Saddam: Betrayed, drugged and traded
By Shaheen Chughtai
Sunday 21 December 2003, 17:10 Makka Time, 14:10 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, Nazem Dabag, told Reuters news agency the night of
Saddam's capture that 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 a 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.
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