UPDATE: Kurds found Saddam; drugged for US troops to find

Do you mean the Sunday Express? Are they a tabloid scandal sheet? Anyone else picked this one up?

This story neglects to mention the UFO he was hiding in or the aliens that were serving as his body guards. If the Kurds had found him they would have killed him.

I tend to agree with Acquiunk

. If the Kurds had captured Saddam they would have delivered him to the Americans in pieces

Yeah, but that story is much more exciting than finding Saddam cowering in a rat hole. Sells more papers, too!

Agence France Presse.
This article was from Agence France Presse, an old respected news agency.

Indications Saddam Was Not in Hiding But a Captive
(DEBKAfile is a self-supporting Internet publication devoted to independent, investigative reporting and forward analysis in the fields of international terrorism, intelligence, international conflict, Islam, military affairs, security and politics. DEBKAfile comes out seven days a week in English and Hebrew with additional language sites planned. We began publishing two and-a-half years ago. Our primary aim was to answer what appeared to be a crying need on the Web for strong content in the fields of our expertise based on cutting edge journalism. The response has exceeded all our expectations. DEBKAfile by supplying a need has proved also to be a viable business operation.)
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Indications Saddam Was Not in Hiding But a Captive
DEBKAfile Special Report
December 14, 2003, 6:55 PM (GMT+02:00)

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:

1. The length and state of his hair indicated he had not seen a barber or even had a shampoo for several weeks.

2. The wild state of his beard indicated he had not shaved for the same period

3. The hole dug in the floor of a cellar in a farm compound near Tikrit was primitive indeed - 6ft across and 8ft across with minimal sanitary arrangements - a far cry from his opulent palaces.

4. Saddam looked beaten and hungry.

5. Detained trying to escape were two unidentified men. Left with him were two AK-47 assault guns and a pistol, none of which were used.

6. The hole had only one opening. It was not only camouflaged with mud and bricks - it was blocked. He could not have climbed out without someone on the outside removing the covering.

7. And most important, $750,000 in 100-dollar notes were found with him (a pittance for his captors who expected a $25m reward)- but no communications equipment of any kind, whether cell phone or even a carrier pigeon for contacting the outside world.

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.

The next thing to watch now is not just where and when Saddam is brought to justice for countless crimes against his people and humanity - Sanchez said his interrogation will take "as long as it takes - but what happens to the insurgency. Will it escalate or gradually die down?

An answer to this, according to DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources, was received in Washington nine days before Saddam reached US custody.

It came in the form of a disturbing piece of intelligence that the notorious Lebanese terrorist and hostage-taker Imad Mughniyeh, who figures on the most wanted list of 22 men published by the FBI after 9/11, had arrived in southern Iraq and was organizing a new anti-US terror campaign to be launched in March-April 2004, marking the first year of the American invasion.

For the past 21 years, Mughniyeh has waged a war of terror against Americans, whether on behalf of the Hizballah, the Iranian Shiite fundamentalists, al Qaeda or for himself. The Lebanese arch-terrorist represents for the anti-American forces in Iraq an ultimate weapon.

Saddam's capture will not turn this offensive aside; it may even bring it forward.

For Israel, there are three lessons to be drawn from the dramatic turn of events in Iraq:

First, An enemy must be pursued to the end and if necessary taken captive. The Sharon government's conduct of an uncertain, wavering war against the Palestinian terror chief Yasser Arafat stands in stark contrast to the way the Americans have fought Saddam and his cohorts in Iraq and which has brought them impressive gains.

Second, Israel must join the US in bracing for the decisive round of violence under preparation by Mughniyeh, an old common enemy from the days of Beirut in the 1980s. Only three weeks ago, DEBKAfile's military sources reveal, the terrorist mastermind himself was seen in south Lebanon in surveillance of northern Israel in the company of Iranian military officers. With this peril still to be fought, it is meaningless for Israelis to dicker over the Geneva Accord, unilateral steps around the Middle East road map, or even the defensive barrier.

Third, Certain Israeli pundits and even politicians, influenced by opinion in Europe, declared frequently in recent weeks that the Americans had no hope of capturing Saddam Hussein and were therefore bogged down irretrievably in Iraq. The inference was that the Americans erred in embarking on an unwinnable war in Iraq.

This was wide of the mark even before Saddam was brought in. The Americans are in firm control - even though they face a tough new adversary - and the whole purpose of the defeatist argument heard in Israel was to persuade the Sharon government that its position in relation to the Palestinians and Yasser Arafat is as hopeless as that of the Americans in Iraq. Israel's only choice, according to this argument, is to knuckle under to Palestinian demands and give them what they want. Now that the Iraqi ruler is in American custody, they will have to think again.

b14 December

Commander of US ground forces in Iraq, Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said at the dramatic news conference in Baghdad (Bremer: We Got him!), that Saddam Hussein was discovered in a "spider hole" 6-8ft deep behind a mud hut in a walled farm compound in Adwar, a town 15 km from Tikrit, eight months after his regime was toppled.

His capture was achieved without a shot fired and no injuries. He was emaciated, tired and unkempt and had grown a gray beard. The initial medical examination was videotaped and aired. He was then shaved for identification. Found with him were two AK-47 assault rifles and $750,000. Two associates were detained with him. A ventilator enabled them to stay underground. The hole in which Saddam was hiding was camouflaged with bricks and dirt.

Operation "Red Dawn" was carried by 4th Infantry Division and coalition special forces - 600 men. It was made possible by a great deal of human intelligence and the interrogation of captives.

Gen. Sanchez reported the deposed Iraqi ruler, discovered Saturday, December 13, at 8.30 pm local time, showed no resistance and appeared resigned to his fate. He was "talkative and cooperative" while being taken to a secure place. The interrogation will "take as long as it takes."

US administrator Paul Bremer called on the Iraqi people to turn to reconciliation and Saddam's followers to lay down their arms.

US troops poured into Baghdad and blocked the road-bridges into the capital as soon as word spread, in anticipation of violence from Saddam fedayeen or foreign terrorists fighting the US-led coalition presence. Baghdadis fired guns in the air to celebrate the capture of the man who ruled the country with an iron fist for 23 years. Kurdish and Shiite towns filled with dancing and jubilation. Iraq officials demand Saddam be handed over to the new Iraqi war crimes tribunal to be judged for the murder of 300,000 Iraqis.

I actually did a google search on the alternative theory. Not many items. There are a couple though.

We got him: Kurds say they caught Saddam
We got him: Kurds say they caught Saddam
By Paul McGeough, Herald Correspondent in Baghdad
December 22, 2003

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.

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/21/1071941612613.html

Thanks for the info BBB.
More spin like the Jessica Lynch story.
Yech.

I suppose spin is not new in history here. But reading these items is a little bit like watching sausage being made after gulping down a Vienna Dog.

McTag and Osso
I don't know if the claims in these articles are true, but if they are, it is another example of the basis for a lost of trust in the Bush administration. Its hard to believe the US Military would go along with the spin, but perhaps they didn't know about the Kurd's actions and actually believe they found Saddam.

For myself, I would have been happy to have the Kurks get credit for finding Saddam as a payback for the thousands of Kurds killed by the Fascist tyrant.

It will be interesting to watch to see if the world's main stream media pick up on these stories---or we may not learn the truth for another 50 years.

BBB

From the China Daily
Saddam was held by Kurdish forces, drugged and left for US troops
The China Daily ( 2003-12-22 09:02) (Agencies)

Saddam Hussein was captured by US troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged and abandoned ready for American soldiers to recover him, a British Sunday newspaper said.

Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group 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, which quoted an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer.

The newspaper said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi president's capture on December 13 near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq, "exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete".

A former Iraqi intelligence officer, whom the Express did not name, told the paper that Saddam was held prisoner by a leader of the Kurdish Patriotic Front, which fought alongside US forces during the Iraq war, until he negotiated a deal.

The deal apparently involved the group gaining political advantage in the region.

An unnamed Western intelligence source in the Middle East told the Express: "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."

AFP London has picked up the story
AFP London has picked up the story
Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW
Vol. 4 Num 204 Mon. December 22, 2003
International

'Saddam was held by Kurdish forces, drugged and left for US troops'
AFP, London

Saddam Hussein was captured by US troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged and abandoned ready for American soldiers to recover him, a British tabloid newspaper reported yesterday.
Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group 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, which quoted an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer.

The newspaper said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi president's capture on December 13 near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq, "exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete".

A former Iraqi intelligence officer, whom the Express did not name, told the paper that Saddam was held prisoner by a leader of the Kurdish Patriotic Front, which fought alongside US forces during the Iraq war, until he negotiated a deal.

The deal apparently involved the group gaining political advantage in the region.

An unnamed Western intelligence source in the Middle East told the Express: "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."

From the United Kurdish Voice
Saddam was held by Kurdish forces, drugged and left for US troops
United Kurdish Voice
21/12/2003 AFP

LONDON, Dec 21 (AFP) - 3h32 - Saddam Hussein was captured by US troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged and abandoned ready for American soldiers to recover him, a British tabloid newspaper reported Sunday.

Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group 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, which quoted an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer.

The newspaper said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi president's capture on December 13 near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq, "exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete".

A former Iraqi intelligence officer, whom the Express did not name, told the paper that Saddam was held prisoner by a leader of the Kurdish Patriotic Front, which fought alongside US forces during the Iraq war, until he negotiated a deal.

The deal apparently involved the group gaining political advantage in the region.

An unnamed Western intelligence source in the Middle East told the Express: "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."

From AlJazeerah & Khaleej Times
Saddam was held by Kurds, drugged and left for US troops
Khaleej Times, (AFP)
Al-Jazeerah.info
21 December 2003

LONDON - Saddam Hussein was captured by US troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged and abandoned ready for American soldiers to recover him, a British tabloid newspaper reported on Sunday.

Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group 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, which quoted an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer.

The newspaper said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi president's capture on December 13 near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq, "exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete".

A former Iraqi intelligence officer, whom the Express did not name, told the paper that Saddam was held prisoner by a leader of the Kurdish Patriotic Front, which fought alongside US forces during the Iraq war, until he negotiated a deal.

The deal apparently involved the group gaining political advantage in the region.

An unnamed Western intelligence source in the Middle East told the Express: "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."

Revealed: Who Really Found Saddam?
Revealed: Who Really Found Saddam?
By David Pratt - The Sunday Herald
Sunday 21 December 2003

Saddam's capture was the best present George Bush could have hoped for, and then Gaddafi handed a propaganda gift to Blair. But nothing's ever that simple.

It was exactly one week ago at 3.15pm Baghdad time, when a beaming Paul Bremer made that now-famous announce ment: "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!"

Saddam Hussein: High Value Target Number One. The Glorious Leader. The Lion of Babylon had been snared. Iraq's most wanted - the ace of spades - had become little more than an ace in the hole.

In Baghdad's streets, Kalashnikov bullets rained down in celebration. In the billets of US soldiers, there were high fives, toasts and cigars. In the Jordanian capital Amman, an elderly woman overcome by grief broke down in tears and died. Inside a snow-blanketed White House, George W Bush prepared to address the nation.

"There's an end to everything," said a sombre Safa Saber al-Douri, a former Iraqi air force pilot, now a grocer in al-Dwar, the town where only hours earlier one of the greatest manhunts in history had ended under a polystyrene hatch in a six foot deep "spider hole."

But just how did that endgame come about? Indeed, who exactly were the key players in what until then had been a frustrating and sometimes embarrassing hunt for a former dictator with a $25 million (£14m) bounty on his head?

For 249 days there was no shortage of US expertise devoted to the hunt. But the Pentagon has always remained tight-lipped about those individuals and groups involved, such as Task Force 20, said to be America's most elite covert unit, or another super-secret team known as Greyfox, which specialises in radio and telephone surveillance.

Saddam, of course, was never likely to use the phone, and the best chance of locating him would always be as a result of informers or home-grown Iraqi intelligence. On this and their collaboration with anti-Saddam groups the Americans have also remained reticent.

Enter one Qusrat Rasul Ali, otherwise known as the lion of Kurdistan. A leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Rasul Ali was once tortured by Saddam's henchmen, but today is chief of a special forces unit dedicated to hunting down former Ba'athist regime leaders.

Rasul Ali's unit had an impressive track record. It was they who last August, working alone, arrested Iraqi vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan in Mosul, northern Iraq. Barely a month earlier in the al-Falah district of the same town, the PUK is believed to have played a crucial role in the pinpointing and storming of a villa that culminated in the deaths of Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay.

In that mixed district of Mosul where Arabs, Kurds and Turkemen live side by side, PUK informers went running to their leader Jalal Talabani's nearest military headquarters to bring him news on the exact location of the villa where both Uday and Qusay had taken shelter.

Armed with the information, Talabani made a beeline for US administration offices in Baghdad, where deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz was based for a week's stay in Iraq at the time.

The Kurdish leader and US military chiefs conferred and decided that PUK intelligence would go ahead and secretly surround the Zeidan villa and install sensors and eavesdropping devices. The Kurdish agents were instructed to prepare the site for the US special forces operation to storm the building on July 22.

American officials later said they expected that the $30m bounty promised by their government for the capture or death of the Hussein sons would be paid. Given their direct involvement in providing the exact location and intelligence necessary, no doubt Talabani's PUK operatives could lay claim to the sum, but no confirmation of any delivery or receipt of the cash has ever been made.

The PUK and Rasul Ali's special "Ba'athist hunters" have, it seems, been doing what the Americans have consistently failed to do. In an interview with the PUK's al-Hurriyah radio station last Wednesday, Adil Murad, a member of the PUK's political bureau, confirmed that the Kurdish unit had been pursuing fugitive Ba'athists for the past months in Mosul, Samarra, Tikrit and areas to the south including al-Dwar where Saddam was eventually cornered. Murad even says that the day before Saddam's capture he was tipped off by PUK General Thamir al-Sultan, that Saddam would be arrested within the next 72 hours.

Clearly the Kurdish net was closing on Saddam, and PUK head Jalal Talabani and Rasul Ali were once again in the running for US bounty - should any be going.

It was at about 10.50am Baghdad time on last Saturday when US intel ligence says it got the tip it was looking for. But it was not until 8pm, with the launch of Operation Red Dawn, that they finally began to close in on the prize.

The US media reported that the tip-off came from an Iraqi man who was arrested during a raid in Tikrit, and even speculated that he could get part of the bounty. "It was intelligence, actionable intelligence," claimed Lt General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq. "It was great analytical work."

But the widely held view that Kurdish intelligence was the key to the operation was supported in a statement released last Sunday by the Iraqi Governing Council. Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, said that Rasul Ali and his PUK special forces unit had provided vital information and more.

Last Saturday, as the US operation picked up speed, the Fourth Infantry Division moved into the area surrounding two farms codenamed Wolverine 1 and Wolverine 2 near al-Dwar, the heart of the Saddam heartland - a military town where practically every man is a military officer past or present. It is said to have a special place in Saddam's sentiments because it was from here that he swam across the Tigris River when he was a dissident fleeing arrest in the 1960s.

Every year on August 28, the town marks Saddam's escape with a swimming contest . In 1992, Saddam himself attended the race. It was won by a man called Qais al-Nameq. It was al-Nameq's farmhouse - Wolverine 2 - that about 600 troops, including engineers, artillery and special forces, surrounded, cutting off all roads for about four or five miles around.

Next to a sheep pen was a ramshackle orange and white taxi, which US officials say was probably used to ferry Saddam around while he was on the run, sometimes moving every three or four hours.

Inside the premises was a walled compound with a mud hut and small lean-to. There US soldiers found the camouflaged hole in which Saddam was hiding.

It was 3.15pm Washington time when Donald Rumsfeld called George W Bush at Camp David. "Mr President, first reports are not always accurate," he began. "But we think we may have him."

First reports - indeed the very first report of Saddam's capture - were also coming out elsewhere. Jalal Talabani chose to leak the news and details of Rasul Ali's role in the deployment to the Iranian media and to be interviewed by them.

By early Sunday - way before Saddam's capture was being reported by the mainstream Western press - the Kurdish media ran the following news wire:

"Saddam Hussein, the former President of the Iraqi regime, 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!"

By the time Western press agencies were running the same story, the emphasis had changed, and the ousted Iraqi president had been "captured in a raid by US forces backed by Kurdish fighters."

Rasul Ali himself, meanwhile, had already been on air at the Iranian satellite station al-Alam insisting that his "PUK fighters sealed the area off before the arrival of the US forces".

By late Sunday as the story went global, the Kurdish role was reduced to a supportive one in what was described by the Pentagon and US military officials as a "joint operation". The Americans now somewhat reluctantly were admitting that PUK fighters were on the ground alongside them , while PUK sources were making more considered statements and playing down their precise role.

So just who did get to Saddam first, the Kurds or the Americans? And if indeed it was a joint operation would it have been possible at all without the intelligence and on-the-ground participation of Rasul Ali and his special forces?

If the PUK themselves pulled off Saddam's capture, there would be much to gain from taking the $25m bounty and any political guarantees the Americans might reward them with to keep schtum. What's more, Jalal Talabani's links to Tehran have always worried Washington, and having his party grab the grand prize from beneath their noses would be awkward to say the least.

"It's mutually worth it to us and the Americans. We need assurances for the future and they need the kudos of getting Saddam," admitted a Kurdish source on condition of anonymity. It would be all to easy to dismiss the questions surrounding the PUK role as conspiracy theory. After all, almost every major event that affects the Arab world prompts tales that are quickly woven into intricate shapes and patterns, to demonstrate innocence, seek credit or apportion blame. Saddam's capture is no exception.

Of the numerous and more exotic theories surrounding events leading to Saddam's arrest, one originates on a website many believe edited by former Israeli intelligence agents, but which often turns up inside information about the Middle East that proves to be accurate.

According to Debka.com, there is a possibility that Saddam was held for up to three weeks in al-Dwar by a Kurdish splinter group while they negotiated a handover to the Americans in return for the $25m reward. This, the writers say would explain his dishevelled and disorientated appearance.

But perhaps the mother of all conspiracy theories, is the one about the pictures distributed by the Americans showing the hideout with a palm tree behind the soldier who uncov ered the hole where Saddam was hiding. The palm carried a cluster of pre-ripened yellow dates, which might suggest that Saddam was arrested at least three months earlier, because dates ripen in the summer when they turn into their black or brown colour.

Those who buy into such an explanation conclude that Saddam's capture was stage-managed and his place of arrest probably elsewhere. All fanciful stuff. But as is so often the case, the real chain of events is likely to be far more mundane.

In the end serious questions remain about the Kurdish role and whether at last Sunday's Baghdad press conference, Paul Bremer was telling the whole truth . Or is it a case of "ladies and gentlemen we got him," - with a little more help from our Kurdish friends than might be politically expedient to admit?

Good sleuthing BBB
Interesting story.

The Story Behind Saddam's Arrest
IRAQ: The Story Behind Saddam's Arrest
Ritt Goldstein - IPS 1/11/04

A bodyguard, Kurds, Iranians and the United States all could have come together in the drugging, the taking and the trading of Saddam Hussein

Stockholm, Jan. 9 (IPS) - U.S. accounts have portrayed Saddam's capture as a triumph of their high-tech innovation and old-fashioned ingenuity, but reports in the Middle East and off-the-record interviews reveal a version of events decidedly different from those already known.

Since the announcement of Saddam Hussein's capture by the United States Dec. 14, conflicting accounts of events have been heralded as truth, first by the United States, then by the Kurds. But as often, the truth seems to lie somewhere in between, and contains some unheralded facts.

Foremost among those unsung facts is the capture by the U.S. 4th Army of a member of the al Muslit family -- trusted relatives and lieutenants of Saddam -- by U.S. forces in July. This spawned a fateful chain of events leading to the former dictator's reported betrayal and drugging in a plan reportedly inspired by the United States and pursued by his betrayer.

But while Kurds from the Iraq-based Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) were said to be acting as go-betweens with U.S. authorities, they pursued a triumph of their own and essentially snatched control of Saddam from the hands of his captors. This they did with suspected Iranian related support.

The critical arrest in July was that of Adnan Abdullah Abid al Muslit, widely known to be one of Saddam Hussein's closest bodyguards and collaborators.

Just a week prior to the July arrest, the respected German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung (SD) had reported that U.S. forces believed Saddam was travelling with a group of three men. The surname al Muslit first surfaced then.

SD mentioned Khalil Ibrahim Omar al Muslit as the name of Saddam's driver. It said his brothers were the other two bodyguards with Saddam. And so the capture of Adnan Abdullah Abid al Muslit became an apparent key to future events.

Those events were first reported Dec. 18. The Jordanian newspaper Al-Arab Al-Yawm said that Mohammed Ibrahim Omar al Muslit -- one of Saddam's bodyguards -- had drugged the former dictator and given information to U.S. forces leading to Saddam's capture.

The significance of the report went virtually unnoticed. But the fact of "pressure" on captives and their families has been widely reported.

The Al-Arab article said Mohammed Ibrahim Omar al Muslit contacted the U.S. forces through a relative. The drugging plan was described as a U.S. inspired outgrowth of this. Kurdish sources have been reported as acknowledging that Saddam's own people were key to their having him.

Several recent reports have suggested that the Kurds caught Saddam, but questions remained over just how they managed to "get him".

A Kurdish presence had been reported in Tikrit area where Saddam was arrested. A member of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) was quoted in The Guardian newspaper of Britain as confirming that presence.

This Kurdish presence materialized about two to three weeks before Saddam's capture, about the time he was reportedly drugged by al Muslit. Muslit seems to have captured Saddam some time after mid-November, intelligence sources indicate.

Kurdish sources named the leader of this Kurdish group of about 50 as Kosrat Rassul, head of the PUK intelligence unit that was instrumental in the operation. Rassul is also deputy to Jalal Talabani, member of the IGC, and PUK head.

News of Saddam's arrest was first released by the Iranian News Agency (IRNA). Several accounts agree that the information was given to them by Talabani.

Separately, an independent footnote to the Iranian media coverage was provided in the reported remarks of an Iraqi resistance leader, illustrating another thread running through the story.

Asked to comment on Saddam's capture, the resistance leader Jabbar al Kubaysi was quoted as saying: "Without the help of Iranian intelligence the arrest would not have been possible." Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi denied the Islamic Republic's involvement. But for many, questions remain.

Rassul is reported to have developed contacts with some of the key leaders in Tikrit area, placing himself in a position to negotiate with them. A drugged Saddam was the object.

Notably, it was Rassul who had arrested former Iraqi vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan. The PUK was also reported to have been instrumental in locating Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay.

The Sunday Express published in London Dec. 21 reported that Kurdish forces had held Saddam for an indefinite period.

Quoting an unnamed senior British intelligence officer, the Sunday Express report says Saddam -- on whose head the United States had placed a 25 million dollar bounty -- was then held captive by the PUK, which bargained with the United States before arranging to hand over the drugged dictator.

The Express article said that Saddam was not captured "as a result of any American or British intelligence."

But earlier, almost simultaneous with U.S. news of Saddam's taking Dec. 14, a report by a group said to have close links to Israeli intelligence surfaced.

This group, DEBKAfile, has a considerable reputation for occasionally revealing accurate facts. But DEBKA's information has also sometimes proven inaccurate, giving rise to conjecture that their reporting occasionally mixes in "facts" the Israeli intelligence community wishes to publicise.

Within a few hours of the announcement of the capture, DEBKA put out a report that Saddam had been held for two weeks or more. The scenario it painted went on to reconcile several of the capture accounts, particularly the connection between Kurds and the captors.

DEBKA said Saddam's own people initiated action against him some time after mid-November. It said Kurds from the PUK were acting as negotiators with them on behalf of the United States, with the reward being an issue for Saddam's captors. Credit for the Kurds followed.

At the same time another group, conceivably an Iranian affiliated group, could have sought intelligence on Saddam's location and provided support, according to diplomatic and intelligence sources. It is also believed that this option provided a way to "short-cut" the negotiating process, allowing Saddam to be taken directly.

Iranian interest in bringing Saddam to justice is widely acknowledged, and Talabani's PUK was known to possess good links with Iran and its intelligence apparatus.

"But perhaps the mother of all conspiracy theories, is the one about the pictures distributed by the Americans showing the hideout with a palm tree behind the soldier who uncov ered the hole where Saddam was hiding. The palm carried a cluster of pre-ripened yellow dates, which might suggest that Saddam was arrested at least three months earlier, because dates ripen in the summer when they turn into their black or brown colour."

That's an interesting tidbit from the second to last article you posted BBB.