the former Iraqi dictator in captivity.
How could Bremer be so sure he had Saddam and not one of his doubles?
Because hours before the world knew about the capture, the American administrator and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, led four Iraqis to Saddam's cell to verify his identity. They are the only witnesses to see Saddam in captivity and reveal what the fallen dictator had to say.
"He looked like a prisoner," says Bremer. "Although he was not manacled, he was free to move around. His arms and legs were not manacled. He was dressed in a traditional Arab pajama with a ski parka over it. He looked to me like a man who had lost hope. You could see it in his eyes, particularly. He was tired, obviously, but beyond that, underneath that, you could see resignation."
One American, who has been inside the cell, told 60 Minutes the walls are covered in white tiles. On one wall, there is a poster that shows the faces of the 38 former Iraqi officials who have been killed or captured. They include the pictures of Saddam's two dead sons, Uday Hussein and Qusai Hussein. On the opposite wall of Saddam's cell hangs a portrait. Saddam Hussein now spends his day looking at a picture of President Bush.
Saddam didn't know who the U.S. civilian administrator was, but he did recognize the Iraqi Governing Council 's Dr. Mowaffak Al-Rubaie.
"I said, 'Saddam Hussein may God curse what have you done to the Iraqi people. How are you going to face God in the here after ? in the day of judgment? What are you going to say to God?' He just turned his face to the other side," says Al-Rubaie.
Al-Rubaie had been imprisoned by Saddam and tortured.
He told 60 Minutes, "I found him ? very defiant, very unrepentant. He felt absolutely no remorse towards the crimes he has committed against the Iraqi people. Very unapologetic."
And, the unapologetic Saddam insisted he was still the people's choice.
"He was saying that he was an elected ... people have elected him to rule Iraq," says Al-Rubaie. "I said, 'There are hundred of thousands of people out in the streets now, rejoicing and celebrating your capture. Shall we take you and hand you over to these people? They will eat you alive, Saddam Hussein.' He said, 'These are thugs, hooligans, gangsters.' And then, he was referring in Arabic to the Iraqi people as 'Lowraj' hooligans. And the word 'Lowraj' is a very patronizing , very humiliating word. 'Jehella' --ignorant."
The meeting lasted little more than half an hour. It's likely no one had treated Saddam like that in 35 years. Saddam sat crossed leg with his head down and avoided eye contact, according to Al-Rubaie.
"He doesn't want to be seen, if you like, in this position," explains Al-Rubaie. "There was an element of irritability. He was irritable, because he kept on changing his position, and looking at one side, and tired not to look at us."
The questions the representatives of the Iraqi Governing Council asked would have gotten them killed nine months before. Al-Rubaie confronted Saddam over mass graves filled with political opponents.
"[Saddam] turned around and said , 'Did you ask their relatives, what they had done to these people? They were thieves, or they escaped from the battlefield,'" says Al-Rubaie.
Saddam was calling the occupants of the mass graves deserters. Al-Rubaie questioned Saddam about the 1988 nerve gas attack on ethnic Kurds in northern Iraq, which killed 5,000 men, woman and children. Saddam, however, said the Iranians had poisoned the people of Halabjah with nerve gas.
Al-Rubaie and his colleagues also challenged Saddam for invading Kuwait and picking a fight with America that started Iraq down 12 years of ruin.
"[Saddam] said, 'Well, Iraq has historic claim over Kuwait. You know we have a right to have Kuwait,'" says Al-Rubaie.
The meeting with Saddam was calm, but according to Al-Rubaie, Saddam did swear in frustration.
"When he gets cornered with a question, and there was no answer, he looked at us, and he looked away and was swearing," says Al-Rubaie. "Physically [Saddam] was fit. But, psychologically he was ruined -- very demoralized, broken, irritable but mentally he was very with it."
The former builder of palaces was being kept in a small building believed to be in Baghdad. And, the Americans were in the strange position of protecting Saddam from his own people.
"Throughout the meeting, when he used to be cornered with the barrage of questions from us and accusations, he was looking up to Ambassador Bremer and General Sanchez as if he saying, 'Protect me from these people,'" says Al-Rubaie. "I can tell you ? he felt much safer with the Americans than us."
Bremer says Saddam is being treated in accordance with international rules, and kept in a private room in a secure location.
Bremer says, although uncooperative, the capture of Saddam has help American intelligence tremendously.
"I can just tell you there's plenty coming out and we're taking action on it," he says.
Terrorists tried to kill Bremer on Dec. 6, the week before Saddam's capture. His armored car was targeted by a bomb and gunfire. No one was hurt. From Saddam's former palace in Baghdad, Bremer told 60 Minutes that security is just one of his problems.
"We're dealing with a country whose infrastructure was devastated, not by the war, but by 35 years of economic and political incompetence," says Bremer. "We don't have enough electricity in this country. Even though we are at pre-war levels of electricity generation, it still means we only meet two-third of the demand ? We have to fix that by spending money -- American taxpayer money -- which we will do here over the next couple of years to get power generation equal to demand.
"The same goes for health care, water, gasoline, refineries, for the oil production. It is a comprehensibly mismanaged economy that we now have to fix. You don't fix something that was broken for 35 years in six months or eight months or a year. It's going to take time."
In six months time, Iraqis are supposed to take over the government. Among their first priorities will be a trial for Saddam.
"[Saddam] can employ the most competent legal firm, lawyer, in the world if he likes," says Dr. Mowaffak Al-Rubaie. "If he can't, the new Iraq, the new government of Iraq, will help him in employing the most competent legal firm in the world to defend him, because we believe this trial is going to be the trial of the century."
It may not be until that trial that the world hears from Saddam Hussein again.
During the initial meeting with Saddam, Al-Rubaie says he had the last word.
"I asked him, 'Saddam Hussein, when you were captured by the Americans,' and I pointed to General Sanchez and Ambassador Bremer, 'When you were captured by them, you did not shoot a single bullet against them. You claim to be an Arab brave man. You are a coward ... And you ask people of Iraq to fight . When it comes to your life, you can sacrifice all Iraqi lives, but when it comes to your life, you spare that.'"
Saddam had two machine guns and a pistol on his hip at the time of his capture.
Al-Rubaie says he didn't want to leave the room that held Saddam captive.
"I wanted to ask about other crimes he committed against Iraq," he says. "My colleagues were basically encouraging me and they left the room. So, I was the last one with Saddam. And I said, 'Saddam Hussein, may god curse you in this life and in the hereafter.' And I left, but I overheard him. He started a barrage of foul language. And he used all his French dictionary."
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